What's Our Problem - Tim Urban - Aashay Mody

Aashay Mody

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What's Our Problem - Tim Urban

Exploring Tim Urban's debut book, "What's Our Problem? a self-help book for societies"

On changing course

This is my last post inspired by the book, What’s Our Problem? a self-help book for societies. You can find all posts from this series here. -- In his book, Tim Urban makes the case that hyper-polarization and many of the socio-cultural challenges we face today result from low-rung

Political Philosophy

On the paradox of tolerance

This post is part of a series on Tim Urban’s book, What’s Our Problem? a self-help book for societies. -- To diagnose the cause of polarization in our society, Urban introduces the concept of "idea supremacy" and the epidemic of social authoritarianism that we are currently

Political Philosophy

On the liberal pyramid

This post is part of a series on Tim Urban’s book, What’s Our Problem? a self-help book for societies. -- In the post on Power Games and Liberal Games, we discussed how the Enlightenment ushered in a new way for human societies to function, with a focus on

Political Psychology

On media polarization

This post is part of a series on Tim Urban’s book, What’s Our Problem? a self-help book for societies. -- To explain our current political environment, Tim Urban posits that human nature is fundamentally constant—we’re just evolved apes often controlled by our limbic system i.e.

Political Philosophy

On Power Games and Liberal Games

This post is part of a series on Tim Urban’s book, What’s Our Problem? a self-help book for societies. -- In the previous post on genies and golems, we explored how Echo Chamber cultures demonstrate tribal, herd mentality while Idea Lab cultures are exemplified by collaborative yet diverse

Political Philosophy

On Thought Piles and Speech Curves

This post is part of a series on Tim Urban’s book, What’s Our Problem? a self-help book for societies. -- To outline the importance of free speech, Tim Urban utilizes the concepts of Thought Piles and Speech Curves. Let’s explore. Each of us has an inner self,

Political Psychology

On low-rung politics (aka Political Disney World)

This post is part of a series on Tim Urban’s book, What’s Our Problem? a self-help book for societies. -- Last week we discussed high-rung politics, based on a culture of intellectual humility and open, nuanced debate. Today, we'll explore low-rung politics, or what Tim Urban

Political Psychology

On high-rung politics

This post is part of a series on Tim Urban’s book, What’s Our Problem? a self-help book for societies. -- In previous posts in this series (see here and here), we distinguished between high-rung intellectual cultures, or Idea Labs, and low-rung intellectual cultures, or Echo Chambers. Now let’

On the Human Era

One of my favorite long-form blogs is Wait But Why, written by Tim Urban. He writes about topics ranging from procrastination to artificial intelligence and cryonics (all worth checking out). I've long admired his ability to simplify complex topics with clear language and quirky yet awesome illustrations. Yesterday,