Flicker Fusion

We have no evidence that C.E.O.’s are fashioning, with their executive leadership, more effective and efficient enterprises. On the other hand, ample evidence suggests that C.E.O.’s and their corporations are expending considerably more energy on avoiding taxes than perhaps ever before — at a time when the federal government desperately needs more revenue to maintain basic services for the American people.

We have no evidence that C.E.O.’s are fashioning, with their executive leadership, more effective and efficient enterprises. On the other hand, ample evidence suggests that C.E.O.’s and their corporations are expending considerably more energy on avoiding taxes than perhaps ever before — at a time when the federal government desperately needs more revenue to maintain basic services for the American people.

—From a report by the Institute for Policy Studies showing how giant companies like eBay and GE pay their CEO’s more than they pay in federal taxes. Utterly shameful.

You can go ahead and Like it, or Fave it, or Star it or Heart it. Go ahead and click whatever dumb icon the software has left for you. But when you do that don’t mistake it for genuine sentiment. You aren’t expressing emotion, you’re clicking on something. You’re changing a setting, not the situation.

You can go ahead and Like it, or Fave it, or Star it or Heart it. Go ahead and click whatever dumb icon the software has left for you. But when you do that don’t mistake it for genuine sentiment. You aren’t expressing emotion, you’re clicking on something. You’re changing a setting, not the situation.

—Mat Honan asks why do you “like” bad news, or the trouble with trying to distill the vagaries of human emotion into an icon. (A couple of good quotes from my new boss and Brazilian soap star Mike Monteiro in there, too.)

Affirmation and confirmation is a metaphorical cognitive carbohydrate. We seek it out because we’re more wired to affirm each other (to keep us in communities, I suspect) than to inform each other. We also seek it out because it feels better than confrontation.

The result? A new kind of hyper-informed ignorance. We’re not ignorant because we’ve consumed too little information anymore. We’re getting ignorant because we’ve consumed too much of the wrong information.

Affirmation and confirmation is a metaphorical cognitive carbohydrate. We seek it out because we’re more wired to affirm each other (to keep us in communities, I suspect) than to inform each other. We also seek it out because it feels better than confrontation.

The result? A new kind of hyper-informed ignorance. We’re not ignorant because we’ve consumed too little information anymore. We’re getting ignorant because we’ve consumed too much of the wrong information.

—Clay Johnson says [the most dangerous special interest group in America](http://www.quora.com/U-S-Politics/What-are-the-most-harmful-special-interests-in-the-US/answer/Clay-Johnson? snids =23873519#ans664637) is … us.