"The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own …"

Control and Choice

“How many have laid waste to your life when you weren’t aware of what you were losing , how much was wasted in pointless grief, foolish joy, greedy desire, and social amusements— how little of your own was left to you. You will realize you are dying before your time!”

From the team that brought you The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy, a beautiful daily devotional of Stoic meditations—an instant Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestseller. Why have history's greatest minds—from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson, along with today's top performers from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities—embraced the wisdom of the ancient Stoics? Because they realize that the most valuable wisdom is timeless and that philosophy is for living a better life, not a classroom exercise. The Daily Stoic offers 366 days of Stoic insights and exercises, featuring all-new translations from the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the playwright Seneca, or slave-turned-philosopher Epictetus, as well as lesser-known luminaries like Zeno, Cleanthes, and Musonius Rufus. Every day of the year you'll find one of their pithy, powerful quotations, as well as historical anecdotes, provocative commentary, and a helpful glossary of Greek terms. By following these teachings over the course of a year (and, indeed, for years to come) you'll find the serenity, self-knowledge, and resilience you need to live well.

philosophy

Philosophy

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

habits

Habits

books

Books

From the team that brought you The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy, a beautiful daily devotional of Stoic meditations—an instant Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestseller. Why have history's greatest minds—from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson, along with today's top performers from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities—embraced the wisdom of the ancient Stoics? Because they realize that the most valuable wisdom is timeless and that philosophy is for living a better life, not a classroom exercise. The Daily Stoic offers 366 days of Stoic insights and exercises, featuring all-new translations from the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the playwright Seneca, or slave-turned-philosopher Epictetus, as well as lesser-known luminaries like Zeno, Cleanthes, and Musonius Rufus. Every day of the year you'll find one of their pithy, powerful quotations, as well as historical anecdotes, provocative commentary, and a helpful glossary of Greek terms. By following these teachings over the course of a year (and, indeed, for years to come) you'll find the serenity, self-knowledge, and resilience you need to live well.

Ryan Holiday is media strategist for notorious clients like Tucker Max and Dov Charney. After dropping out of college at 19 to apprentice under the strategist Robert Greene, he went on to advise many bestselling authors and multi-platinum musicians. He is the Director of Marketing at American Apparel, where his work in advertising was internationally known. His strategies are used as case studies by Twitter, YouTube, and Google, and have been written about in AdAge, the New York Times, Gawker, and Fast Company. He is the author is *Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator*, which is due out in July. He currently lives in New Orleans, with his rebellious puppy, Hanno.

Ryan Holiday

Stephen Hanselman is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Stephen Hanselman has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Stephen Hanselman's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

Stephen Hanselman

The Daily Stoic

Masanobu Fukuoka (2 February 1913 – 16 August 2008) was a Japanese farmer and philosopher celebrated for his natural farming and re-vegetation of desertified lands. He was a proponent of no-till, herbicide and pesticide free cultivation methods from which he created a particular method of agriculture, commonly referred to as "natural farming" or "do-nothing farming". Fukuoka was the author of several books, scientific papers and other publications. He was an outspoken advocate of the value of observing nature's principles.

Masanobu Fukuoka

"The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings."

Zen Farming

Food and medicine are not two different things: they are the front and back of one body. Chemically grown vegetables may be eaten for food, but they cannot be used as medicine.

Natural farming, popularly known as “do nothing” farming, is an environmentally sustainable way of growing food, founded not in technique, but in the philosophical principal of living and growing food in accordance with nature's principal.

'Do Nothing' Farming

The four principles of natural farming are: <ol><li>human cultivation of soil, plowing or tilling are unnecessary, as is the use of powered machines.</li><li>prepared fertilizers are unnecessary, as is the process of preparing compost.</li><li>weeding, either by cultivation or by herbicides, is unnecessary; instead, only minimal weed suppression with minimal disturbance should be used.</li><li>applications of pesticides or herbicides are unnecessary.</li></ol>

Principles Of Natural Farming

"At first people ate simply because they were alive and because food was tasty. Modern people have come to think that if they do not prepare food with elaborate seasonings, the meal will be tasteless. If you do not try to make food delicious, you will find that nature has made it so."

"People think they understand things because they become familiar with them. This is only superficial knowledge. It is the knowledge of the astronomer who knows the names of the stars, the botanist who knows the classification of the leaves and flowers, the artist who knows the aesthetics of green and red. This is not to know nature itself- the earth and sky, green and red. Astronomer, botanist, and artist have done no more than grasp impressions and interpret them, each within the vault of his own mind."

