Curiosity Pill #27
On writing and rights, mammals, similar tastes, the Silk Road and Scrabble
Come Sail Away
A think piece on being unsatisfied with your writing and musings on ‘rights’ from an animal rights researcher. “I think rights are a useful fiction that can be instrumentalized to protect people (and any other thing) from abuse. It works for people (sort of, some of the time) because we can tell a plausible story about how people are persons, and how persons can engage in a reason-giving discourse that binds actions. I don’t think we can tell a similar plausible story about animals. Rights and persons are pieces in a language game that only humans can play. Human persons can refer to animals when they play this game among themselves, and bind their actions with regards to animals as a result, but this is not a “recognition” of rights. It is a stipulation of status motivated by a desire to provide the protections afforded by that status.”
https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2020/11/come-sail-away.html
The Uniqueness of Mammals
What makes mammals unique? Among the characteristics that do: kissing, helping individuals of other species, dreaming, killing prey before eating it, hygiene, interspecies bonding, tickling, reaction to death, tactile drive, personality,behavioral mimicry and culture, play, intelligence, fairness; at least until further studies will be conducted.”Mammals rarely engage in repeated stereotypical behaviour when presented with a task wherein they cannot directly obtain their goal, but will change their behaviour and attempt different strategies. This could provide one possible definition of intelligence in animals: the more complex the improvised strategy, the more intelligent the animal.”
https://areomagazine.com/2020/11/19/the-uniqueness-of-mammals/
Every Day a Groundhog Day
On the increasing sameiness of our choice in media consumption. As the number of internet content increases, our attention becomes more valuable, but our choices become more similar. “We are fundamentally lazy and as such, increasingly the most valuable products or businesses in the world are predicated on reducing that cognitive friction and making those choices for us. But beyond that, we are also fundamentally happier being in a group than out on our own. So more than just being useful then, the top 10 list, I suspect, is fundamentally comforting on some level for those of us increasingly paralyzed by choice”
https://tals.substack.com/p/every-day-a-groundhog-day
The Silk Road Was More Than a Vast Trade Route
The Silk Road was not singular, it was a number of different trade routes. The routes started emerging in the 2nd century BC, but the concept of Silk Road was named during the 19th century. The reality is that very few people traversed the whole route, like the Venetian Marco Polo and the Mongolian Rabban Bar Sauma that brought important teachings to their respective cultures; most trading was done by intermediaries between various checkpoints along the road. “Today, the Silk Road is most notable for intermingling ideas and philosophies from different places. This led to new variations on religions, such as Nestorian Christianity, as well as to fundamental changes in culture, like when Buddhism was introduced to China.”
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/the-silk-road-was-more-than-a-vast-trade-route
The dark art of playing world-class Scrabble
A pessimistic and funny look on the value of competitive Scrabble. Is it really helping you build vocabulary if it’s dictionary contains words that have taken out of use from the English language for hundreds of years? “When the top players gathered in Torquay last year for the World Scrabble Tournament, it was to use ‘words’ like these in their games: dzo, ch, foyned, ghi…Yep, that’s right; a whole lot of words that, let’s be frank about this, are not words. That’s why my spell-checker underlines them in red. The top players, you see, don’t win tournaments by being cleverer than the rest of us. They do it by memorising a long list of non-words so they can avoid the problems ordinary players encounter.”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-dark-art-of-playing-world-class-scrabble
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Video Pill
The Games That Designed Themselves
When a Game is Too Long - Respecting the Player's Time
Who Makes Money From Professional Poker?
Podcast Pill
The end of everything, Podcast:Discovery
Everyone knows about the Big Bang being the beginning of the universe and time - but when and how is it going to end?
https://player.fm/series/discovery-1301457/the-end-of-everything
Why Do You Get Out Of Bed In The Morning? Podcast: Sisyphus 55
A great discussion at the intersection between philosophy and psychology about boredom and motivation
Design Pill
Nouvele danseuse by Anthony Bornot
Poetic Pill
Afterthoughts of Lazarus by Nils Peterson
“I’m glad you brought me back, but
this business of dying has its own attractions
The self grows smaller—not less—but smaller
… harder, intense like carbon
… growing bright or dark in the deep earth.
You glide to the ideal of the point,
… location without dimension.“
Underground Pill
NF - The Search
“Got a taste of the fame, had to pump my stomach
Throw it back up like I don't want it
Wipe my face, clean off my vomit
OCD, tryna push my buttons
I said don't touch it, now y'all done it
I can be critical, never typical
Intricate with every syllable, I'm a criminal
Intimate, but never political, pretty visual
Even if you hate it, I'll make it feel like you're in it, though
You call me what you wanna, but never call me forgettable
Leave you deep in thought, I could never swim in the kiddie pool
Way that I been thinkin' is cinematic, it's beautiful“
Dictionary Pill
to percolate = 1.to be diffused through(penetrate); 2. to spread gradually; 3.to become lively or effervescent
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