Nostalgia is for feeling, not for expecting to be real.

As we get more influential, we can expect more scrutiny and criticism.

Objectives of state redaction as set forth by Muriel Rukeyser’s redacted file:

1. Render information illegible to make the reader aware of her/his position as one who will never access a truth that does, by state accounts, exist
2. Isolate text in time and instance
3. …

The danger in utopian thinking is that it can easily turn you into a pointless vandal. The more useful thing is to think of betterment as a process rather than thinking that we just have to get rid of the bad people and then everything will be okay. If you could have enough utopianism to question the world as it is and imagine how it could be better, I think that’s a wonderful thing, but if you take it too far, you actually undermine yourself. So, I would say, a like “homeopathic utopianism” I will support.

A sweeping interview about Silicon Valley and the possible shapes of the future with the man who coined the term “virtual reality.”

This podcast episode is a gripping summary of the true story told in David Grann’s book, Killers of the Flower Moon which was later adapted into an award-winning film of the same name.

I don’t think that lying is necessary. I think if we have honest, tactful interaction, we’re always going to be the better for it.

A brief analysis of white lies, bully lies, and mischievous lies and why people tell them.

We found that high-power individuals and men generally display higher agency, lower communion, more positive self-evaluations, and similar cognitive processes. Overall, 71% of the sex/gender differences were consistent with the effects of experimental power differences, whereas only 8% were opposite

Men act differently because of their privilege.

An abridged, ten-minute version read by John Lithgow can be watched here.

If a real democracy is going to thrive, if the real values of human nature are to flourish, it’s an absolute necessity that groups form in which people can join together, share their concerns, articulate their hopes, and discover what they think, what their values really are. This can’t be imposed on you from above: you have to discover it yourself

Part two can be seen here.

Anchored in sociological and political theory, this comprehensive volume provides hard data and empirical research that traces the power and influence of the fossil fuel industry through economics, politics, media, and higher education. Contributors demonstrate how corporations secure popular consent, and coopt, disorganize, or marginalize dissenting perspectives to position the fossil fuel industry as a national public good.

Value capture happens when your environment presents you with simplified versions of your values, and those simple versions come to dominate your practical reasoning. Value capture offers you a quick shortcut—an opportunity to take on prefabricated values. You do not have to go through the painful process of value deliberation if you can get your values off the shelf.

I want to focus on one particularly clear, and quite common, form of value capture: when an institution presents you with some metric, and then you internalize that metric.

I mean to exclude here from the category of value capture those cases where we use external values as proxies and heuristics under full reflective control—when we select, monitor, and adapt those heuristics in the light of our own richer values.

… we will flourish when we have the capacity to adjust and tailor our values in light of our rich experience of the world living under them. When we tailor our values to ourselves in light of those rich experiences, then our values will be better fit to promote our flourishing, as the very specific people we are.

Proxies function as the necessary forms of make-believe and surrogacy that enable the production of knowledge. Such knowledge production relies on accessible representations of the world, and proxies are the people, artifacts, places, and moments invested with the authority to represent the world. To interrogate the use of proxies is to ask: to whom or to what do we delegate the power to represent the world?

Proxies are instrumental to developing ‘group-licensed ways of seeing,’ and they are crucial to the ways we learn how to participate in our communities by training ourselves through common references, by coming to see problems as akin, and by taking for granted that others in our community share those references and those ways of seeing.

No one asks how the tape worm benefits the host. What if consciousness is like that? What if it’s the cognitive equivalent of ‘junk’ DNA?

A sci-fi author and biologist ponders the significance of brain interface technologies.

My first thought was, ‘Wow, I’m going to view history and then get wiped off the map.’

Three stories of people confronted with a hard deadline and the choices they made when faced with impermanence.

We contend that even in situations of apparent procedural equality, deliberation’s legitimating potential is limited by its potential to increase normatively focal power asymmetries. We conclude by describing how deliberative contexts can be modified to reduce certain types of power asymmetries, such as those often associated with gender, race, or class.

Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, tweeted something a bit outside his lane as a sports guy but fundamentally banal in the context of American public opinion: “fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.” […] But Morey turns out to have stepped onto a much bigger landmine — Chinese politics.

