by John Allen Paulos

The stock market, social media, award contests, product reviews, beauty contests, social media, fashion styles, job applications, award contests, product reviews, and even elections, don’t seem to belong in the same crowded sentence. What do they have in common? Before I get there, a couple of abstract analogues to pave the way.

The great economist John Maynard Keynes noted the similarity between deciders, evaluators, reviewers, and judges of all sorts and readers in newspaper beauty contests, which were very popular in his day. The stated task of the readers was to pick the five prettiest out of, say, 100 contestants, but their real job was more complicated. The reason was that the newspaper rewarded them with large prizes only if they picked the five contestants who received the most votes from the other readers.

That is, they had to pick the contestants that they thought were the most likely to be picked by the other readers, and the other readers had to try to do the same. They were not to give undue weight to their own taste. Instead they had to anticipate, in Keynes’ words, “what average opinion expects the average opinion to be”.

Whether in politics, business, or everyday life, how such group judgments about group judgments develop is unclear, but various mathematical tools ranging from network theory to recursion are useful. A simple game I’ve written about elsewhere and have often asked my classes to play is also relevant. In the game, people in some designated group are each asked to choose a number between 0 and 100. Furthermore, they’re directed to pick the number that they think will be closest to 80 percent of the average number chosen by the group. The person who comes closest to this value will receive $1,000 for his or her efforts. (Don’t read on until you decide what number you would pick.)

Some in the group might reason that the average number chosen is likely to be 50 and so these people would guess 40, which is 80 percent of this. Others might anticipate that people will guess 40 for this reason and so they would guess 32, which is 80 percent of 40. Still others might anticipate that people will guess 32 for this reason and so they would guess 25.6, which is 80 percent of 32. Read more »

Ode to Cells

Before metaphorical allusions
we are warm and wet.
Seas surge within us.

In tiny cytoplasmic bays,
tiny ships of golgi moor near
lysosome cays enclosed by
permeable breakwater membranes
all which rise and fall with nucleo tides
ebbing and flowing through generations
rendering noses, pug or aquiline,
and eyes skybright, or in the colors
of loam.

By the work of Darwin’s surf,
tides sculpt the graceful geographies
of bodies, bodies that draw tissue curtains
between what is and what’s not,
bodies that define muscle and bone,
bodies that inflame passions, heat,
desire to enclose or free the current’s ring,
to come together again immersed,
immersed in what’s warm and wet,
to touch, embrace, to recombine
to love, to sing, to lose,
and remember to forget

Jim Culleny
11/18/16

Cytoplasm
Golgi
Lysosome

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by Rachel Robison-Greene

From the moment that the weather warmed up, every morning I feel an irresistible pull toward my backyard garden.  I wake up and check the news.  Congress has defunded a life-saving social program.  We’ve bombed another country in the Middle East.  A politician has been caught in a lie so consequential that it would destroy the life of anyone else.  I suddenly realize that it is crucial—urgent—that I make sure the hydrangeas have had enough water.

Is this cause for alarm? Perhaps I have become so disaffected by recent events that my strategy for coping is simply to run away.  On the other hand, it might be more than selfish escapism.

In his famous essay The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus thinks through the implications of the absurdity of human existence.  For Camus, absurdity consists in a confrontation between human desire and an indifferent universe.  We want many things out of our experience in life.  We want our social dealings to be just and fair.  We want people who do good things to be rewarded and people who do bad things to face consequences.  We want the things we do to be fundamentally important and for our lives to matter in the scheme of things.  The universe doesn’t care what we want.  It isn’t the kind of thing that is even capable of caring.

By way of analogy, Camus describes the punishment of Sisyphus, who, for the offense of stealing water, has been doomed by the Gods to push a boulder up a mountain for eternity only to watch it roll back down.  Camus says,

At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved.  Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit.  He goes back down toward the plain.

Sisyphus could agonize over his plight forever, or he could own the absurdity of his situation.  He may not be able to change his circumstances, but he can become the author of his own response. He could become what Camus refers to as an absurd hero. Read more »

by Eric Schenck

Ten years ago, I took a one-way flight to Cairo, Egypt. I lived there for three years (and even wrote a book about it).

As a way to celebrate that decision in 2015, here are ten life lessons that living in Egypt taught me. It’s valuable to periodically remind myself of these things. I hope you get some value out of it too.

1) It’s OK to completely change your “life plan”

I majored in Political Science in college, with a minor in Arabic. The plan was to become a diplomat working in the Middle East. Within a year of moving to Cairo (and meeting diplomats living my “dream life”), that plan was shattered. 

They all seemed to be depressed. They got stationed in a new country every few years, and had kids with no real friends. Their work life was also a far cry from the spy movies I had eaten up. Diplomats spent their days surrounded by stacks of paperwork. Hardly my idea of a good time. 

Now? I work in marketing and help companies make more money with email. If 22 year old Eric could see himself now, I don’t know how he’d feel. Probably confused. Maybe even a bit disappointed. 

