“You know full well that today is the second day of Christmas, and that there are ten more days to come. In Britain and the Commonwealth countries this is still Boxing Day, a name reflecting the custom of taking around presents and sweets and savories in boxes to persons who might be in need of them. At least, that is the traditional explanation, though some believe the origins go back to the practice of distributing the contents of the alms box to the poor of the parish on the second day of the feast. Whatever the case, it is also the feast of St. Stephen, a day traditionally associated with eleemosynary obligations, at least in ages past. Today, alas, it is observed mostly as a bank holiday, which more and more has come to mean a day of shopping for special deals. You, however, will certainly not give in to these blasphemous practices, I just know it in my heart. You will keep the feast unadulterated and unprofaned. You will wassail and revel, pray and worship, fill boxes with inedible fruitcake for the less fortunate and then force it upon them as your sacred duty and their dismal lot in life. Above all, you will keep your trees alight and spangled till the dark of Twelfth Night. And should any of you think to shirk your duties, remember that Father Christmas is watching you. (That’s an Orwell joke, by the way.)”
“In other words, as soon as you move beyond hard data and facts that can be rigorously verified, you are entering into a realm where you, and like-minded people around you, can talk yourselves into believing almost anything you like to believe. And precisely because you’ve arrived at those conclusions by spelling out what seems like a rational argument, and because you’re surrounded by trustworthy-seeming people nodding their heads and signalling agreement, you feel confident that you’ve fixed beliefs solid enough to act on. It’s a human failing that Peirce identified as long ago as the 1870s, but I think that social media amplifies it.”
“It turns out that getting fans to pay for music has no necessary connection to getting musicians paid. Vocational awe means that the fact that someone has induced a musician to make music doesn’t mean that the musician is getting a fair share of what you pay for music. The same goes for every kind of art, and every field where vocational awe plays a role, from nursing to librarianship.”
“People don’t really know about these Cabinet picks because average Americans just aren’t as read-in to the news as they once were. They watch the news on their phones in 30-second snippets. If they read, it’s headlines and social media posts, maybe. So they know, probably, that Trump nominated Dr. Oz to something or other. But do they know that he has a roughly $30 million financial stake in companies that will be doing business with the very Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that he is probably going to lead? I very much doubt it.”