"We’re all born wanting the freedom to imagine a better and more beautiful future. But modern America has become a place so drearily confining and predictable that it chokes the life out of that built-in desire. Everything from our pop culture to our economy to our politics feels oppressive and unresponsive. We see 10 million commercials a day, and every day is the same life-killing chase for money, money and more money; the only thing that changes from minute to minute is that every tick of the clock brings with it another space-age vendor dreaming up some new way to try to sell you something or reach into your pocket. The relentless sameness of the two-party political system is beginning to feel like a Jacob’s Ladder nightmare with no end; we’re entering another turn on the four-year merry-go-round, and the thought of having to try to get excited about yet another minor quadrennial shift in the direction of one or the other pole of alienating corporate full-of-shitness is enough to make anyone want to smash his own hand flat with a hammer."

Matt Taibbi (via joshuanguyen) The man can be hyperbolic, but this is an accurate statement. (via creeperstatus).  

Reading this helped me pin down one of the reasons I feel drawn to basic science research, even though it is hard and I’m not particularly good at it.  It seems like one of the few remaining corners of the world where you can feel like your efforts aren’t going into building a shinier toy or another way to waste people’s time and money.  Instead, you really get the sense that your work might be pushing us a little bit further away from the dark ages. Little by little reducing suffering, defeating superstition, discovering principles that help make sense of the world.  Or, I could just be completely naive.  Worse, I am right, but this small refuge will get bulldozed by a society that increasingly refuses to see the value in anything that doesn’t generate immediate profit.

(via creeperstatus)