But things change. You change, and as soon as goals you set in the past stop serving you, throw them in the trash. Easier said than done, but it’s something I continue to learn. Read more »

In the town square, called the Domplatz, of Brixen, South Tyrol.

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by Barry Goldman

Suppose we have two groups of citizens. Let’s call them the Shirts and the  Skins. The Shirts believe homosexuality is an abomination that stinketh in the nostrils of the Lord, and abortion is baby murder. The Skins believe homosexuality is perfectly normal and natural, and abortion is a woman’s right. How can we build a society where those groups can get along without killing each other?

One approach might be to encourage the two sides to leave each other alone. You think homosexual sex is wrong? Fine, don’t engage in it. You think abortion is wrong? Fine, don’t have one. But don’t tell me what to do. This produces some familiar formulations. Everyone is to have the greatest amount of freedom compatible with similar freedom for everyone else. Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins. Live and let live.

But that answer doesn’t work for Shirts and Skins. If I really believe abortion is baby murder, it isn’t enough that I don’t do it. I also have a moral duty to prevent you from doing it. I can take a live and let live attitude about what color you paint your house. It’s none of my business. But I can’t let you murder babies. And I can’t compromise. I might accept some strategic compromise on a temporary basis, but I can never permanently accept anything short of complete abolition.

The same is true for people who really believe homosexual behavior is terribly wrong. It’s like slavery. Or cannibalism. Or human sacrifice. I can’t allow you to throw any virgins into the volcano. None. You also can’t engage in ritual cannibalism. Even on special holidays. Compromise is not an option.

The negotiation literature calls these “sacred issues.” It is insulting even to suggest compromise on a sacred issue. Sacred issues are incommensurable. If you think I might be persuaded by, say, an offer of money to compromise on a sacred issue, you simply don’t understand what a sacred issue is.

So now what? Read more »

by Gary Borjesson

In 1956 when this work was begun I had no conception of what I was undertaking. At that time my object appeared a limited one, namely, to discuss the theoretical implications of some observations of how young children respond to temporary loss of mother. —John Bowlby (opening sentence of his seminal book, Attachment, 1969)

Note: I always disguise the identities of patients discussed in my writing.

A patient described the dramatic dance he was in with his longtime partner as “go away closer.” She’d be warmly attentive, which drew him closer; but as soon as he stepped in, she would step back. He asked whether she wanted to go to a concert, and she was enthusiastic. But after he’d bought tickets, she made excuses and suggested he invite a friend instead. Confused and hurt, he’d move away, partly to protect himself but also to punish her. Paradoxically, this seemed to attract her. And the dance would begin again. He felt as if she were gaslighting him, but he knew she wasn’t, or at least not consciously.

Attachment theory offers an explanation of such primitive (unconscious and instinctive) relationship dynamics. Attachment patterns, shaped by early interactions with caregivers, are impressively durable: Secure versus nonsecure patterns discernible by 12 months of age correlate with adult attachment behavior roughly 50% to 60% of the time.

In this essay I offer an overview of attachment, an increasingly influential lens through which to understand how we relate to others—and who we are. For our “self” is fundamentally relational, just as our brains are fundamentally social. We become our selves through engaging with the world, and attachment science reveals how our early experience disproportionately affect who we become and how we relate. Read more »

by Brooks Riley

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by Laurie Sheck

1.

In March 2023, Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the Scottish government, officially apologized for Scotland’s policy from the 1940’s to the 1970’s of forcing tens of thousands of unmarried women to give up their newborns for adoption. Shortly after giving birth and without informed consent, many of the women were required to take repeated and powerful doses of a synthetic estrogen, Stilbestrol (also known as Diethylstilbestrol or DES) now recognized as linked to reproductive cancers and other metabolic maladies, to dry up their breast milk. They were given no choice in this matter.

2.

“We have enormous sympathy for the women and families who have been harmed by Stilbestrol.” –The Scottish Government.

“It’s bad enough that SNP (Scottish National Party) ministers have tried to sweep the mental health impact of forced adoption under the carpet. The physical impacts must be brought into the light too, including the potential link between cancer and drugs the women were made to take to stop their breast milk.” –MSP Monica Lennon

3.

DES was developed by a British chemist, Charles Dodds, in 1938. He used it in his laboratory experiments and never patented it or expected it to be used as a widely prescribed pharmaceutical. Because it was not patented, over 200 pharmaceutical companies worldwide were left at liberty to manufacture and market it, first as a treatment for menopause and then, when that didn’t fly, mainly, though not exclusively, for the prevention of miscarriage. It was effective at neither one. Instead, it harmed millions of women who took DES while pregnant and even more-so their children who were exposed in utero.

During the initial application process, the FDA denied DES approval. Numerous animal studies showed various forms of harm, including deformities not evident at the offspring’s birth but which manifested only at maturity.  These harms included deformed sexual organs.