Call it “Zen and the Art of Farming” or a “Little Green Book,” Masanobu Fukuoka’s manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. At the same time, it is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. As Wendell Berry writes in his preface, the book “is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical. It is an inspiring, necessary book about agriculture because it is not just about agriculture.” Trained as a scientist, Fukuoka rejected both modern agribusiness and centuries of agricultural practice, deciding instead that the best forms of cultivation mirror nature’s own laws. Over the next three decades he perfected his so-called “do-nothing” technique: commonsense, sustainable practices that all but eliminate the use of pesticides, fertilizer, tillage, and perhaps most significantly, wasteful effort. Whether you’re a guerrilla gardener or a kitchen gardener, dedicated to slow food or simply looking to live a healthier life, you will find something here—you may even be moved to start a revolution of your own.

mindfulness

Mindfulness

Call it “Zen and the Art of Farming” or a “Little Green Book,” Masanobu Fukuoka’s manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. At the same time, it is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. As Wendell Berry writes in his preface, the book “is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical. It is an inspiring, necessary book about agriculture because it is not just about agriculture.” Trained as a scientist, Fukuoka rejected both modern agribusiness and centuries of agricultural practice, deciding instead that the best forms of cultivation mirror nature’s own laws. Over the next three decades he perfected his so-called “do-nothing” technique: commonsense, sustainable practices that all but eliminate the use of pesticides, fertilizer, tillage, and perhaps most significantly, wasteful effort. Whether you’re a guerrilla gardener or a kitchen gardener, dedicated to slow food or simply looking to live a healthier life, you will find something here—you may even be moved to start a revolution of your own.

The One-Straw Revolution

“A man, slave to gold, holds a whip…And beats the slave he bought with that gold as if to claim HE is the master. He just doesn’t see it for himself. Every living human being is a slave to something.”

“Love provides the worth of everything in the world. Without love…gold, silver, horses, and women…all are worthless.”

“You have no enemies. No one…Has any enemies. There is no one…That you should hurt.”

“The world…God’s divine creation…Is so brimming with love…Yet there is no love in the hearts of men.”

“I’d had fifteen years to think about him. And I realized that it wasn’t a matter of the life or death of flesh. What’s important to a warrior is the soul…And where it lies.”

A BLOODY COMING OF AGE In a gambit to become the power behind the Danish and English thrones, Askeladd has taken the prince, Canute, and plunged deep into a winter storm behind enemy lines. Canute's father, King Sweyn, gives him up for dead in his haste to suppress English resistance. But Askeladd's small band can't outrun the tenacious maniac Thorkell forever, and when the warriors finally clash, a storm of sweat and gore ensues that will turn a boy into a man and a hostage into a ruler of men! "Gripping doesn't begin to describe Vinland Saga. 5 stars." - ICv2 "Deeply engrossing... If you have any interest at all in Vikings, the Medieval period, or pirates, this is not a series you want to miss." - Anime News Network "For those who love Berserk, you'll love this too... Worth the long wait." - A Case Suitable for Treatment From the acclaimed author of Planetes.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

movies

Movies & Shows

ENGLAND AT WAR ? The foolish King Ethelred has fled, and Askeladd's band is one of hundreds plundering the English countryside. Yet victory brings no peace to the elderly Danish King Sweyn, who worries that his untested, sensitive son Canute will never be ready to take the throne. The king's attempt to force his son to become a man places the young prince within the grasp of the gleeful killer Thorkell! Whoever holds Canute holds the key to the thrones of England and Denmark - and Askeladd has his own reasons for joining the fray! &quot;With its rich visual details, emotional pull and strong characters, this historical epic is an instant winner.&quot; - Anime News Network Winner of the?Japan Media Arts Awards Grand Prize for Manga and the?Kodansha Manga Award From the acclaimed author of Planetes

Makoto Yukimura

Vinland Saga

The torrent of accelerated time without narrative is disorienting our society and fragmenting community, says philosopher Byung-Chul Han. Art can help put the pieces back together.Byung-Chul Han is a South Korea-born German philosopher and cultural theorist whose recent books include “The Burnout Society” and “The Disappearance of Rituals.” He recently spoke to Nathan Gardels, Noema’s editor-in-chief.

The Torrent of Time

Nathan Gardels: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once commented that: “When eras are on the decline, all tendencies are subjective; but, on the other hand, when matters are ripening for a new epoch, all tendencies are objective. Each worthy effort turns its force from the inward to the outward world.” By that definition, ours is an era of decline that has turned from the outward to the inward obsession with identity and “authenticity,” both personal and tribal, fueled by digital connectivity.

