Long gone are the days when the Internet was a fun novelty that we could choose to use or not. We don't experience childlike joy each morning when we see it up and running, but we certainly panic if it's down. That's because the Internet has sunk into the foundations of our life as infrastructure, without which we are now disabled. It doesn't guarantee security, or - in itself - make any of us joyful or empowered. Having the Internet, or electricity, or a smartphone, simply means each of us gets to fight another day, and to not be left behind by all the others trying to claw their way to illusory security in an ever-changing market.
Loosely related: Seattle, like NYC, has just elected a young progressive mayor. Her name is Katie Wilson, and the weirdest thing about the campaign was that the incumbent made an issue of Wilson's mother paying for daycare for Wilson's daughter. It's weird because under what value system is this bad? Not conservatism. Conservatives love the family and are all about family members helping each other out, so that the government doesn't have to. Meanwhile liberals want the government to help people out so that we're not dependent on family.
What value system is opposed to both government, and the family, helping people out? Capitalism, because if we're all atomized individuals, we all have to work in the Amazon warehouse in the holy project of sucking all the money to the top of the pyramid and calling it growth.
What was new, Weber thought, was the moral stance: that working hard, living frugally and accumulating wealth weren't just practical skills for succeeding, but inherently virtuous forms of behaviour.... Over time, these behaviours detached from their religious roots. You didn't need to believe in predestination to feel the drive to work endlessly, or to prove your value through success. The idea of a "calling" lingered on, but hollowed out. Eventually, it looked less like a vocation than an obligation.... Weber's point was that the moral energy that once drove the Protestant ethic has drained away. What remains are mere behavioural patterns, which have become reflexes. People still work obsessively; they still chase success as if it had ultimate meaning. The difference is that now they're unsure why.
Two more stray links. This strange phenomenon could unlock the secrets of the mind. It's about feeling a sense of awareness "without thoughts, images or even a sense of self." You can find it in ancient philosophy, and now researchers are finding it in sleep studies.
And a cool thread from the Ask Historians subreddit, about Ninjas and what they were really like. "Ninja to samurai are what Special Forces units are to the regular infantry today." Only low-level ninjas were assassins. Mostly they were spies and scouts. There's also some stuff about Kunoichi, or female ninjas.