Throughout its decades of use, a silence surrounded it. The FDA required the pharmaceutical companies to make available the questionable safety information of DES if requested by physicians, but there was no insert that came with the product: each physician needed to make a specific request. The information was not directly available to patients. Read more »

by Derek Neal

Read Part 1 here.

In The File on H, Ismail Kadare shows his appreciation of epic poetry and attempts to incorporate aspects of orality so that the form of the novel reflects its content. The plot is relatively simple: two Harvard scholars (modelled on Parry and Lord) travel to Albania to record singers of epic poetry in the 1930s. The local townspeople are suspicious, suspecting some sort of espionage, but also intrigued, leading to a series of outrageous situations—the governor of the small town has two spies track Bill and Max, while the governor’s wife imagines a steamy affair with one of them, then the other. After they record a couple of poets in Albanian, a Serbian monk hatches a plan to destroy the tapes. The epic singers fear that if they are recorded, their voices will be “walled up,” and they will no longer be able to sing. On the surface, these are amusing tales, but they get at deeper truths—the paranoia of Enver Hoxha in communist Albania, the appeal of the exotic foreigner, the deep historical and political tensions between Serbia and Albania, and the impact of technology on art, communication, and identity. The plot unfolds as a sort of oral and textual history, with certain parts written from a close third person point of view, while other sections are presented as reports from the spies, newspaper clippings, transcribed dialogue, journal entries, and oral speech as one would see in a filmscript. In this way, Kadare filters his novel through an oral prism—when we are reading, it is almost never “primary” text but frequently a version of “hearsay.” We might read one character’s written summary of what another character said verbally (like a spy report that transcribes overheard dialogue), or it might be speech that Kadare visually presents like a play or filmscript, and that speech might include things the character has overheard from others. It sounds confusing, but when you read it, it’s easy to follow and hugely entertaining; Kadare is a master storyteller who can move between many different registers. Read more »

Sughra Raza. Decay Saturated. Vermont, April, 2017.

Digital photograph.

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by Malcolm Murray

If you in any way follow AI policy, you will likely have heard that the EU AI Act’s Code of Practice (CoP) was released on July 10. This is one of the major developments in AI policy this year. 2025 has otherwise been fairly negative for AI safety and risk – the Paris AI summit in February was all about investments rather than safety, OpenAI now releases model with allegedly only days for testing and we almost had a 10-year moratorium on any US state AI legislation.

This is why it was a relief and a happy surprise to see that the final CoP, and I am here focused on the Safety and Security chapter, which is my domain, ended up being a really, really good document. There are three main reasons why I am excited about the final CoP: the baseline it sets, its risk management nature and the democratic process by which it was created.

An Unavoidable (Positive) Elephant in the Room

It is too early to tell whether we will see the same kind of “Brussels effect” for the AI Act that we saw for other EU legislation, such as GDPR. However, by producing a very strong CoP, the EU has set a very strong foundation. The existence of the CoP now provides an unavoidable baseline to which all future AI regulation and policy will be compared. It introduces an elephant in the room (in a good way), one that companies and countries can’t avoid referencing whenever AI policy is discussed.

The CoP is technically voluntary, but it seems likely that companies will want to sign it, since it is the most straightforward way to comply with the Act and removes much legal uncertainty. The EU has also signaled that they will provide a grace period for signatories before enforcement starts in August 2026, providing another key benefit.

The news that both Mistral and OpenAI plan to sign is a strong signal in this direction. Read more »

by Bonnie McCune

I used to feel depressed when I read those notices in newspapers or chat with others about people’s multiple accomplishments. Compared to me, everyone in the world seems to be a raving success. They publish several novels a year, start businesses, win awards, are asked to speak at conferences and, even more, get paid for it!  They run marathons in their spare time, make the “top ten” list in whatever subject interests them, say cooking or astronomy or cup-stacking competitions.  Even worse, they write, call, email and blog about what they’ve done, to the point I want to avoid meetings and acquaintances, reading my mail, or communicating in any fashion, even smoke signals.

Maybe you’re challenged or energized by such information. Not I. When I was a kid, I fell for the Great American Dream. Anyone can be president or a millionaire, if you just try hard enough. I’ve learned that’s not true. Take my primary interest: writing books. Estimates are completely unreliable but range from 500,000 to a million published annually. I may have owned 10,000 books myself over the course of my life. Realistically, the odds of me or anyone selling tons of books are miniscule. In the realm of fantasy, everyone’s doing it.

I try to tell myself to be realistic, my life is going fine. But the sounds of all these folks beating their own drums and tooting their own horns makes me deaf and discouraged. I have a friend with an even more aggravated sense of inferiority than mine. Take her to a group in which friends mention their thriving children or a promotion on the job, and she refuses to see them again.

A change of attitude seems required. I’ve heard about two studies on the secret to happiness. Read more »