Hearing happens when we’re able to recognize a sound.
Listening happens when we put in the effort to understand what it means
—Seth Godin, Listening is difficult
Quotes
Why FB really loves the first amendment
If it wants to stay this big and unregulated, Facebook cannot afford to upset the rulers of countries where it operates, no matter how abhorrent their actions. We saw that in Myanmar, where military personnel used Facebook to help incite the Rohingya massacres. Now we see it in the US, where Facebook refuses to run afoul of a president who just called in troops to tear gas citizens.
—From The Financial Times, in ‘Facebook and the creation of a US oligarch‘
The copy them all strategy
Teams is particularly effective as a way to prevent a Microsoft customer from even trying Slack. And, in that case, it doesn’t matter how much “love” Slack put into its product: said love was not simply unrequited, but unexperienced.
—The Slack Social Network by Ben Thompson
Might is right, the geopolitical edition
Stalin maintained that if Britain had the right to control the Suez canal regardless of what the Egyptians felt and likewise the United States had the right to control the Panama canal regardless of what the Panamanians felt, then so too did the Soviet Union have the right to control the Turkish straits regardless of what the Turks felt.
—from ‘The percentages agreement‘
Share & understand
You know when you’ve made a serious mistake, right?
Telling someone is a way of objectivising the mistake and gauging how important it is.
— From ‘Le bureau des légendes’, translated from French
TIL: Spanish flu in India
The Spanish flu wiped out 6% of India’s entire population
—The Economist in ‘Covid19 could devastate poor countries‘
What’s the German word for…
sitzfleisch (ZITS–flysh), or “chair glue,” is a German word for the ability to sit through a boring or complex task for a considerable amount of time, however long it takes
—From The Quartz, in ‘This lifehack will change your life—if you can stand it’
There are no critics.
“There are an awful lot of Hindus, I’d guess 40%, who basically dislike Muslims and have no problem at all with this government’s approach,” says an American political scientist of Indian origin, who prefers anonymity (a subclause of the CAA allows the government to strip émigrés of their Overseas Citizen of India status).
—From The Economist, in ‘Narendra Modi’s sectarianism is eroding India’s secular democracy’
Every move is designed to cow opponents and critics into silence—within and without.
Efficiency vs innovation
Total efficiency constrains us. We become super invested in maintaining the status quo because that is where we excel. Innovation is a threat. Change is terrifying. Being perfect at something is dangerous if it’s the only thing you can do.
—The Farnham Street Blog, in ‘Getting Ahead By Being Inefficient’
Write about what you…
People say write about what you know. That’s bullshit. Write about what you don’t want people to know.
—Susan Sarandon’s character in an episode of Mike & Molly
Use my marker 