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there is relief: You are not allowed to extend a pomodoro, either. After a set of four 25-minute intervals are completed, you’re supposed to take a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes before continuing.

It tells us when to start, and also when to stop; and now, more than ever, we have to be told when to stop.

An unquestioned assumption in our culture holds that the more hours spent on work — whether a passion project or office drudgery — the better we’ll perform and the more successful and happier we’ll be. What if none of that’s true?

Leisure time has also taken on a timeless, hypnotic quality lately. Everything our culture produces feels at once never-ending and meaningless — or perhaps meaningless because it’s never-ending.

An everlasting present expands around us in all directions, and it’s easy to get lost in there — all the more reason to set some boundaries.

Now that my breaks are short and fleeting, I think more carefully about what I’d like to do with them, and I’ve found it’s quite different from the unimaginative temptations I would otherwise default to

Instead I’ll make a sandwich, do a quick French lesson, reply to a few texts, have a shower, go to the laundromat; and such humdrum activities, now that they’re restricted, have become sources of great pleasure.

I’ve found that tackling a range of tasks in short bursts keeps things interesting and provides a more rounded life.

Variety is the sugar that helps the medicine go down; not the mirage of variety conjured by infinite scrolling content, by nearly a hundred different flavors of Oreos, but the genuine variety of pursuing different sorts of interests every day.

time-management techniques are for me a way of better understanding which things matter and which don’t.

time management makes time uncanny by revealing how it speeds up and slows down throughout the day, and how many different ways 25 minutes can feel;

it’s not an exaggeration to say that, by changing my relationship with and appreciation of time, the technique has brought me to some profound existential questions about whether I’m wasting my life — my fragile, fleeting life — on activities I neither care about nor enjoy

It has forced me to think about what I’d most like to be doing every day instead. It has made me see time afresh — as something we really don’t have enough of, as something precious precisely because it’s ephemeral.

Administering a nationally representative phone survey with 1,008 respondents, they found that people who got most of their information from mainstream print and broadcast outlets tended to have an accurate assessment of the severity of the pandemic and their risks of infection.

But those who relied on conservative sources, such as Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories or unfounded rumors, such as the belief that taking vitamin C could prevent infection, that the Chinese government had created the virus, and that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was exaggerating the pandemic’s threat “to damage the Trump presidency.”

“The effect that we measure could be driven by the long-term message of Fox News, which is that the mainstream media often report ‘fake news’ and have a political agenda,” Simonov said. “This could result in lowering trust in institutions and experts, including health experts in the case of the pandemic.”

Our results indicate that a one standard deviation increase in relative viewership of Hannity relative to Tucker Carlson Tonight is associated with approximately 32 percent more COVID-19 cases on March 14 and approximately 23 percent more COVID-19 deaths on March 28,

“If the results hold, the research demonstrates the influence that broadcast media can have on behavior,”

Judging the moral meaning of Mr. Trump’s bout with Covid-19 — and our reactions to it — is no easy task.

while it is true that life is sacred, and we must honor the dignity of all persons, including Mr. Trump, society also has a legitimate moral interest in seeing wrongdoers face consequences for their actions.

The sense that justice requires punishment for wrongs runs deep and is not the same as a mere thirst for revenge or a desire to get even.

On the contrary, punishment plays an important role in any healthy moral ecosystem. When the moral order has been ruptured, punishment for wrongs helps to repair tears to the social fabric and to reinforce the validity of the moral expectations that were violated.

The moral complexity becomes greater still when we consider that from a purely consequentialist point of view, there are reasons to view Mr. Trump’s potential incapacity as the best moral outcome.

Imagining Mr. Trump’s illness as a metaphorical punishment for his misdeeds helps to satisfy at the level of fantasy a legitimate need to see justice done

consequentialism is the philosophical position that affirms that what is morally right is whatever makes the world best in the future

a consequentialist argument can be made that his speedy recovery from Covid-19 would not be the best moral outcome.

The consequentialist argument, while repugnant from the perspective of human dignity, tells us that a world in which Mr. Trump is unable to commit harm would be morally better than a world in which he continues to harm freely.