Digital Connectivity

Paradoxically, social media in this sense is anti-social, leading to the disintegration of community through a kind of connected isolation. What is the dynamic and what are the mechanisms behind what you call “the crisis of community?” What are the consequences in how we feel and live in our daily lives?

The Crisi of Community

Byung-Chul Han: The inwardly turned, narcissistic ego with purely subjective access to the world is not the cause of social disintegration but the result of a fateful process at the objective level. Everything that binds and connects is disappearing. There are hardly any shared values or symbols, no common narratives that unite people. Truth, the provider of meaning and orientation, is also a narrative. We are very well informed, yet somehow we cannot orient ourselves. The informatization of reality leads to its atomization — separated spheres of what is thought to be true.

Atomization

But truth, unlike information, has a centripetal force that holds society together. Information, on the other hand, is centrifugal, with very destructive effects on social cohesion. If we want to comprehend what kind of society we are living in, we need to understand the nature of information. Bits of information provide neither meaning nor orientation. They do not congeal into a narrative. They are purely additive. From a certain point onwards, they no longer inform — they deform. They can even darken the world. This puts them in opposition to truth.

A Centripetal Force

Truth illuminates the world, while information lives off the attraction of surprise, pulling us into a permanent frenzy of fleeting moments. We greet information with a fundamental suspicion: Things might be otherwise. Contingency is a trait of information, and for this reason fake news is a necessary element of the informational order. So fake news is just another piece of information, and before any process of verification can begin, it has already done its work. It rushes past truth, and truth cannot catch up. Fake news is truth-proof.

Fake News

“Bits of information provide neither meaning nor orientation. They do not congeal into a narrative.”Information goes along with fundamental suspicion. The more we are confronted with information, the more our suspicion grows. Information is Janus-faced, produces certainty and uncertainty. A fundamental structural ambivalence is inherent in an information society. Truth, by contrast, reduces contingency. We cannot build a stable community or stable democracy on a mass of contingencies. Democracy requires binding values and ideals, and shared convictions. Today, democracy gives way to infocracy.

Information is Janus-faced

As you suggest in your question, another reason for the crisis of community, which is a crisis of democracy, is digitalization. Digital communication redirects the flows of communication. Information is spread without forming a public sphere. It is produced in private spaces and distributed to private spaces. The web does not create a public. This has highly deleterious consequences for the democratic process. Social media intensify this kind of communication without community. You cannot forge a public sphere out of influencers and followers.

Communication Without Community

Digital communities have the form of commodities; ultimately, they are commodities.“Today, we no longer have any narratives that provide meaning and orientation for our lives. Narratives crumble and decay into information.”Of course, there was information in the past, too. But it did not determine society to such a degree as today. In antiquity, mythical narratives determined people’s lives and behavior. The Middle Ages were, for many, determined by the Christian narrative. But information was embedded in narration: An outbreak of the plague was not pure, simple information.

Communities like Commodities

It was integrated into the Christian narrative of sin.  Today, by contrast, we no longer have any narratives that provide meaning and orientation for our lives. Narratives crumble and decay into information. With some exaggeration, we might say that there is nothing butinformation without any hermeneutic horizon for interpretation, without any method of explanation.Pieces of information do not coalesce into knowledge or truth, which are forms of narration. The narrative vacuum in an information society makes people feel discontent, especially in times of crisis, such as the pandemic.

The Narrative of Sin

People invent narratives to explain a tsunami of disorienting figures and data. Often these narratives are called conspiracy theories, but they cannot simply be reduced to collective narcissism. They readily explain the world. On the web, spaces open to make experiences of identity and collectivity possible again. The web, thus, is tribalized — predominantly among right-wing political groups where there is a very strong need for identity. In these circles, conspiracy theories are taken up as offers for assuming an identity.

Conspiracy Theories

Friedrich Nietzsche once said that our happiness consists of the possession of a non-negotiable truth. Today, we no longer have such non-negotiable truths. Instead, we have an over-abundance of information. I am not sure that the information society is a continuation of the Enlightenment. Maybe we need a new kind of enlightenment. On a new enlightenment, Nietzsche noted: “It does not suffice that you realize the ignorance in which humans and animals live, you also have to have the will to be ignorant and learn more.

Over-Abundance of Information

You need to comprehend that without this kind of ignorance life would become impossible, that only on condition of this ignorance can what lives preserve itself and flourish.”Gardels: As you wrote in your most recent book, societal rituals once created that objective narrative bond that held societies together. They “stabilized life” as you put it.

