• To flourish, merge the best of modernity with the best of our ancestral foragers.
  • The modern rebel resists cheap dopamine, relishes silent solitude, and cultivates a long attention span; technology is their slave, not the inverse.
  • Politicians lambast identity politics, then castigate "the Democrats" or "the Republicans."
  • Workaholism: the most undiagnosed psychopathology; a socially-sanctioned addiction to fill an absence of acceptance, meaning, and love.
  • "Breakscreen": the moment at which a black mirror is first consulted - decreasing creativity and increasing anxiety by 50%.
  • The danger of the past was too little information; the present, too much.
  • Treat texts as you used to treat emails - respond, but with a respect for your time and energy.
  • News confuses the anecdote for the enduring.
  • By definition, in anything, half of people will be below average.
  • Benevolent people approach every interaction with the possibility for a positive-sum relationship.
  • Discipline in resisting the dark side of human nature, a hallmark of civilized people.
  • Religion is mostly belief in belief.
  • In a healthy hierarchy, power is earned and assented by those beneath.
  • When people couple up, everything changes for those outside the pair.
  • For race relations, MLK said it best: to judge not by the color of one's skin, but by the content of one's character.  Equal, not better.
  • Identity politics turns the mind to cabbage, a single-outlook perspective free of nuance.  
  • Fear the mob.
  • Much of today’s acute political tribalism is fueled by echo chamber technology - arguable views held by both sides, each talking past each other.
  • Learn history to know who sacrificed for you, and what they sacrificed for; we're living in the best of nation-state times.
  • People fear mobs - and are easily enticed to join them.
  • Equality of opportunity is the goal.
  • Liberate yourself.
  • You can tell the quality of a conversation - and connection - by how often a phone is used.
  • Liberals faulter when confusing the ideal for the real.
  • Too much ambition can kill your relationships.
  • Some people have inevitably stressful, intense jobs (e.g. E.R. doctors, teachers at difficult schools) - they need understanding, and god help their children.
  • The social cost of asshole-dom has drastically decreased with technology.