Humans, though naturally curious, are also highly trainable, and when we are punished often enough for noticing something we will eventually refrain.
Jan 292021
Being
Identity, that spectator of what he calls himself,
That net and aggregate of energies in transient combination.
—Cunningham
Jan 212021
To fend for oneself in a high civilization demands a certain cognitive minimum; when too many lack it the civilization lowers itself to meet them, and the process is hastened by letting them vote.
Jan 012021
Compared with virtue, all vice is harmless.
Dec 282020
Competitions in oppression produce, by definition, sore winners.
Dec 232020
Eyes glazing over is two metaphors in one: the faraway look for what one cannot understand differs from the thin film for what one does not want to hear.
Dec 182020
To alleviate boredom men will do literally anything.
Dec 172020
We first have nothing but time, then everything but time, then nothing but time, then time’s up.
Dec 152020
Nearly all great movies adhere quite rigidly to the conventions of a genre, nearly all movies that try not to do so are disasters, and so it is with lives.
Dec 042020
Once in a while evil triumphs because good men do nothing, but usually because they meddle in what is none of their damn business.
Nov 172020
We try to convince ourselves that villains are unhappy: it should be enough to know that they are bad.