They ask their communities to “wait and see” whether these allegations are true, with the unspoken assumption that they are not. I assert these responses use Buddhist teachings to uphold cis-masculine innocence by using hegemonic logics and commitments to downplay and delegitimize the phenomenon of sexual violence.

They are not new, these most ancient of divinities.
Our clamor woke them from the subdivided soil.
They rise to rule us

… multiple ethical systems are vying for recognition regarding the self-immolations, and a certain Buddhist ambivalence around extreme acts of devotion complicate any easy designations of the act

Targeted groups came to be attributed a biological or timeless essence, not because this was inevitable, we argue, but because of these failures to historicize inequality.

There is only one kind of success that really matters: the success of transforming ourselves

Sexual harassment is more prevalent for women supervisors than for women employees.

… human beings reset themselves to something altruistic, communitarian, resourceful, and imaginative after a disaster. We revert to something we already know how to do. The possibility of paradise is already within us as a default setting.

Disasters reveal, in their failure, how social hierarchies are a product of state violence, not “human nature.”

… several Buddhist commentators, in advancing the notion of “compassionate violence,” also advanced an ethical double standard

It may have originally contained just one discourse (on the standard five bala) and then later been expanded, independently in the two traditions.

Power allows the ego to be with him- or herself in the other. It creates a continuity of the self.

An exploration of power reacting to a few modern philosophers on the subject.

I found the work engaging and impressive, despite its odd avoidance of the psychological. As a Buddhist, I can’t agree that “life as such cannot be understood in terms of causal relations,” though I appreciate the book, insofar as it advocates and “leads to […] an ethics and aesthetics of the no one: friendliness free of intentions, even free of wishes.”

In recent years the community of Tibetan Buddhists has been agitated by an intense dispute concerning the practice of a controversial deity, Gyel-chen Dor-je Shuk-den. Several Tibetan monks have been brutally murdered, and the Tibetan community in general and the Geluk tradition in particular have become profoundly polarized. […] Why is Shugden so controversial?

An excellent explainer of the Dalai Lama’s antipathy towards this peculiar Gelug protector.

… tourism is a highly political phenomenon, the implications of which have been only rarely perceived and almost nowhere fully understood. […] If tourism policy does not integrate or anticipate its political component, then policies and the people affected by them will suffer.

A monograph to help tourism development planners to avoid disasters like Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s 2012 “Maitreya” debacle. If only he had read this book!

I use Weberian definitions of authority, and the modern notion of privilege, to point to the dynamic connection between public persona, gender, and religious authority in the 18th century hagiography of a Buddhist nun.

Just as a river is geographically conditioned to flow in a certain direction, [compassionate] efforts are predetermined to move toward success (as sentient beings are endowed with Buddha nature). But just as a river will never dry up, their project will never end.

A lengthy summary of Tan Sitong’s 仁學 (Rénxué), which outlined his eclectic Buddhist defense of non-discriminating compassion’s agency in the unfolding of history, this paper shows how one Chinese philosopher grappled with the challenges of modernity emerging at his time and how his themes continue in the work of Buddhists such as Thich Nhat Hanh.

Since July 20, 1985, a new higher ordination (upasampadā) movement has emerged at the Dambulla Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka. The architect of this movement, a Sinhala Buddhist monk named Inamaluwe Sumangala, challenges the contemporary Buddhist monastic practice of ordaining monks on the basis of their castes

On the face of it, the movement seems to involve a debate about the irrelevance of caste to higher ordination between Sumangala and the monks of the Asgiriya temple, one of several chapters of the Siyam Nikāya that ordains only high-caste Buddhist males. However, the challenge constituted by the new ordination can be seen as part of a broader attempt on Sumangala’s part to redefine monastic identity

From suffering arises desire to end suffering. The secular humanistic activist sets himself the endless task of satisfying that desire, and perhaps hopes to end social suffering by constructing utopias. The Buddhist, on the other hand, is concerned ultimately with the transformation of desire.

Capitalist industrial society has created conditions of extreme impermanence, and the struggle with a conflict-creating mood of dissatisfaction and frustration. It would be difficult to imagine any social order for which Buddhism is more relevant and needed.

