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The average IQ was increasing year over year until about 2010, when it started declining. One popular hypothesis is the simultaneous decline of print and the increase in short-form and video content that decreases deep thinking.

A really significant feature of books is that if you make a case in print, you have to make it logically add up. You can’t just assert things in the way you can on TikTok or on YouTube… print privileges a whole way of thinking and a whole way of processing the world that is logical, that is more rational, that is more dense information, that is more intellectually challenging.

There's a persistent belief in the tech world, particularly in AI, that the human brain is basically a computer and that once we figure out how it stores and processes information, we'll be able to upload our consciousness to the cloud.

This has always seemed quite reductive to me. As Douglas Rushkoff would say, "What about the squishy bits?"

Anyway, this fascinating article by a senior research psychologist describes how the brain changes in response to experiences rather than simply storing data in a specific group of neurons.

Are you old enough to remember these? You couldn't visit a web page back in the day without seeing at least one.

Antoinism is a religion that was created in 1910 by a metal worker called Louis-Joseph Antoine from the Liège region of Belgium. Membership is declining sharply, and only 10 temples are left. Most of their temples have been converted to housing. I've walked past one of them a few times and always wondered what the inside was like. This article follows one of their "healers" and gives a fascinating insight into a dying cult.