Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
What makes a communications technology revolutionary? One answer to this is to ask whether it fundamentally changes the way society is organized. This can be a very hard question to answer, because …
In 1923 the Lebanese-American artist, poet, and philosopher Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) published his masterpiece, The Prophet, which endures as a timeless classic meditation on living. The essence of …
At Farnam Street we believe in the idea that a multidisciplinary approach to big ideas is the best way to form a deeper understanding. Some concepts will intuitively lend themselves to this type of …
Few people know the details about one of the greatest stories in sports history. A classic David versus Goliath story that happened at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid when the U.S. Olympic Hockey …
Krista Tippett, whose wonderful book Becoming Wise: An Inquiry Into the Art of Living distills many of her conversations, offers us a window into exploring ourselves and others, through generous …
“Trust is the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest, and cooperative behavior, based on commonly shared norms, on the part of other members of that community.” — …
One of the great challenges we all face in life is distinguishing between two classes of people: people who know and people who sound like they know. It’s called the Batesian Mimicry problem and …
Many of us jump to negative conclusions rather than generous ones. Taking the most respectful interpretation of events changes how you see others and how they behave toward you. Consider this …
One of Charles Darwin’s less famous works, his The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, released in 1872, kicked off the idea that emotions carry distinct facial expressions. We read these …
“I am a person who listens for a living. I listen for wisdom, and beauty, and for voices not shouting to be heard.” *** Krista Tippett, the host of the compelling podcast On Being, is an incredible …
Rewarding reads on love, life, knowledge, history, the future, and tools for thinking. Out of all the books I read this year, here is a list of what I found most worth reading in 2016. 1. The …
Carol Dweck‘s concept of Mindset permeates through every aspect of our lives. One area particularity affected is in the workplace. We spend half of our day at work (some of you likely spend more …
We get a little confused when deciding if a particular human behavior is cultural or biological. Is homosexuality a natural act or unnatural? How about Facebook? Is it unnatural human behavior? …
Rhetoric, or the art of persuasion, is an ancient topic that’s no less relevant today. We are in a golden age of information sharing, which means you are swimming in a pool of rhetoric every …
What if eating right wasn’t actually all that complicated? What if you read enough to see patterns develop, to realize that when you stripped away all the confusing bits that maybe the skeleton …
“As the Island of Knowledge grows, so do the shores of our ignorance—the boundary between the known and unknown. Learning more about the world doesn’t lead to a point closer to a final …