The Emotion Machine

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There's a strong correlation between success in America and willingness to sell your soul.

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There are no more heroes in the West.

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All other knowledge is harmful in a man who has no knowledge of what is good.

Montaigne

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You ever notice how so many influencers speak in "cartoon mode" — exaggerated faces, oversized gestures, and silly effects?

It reminds me of the way adults talk to babies.

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America has a national identity crisis, which seems to spill over into a lot of personal identity crises.

When people feel disconnected from their nation, their community, and their roots, they often start inventing new and more superficial identities to fill the void.

Feeling connected to your nation, your community, and your people is more fundamental to understanding yourself than most people realize.

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In China, they have one flavor of Kool-Aid.

In America, we have thousands.

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“You are under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago.”

—

Alan Watts

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Learning about ADHD on TikTok is like learning how to swim in a tsunami.

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Starting the day with some beautiful storm watching.

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Glued to the Screen: Scrolling Hypnosis and the Allure of Easy Dopamine

Social media can pull us into automatic scrolling loops built on novelty, reward, and instant stimulation. Learn how to interrupt the habit

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Debunk 99% of conspiracy theories with this one simple trick:

Occam's Razor.

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During the Renaissance, thinkers looked back hundreds of years to the Greeks and Romans to recover wisdom they believed had been lost.

They looked backward in order to move civilization forward.

We need the same willingness to look backward and learn today if we want to escape our current dark age.

Not for nostalgia, but for rebirth.

In short: we need another Renaissance.

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Americans are the kings of "looking the other way" in the face of evil. That is why our bloated empire continues to wreak havoc around the world and on its own people while we do nothing.

Maybe it's a symptom of mind-your-own-business culture, hyper-individualism, or low trust. Many Americans simply assume "all government is corrupt" and "all people are selfish," as if these are immutable laws of nature.

America is deeply ambitious and competitive, but ultimately anti-social — a place where the individual is positioned in a never-ending battle between self and world.

And the self will lose this battle every time.

[theemotionmachine]

All other knowledge is harmful in a man who has no knowledge of what is good.

Montaigne

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I hate men whose words are philosophical but whose deeds are base.

Marcus Pacuvius

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The Nostalgic Power of Rewatching Childhood Movies

Rewatching old favorites can be relaxing, restorative, and surprisingly insightful. Childhood movies don't just bring us back to the past —

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Self-improvement requires the ability to debug certain types of social programming.