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Code is everywhere. Code, as much as electricity itself, powers the electric grid that keeps our society operating. It also runs like an underground river through every system in our lives.

It’s natural to make decisions based on what other people are doing. We are incredibly social creatures.

It’s much easier to evangelize people you already know – or, more accurately, people who already know you. The process of building such social connections is called schmoozing.

Socially acceptable excuses are the truths about our time that in a traditional work environment we dare not utter.

When we remove the barrier between socially acceptable and socially unacceptable uses of time, then people have control over their lives.

Evolutionary psychologists argue that ethnocentrism… aids survival by strengthening your bonds to your primary social groups and thus increasing your willingness to work, fight, and occasionally die for them.

…when the function of the domain becomes perverted, the profession loses much of its social mandate and its members become demoralized.

However defined and however cultivated, intellectual capacities are becoming the traits most rewarded by society and, therefore, most adaptive.

…news coverage that is biased, distorted, or incomplete undermines the capacities of societies to flourish and robs individuals of the capacity to adapt purposively to changing conditions.

The difficult choices we must make in the future may be impossible to make unless our society develops a common set of priorities, or shared set of values, that will justify the sacrifices that wise choices often entail in the short run.