Societal Rituals

Now such rituals are under assault by the wrecking ball of deconstruction as nothing more than the designs of the privileged of the past who had the power to impose them. In today’s horizontal world with no legitimate value hierarchy, subjective projection steps in to fill the vacuum. Out of these ruins of an objective order, how can stabilizing anchors of ritual ever be reestablished? On what basis? On whose authority? What will life look like if that is not possible?

A Horizontal World

Han: I would not promote a reactivation of past rituals. This is simply not possible because the rituals of Western culture are very closely associated with the Christian narrative. And everywhere the Christian narrative is losing its power. There is little left of it beyond Christmastime.Rituals found a community. Contrary to the suggestion in your question, it is not inevitable that rituals solidify existing power relations. Quite the opposite. During Carnival, power relations are reversed, so that the slaves can criticize and even mock their masters.

Western Culture

Often roles are exchanged: The masters serve their slaves. And the fool ascends the throne as king. This ritualized temporary suspension of the power structure stabilizes the community.“After the pandemic, what is most in need of recovery is culture.”In a world that is completely without rituals and wholly profane, all that is left are consumption and the satisfaction of needs. It is Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” in which every want is immediately gratified. The people are kept in good spirits with the help of fun, consumption and entertainment.

Recovery of Culture

The state distributes a drug called soma in order to increase feelings of happiness in the population. Maybe in our brave new world, people will receive a universal basic income and have unlimited access to video games. That would be the new version of panem et circensem (“bread and circuses”).I am, however, not completely pessimistic. Perhaps we shall develop new narratives, ones that do not presuppose a hierarchy. We can easily imagine a flat narrative. Every narrative develops rituals for the purposes of making it habitual, embedding it in the physical body. Culture founds community.

Panem et Circensem

After the pandemic, what is most in need of recovery is culture. Cultural events such as theater, dance and even football have a ritual character. The only way in which we can revitalize community is through ritual forms. Today, culture is held together solely by instrumental and economic relations. But that does not found communities — it isolates people. Art, in particular, should play a central role in the revitalization of rituals.“Rituals stabilize life by structuring time.”

Revitalization of Rituals

What we need most are temporal structures that stabilize life. When everything is short-term, life loses all stability. Stability comes over long stretches of time: faithfulness, bonds, integrity, commitment, promises, trust. These are the social practices that hold a community together. They all have a ritual character. They all require a lot of time. Today’s terror of short-termism — which, with fatal consequences, we mistake for freedom — destroys the practices that require time. To combat this terror, we need a very different temporal politics.

A Very Different Temporal Politics

In “The Little Prince,” the fox wants to be visited by the little prince always at the same hour, so that his visit becomes a ritual. The little prince asks the fox what a ritual is, and the fox replies: “Those also are actions too often neglected. … They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours.” Rituals can be defined as temporal technologies for housing oneself. They turn being in the world into being at home. Rituals are in time as things are in space. They stabilize life by structuring time.

Rituals

They give us festive spaces, so to speak, spaces we can enter in celebration. As temporal structures, rituals arrest time. Temporal spaces we can enter in celebration do not pass away. Without such temporal structures, time becomes a torrent that tears us apart from each other and away from ourselves. Gardels: You have said that you look to art as “the savior” from the conditions you’ve been describing since philosophy today lacks the transformational quality it once had. What did you mean by that?

Temporal Structures

Han: Philosophy has the power to change the world: European science began only with Plato and Aristotle; without Rousseau, Voltaire and Kant, the European Enlightenment would be unthinkable. Nietzsche made the world appear in an entirely new light. Marx’s “Capital” founded a new epoch. Today, however, philosophy has completely lost this world-changing power. It is no longer capable of producing a novel narrative. Philosophy degenerates into an academic, specialist discipline. It is not turned toward the world and the present. “Art is nearer to the heart of creation than philosophy.”

Change the World

How can we reverse this development and make sure that philosophy regains its world-changing power, its magic? My feeling is that art, as opposed to philosophy, is still in a position where it can evoke the glimmer of a new form of life. Art has always brought forth a new reality, a new form of perception. All his life, Paul Klee said: “Immanently, I cannot be grasped at all. Because I live with the dead, just as I live with the unborn. A bit nearer to the heart of creation than is usual. And not near enough at all yet.”

A New Form of Perception

It is possible that art is nearer to the heart of creation than philosophy. It is therefore capable of letting something entirely new begin. The revolution can begin with as little as an unheard-of color, an unheard-of sound.

The Heart of Creation

Philosopher Byung-Chul Han: Art can “evoke the glimmer of a new form of life.”

problemsolving

Problem Solving

communication

Communication

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

All That Is Solid Melts Into Information | NOEMA

Animated corpses appear in stories all over the world throughout recorded history. But zombies have a distinct lineage— one that traces back to Equatorial and Central Africa.

Zombie’s African Origins 

The first clue is in the word “zombie” itself. Its exact etymological origins are unknown, but there are several candidates. The Mitsogho people of Gabon, for example, use the word “ndzumbi” for corpse. The Kikongo word “nzambi” refers variously to the supreme being, an ancestor with superhuman abilities, or another deity. And, in certain languages spoken in Angola and the Congo, “zumbi” refers to an object inhabited by a spirit, or someone returned from the dead.

Zombie’s Types And Varieties

Between 1517 and 1804, France and Spain enslaved hundreds of thousands of African people, taking them to the Caribbean island that now contains Haiti and the Dominican Republic. There, the religious beliefs of enslaved African people mixed with the Catholic traditions of colonial authorities and a religion known as “vodou” developed.

How Vodou Developed

According to some vodou beliefs, a person’s soul can be captured and stored, becoming a body-less “zombi.” Alternatively, if a body isn’t properly attended to soon after death, a sorcerer called a “bokor” can capture a corpse and turn it into a soulless zombi that will perform their bidding. Historically, these zombis were said to be put to work as laborers who needed neither food nor rest and would enrich their captor’s fortune.

Zombis: The No-Fuss Laborers

In other words, zombification seemed to represent the horrors of enslavement that many Haitian people experienced. It was the worst possible fate: a form of enslavement that not even death could free you from. The zombi was deprived of an afterlife and trapped in eternal subjugation. Because of this, in Haitian culture, zombis are commonly seen as victims deserving of sympathy and care.

Zombis: The Eternal Slaves

The zombie underwent a transformation after the US occupation of Haiti began in 1915— this time, through the lens of Western pop culture. During the occupation, US citizens propagated many racist beliefs about Black Haitian people. Among false accounts of devil worship and human sacrifice, zombie stories captured the American imagination.

The First Transformation: Occupation

And in 1932, zombies debuted on the big screen in a film called “White Zombie.” Set in Haiti, the film’s protagonist must rescue his fiancée from an evil vodou master who runs a sugar mill using zombi labor. Notably, the film's main object of sympathy isn't the enslaved workforce, but the victimized white woman.

The Second Transformation: Film

Over the following decades, zombies appeared in many American films, usually with loose references to Haitian culture, though some veered off to involve aliens and Nazis. Then came the wildly influential 1968 film “Night of the Living Dead,” in which a group of strangers tries to survive an onslaught of slow-moving, flesh-eating monsters. The film’s director remarked that he never envisioned his living dead as zombies. Instead, it was the audience who recognized them as such.

The Zombification Of The Zombis

But from then on, zombies became linked to an insatiable craving for flesh— with a particular taste for brains added in 1985′s “The Return of the Living Dead.” In these and many subsequent films, no sorcerer controls the zombies; they’re the monsters. And in many iterations, later fueled by 2002′s “28 Days Later,” zombification became a contagious phenomenon.

A Monster And A Disease

For decades now, artists around the world have used zombies to shine a light on the social ills and anxieties of their moment— from consumer culture to the global lack of disaster preparedness. But, in effect, American pop culture also initially erased the zombies origins—cannibalizing its original significance and transforming the victim into the monster.

World-Famous And Defamed

On voodoo and zombies, or on the effects of perspective distortion and/or false representation: how Vodou went from diasporic religion to sensationalized pop-culture caricature and how zombis went from victims to monsters.

Zombies have a distinct lineage— one that traces back to Equatorial and Central Africa. For three centuries, African people were enslaved and brought to the Caribbean Islands. There, a religion known as vodou developed, along with the belief that a person's soul can be captured and stored, becoming a body-less zombie. Christopher M. Moreman uncovers the true origins of the undead. [Directed by Kaspar Jancis, narrated by Addison Anderson, music by Salil Bhayani, cAMP Studio].

religionandspirituality

Religion & Spirituality

history

History

The Dark History Of Zombies

The Kindness Test is the world's largest survey on what it means to be kind. It's shed light on the barriers that stop us from being kind – but also that empathy truly is international.More than 60,000 people from 144 countries chose to take part, making it the world's largest psychological study on the topic of kindness.

