FT on the transformative power of games: “Why have humans played games in their homes for millennia? Besides being fun, they promote togetherness, mental agility and emotional release.”
David Brooks: “[T]o lead a worthy life, you sort of have to have three projects or three accomplishments. One is to be in internal harmony with yourself. And that’s to do the practices that will elevate you. I like reading spiritual books as my way to get my insides elevated rather than degraded. The second is to be in harmony with others. And I think the crucial skill there is the ability to see people and understand them and make them feel that they’ve been considered, heard and understood. And then the final thing is to commit to some great loves, to fall in love with great things and really commit to them. My definition of a commitment is falling in love with something, and then building a structure of behavior around it for those moments when love falters…And so it’s those commitments which tend to be like commitments to a vocation, commitment to a family, commitment to a philosophy or faith, and commitments to a community, a place. And so those are like the three lanes, what I would think of, of a worthy life.”
Economist on quadratic voting: ” In its simplest version, each voter would be given a budget of “marks” as Carroll might call them or “voice credits” as Mr Weyl calls them. Voters could use these credits to “buy” votes for a candidate or proposal. The first vote for a candidate costs one credit. But casting two votes for a single candidate costs four credits (ie, two squared); casting three costs nine (three squared), and so on. Under this scheme, people buy votes with their credits just as countries “earn” votes with their populations in Penrose’s imagined assembly. In both cases, the aim is to give voters as much sway as their population or passion warrants. But no more so.”