… the majority of philosophy is based on assumptions about the basic cognitive endowments of average individuals that totally disregard what is known about human development

A critique of the Western assumption of the rational citizen and a full-throated defense of education as activism.

Is it an “applied” Buddhism that is a recent development within Buddhism proper, or is it perhaps a dimension of traditional Buddhism that has always belonged properly to it?

… a history of the future of the Maitreya Project 2.0, a non-existent statue that nonetheless has touched many lives around the world, for better and for worse

Aśoka (c. 268-232 BCE) and Jayavarman VII (1182-1220?), two of the greatest rulers of India and Southeast Asia, were Buddhists by any definition. However, the puzzling problem is that their deaths were followed by an inexorable decay of their erstwhile great empires.

Acknowledging it doesn’t change your vulnerability. You’re vulnerable whether you develop a language to think about it or not.

That tree doesn’t need to be more than the tree. A tree just needs to be a tree. But our society always asks us to be more, right? Can’t we just be a human? Can we just be who we are?

… wealth and power did not seem to ease disruptive conflict

The fascinating details of monastic life in medieval Dunhuang as told by their cave-preserved legal documents.

That Buddhism became so ritualistic, excessive, and subservient to the state even along the Silk Road demonstrates how common and impactful state intervention has been to the history of Buddhism.

Practicing Buddhism is the art of being peace, the art of promoting peace, in society and in the world. We all should learn this art.

A speech calling for mindful, ethical living in the new millennium according to Buddhist principles.

Manipulation only works if its target isn’t aware that they’re being manipulated

An earnest plea for global clarity.

… a book about people trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems

A few case studies of humanity setting out to fix the environment.

By zooming in on tiny fish and out to the entire stratosphere, it beautifully captures the staggering scope of climate change and its challenges. In highlighting the scientists and engineers working on it, the book offers a somewhat more hopeful picture of our possible future: less apocalyptic but still incredibly strange. See 99pi’s “Model Organism” for a taste.

The book also makes a strong case for being skeptical that we even can engineer our way out of climate change. While it nods to the “but what other choice do we have” counterargument, I hope that readers come away from this tension in the book more confident than ever in our need for decarbonization and I hope that readers won’t leap to even worse ideas than those highlighted in the book, such as fatalism or population control. As one character in the book memorably put it:

Pissing your pants will only keep you warm for so long.

What should have been a difficult few months turned into 30 years of bloodshed and mayhem in Northern Ireland.

Those in power keep authority through the fair, impartial, and sympathetic application of justice. Where there is no justice, there is no legitimacy. Where there is no legitimacy, there will be no peace.

… there will be resistance to giving the thing rights until it can be seen and valued for itself; yet, it is hard to see it and value it for itself until we can bring ourselves to give it rights — which is almost inevitably going to sound inconceivable

On the history, and future, of how we define property and rights.

What kind of person isn’t thrown in jail for stealing half a dollar, a dollar, or a hundred dollars? A person who is rich, affluent, and wealthy.

Karma, contrary to later oversimplifications, is not a strict formula, whereby a certain action always has the same result.

… poets do not [normally] get this kind of attention

The story of an unusual fence in New York City and its bold rejection of cynicism.

Belief systems and abstract commitments are, of course, indispensable to social change. But when this isolated interiority becomes the sovereign justification for political action, there are only two possible conclusions: either a quietist withdrawal for endless self-reflection or a dangerous willingness to achieve political ends through violent means.

Psychopaths are more likely to be attracted to singing, dancing, love, light, miracles, and channeling. Usually psychopaths have a great deal of trouble sitting quiet and still. I appreciate the boring facade of Buddhism, as it is a great protection.

A new age mystic gives his advice on how to identify psychopaths on the spiritual journey.

Despite Bill’s many painful experiences, he never lost his faith in the transformative, human potential to awaken. His lifetime of spiritual stumbling is a rich source of warnings and advice, especially for Westerners still struggling to get a foothold in a tradition.

That said, however, the book’s interpretation of “enlightenment” should be taken cautiously, as his understanding seems to come from ecumenical assumptions that the various “contemplative traditions” (never defined) all describe the same goal. A bit of a black sheep even within the heterodox, secular “Insight” community, Bill Hamilton is best read with his own warning in mind, that “monks and nuns make safer teachers than laypeople, especially if they are actively associated with their tradition.”