Being Kinder

<ul><li>The biggest factor associated with kindness wasn't age or income, but personality.</li><li>People who talk to strangers more often not only observe but receive more kindness themselves.</li><li>Our fears of talking to strangers usually don't live up to reality and people tend to enjoy it more than they expect to.</li><li>When regions of the world were compared, the fear of misinterpretation was lower in the US than in the UK or in countries in Africa.</li><li>In the US, the use of social media was more often given as a barrier to kindness</li></ul>

The Global Kindness Study: Results

The Kindness Test is the world's largest survey on what it means to be kind. It's shed light on the barriers that stop us being kind – but also that empathy truly is international.

loveandrelationships

Love & Relationships

What stops people from being kinder?

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Whether it's driverless cars to personal robots, AI will have to make decisions that could significantly affect our lives. </li><li class="ql-align-justify">One way to instill ethics in AI is to have everyone vote on what robots should do in particular situations. But are values and morals really about what the majority want? </li><li class="ql-align-justify">When we make moral decisions, we each weigh up principles and certain values. It's unlikely that we can recreate that in AI.</li></ul>

Robot Ethics: Key Takeaways

<ul><li>An international team of philosophers, scientists, and data analysts held The Moral Machine Experiment.</li><li>40 million responses across 233 countries and territories about what people would do in this or that moral situation.</li><li> The problems were modifications to the famous “<a href="https://bigthink.com/thinking/trolley-problem-solution/">trolley problem</a>” — the thought experiment which asks whether it’s better to actively kill one person or passively let more than one person die. </li><li>Most people favour humans over animals, many humans over fewer, and younger over older.</li><li>Respondents prefered saving women over men, doctors over athletes, and the fit over the unfit.</li></ul>

Human Bias In Choices: The Moral Machine Experiment

In many cases, our intentions and actions are jarringly different; the millions of dollars wasted on unused gym memberships and the scattered ground of broken marriages are testament to that. In other situations, we simply don’t know what we would do. Also, it’s not clear that values and ethics are something that should be democratized. The lone and brave good person is just as good in a mass of bad.

The Democratization of Values for Ethical AI

<ul><li>Moral thought experiments serve to perturb the initial conditions of a moral situation until one's intuitions vary.</li><li>This can be philosophically useful insofar as we may be able to analyze which salient feature of the dilemma caused that variance.</li><li>Thought experiments are evidence that either corroborates or falsifies a certain hypothesis. They are not the hypothesis itself.</li></ul>

The Purpose of Thought Experiments

There are a <a href="https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/can-ai-think-understand/">great</a> <a href="https://bigthink.com/the-present/mcdonalds-replacing-human-drivethru-ai/">many</a> <a href="https://bigthink.com/the-future/artificial-general-intelligence-impossible/">philosophical</a> <a href="https://bigthink.com/the-present/ai-trustworthiness/">problems</a> raised by emerging technology and AI. As machines start to integrate more and more into our lives, they will inevitably face more and more ethical decisions. On any given day, you will make a great many ethical decisions, and a significant number of these will be your choice based on your values. There is no “perfect moral citizen” and there is no black and white when it comes to right and wrong. If there were, ethics would be a much less interesting area of study.

Building An Ethical AI

We each make decisions based on certain values and principles. But whose do we choose as the template for ethical AI?

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

artificialintelligence

Artificial Intelligence

Whose ethics should be programmed into the robots of tomorrow?

Mantas are ideas that are true in any situation, that guide you, nourish you, and reassure you, that you can lean on when things are difficult. A motto to live by every day is that good character works for the common good. When you work on yourself, you are a positive difference-maker in the world. Ask yourself:<ul><li>How are you making things better?</li><li>How are you contributing?</li><li>How are you of service?</li></ul>

Good character: Good deeds

You have limited time. Don’t take a minute for granted. Every time you do something, you have to remind yourself that it’s time you will never get back. Time is our most precious resource. It is always ticking away. Every second that passes belongs to death. You can never get it back. For example,  you may see a beautiful sunrise today but will never see the same specific sunrise again.  That is why you should live and embrace life and not waste it.

Memento mori: Remember you will die

Nietzsche said you “don’t just bear what is necessary, you love it.” When something bad happens, it can either break your heart and spirit, or you can embrace it and turn it into the greatest thing that ever happened to you. It’s good that it is difficult. If there were never any obstacles, everyone would do it. There would be a whole lot more competition. So you don’t just accept what is happening to you, you love it and lean into it. When you lose the manuscript you’ve been working on you say Amor fati. When you’re stuck in traffic, you say Amur fati. Use it as fuel to become better.

