meaning & purpose
On ‘tomorrow sorrow’: How we grieve the future today
Humans have the capacity to grieve the world ahead, knowing how much is going wrong today. But tomorrow sorrow can make us stronger actors.
The deathbed perspective
Reading Time: 4 minutes It’s easy to forget that life is temporary. How would you live differently with that knowledge in front of you?
The longtermism that works—and the kind that doesn’t
Reading Time: 10 minutes In 2004, a tsunami and earthquake killed almost 230,000 people in 14 Indian Ocean countries. Many forms of relief then mouldered on the beaches—used clothes, high heel shoes, expired medicines—because “in-kind” donations are well known not to be effective forms of aid on a g
Eight billion of us: What does that mean?
Reading Time: 4 minutes November 15 is the UN’s estimated date for the eight billionth person to join the living human species. We might have hit that number a few days prior, or a few weeks ago. We might meet it tomorrow, or the day after. But some of we eight billion really like the feel of concre
The end of the world is not what you think
Reading Time: 3 minutes Every year of the calendar, for ages and ages, up to and including this year, religious people have believed the end of the world is coming soon. But the end never comes. I would evince a high degree of vanity to think the end of the world will occur in my life span. The whol
‘Memento Mori’: To live with the prospect of death (Strange New Worlds)
Reading Time: 9 minutes Like any self-respecting Trekkie, I learned the basics of gunpower from Star Trek: The Original Series. One of TOS‘s most memorable scenes comes from “Arena” (Season 1, Episode 18), when Captain Kirk, trapped on a planet with minimal resources, has to use his wits to survive
Dying out loud
A terminal ALS diagnosis led Dave Warnock to a question: Would he spend his remaining time trying to stay alive, or living?