The Bed of Procrustes Read Free Page A

win arguments. They are never the same.
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    People usually apologize so they can do it again.
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    Mathematics is to knowledge what an artificial hand is to the real one; some amputate to replace.
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    Modernity inflicts a sucker narrative on activities; now we “walk for exercise,” not “walk” with no justification; for hidden reasons.
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    Social media are severely antisocial, health foods are empirically unhealthy, knowledge workers are very ignorant, and social sciences aren’t scientific at all.
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    For so many, instead of looking for “cause of death” when they expire, we should be looking for “cause of life” when they are still around.
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    It is those who use others who are the most upset when someone uses them.
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    If someone gives you more than one reason why he wants the job, don’t hire him.
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    Failure of second-order thinking: he tells you a secret and somehow expects you to keep it, when he just gave you evidence that he can’t keep it himself.
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    Social networks present information about what people like; more informative if, instead, they described what they don’t like.
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    People are so prone to overcausation that you can make the reticent turn loquacious by dropping an occasional “why?” in the conversation.
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    I need to keep reminding myself that a truly independent thinker may look like an accountant.

THESEUS, OR LIVING THE PALEO LIFE
    The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.
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    My only measure of success is how much time you have to kill.
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    I wonder if a lion (or a cannibal) would pay a high premium for free-range humans.
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    If you need to listen to music while walking, don’t walk; and please don’t listen to music.
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    Men destroy each other during war; themselves during peacetime.
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    Sports feminize men and masculinize women.
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    Technology can degrade (and endanger) every aspect of a sucker’s life while convincing him that it is becoming more “efficient.”
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    The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free.
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    You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits.
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    With terminal disease, nature lets you die with abbreviated suffering; medicine lets you suffer with prolonged dying.
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    We are satisfied with natural (or old) objects like vistas or classical paintings but insatiable with technologies, amplifying small improvements in versions, obsessed about 2.0, caught in a mental treadmill.
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    Only in recent history has “working hard” signaled pride rather than shame for lack of talent, finesse, and, mostly,
sprezzatura
.
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    Their idea of the sabbatical is to work six days and rest for one; my idea of the sabbatical is to work for (part of) a day and rest for six.
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    What they call “play” (gym, travel, sports) looks like work; the harder they try, the more captive they are.
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    Most modern efficiencies are deferred punishment.
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    We are hunters; we are only truly alive in those moments when we improvise; no schedule, just small surprises and stimuli from the environment.
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    For everything, use boredom in place of a clock, as a biological wristwatch, though under constraints of politeness.
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    Decomposition, for most, starts when they leave the free, social, and uncorrupted college life for the solitary confinement of professions and nuclear families.
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    For a classicist, a competitive athlete is painful to look at; trying hard to become an animal rather than a man, he will never be as fast as a cheetah or as strong as an ox.
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    Skills that transfer: street fights, off-path hiking, seduction, broad erudition. Skills that don’t: school, games, sports, laboratory—what’s reduced and organized.
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    You exist in full if and only if your conversation (or writings) cannot be easily reconstructed with clips from other conversations.
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    The English have random