Amor Fati - love of one's fate

These are mantras. These are reminders. A kind of living oral and written tradition for how to live and what kind of person to be. In this video Ryan Holiday gives you 3 of the most essential Stoic mantras that you can use to build your life on. 🪙 Good Character, Good Deeds - To the Stoics, the criteria for success were simple: displaying good character and doing good works. The fruit of this life, the fruit of the study of philosophy, he said, was just that: “good character and acts for the common good.” This is a wonderful mantra worth repeating to ourselves always. It’s so easy to get distracted by other things, by other definitions of success. We see other people getting recognition and we want it. We see them making money and suddenly what we have is not enough. We see them getting away with things and think, maybe we should try that too. 🪙 Memento Mori - Get a Memento Mori medallion to carry this mantra with you everywhere you go: https://store.dailystoic.com/products/memento-mori Meditating on your mortality is only depressing if you miss the point. It is in fact a tool to create priority and meaning. It’s a tool that generations have used to create real perspective and urgency. To treat our time as a gift and not waste it on the trivial and vain. Death doesn’t make life pointless but rather purposeful. And fortunately, we don’t have to nearly die to tap into this. A simple reminder can bring us closer to living the life we want. It doesn’t matter who you are or how many things you have left to be done, a car can hit you in an intersection and drive your teeth back into your skull. That’s it. It could all be over. Today, tomorrow, someday soon. 🪙 Amor Fati - Get an Amor Fati medallion to carry this mantra with you everywhere you go: https://prints.dailystoic.com/products/amor-fati-medallion-1 Two thousand years ago, writing in his own personal journal which would become known as Meditations, Emperor Marcus Aurelius would say: “A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.” Another Stoic, Epictetus, who as a crippled slave has faced adversity after adversity, echoed the same: “Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happen the way it happens: then you will be happy.” It is why amor fati is the Stoic mindset that you take on for making the best out of anything that happens: Treating each and every moment—no matter how challenging—as something to be embraced, not avoided. To not only be okay with it, but love it and be better for it. So that like oxygen to a fire, obstacles and adversity become fuel for your potential. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🎓 FREE GUIDE to Stoic philosophy: https://dailystoic.com/freeguide 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 00:00 Intro 01:21 1. Good character, good deeds 02:39 2. Memento Mori 05:17 3. Amor Fati Instagram: ​https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/dailystoic Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailystoic TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic #Stoicism​ #DailyStoic​ #RyanHoliday​

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

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Videos

These are mantras. These are reminders. A kind of living oral and written tradition for how to live and what kind of person to be. 

In this video Ryan Holiday gives you 3 of the most essential Stoic mantras that you can use to build your life on.

🪙 Good Character, Good Deeds - To the Stoics, the criteria for success were simple: displaying good character and doing good works. The fruit of this life, the fruit of the study of philosophy, he said, was just that: “good character and acts for the common good.” This is a wonderful mantra worth repeating to ourselves always. It’s so easy to get distracted by other things, by other definitions of success. We see other people getting recognition and we want it. We see them making money and suddenly what we have is not enough. We see them getting away with things and think, maybe we should try that too. 

🪙 Memento Mori - Get a Memento Mori medallion to carry this mantra with you everywhere you go: https://store.dailystoic.com/products/memento-mori

Meditating on your mortality is only depressing if you miss the point. It is in fact a tool to create priority and meaning. It’s a tool that generations have used to create real perspective and urgency. To treat our time as a gift and not waste it on the trivial and vain. Death doesn’t make life pointless but rather purposeful. And fortunately, we don’t have to nearly die to tap into this. A simple reminder can bring us closer to living the life we want. It doesn’t matter who you are or how many things you have left to be done, a car can hit you in an intersection and drive your teeth back into your skull. That’s it. It could all be over. Today, tomorrow, someday soon.

🪙 Amor Fati - Get an Amor Fati medallion to carry this mantra with you everywhere you go: https://prints.dailystoic.com/products/amor-fati-medallion-1

Two thousand years ago, writing in his own personal journal which would become known as Meditations, Emperor Marcus Aurelius would say: “A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.” Another Stoic, Epictetus, who as a crippled slave has faced adversity after adversity, echoed the same: “Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happen the way it happens: then you will be happy.” It is why amor fati is the Stoic mindset that you take on for making the best out of anything that happens: Treating each and every moment—no matter how challenging—as something to be embraced, not avoided. To not only be okay with it, but love it and be better for it. So that like oxygen to a fire, obstacles and adversity become fuel for your potential.

✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail

🎓 FREE GUIDE to Stoic philosophy: https://dailystoic.com/freeguide

🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/

00:00 Intro
01:21 1. Good character, good deeds
02:39 2. Memento Mori
05:17 3. Amor Fati

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Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/dailystoic
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#Stoicism​ #DailyStoic​ #RyanHoliday​

Stoicism for everyday life. 