…and maybe because of the boiling April sun, he thought about water and ice. Water and ice were made of the same thing. He thought most people were made of the same thing, too. He himself was probably a little different from the corrupt people around him. Ice was distinct from—and in his view, better than—what it was made of. He wanted to be better than what he was made of. In Mumbai’s dirty water, he wanted to be ice.

A haunting and beautiful portrait of humanity, Behind the Beautiful Forevers reads more like a novel than nonfiction. But journalism it is. Of the highest order.

Written after three years of observations and interviews in a small slum of Mumbai, the book follows a few locals as they build their lives amidst the devastating poverty just behind the Beautiful Forevers.

… the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions.

A refreshing and unromantic take on the history of our species heavily influenced by the author’s vipassana practice.

The rate of change is visibly unsustainable. The profiteers call this process “disruption,” while commentators on the left generally call it “neoliberalism” or “late capitalism.” Millennials know it better as “the world,” or “America,” or “Everything.” And Everything sucks.

Explaining the economic moment we are caught in, its tangled roots, and the challenges of trying to fight our collective, exponential momentum.

Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.

A classic collection of essays on the relationship between ideas and society which draws heavily on Huxley’s engagements with Buddhist philosophy.

The product of a bygone era, Ends and Means diagnoses modernity without the despair or self-promotion characteristic of later engagements. One instead feels the vitality and honesty that animated Huxley’s life and continue to inspire readers nearly a century later.

If we accept that there will always be sides, it’s a nontrivial to-do list item to always be on the side of angels. Distrust essentialism. Keep in mind that what seems like rationality is often just rationalization, playing catch-up with subterranean forces that we never suspect. Focus on the larger, shared goals. Practice perspective taking. Individuate, individuate, individuate. […] You don’t have to choose between being scientific and being compassionate.

A magisterial and heart-felt survey of neuroscience, psychology, and biology which paints a broad but rigorous picture of how and why humans act the way they do–for better or for worse–and what we (individual meatbags) can do to be our best selves.

The book is based on Sapolsky’s Stanford course, “Human Behavioral Biology”, available for free on YouTube.

… animals are not passive objects for humans to ignore or argue over–or collect–but “individuals with their own perspectives on life,” and members of communities with which our species coexists. That animals are in this sense political actors is an underrecognized and, to my mind, potentially powerful point

What can we learn, and what kind of world would we build, if we learned how to listen to animals?

The key is to focus on two distinctions: systems as distinct from individuals, and having privilege as independent of choosing how to engage with it.

The gift of fearlessness, if extended beyond its classical scope to include the challenges of xenophobia and terrorism threats, is a capacious framework through which to probe the moral contours of contemporary refugee policy and the security concerns of states.

If you can intentionally kill out of compassion, then fine, go ahead. But are you sure? Are you sure that what you think are friendliness and compassion are really friendliness and compassion? Are you sure that some subtle aversion and delusion have not surfaced in the mind?

For Bhante Sujato’s reply to their debate, see his essay On deeds of war.

… power need not be only repressive. Think of how our parents, schools, employers, and even peers mold our behavior. This molding doesn’t just stop us from doing certain things. It makes or encourages us

A short pamphlet defining power in the political sense. When we think about how the sangha works, it’s useful to reflect on the complex and variable nature of power and authority.

Is it possible, venerable sir, to point out any fruit of recluseship that is visible here and now?

One of the greatest literary and spiritual texts of early Buddhism, this sutta gives a thorough account of the path and benefits of renunciation.

A dispute about livelihood or about the Pātimokkha would be trifling, Ānanda. But should a dispute arise in the Sangha about the path or the way, such a dispute would be for the harm and unhappiness of many

Hearing of the death of the Jain leader, Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta, and their subsequent disputes, the Buddha encourages the Saṅgha to swiftly resolve their own disputes. He lays down a series of seven methods for doing so, which form the foundation for the monastic code.

Helpful for avoiding cults, for reassuring Westerners that Buddhist religious authority isn’t regressive, and a fascinating example of the West grappling with unfamiliar forms of spiritual education.