Seven Reasons Listicles Capture Our Attention (and Confuse Our Brains)

Derek Thompson: “Rankings create order where there is chaos. They enumerate the innumerable variety of the world and give us a small sense of mastery over our environment. … They’re also devious in both obvious ways (they can be wrong, and not everything is rank-able) and surprising ways that researchers are only beginning to understand.”

How Economics Really Got The Nickname “The Dismal Science”

“The story goes like this: Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish writer and philosopher, called economics ‘the dismal science’ in reference to Thomas Malthus, that lugubrious economist who claimed humanity was trapped in a world where population growth would always strain natural resources and bring widespread misery.” Turns out that what Carlyle was saying was far more dismal (not to mention abhorrent).

Why Is Canada’s Largest Opera Company So Nervous About New Opera?

“Imagine the Art Gallery of Ontario going 19 years without a single showing of any new Canadian art. It would be hard to think of a rationale for that scenario, although the COC, which receives about $4.5-million annually in public funding, is always quick to say that new work is too expensive and risky for regular consumption. But does that really need to be true, for the biggest opera company in the country?”