Sisyphus couldn’t stop pushing his boulder—but you can. By Joshua Rothman Discover - Should You Just Give Up? :- Around fifteen years ago, an old college friend of mine had a close call in the mountains. He and a companion were on a ski trip when
The disruption nexus
Moments of crisis, such as our own, are great opportunities for historic change, but only under highly specific conditions. Discover - The disruption nexus: Polycrisis. Metacritic. Omnicrisis. Permacrisis. Call it what you like. We are immersed i
Governing for the planet
Nation-states are no longer fit for purpose to create a habitable future for humans and nature. Which political system is it? Discover - Governing for the planet - Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world,’ Tedros Adh
Will we ever… understand why music makes us feel good?
The catalysts No one knows why music has such a potent effect on our emotions. But thanks to some recent studies we have a few intriguing clues. Why do we like music? Like most good questions, this one works on many levels. We have answers on
Why aren’t smart people happier?
The catalysts Intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely b
Learning to be happier
The Catalysts In 2018, a tragic period enveloped the University of Bristol, when several students killed themselves related to work stress. Suicide is usually the ultimate culmination of a crisis in mental health, but these students weren’t alone
Counterfactuals, Moral Luck, and Nazi Complicity
The Catalysts Anyone who’d like to look a Nazi in the eye is working against the clock. An eighteen-year-old member of the Nazi Party in 1945 would now be coming up to a hundred. Soon there will be none left. When the film director Luke Holland w
Are you an artistic genius?
The Catalysts I always wanted to be a creative writer. At different points in my life, I’ve tried fiction, sports writing, poetry, journalism and plays. But in my senior year in college, I decided that I wasn’t good enough. When I thought of what
AI Is a False God
The Catalysts In Arthur C. Clarke’s famous short story “The Nine Billion Names of God,” a sect of monks in Tibet believes humanity has a divinely inspired purpose: inscribing all the various names of God. Once the list was complete, they thought,
Decoding Para-jumbles in CAT VARC: A Step-by-Step Guide
The Para-jumble questions in CAT VARC (Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension) are the trickiest. These questions test your ability to organize sentences into an understanding of the paragraph easily and logically.- The Catalysts