Hey Everyone,
Welcome back to The Chomp—your weekly dose of the best content from the internet and beyond, designed to expand your mind and get you thinking. Let’s dive into it.
Quick Bites
The Decoy Effect: How You Are Influenced to Choose Without Really Knowing It: Not having a strong background in marketing, I’m always intrigued to learn the psychology and reasoning behind many of the field’s best practices. This piece offers a fascinating look into the decoy effect, which is something we’re all constantly faced with. Take a few minutes to learn more about it so you’re better prepared next time you come up against this when making a purchasing decision. (5 min)
The Man In The Arena: Citizenship In A Republic: Theodore Roosevelt’s ‘Man in the Arena’ quote has long served as motivation for countless individuals, and was even immortalized as a Lebron James sneaker this past fall. This quick piece does a great job of summing up some of the key ideas you can take away from Roosevelt’s unforgettable oration. (4 min)
Deeper Dives
Yuval Noah Harari’s History of Everyone, Ever: No historian has risen to fame quite as rapidly as Yuval Noah Harrari has in recent years. Following the incredible success of his international bestseller Sapiens, Harari has nearly become a household name and is one of the most sought after speakers in the world. Ian Parker of The New Yorker went deep behind the scenes of his life with this superb profile of Harrari, and I can’t recommend it enough. Whether you read Sapiens or not, this one is well worth your time and will give you a better grasp of the inner workings of one of the world’s leading thinkers. (47 min)
Media
If you want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food, focus more on what you eat, not whether your food is local. Eating locally would only have a significant impact if transport was responsible for a large share of food’s final carbon footprint, which for most foods is not the case. The below chart from Our World In Data breaks down where the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions from food actually come from. Check out this accompanying article to learn more.
Tweet of the Week
Song of the Week
Apple Music Link
Books
Currently Reading
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values(Robert Pirsig)
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York(Robert A. Caro)
This is a 1,344-page behemoth that I’m steadily making my way through. Excited to share my thoughts when I eventually finish in the next month or so.
Parting Thoughts
This Week in History
On February 18th, 1930, Pluto was discovered and was long considered to be the 9th planet in the solar system. However, that changed in August of 2006 when Pluto was demoted to a ‘dwarf planet’. What that actually means has been hotly contested ever since. (Source)
“ We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.” — John Dryden
If you found something that piqued your interest this week, please help me out in expanding the reach of The Chomp by forwarding it along to a friend or sharing it with others in your network. Until next week.
-Cody