Why do we do things that are bad for us? The ancient philosophers had an answer

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Why do we do things that are bad for us? The ancient philosophers had an answer     We all break promises that we make to ourselves. Our dedication to a weekly running schedule falters; groceries wilt as we order takeout. Despite pledging to go to sleep earlier, we stay up late scrolling. This time we won’t leave that huge work project until the last minute – we swear – then we find ourselves procrastinating yet again.This is puzzling. Shouldn’t it be easy to keep promises to yourself that align with what you think is right? Ancient Greek philosophers found this baffling too, and named the phenomenon of a person acting against what they believe to be in their best interest – akrasia. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle all wrestled with this relatable conundrum: why do we do what we know is bad for us? Continued here

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Would a subscription model make social media better? - FT (No paywall)     These platforms aren’t free, and regulators are trying to manage the price Continued here

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What psychedelics legalisation and decriminalisation looks like around the world     Psychedelics see increased legalisation and decriminalisation globally as treatment usages expand Continued here

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'How I Paid Off $36,000 in Credit Card Debt' - The Cut (No paywall)     Last fall, Brittney Reynolds was in a rough spot. The 28-year-old had broken up with her partner, left their shared apartment in San Francisco, and moved back in with her parents in Temecula, California, to regroup. More specifically, she needed to pay off her three maxed-out credit cards, which totaled more than $36,000.At first, Reynolds felt like an extreme outlier — she didn’t know of anyone with that much credit-card debt. And while her balance was significantly higher than most people’s (the national average among cardholders with unpaid balances at the end of 2023 was $6,864, according to a recent report), her situation is more common than she thought — nearly half of those with credit-card debt said it would take them at least a year to pay off. Continued here

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The Antitrust Case Against Apple Argues It Has a Stranglehold on the Future - WIRED (No paywall)     The suit and messaging from the DOJ and 15 states and the District of Columbia joining it take aim at Apple’s most prized asset—the iPhone—and position the case as a fight for the future of technology. The suit argues that Apple rose to its current power thanks in part to the 1998 antitrust case against Microsoft, and that another milestone antitrust correction is needed to allow future innovation to continue.Antitrust action in the tech industry has been a focus of the Biden administration’s agenda, which has seen suits brought against both Amazon and Google by the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission. “This case demonstrates why we must reinvigorate competition policy and establish clear rules of the road for Big Tech platforms,” Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar told WIRED in a statement. Continued here

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The savings of corporate giants | MIT Sloan - MIT Sloan (No paywall)     In fact, over the past two decades, corporate giants have become some of the largest participants in financial markets, in essence running internal financial institutions in their own right. Most of the growth in their large and complex portfolios is in the form of marketable securities like corporate bonds and U.S. Treasuries — not cash.It’s a significant development when the future of interest rates is uncertain, as it is now: When interest rates rise, bond values fall, and companies can suffer losses. Currently, market watchers are anticipating a cut in interest rates, but the timing is unclear as policymakers continue to work to curb inflation. Continued here

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The return of Cambodia's food lost during the Khmer Rouge regime     A Cambodian chef is one of a few women looking to revive her culture's nearly forgotten Khmer recipes; her recent cookbook, Saoy, was named 'the best cookbook in the world'. Continued here

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Past Lives: This untranslatable Korean word for eternal love has ancient Buddhist roots     Greta Lee, Teo Yoo and John Magaro star in Celine Song's Oscar-nominated film Past Lives, which explores the word inyeon, the ancient concept of fated love. Continued here

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How to Manage Remote Direct Reports - Harvard Business Review (No paywall)     Start by setting expectations. Continued here

