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Don’t waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.

Paulo Coelho (via z-philosophy)

(via Your Brain on Beer Vs Coffee)

Americans are continuing to read books at high levels: 73% of adults say they have read a book in the past year. 

And when people reach for a book, it is much more likely to be a traditional print book than a digital product. Fully 65% of Americans have read a print book in the last year, more than double the share that has read an e-book (28%) and more than four times the share that has consumed book content via audio books (14%).

Book Reading 2016

Watch Powerful Spoken Word Poem “Black Joke” By Taylor Steele

In her poem “Black Joke” poet Taylor Steele highlights the most common jokes White people throw at Black people. She perfectly explains how unthoughtful it is of people to say such things and how an intention to come off as funny turns you into a racist. Next time you come up with a witty remark, think twice before letting unwholesome word proceed from your mouth.

Full poem

#BlackLivesMatter

Elegant Resin Rings with Gold & Silver Encapsulated Flakes

Indie boutique French located in the island commune in Normandy called Daimblond (previously featured here) composes stunning and elegant resin rings with gold and silver flakes inside each design. The rings come in two sizes, one is a dainty thin band, while the other is a larger cocktail statement ring.

Made from eco-friendly, high-quality resin, the transparent rings are meant to be used in a stackable form, which truly highlights their beauty on the hand. The pieces, which are handmade are unique, and no one ring is exactly the same to another. You can find more designs on their Etsy shop.

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Dragon Jewelry That’ll Make You Feel Like The Mother Of Dragons by Aelia Petro

Canadian graphic artist Aelia Petro prides herself in constructing unique jewelry inspired by high fantasy and one of our favorite mythical creatures the dragon. The handmade pieces are composed of polymer play, entirely sculpted by hand and hand painted.

The dragon draped necklaces give us serious Game of Throne and Daenerys/Khaleesi vibes. You can find other jewelry items, including bracelets, rings, hair clips, brooches and magnets in her Etsy shop.

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Now that we’ve left behind the philosophy of religion, it’s time to start exploring what other ways might exist to find meaning in the world. Today we explore essentialism and its response: existentialism. We’ll also learn about Jean-Paul Sartre and his ideas about how to find meaning in a meaningless world.

Keep reading

This is still—and may always be—the ultimate example of right-wing hypocrisy.

Richard Feynman (above) included a poem in his address to the National Academy of Sciences:

I stand at the seashore, alone, and start to think. 

There are the rushing waves mountains of molecules each stupidly minding its own business trillions apart yet forming white surf in unison Ages on ages before any eyes could see year after year thunderously pounding the shore as now. For whom, for what? On a dead planet with no life to entertain. Never at rest tortured by energy wasted prodigiously by the Sun poured into space. A mite makes the sea roar. Deep in the sea all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves and a new dance starts. Growing in size and complexity living things masses of atoms DNA, protein dancing a pattern ever more intricate. Out of the cradle onto dry land here it is standing: atoms with consciousness; matter with curiosity. Stands at the sea, wonders at wondering: I a universe of atoms an atom in the Universe.

Image source

The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato. Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies