It argues for the importance of being alone, so you can silence the barrage of other people's thoughts and listen to your own.

This essay is the best argument I've seen for manual labor.

Work humbles us and puts us in our place as frail human beings. Long and repetitive days of hard work are meaningful because we become one with our tools as become the builders we're born to be.

A superb two-part series on America's geography and how it shapes the country's politics.

America has many structural advantages, such as big oceans to the East and West and more navigable internal waterways than the rest of the world combined.

My answer is a book called Leisure, which was written right after World War II. In 70 pages, it argues that we should pursue leisure, retreat from workaholism, and build lives of spiritual and intellectual nourishment.

Most books are extended articles, but this article is a shortened book and the best introduction to systems design I’ve found.

This documentary series by Robert Hughes traces the 100-year history of modern art, from the Impressionists in 1880 to the postmodernists in 1980.

It's a window into the relationships between aesthetics and culture, as shown by the series outline below.

Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone is one of the most influential pieces of American sociology. In it, he talks about the decline of social life in America, including the fall in church membership and attendance at public meetings.

Rich Barton is a rare breed. He's built three billion-dollar consumer technology companies: Expedia, Zillow, and Glassdoor.

This essay from
@kevinakwok
shows how he built all three companies with the same general strategy.

Though almost every American student dreams of attending an Ivy League school, this essay highlights the drawbacks of doing so, and it does so with awe-inducing prose.

We live in a society where the numbers have the final say. But focusing too much on numbers can lead to adverse side effects. By obsessing over quantification, we often ignore the aspects of life that can't be measured and forget what ultimately matters.

This is one of the best talks I've ever seen.

Listening to Daniel Schmachtenberger speak is like entering a portal to an Internet-native world. He's one of only a few people who can speak clearly about humanity's future.

This YouTube channel is the best thing I’ve found on the Internet in a while.

It’s a series of well-researched, high-energy philosophy lectures that are easy to follow and fun to listen to. Based on subscriber counts, it’s a hidden gem too.