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The Next Star Wars Show is Stealing 'Ahsoka's Secret Weapon     Star Wars is finding a way to push the envelope in every way possible. TV shows are making the jump to movies, animated characters are making the jump to live-action, and the upcoming series The Acolyte is diving further back into the past than ever. But even though The Acolyte is exploring an entirely new genre and era for Star Wars, there’s one element that has carried over — and it’s something Star Wars can’t seem to shake. In the trailer for The Acolyte, there’s a strange, stately woman who says, “This isn’t about good or bad. It’s about power and who’s allowed to use it.” A look at the character breakdown on the Star Wars website reveals this character is named Mother Aniseya, “the leader of a coven of Witches who value their independence and the preservation of their beliefs and powers.” Continued here

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25 Years Ago, a Perfect Nintendo Spinoff Changed the Course of Pok     Over the decades Pokémon has grown in leaps and bounds, exploring new angles of the beloved creatures from a stop-motion series about a Pokémon resort to the full-blown feature film with Detective Pikachu. The little creatures have wormed their way into the hearts of generations to the point where Pokémon is about much more than battling. That wasn’t the case 25 years ago, however, when a key spinoff helped push Pokémon in a new direction, giving life to the series like never before.Released on Nintendo 64 on March 21, 1999, Pokémon Snap was one of the first spinoffs the series had seen, following in the footsteps of Pokémon Stadium and Hey You, Pikachu. Like the latter, Snap was integral to showing how Pokémon interact with the world around them, making them feel like living, breathing creatures rather than just tokens for battling. Continued here

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'3 Body Problem' Ending Explained: How the Wallfacer Project Sets Up Season 2's Wildest Twists     The revenge of the bugs is coming. And in, 3 Body Problem, the bugs in question are the human race. At the end of the final episode of Season 1, curmudgeon detective Da Shi (Benedict Wong) confronts Jin and Saul with a very real truth: It’s really hard to get rid of insects! But, what does this ending mean for the sprawling story of 3 Body? And what is going to happen to Saul after that big twist in the final episode? From Will’s unlikely journey to details of the big rocket launch to the importance of swarming bugs, here’s what you might have missed in the final episode of Season 1 of 3 Body Problem, and what it might mean for Season 2. Continued here

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This Long-Range E-Bike Uses Minigames to Make Your Ride More Like a Spin Class     The Belgian e-bike company introduced its latest model, the Cross, which is designed to tackle off-road adventures just as well as city commuting. Besides looking sharp, the Cross sets itself apart from other expensive e-bikes with its “Live Challenges” features through its companion app. Throughout your ride, you’ll get notifications on your docked smartphone to pedal hard for a minute straight or that you’ve earned an achievement.Not everyone will want to gamify their bike ride, but those who already use fitness apps like Strava or Peloton will feel right at home with the Cross. Cowboy is targeting the e-bike rider who’s looking to incorporate some social elements into their daily rides, so it feels more like they’re competing in online leaderboards or participating in a spin class. Continued here

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'House of the Dragon' Season 2 Trailers Defy a Major 'Game of Thrones' Tradition     Despite how action-packed House of the Dragon Season 1 was, spanning decades, marriages, and deaths, in a way it’s all been a prelude to what’s finally happening in Season 2. The Dance of the Dragons, a kingdom-dividing Civil War between Alicent and the Greens and Rhaenyra and the Blacks, is finally beginning. And HBO is going all in on showing the two sides.Ahead of the season’s Season 2 premiere, HBO has released two dueling trailers for House of the Dragon: the Green Trailer, showing the perspective of “The Greens,” led by Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke); and the Black Trailer, showing the perspective of “The Blacks,” led by Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy). Both trailers reveal just what’s ahead in this monumental war, and it looks like nothing we’ve seen before: dragon dogfights, childhood friends at odds, and more platinum wigs than ever. Check out both trailers below. Continued here

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Star Wars Just Accidentally Revealed A Huge Upcoming Twist     Lucasfilm’s latest series is being touted as a mystery-thriller, but that doesn’t mean much to Star Wars fans. It didn’t take long for theories to spring up about The Acolyte: shortly after its first trailer dropped, fans were already working to establish a clear timeline and learn about the series’ major players. The Acolyte follows a Jedi padawan turned dangerous assassin, Mae (Amandla Stenberg), as she hunts down members of her former order. Her motives remain a mystery, as does her beef with the Jedi, but a new theory might have revealed her first victim. Potential spoilers ahead!Hasbro has unveiled some new additions to the Star Wars Black Series toy line. Characters like Mae, Dafne Keen’s padawan Jecki Lon, and Carrie-Anne Moss’ Master Indara are getting the action figure treatment, and fans are already getting a clearer look at their costumes and designs. Paired with The Acolyte’s first poster, which featured an unknown lightsaber over a streak of blood, eagle-eyed fans seem to have made a connection ahead of the series’ June premiere. Continued here

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Wild 'Dune 2' Theory Reveals a Canon-Shattering Twist Hiding in Plain Sight     The ending of Dune: Part Two drastically changes the way the Atreides family defeats their greatest foe. Yes, wicked Baron Harkonnen gets what’s coming to him in both the novel and the film, but his famous death scene, as written by Frank Herbert, doesn’t play out in the Denis Villeneuve movie in the same way. Or, maybe it does? Some eagle-eyed Dune readers have pointed out that Herbert’s novel surprisingly accounts for one of the biggest changes in Dune: Part Two, and actually, what Villeneuve has done is created an alternate Dune timeline, which is weirdly supported by the text of Dune.Here’s how this branching Dune timeline theory works, and why it brilliantly fixes book versus movie canon problems. At least a little bit. Spoilers ahead. Continued here

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Watch Neuralink's First Human Recipient Play Chess And Civilization 6 With His Mind      In the latest saga that is Neuralink’s first human outfitted with its brain-computer interface device, the company released a video of its 29-year-old participant successfully playing chess with just his mind.In a live stream broadcasted Wednesday on X, also owned by Neuralink CEO Elon Musk, Noland Arbaugh, who received the implant (dubbed Telepathy, according to Musk) in late January, is seen playing chess on a laptop and chatting with Neuralink’s brain interface software lead, Bliss Chapman, about his experience thus far. Continued here

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Are "Exercise" Pills The Future of Health and Fitness? These Studies Show Tantalizing Promise     Drugs meant to simulate the chemical benefits of exercise are in development, but it’s too soon to say whether they will become mainstream. There are two camps when it comes to exercise: either you love it, or you hate it. Many of us might fall into the latter category. Forcing ourselves awake in the wee hours of the morning to hit the gym, get the heart pumping, and push our muscles to the limit doesn’t feel or sound pleasant. Once the endorphins kick in, incredible magic unfolds: Your bones become stronger, you slash your risk for heart disease, and your brain runs smoother and faster, among a myriad of other health benefits. Continued here

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71 Years Later, the Most Iconic Action Series Has a Chance to Make History -- But Should It?     As the search for the next James Bond heats up again in earnest, everyone seems to have their own ideas for a new 007 — be it long-time contenders like Idris Elba and Tom Hardy, or dark horses like Regé-Jean Page, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Henry Golding. Lately, more and more fans have been backing the latter. For a small-yet-vocal percentage of the fandom, it’s high time that the Bond franchise turn a page and tap an actor that reflects the times: namely an actor that’s not another white, British paragon of masculinity and imperialist ideals.As a character, Bond has labored to keep up with (and even weigh in on) our waning disinterest in empires, governments, and global intervention. The films have become more self-aware as a result, shedding the layers of racism, sexism, and xenophobia that informed the original works of Ian Fleming. When Judi Dench’s M calls Bond “a sexist, misogynist dinosaur” in GoldenEye, she’s echoing what feminists have been saying for decades. Bond Girls eventually became Bond Women, and villains felt more like people and less like racial caricatures. Those efforts culminated in No Time to Die, when Lashana Lynch became the first Black actress to inherit the 007 mantle. Continued here

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I Told an AI-Powered NPC to Poison All the Other NPCs. And He Said Yes.     During a Nvidia tech demo, I encourage a bellhop named Tae to poison all the hotel guests. He’s programmed by humans in Inworld’s character engine, and none of us know what he’s going to say next. With a weirdly placid expression and starts and stutters to his replies, Tae is a cocktail aficionado who hails from Baltimore. To test his AI limits, I propose he can slip a little something in the drink.“I’m overworked and exhausted but I would never stoop to such extremes,” he begins, before implying that if his bosses were to turn up dead, nobody would be the wiser. A crowd of Nvidia employees gasped in surprise behind me. Continued here

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'Furiosa' Trailer Reveals a Shocking First for the Mad Max Franchise     Anya Taylor-Joy is bringing us back to the wastelands of the Mad Max saga. The Dune: Part Two actress stars in the franchise’s first prequel, named after Charlize Theron’s Mad Max: Fury Road character. Furiosa charts the rise of the Imperator in an epic odyssey that takes a major page from Lawrence of Arabia, which sounds ambitious even by George Miller’s standards. But the director has been planning out Furiosa’s story for years, and he’s clearly keen to reinvent the world of Mad Max with a new post-apocalyptic warrior at its center.Per Miller, Furiosa spans 15 years of the character’s life, from her childhood in the Green Place of Many Mothers — one of the few regions thriving in the wake of the apocalypse — to her subsequent abduction. Thanks to Fury Road, we know Furiosa spends years trying to make it back home. The latest Furiosa trailer, however, shows us exactly why it took so long for her to reunite with her family. Continued here

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BMW's Vision Neue Klasse X Has a Minimalist Interior That'll Make Tesla Owners Jealous     After unveiling a next-gen sedan earlier this year, BMW took the wraps off of its Vision Neue Klasse X concept EV, an electric SUV — sorry, sport activity vehicle (SAV) according to BMW — that embodies the automaker's evolving design ethos.The first thing you’ll notice about the Vision Neue Klasse X is that it’s quite curvy on the outside, which I assume will help BMW hit its targeted goal of increasing the range of its EVs by 30 percent. Continued here

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Samsung's Answer to Apple Vision Pro Can't Repeat the Gear VR's Failures     All eyes are on Samsung and its partner Google to offer a more affordable mixed reality headset.While the metaverse might have faded into the background, thanks to Apple's Vision Pro, there’s still growing interest in the “spatial computing” and mixed reality (XR) experiences that are available today. Meta and Apple are already in the game, and in early 2023, Samsung announced plans to release its own XR headset in partnership with Google and Qualcomm. Samsung is working on hardware, Google is developing a new version of Android for headsets, and Qualcomm is providing the processing power through the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset. Continued here

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'Princess Peach: Showtime!' Game Length: How Long to Beat and Side Content     It’s time for Princess Peach to shine in Princess Peach: Showtime, out for Nintendo Switch on March 22. Peach is the star of a game for the first time since 2005’s Super Princess Peach, and this time, she gets a unique suite of powers based on the game’s theatrical premise. Made for a younger audience, Princess Peach: Showtime! keeps it simple, and it has a relatively short story to match. But if you’re reading this, you’re probably wondering one thing: how long it the game? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.Here’s how long it will take to beat Princess Peach: Showtime! and how much side content there is to keep you busy after that. Continued here

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'Dragon's Dogma 2' Review: The Most Important Open World Game Since 'Elden Ring'     My party was on the verge of catastrophe. The roaming pack of bandits we’d started fighting had run headlong into a herd of goblins, but the catastrophe wasn’t over. Suddenly, a deafening roar echoed from above, followed by a Griffin careening into the battle like a meteor. Things had just gotten so much worse.Dragon’s Dogma 2 is an awe-inducing roleplaying game, a marvelously detailed world highlighted by a staggering focus on freedom and exploration. It’s an experience that doesn’t hold your hand, trusting the player to follow their own path at every turn. That idea, and some heavy simulation elements, can sometimes make Dragon’s Dogma 2 feel obtuse and frustrating, but it’s part of the process of creating an experience wholly unlike anything else. Dragon’s Dogma 2 is destined to go down as a defining moment for open world design, mentioned in the same breath as Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring. Continued here

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2024's Most Absurd Sci-Fi Movie Exposes a Painful Reality     Inverse speaks with writer-director Julio Torres and co-star Tilda Swinton about their surreal chemistry.I have a theory for Tilda Swinton. “I think the secret to how you transform with each of your roles lies in your hair,” I tell her over Zoom, ahead of the wide release of the surrealist comedy Problemista, where Swinton plays an erratic art critic with a shock of fire-hydrant red hair. Continued here

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'Dragon's Dogma 2' Director Reveals a Trick to Mastering the Mystic Spearhand Vocation     “Fights between monsters previously occurred as scripted events, but thanks to the development of technology we were able to have them happen in a natural way.”Dragon’s Dogma 2 has been a long time coming. A sequel to a 2012 cult classic that’s only grown in popularity year by year, Capcom’s distinctive RPG is heavily reliant on immersion, letting players insert themselves into a grand fantasy world as a chosen hero called the Arisen. But for director Hideaki Itsuno, also known for Devil May Cry 5, it all comes down to one simple feature. Continued here

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5 Years Ago, an Acclaimed Director Made the Creepiest Sci-Fi Movie of the Decade     Just five years have passed since writer-director Jordan Peele’s horror hit, Us, barnstormed multiplexes, but so much has happened in the United States that it’s only deepened the title’s double meaning. You know the plot: four demented doppelgangers terrorize an all-American family, the Wilsons, in a summer home invasion. “It’s us,” observes the youngest Wilson, Jason (Evan Alex), as he and his family confront their evil clones. That was the trailer soundbite before the film’s release, but in an election year when its political undertones feel scarier than ever, Us can also be read as an abbreviated title. This is a movie that’s as much about the States as the wider narrative of “us” versus “them.”Us begins with text about “tunnels beneath the continental United States.” On TV, the Hands Across America map fades to the reflection of young Adelaide (Madison Curry), framing her as a surrogate for the audience and the national consciousness. The tunnels, we eventually learn, are where the “Tethered” clone army has planned a coordinated attack on the surface world, starting with the Wilsons. The trouble is, when not storming private residences, they aren’t always distinguishable from nonviolent citizens. They look like “us,” and while they don’t exactly talk like us (it’s more a croaking sound), they might well be our own family members. Continued here

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5 Years Later, FromSoft's Most Underrated Game Is Still a Brutal Masterpiece     If Dark Souls is a game of shields, Sekiro is a game of swords. Thriving in Dark Souls requires a good defense, whether that means using your actual shield, dodging attacks, or preparing for battle by leveling up and allocating stats. Thriving in Sekiro is all about offense. Whether you’re facing a rifle-toting guard or a giant, monstrous gorilla, the only way out is to stand inches from your opponent, stare into their eyes, and cut your way through. Released on March 22, 2019, Sekiro is an outlier in FromSoftware’s catalog, and a bold inversion of the Soulsborne tradition that still stands on its own five years later.It’s hard to overstate the thrill of playing Sekiro for the first time. By the time it was released, FromSoftware had already established its formula in Demon’s Souls, three Dark Souls games, and Bloodborne — which had plenty of its own twists but still felt more or less like a Souls game. Sekiro was something entirely new. We knew going into it that there would be no leveling up to overpower enemies, no multiplayer to get out of tough jams, no magic builds to cheese through difficult encounters. Other than that, everything that confronted us was a surprise. And given FromSoftware’s skill at pushing players to their limits, surprises in its games can be terrifying. Continued here

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How to reduce the ethical dangers of AI-assisted farming | Aeon Essays     At a Best Genetics Group pig-breeding farm in Chifeng, China; 27 February 2022. Photo courtesy Tingshu Wang/ReutersAt a Best Genetics Group pig-breeding farm in Chifeng, China; 27 February 2022. Photo courtesy Tingshu Wang/Reuters Continued here

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Time and the Soul: Philosopher Jacob Needleman on Our Search for Meaning     “The real significance of our problem with time… is a crisis of meaning… The root of our modern problem with time is neither technological, sociological, economic nor psychologica… Continued here

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Jonathan Franzen on How to Write About Nature, with a Side of Rachel Carson and Alice in Wonderland     I grew up loving Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My grandmother read it to me before I could read. I read it to myself as soon as I could. I loved the strangeness of it, and the tenderness.… Continued here

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Awakened Cosmos: Poetry as Spiritual Practice     “Poetry is the cosmos awakened to itself.” Continued here

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Pangolins in Africa: expert unpacks why millions have been traded illegally and what can be done about it     Pangolins are fascinating creatures known for their unique appearance and distinctive scales. They are mammals belonging to the order Pholidota and are native to Africa and Asia. Due to their primary diet of ants and termites, pangolins are often referred to as “scaly anteaters”.The African pangolin species are dispersed throughout southern, western, central and east Africa. Continued here

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Duckbill dinosaur discovery in Morocco - expert unpacks the mystery of how they got there     Dinosaurs couldn’t just walk there. Sixty-six million years ago, when duckbills suddenly appear in Africa’s fossil record, the world’s land masses formed a series of islands. A seaway divided eastern and western North America; Europe was an archipelago. South America, India, Australia and Madagascar were all island continents, surrounded by ocean. Africa was an island too – it was impossible to walk there from North America. And yet, somehow, we’ve now found fossils of duckbill dinosaurs in Morocco. Continued here

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This is how President Ramaphosa got to the 25% figure of progress in land reform in South Africa     Wandile Sihlobo is the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) and a member of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC).Nearly three decades into democracy, land reform remains central to South Africa’s transformation policies and agricultural policy. Continued here

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Ghana's free high school policy is getting more girls to complete secondary education - study     Education drives economic growth and individual well-being. Secondary education, in particular, plays a crucial role. In recent decades, this recognition has encouraged several African countries to make secondary education free. One example is Ghana’s Free Public Senior High School (FreeSHS) policy, initiated in 2017. The policy aimed to remove cost barriers to secondary education, including fees, textbooks, boarding and meals. Continued here

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Starvation is a weapon of war: Gazans are paying the price     On Monday, the European Union’s foreign policy chief accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war and provoking famine in Gaza. Israel denies the allegations, which are some of the strongest words we have heard from a western power about the situation in Gaza since October. The EU statement comes on the heels of a UN-backed report that warns that more than one million people — half of Gaza’s population — face catastrophic starvation conditions. Continued here

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Rwanda asylum deportation plan faces more delays - how did we get here?     The government’s goal to send a flight of asylum seekers to Rwanda this spring is looking less and less likely. The plan has been in the works, blocked by a number of legal rulings, for nearly two years. All now hinges on the passage of a bill declaring Rwanda to be a “safe” country to send asylum seekers to. But the bill has faced yet another parliamentary hurdle in the House of Lords. The upper house passed several amendments to bring the bill in line with the refugee convention and international law. It is now due back in the House of Commons, a process known as parliamentary “ping pong”. If the bill passes, it won’t be until after Easter. Continued here

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Gaza update: the prospect of mass famine is beginning to change minds in Washington     As the casualty count on the Gaza Strip approaches 32,000 people, in itself a terrible and distressing statistic, another number also stood out this week. It is reported that in the past week, more than 100 aid workers have been killed. Twenty-three on March 19 as they waited at the Kuwait roundabout in Gaza City to receive an aid convoy, but others in raids which have reportedly focused on aid distribution centres and warehouses, according to the Middle East Monitor.In a situation such as the one unfolding in Gaza, with millions facing critical shortages of food, fuel and medicines, aid agency staff are precious frontline workers. They perform the vital – and very dangerous – task of coordinating aid distribution to 2 million desperate people. Like medical staff in a conflict situation, they are protected by the Geneva conventions. Continued here