For those of us who live our lives in the real world, there is one branch of philosophy created just for us: Stoicism. It’s a philosophy designed to make us more resilient, happier, more virtuous and more wise–and as a result, better people, better parents and better professionals. Stoicism has been a common thread though some of history’s great leaders...

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Daily Stoic

3 Stoic Mantras To Build Your Life On

"Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote to shame."

"It’s Easy To Do Nothing, It’s Hard To Forgive."

"I Don't Need Luck, Though. I Don't Want It. I've Had To Struggle And Fight And That's Made Me Strong. It's Made Me Who I Am."

"There's no different angle, no clever solution, no trickety trick that's gonna move that rock. You gotta face it head-on"

“But now you’re not letting yourself feel anything. I know sometimes it hurts more to hope and it hurts more to care. But you have to promise me that you won’t stop caring.”

Avatar: The Last Airbender creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko bring The Promise to its explosive conclusion! The Harmony Restoration Movement has failed, and the four nations are plunged back into war! In the midst of the battle, can Aang and Fire Lord Zuko mend the rift between them, or will Aang be forced to take actions that can't be undone? Written by Eisner winner and National Book Award nominee Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese) and drawn by Gurihiru(Thor and the Warriors Four), this is the adventure Avatar fans have been craving!

Avatar: The Last Airbender creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko bring The Promise to its explosive conclusion! The Harmony Restoration Movement has failed, and the four nations are plunged back into war! In the midst of the battle, can Aang and Fire Lord Zuko mend the rift between them, or will Aang be forced to take actions that can't be undone? Written by Eisner winner and National Book Award nominee Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese) and drawn by Gurihiru(Thor and the Warriors Four), this is the adventure Avatar fans have been craving!

Gene Luen Yang

Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Promise Part 3

It seems to us that there is only one answer to this question: We must recognize, and loudly proclaim, that every one, whatever his grade in the old society, whether strong or weak, capable or incapable, has, before everything, THE RIGHT TO LIVE, and that society is bound to share amongst all, without exception, the means of existence at its disposal. We must acknowledge this, and proclaim it aloud, and act up to it.

The Right To Live

The press teaches us the same in every conceivable way. Whole columns are devoted to parliamentary debates and to political intrigues. The vast everyday life of a nation is barely mentioned in a few lines when dealing with economic subjects, law, or in “divers facts” relating to police cases. And when you read these newspapers, you hardly think of the incalculable number of beings — all humanity, so to say — who grow up and die, who know sorrow, who work and consume, think and create outside the few encumbering personages who have been so magnified that humanity is hidden by their shadows.

The Press And Politics

The most important economy, the only reasonable one, is to make life pleasant for all, because the man who is satisfied with his life produces infinitely more than the man who curses his surroundings.

On Economy

To emancipate woman is not only to open the gates of the university, the law courts, or the parliaments, for her, for the “emancipated” woman will always throw domestic toil on to another woman. To emancipate woman is to free her from the brutalizing toil of kitchen and washhouse; it is to organize your household in such a way as to enable her to rear her children, if she be so minded, while still retaining sufficient leisure to take her share of social life.

Feminism

If only humanity had the consciousness of what it CAN, and if that consciousness only gave it the power to will!If it only knew that cowardice of the spirit is the rock on which all revolutions have stranded until now.

Revolutionary Wisdom

Written by a Russian prince who renounced his title, this work promotes an anarchist market economy — a system of autonomous cooperative collectives. A century after its initial publication, it remains fresh and relevant.

Born a Russian prince, Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) rejected his title and wealth to spend his life in pursuit of social justice and equality. His last major work, The Conquest of Bread, surveys economic methods for the satisfaction of human needs. The 1892 treatise also outlines the revolutionary path to his vision of utopia: an anarchist communist society. Kropotkin criticizes the effects of feudalism and capitalism, noting that both systems exacerbate poverty and promote privilege, even in times of abundance. Citing the human propensity toward voluntary cooperation, he proposes the establishment of free, self-sufficient anarchic communesand outlines practical considerations of production and distribution. The author supports his theories with examples from the French rebellions of 1789, 1848, and 1871, and his reasoning anticipates aspects of twentieth-century revolutions in Russia, Germany, and Spain. At a time when many thinkers employed the new Darwinian concept of &quot;survival of the fittest&quot; to justify their capitalist and imperialist goals, Kropotkin pointed out the historic patterns of humanity's best success under cooperative circumstances. A century later, his economic analysis remains fresh and relevant.

Peter Kropotkin

The Conquest of Bread

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