Harari is giving Ayn Rand vibes and other thoughts #3

Harari and Rand: This is how my week of media consumption started: watching a once-respected author known for his harmless, albeit intellectually shallow book (Sapiens), who has now descended into full-on quackery (which started with Homo Deus). This transformation is being eagerly embraced by his legion of followers. It reminded me of Ayn Rand. Is Harari giving Randian vibes? A materialistic, reductionist view of the world, informed and biased by their own trauma, which seems to be influencing or rather infecting the thoughts of a tribe of people who happen to have an oversized influence on the world.

I am still reading the book on her, as I promised last week - the takeaway deserves its own essay - which will come out this week.

Byung Chul Han and Productivity Cults: After enduring those 90 seconds of thermonuclear intellectual garbage, I found some comfort in the sanity and clarity of Byung Chul Han. I am slowly becoming obsessed with his work—this short podcast about him serves as a nice primer into his worldview.

Because when you tell somebody that it’s their job to define themselves through themselves…without any sort of outside help…when you make somebody the sole arbiter of creating the standards …there’s only one direction to go when you’re constantly looking inward like that…and to Han that direction is gonna be Narcissism.

Absolute gold. Also related below - this image is giving 'transcend through productivity' and Han will agree.

Introverts Winning, Society Losing: Here is the first alarming and yet totally understandable chart from this week. As the article rightly points out that in the long term 'The result could be a decline in mental health and social cohesion'.

I miss the summer when 'We Outside' was the rage. Currently 'We inside' is the trend and that doesn't bode well for the already fractured society we live in.

Also why Wall-E wasn't fiction. It was a prophecy.

Ideological Gender Divide: In the second alarming chart of the week, The Financial Times reported on the ever-widening ideological gap between young men and women. South Korea serves as a warning sign from the future for everyone who prefers a cohesive society over a fractured one.

Korea’s is an extreme situation, but it serves as a warning to other countries of what can happen when young men and women part ways. Its society is riven in two. Its marriage rate has plummeted, and birth rate has fallen precipitously, dropping to 0.78 births per woman in 2022, the lowest of any country in the world.

One of the most prominent thinkers on this topic is Alice Evans. She unpacks it with piercing data and accompanying insights to tell us why this is happening. She also offers possible solutions, and surprise surprise - 'Being Inside' is not one of them.

What Prevents & What Drives Gendered Ideological Polarisation?

Across much of the world, men and women think alike. However, in countries that are economically developed and culturally liberal, young men and women are polarising. As chronicled by John Burn-Murdoch, young women are increasingly likely to identify as ‘progressives’ and vote for leftists, while young men remain more

The Great Gender DivergenceAlice Evans

A Gen Z take on the topic and a rather illuminating one

And I believe the apparently contradictory observations from above can be explained by a simple idea: women and men are becoming more and more polarised not on classical Republican vs Democrat substantive police issues (e.g. gun control) as much as on “aesthetic”, cultural issues. It’s all about VIBES. 

Political polarisation by gender: a matter of aesthetics?

In which I opine on the origins and nature of the growing gender polarisation and sketch a vision of a very grim future, one in which we’ll have to choose between The Longhouse and The Gooncave

Ruxandra’s SubstackRuxandra Teslo

A rational take on why Barbie was not nominated and not an ideological one. We don't need the gender gap to widen more now, do we.

The Oscars Are Confused About “Barbie”

In snubbing the film’s central voices—Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie—the Academy continues its tense relationship with blockbusters.

The New YorkerCondé Nast

Seeking Coherence is our natural state - and as the two charts from earlier suggest, it's going to a key goal for our future.

Is it possible to hold truly contradictory beliefs together? | Aeon Essays

We can all be inconsistent. Philosophy illuminates a bigger puzzle: how do we hold contradictory beliefs at the same time?

Aeon Magazine

On Regrets - I am back with a Sherry post because this insight on regrets truly resonated with me this week.

Isn’t regret just a present decision to be unhappy about a past attempt to be happy?

Ramble #1: Living with Regrets

Plus my irrational fear of aging and thoughts on Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist”

PluripotentSherry Ning

See you next week.