Why do smart people believe stupid things?
The January 7 2022 edition of the microphilosophy newsletter.
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Category: Microphilosophy
Why your rivals are smiling at you
No one succeeds online by screaming “read me everyone!” Instead, we all act as though we are simply being sociable, sharing our thoughts freely, almost as though we were being generous rather than self-serving. We retweet and share the posts of others, not only because we find them genuinely interesting, but also because we know that is what cooperatition needs: its the cooperative side of the competition for attention.
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Why I’m giving away every translation of my books
Fortune waxes and wanes. It’s important not to cling too much to the good times so that when they pass, you don’t crave for them too much. If my career takes a dive, I will need to be able to let of whatever success I once had. Letting go of my translations now can only help with that.
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The Wisdom of Ramen
In Japan, thought and action, philosophy and life, are more intimately connected than most other places. Philosophy is largely an attempt to articulate and develop insights into how to live and who we are that are embedded in practices more than they are rooted in theories. The documentaries Ramen Heads and Jiro Dreams of Sushi show what much of this philosophy means more eloquently than can be straightforwardly said.
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Our kinder politics
I suggest looking at three ways of thinking prominent in non-western philosophies that might alert us to aspects of our own that have been squeezed too much into the background and could benefit from being given more attention. Once we do that, we can recalibrate, putting more emphasis on the values that have been neglected and less on those that have come to carry too much weight. If that helps us to a more compassionate, less adversarial politics, all the better.
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