This philosophical approach to weighing moral outcomes conflicts with the principle of individual human dignity and offers no easy guideline for reconciling these powerful yet opposing ways of thinking about what is best.

the punishment that Mr. Trump’s bout of Covid-19 represents is merely symbolic, a stand-in for the real punishment he deserves, which is necessarily social in character. Mr. Trump deserves to be punished at the ballot box and to be held accountable for any possible criminal wrongdoing in a court of law.

Adams did not just stick to comics: he is the author of over a dozen books (not counting the comic compendiums), which advise and analyze not only on surviving the office but also on daily life, future technology trends, romance, self-help strategy, and more. 

In his earlier books, you can feel the weight of the 1990s pressing down on his work, flattening and numbing its potency; this was the period that social scientist Francis Fukuyama dubbed “the end of history”, when the Cold War had ended, the West had won, 9/11 was just two numbers, and there were no grand missions left, no worlds left to conquer. While for millions of people, both in the United States and abroad, life was still chaotic and miserable, a lot of people found themselves living lives that were under no great immediate threat: without bombs or fascism or the threat of eviction to worry about, there was nothing left to do but to go to the office and enjoy fast-casual dining and Big Gulps, just as the Founding Fathers envisioned.

This dull but steady life produced a sense of slow-burn anxiety prominent in much of the pop culture of the time, as can be seen in movies such as Office Space, Fight Club and The Matrix, movies which cooed to their audience: there’s got to be more to life than this, right?

Beware: as I’m pretty sure Nietzsche said, when you gaze into Dilbert, eventually Dilbert gazes back into you.

for someone who satirizes business bullshit, Adams is a person who seems to have bought into much of it wholeheartedly; when he explains his approach to life he tends to speak in LinkedIn truisms, expounding on his “skill stacks” and “maximizing [his] personal energy”. (You can read more about this in his career advice book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big;

Following his non-Dilbert career more carefully, you can see that at every stage of his career, he’s actually quite heavily invested in the bullshit he makes fun of every day, or at least some aspects of it: he possesses an MBA from UC Berkeley, and has launched or otherwise been involved in a significant number of business ventures, most amusingly a health food wrap called the “Dilberito”.

In the past few years, Adams has gained some notoriety as a Trump supporter; having slowly moved from “vaguely all-over-the-place centrist who has some odd thoughts and thinks some aspects of Trump are impressive” to full-on MAGA guy, even writing a book called Win Bigly praising Trump’s abilities as a “master persuader”.

this is a guy who hates drab corporatespeak but loves the ideology behind it, a guy who describes the vast powerlessness of life but believes you can change it by writing some words on a napkin. That blend of rebellion against the symptoms of post-Cold War society and sworn allegiance to its machinations couldn’t lead anywhere else but to Trump, a man who rails against ‘elites’ while allowing them to run the country into the ground.

In Dilbert the Pointy-haired Boss uses this type of thinking to evil ends, in the tradition of Catch-22 and other satires of systemic brutality, but the relatable characters use it to their advantage too—by using intellectual sleight of hand with the boss to justify doing less work, or by finding clever ways to look busy when they’re not, or to avoid people who are unpleasant to be around.

I just think Adams is a guy who spent so long in the world of slick aphorisms and comic-strip logic that it eventually ate into his brain, became his entire manner of thinking

“You can’t get compromise. You get exactly the situation that the Founders feared, that [James] Madison wrote about in ‘Federalist 10,’ which is faction, which is people care more about defeating the other side than they do about the common good.”

Social media essentially gives a megaphone to the extremes, so it’s very hard to know what most people really think.

it’s quite clear that this pandemic is turning into just another culture-war issue, where people on the left see what they want to see and people on the right see what they want to see.”

the pandemic is having the sort of unifying effect that major crises tend to have.

For example, 90 percent of Americans believe that “we’re all in it together,” compared to just 63 percent in the fall of 2018. The share of Americans who describe the country as “unified” has grown from 4 percent in 2018 to 32 percent today

Other polls show that the divide between Republicans and Democrats on social-distancing measures isn’t all that large.

Einstein, Mozart, Michelangelo, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates – all these overachievers are widely believed to be, or have been, on the spectrum.

I used recreational drugs to smooth me through the challenges of social communication.

With every interaction, verbal or written, I go through a mental checklist: is my response appropriate? Is it relevant? Is this something only I am going to find interesting? Is my tone right? Trying to follow social rules and adapt to an allistic [non-autistic] world is exhausting. No one sees what is going on inside my head.

Misunderstandings in communication can blow up quite quickly.

I burnt out in my late 20s.

My greatest fear has been something I’ve always referred to as “the big alone”. Even when I’ve been in loving relationships, as I am now, there has been a terrible aloneness in not understanding why I am not like other people.

I was able to look back at situations and misunderstandings and understand what had happened. I’d been told my communication could be “off” sometimes – a bit intense, a bit abrupt.

Autistic children spend a lot of time “masking”, imitating so-called “normal” behaviour. They need to be able to experience their authentic selves.

Over the past five or 10 years, the concept of neurodiversity – the idea that these differences in our brains should be celebrated – has become better known. We deserve equality, respect and full social inclusion.

We need to start making space for neurodivergent people at school, at work, in life generally. Autistic people bring a whole new set of skills with them.

Dr. Byrne and her colleagues measured risky decision-making by presenting people with a gambling scenario. They could choose between two bets: One offered a guaranteed amount of money, while the other offered the possibility of a larger amount of money but also the possibility of receiving no cash. A different exercise measured people’s preference for immediate versus delayed rewards: Participants could choose a certain amount of money now, or a larger amount later.

Study subjects also reported Covid-19 precautions they had taken in their daily lives, including masking and social distancing.

with Covid-19, people don’t feel sick immediately after an exposure so the benefits of wearing a mask, social distancing or getting vaccinated aren’t immediately apparent. “You don’t see the lives you potentially save,” she says

“People generally are more motivated by immediate gratification or immediate benefits rather than long-term benefits, even when the long-term benefits are much greater,

Research has also found being extroverted or introverted affects how people make decisions about Covid-19 precautions. A recent study of more than 8,500 people in Japan published in the journal PLOS One in October 2020 found that those who scored high on a scale of extraversion were 7% less likely to wear masks in public and avoid large gatherings, among other precautions.

The study also found that people who scored high on a measure of conscientiousness—valuing hard work and achievement—were 31% more likely to follow Covid-19 public-health precautions.

Scientists believe that a person’s propensity to take risks is partly genetic and partly the result of early life experiences

Certain negative childhood experiences including physical, emotional or sexual abuse, parental divorce, or living with someone who was depressed or abused drugs or alcohol are linked to risky behavior in adulthood like smoking and drinking heavily, other research has found.

Studies of twins have generally found that about 30% of the difference in individual risk tolerance is genetic

And scientists have discovered that the brains of people who are more willing to take risks look different than those of people who are more cautious.

ambling task had differences in the structure and function of the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in detecting threats, and the prefrontal cortex, a region involved in executive

Even people who have the same information and a similar perception of the risks may make different decisions because of the ways they interpret the information. When public-health officials talk about breakthrough infections in vaccinated individuals being rare, for example, “rare means different things” to different people

Under the research, a value of 0% meant tweets reached the same number of users on the algorithm-tailored timeline as on its chronological counterpart, whereas a value of 100% meant tweets achieved double the reach. On this basis, the most powerful discrepancy between right and left was in Canada (Liberals 43%; Conservatives 167%), followed by the UK (Labour 112%; Conservatives 176%). Even excluding top government officials, the results were similar, the document said.

Twitter said it wasn’t clear why its Home timeline produced these results and indicated that it may now need to change its algorithm.

The post acknowledged that it was concerning if certain tweets received preferential treatment not as a result of the way in which users interacted, but because of the inbuilt way the algorithm works.

“Algorithmic amplification is problematic if there is preferential treatment as a function of how the algorithm is constructed versus the interactions people have with it. Further root cause analysis is required in order to determine what, if any, changes are required to reduce adverse impacts by our Home timeline algorithm,” the post said.

Twitter said it would make its research available to outsiders such as academics and it is preparing to let third parties have wider access to its data, in a move likely to put further pressure on Facebook to do the same.

The Twitter study compared the two ways in which a user can view their timeline: the first uses an algorithm to provide a tailored view of tweets that the user might be interested in based on the accounts they interact with most and other factors; the other is the more traditional timeline in which the user reads the most recent posts in reverse chronological order.

The study compared the two types of timeline by considering whether some politicians, political parties or news outlets were more amplified than others. The study analysed millions of tweets from elected officials between 1 April and 15 August 2020 and hundreds of millions of tweets from news organisations, largely in the US, over the same period.

Twitter added that it was preparing to make internal data available to external sources on a regular basis. The company said its machine-learning ethics, transparency and accountability team was finalising plans in a way that would protect user privacy.

Not only is this tied to weight gain, especially in the belly, but it also leaves you with cravings. Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than table sugar. Serious drinkers are so used to the super-sweet taste that everything else seems bland in comparison.

Coca-Cola has a different take on what people refer to as an addiction. “Food and beverages, like chocolate, for example, can trigger what scientists call ‘reward centers’ in the brain, but so can other things like music or laughter,” said Daphne Dickerson, a spokeswoman for Coca-Cola. “Regularly consuming food and beverages that taste good and that you enjoy is not the same as being addicted to them.”

In September 2020, Ms. Beller was diagnosed with breast cancer. She didn’t quit Diet Coke until after surgery, when doctors found more cancer and she realized she’d have to undergo chemotherapy.

She used the Quitzilla app, a habit breaker and sobriety counter, which tracked her progress. “Every time I had a craving, just looking at the app did something good in my brain,” she said. She didn’t have a lot of physical side effects, but she did long for the drink. She credits the app with helping her stay on track.

The parents in these cases are often completely bewildered by the accusations. They often remember a totally different childhood home and accuse their children of rewriting what happened.

a more individualistic culture has meant that the function of family has changed. Once it was seen as a bond of mutual duty and obligation, and now it is often seen as a launchpad for personal fulfillment. There’s more permission to cut off people who seem toxic in your life.

There’s a lot of real emotional abuse out there, but as Coleman put it in an essay in The Atlantic, “My recent research — and my clinical work over the past four decades — has shown me that you can be a conscientious parent and your kid may still want nothing to do with you when they’re older.”

Either way, there’s a lot of agony for all concerned. The children feel they have to live with the legacy of an abusive childhood. The parents feel rejected by the person they love most in the world, their own child, and they are powerless to do anything about it. There’s anger, grief and depression on all sides — painful holidays and birthdays — plus, the next generation often grows up without knowing their grandparents.

there seems to be a generational shift in what constitutes abuse. Practices that seemed like normal parenting to one generation are conceptualized as abusive, overbearing and traumatizing to another.

Becca Bland, founder of the British support and advocacy group Stand Alone, told the BBC: “Now I can put my needs first rather than trying to fix things beyond my control. But, yes, I’m angry I didn’t get the mother I wanted.”

A 2012 survey from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture found that almost three-quarters of parents of school-age kids said they eventually want to become their children’s best friend.

Some kids seem to think they need to cut off their parents just to have their own life. “My mom is really needy and I just don’t need that in my life,

In other cases, children may be blaming their parents for the fact that they are not succeeding as they had hoped — it’s Mom and Dad who screwed me up.

it feels like a piece of what seems to be the psychological unraveling of America

Terrible trends are everywhere. Major depression rates among youths aged 12 to 17 rose by almost 63 percent between 2013 and 2016. American suicide rates increased by 33 percent between 1999 and 2019. The percentage of Americans who say they have no close friends has quadrupled since 1990,

Fifty-four percent of Americans report sometimes or always feeling that no one knows them well, according to a 2018 Ipsos survey.

political tribalism becomes a mechanism with which people can shore themselves up, vanquish shame, fight for righteousness and find a sense of belonging.

if we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.