Taylor Weber > Recent Status Updates

"Without a complete understanding of the platforms' impact, most policies are tit-for-tat responses to crises or problems as they emerge: a viral rumor, a rash of abuse, a riot. Senior employees make a tweak, wait to see what happens, then tweak again, as if repairing an airplane mid-flight."

“… whenever internet access went down in an area with high Facebook use, attacks on refugees dropped significantly. The same drop did not occur, however, when areas with high internet usage but only average Facebook usage suffered an outage, suggesting that the violence-provoking effect was specific to social media, rather than from the internet itself.”

"People, as a rule, perceive out-groups as monoliths. When we see a member of an opposing clan misbehave, we assume this represents them all."

“We think we can easily see into the heart of others based on the flimsiest of clues. We jump at the chance to judge strangers. We would never do that to ourselves, of course. We are nuanced and complex and enigmatic. But the stranger is easy.
If I can convince you of one thing in this book, let it be this: Strangers are not easy.”

“… [The Church] has maintained that if we come to talk of a dangerous environment, the most dangerous environment of all is the commodious environment. I know that the most modern manufacture has been really occupied in trying to produce an abnormally large needle. I know that the most recent biologists have been chiefly anxious to discover a very small camel.”

“Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales; we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough.“

"The pragmatist tells a man to think what he must think and never mind the Absolute. But precisely one of the things that he must think is the Absolute. The philosophy, indeed, is a kind of verbal paradox. Pragmatism is a matter of human needs; and one of the first of human needs is to be something more than a pragmatist."

Attia just explained how gum health, handgrip, exercise, and sleep contribute to reduced risk for Alzheimer’s. These are things I (very generally) learned in school, but I’ve never understood the “why” until now. Medicine 3.0 is awesome.

Continuing to really enjoy this book. I appreciate that Attia is willing to get “in the weeds” with the science / theory backing his argument. It pushes the reader to really seek understanding!

I’m already quoting/referencing several of Attia’s insights to many of my patients. Thankful to read a book steeped in science, and so applicable to my everyday work.

“… the Christian worldview offers a grounding for altruism and a reason to dare to believe that ultimate justice is more than a delusionary longing in the illusionary mind of the collection of atoms you mistakenly call “me.”

“To say that Christianity and Islam or Islam and Hinduism are just two sides of the same truth coin reduces pluralism to a patronizing posture by which we don’t respect others enough to take their beliefs seriously.”