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Alain de Botton Tweets Short Course in Political Philosophy

Dan Colman — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 21:03:36 +0000

Alain de Botton has mastered the art of popularizing great philosophy. His books, lectures, televised programs and the London-based School of Life – they all help de Botton get great ideas “out there.” And now he turns to Twitter. On Friday, @AlaindeBotton tweeted a short course in political philosophy in seven parts. The course, with each lesson presented in 140 characters or less, begins like this:

1: Plato: We should be ruled not by leaders chosen by a majority, but by those who are most intelligent.

2. St Augustine: We should not try to build paradise on earth. Aim for tolerable government, true government only possible in the next life.

3. Machiavelli: Politician must choose between serving the interests of country and the interests of Christian morality. Can’t have both.

You can finish the course here, and start following us on Twitter here, where we post a steady flow of cultural goodies throughout the day. If you like Open Culture, you will love our Twitter stream (and our Facebook page)…

Alain de Botton Tweets Short Course in Political Philosophy is a post from: Open Culture

Follow us on Twitter & Facebook

Dan Colman — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 21:15:07 +0000

A quick reminder: we’re always adding more good cultural content to our Twitter stream. Give us a follow at @openculture, and we’ll keep sending curated culture (in the form of tweets and retweets) your way. So far 6,200+ readers have joined us there. If you appreciate what Open Culture is all about, it’s a must.

You can also access Open Culture on Facebook. Become a Fan (or give us a Like – whatever the latest lingo may be), and we’ll drop our daily content into your Facebook News Feed. This will give you an easy way to keep tabs on us and share the knowledge with your friends. Thanks for joining us, and spreading the word. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Writing the U.S. Constitution (in Tweets)

Dan Colman — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:02:17 +0000

223 years ago today, the Constitutional Convention started meeting secretly in Philadelphia. Several months later, the meetings ended with the signing of the US Constitution. Starting today, the National Constitution Center will use Twitter to reenact the events of the Convention. You can follow @SecretDelegate, a mysterious insider, who will show you what happened inside the private proceedings. The “Twitter Convention” will conclude on September 17, when the Constitution was signed, and only then will the true identity of @SecretDelegate be revealed. You can be among the first to follow these tweets.

Looking for more Open Culture? Find us on Twitter at @openculture.

Writing the U.S. Constitution (in Tweets) is a post from: Open Culture

Culture Tweets of the Week – March 13

Dan Colman — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:42:36 +0000

Guaranteed to make you smarter, or your money back. You can follow us on Twitter here. (Or become a Facebook fan.) Here they go:

RT @BoingBoing: Most beautiful bookstore – Buenos Aires’s Librería El Ateneo Grand Splendid http://bit.ly/c5iapa
RT @Alyssa_Milano: Two new MIT classes focus on helping #Haiti: http://is.gd/aa43H (via @brainpicker)
RT @guardianculture: “Solar” by Ian McEwan http://bit.ly/dpqBAq
RT @kirstinbutler: View human history’s greatest hits in 3-D http://humanorigins.si.edu/ The Smithsonian’s Human Origins Initiative
RT @courosa: McLuhan interview from 1967 – http://bit.ly/HvVuv – much of this wisdom from 1967, while repeated , has yet to catch on.
French bread spiked with LSD in CIA experiment in 1951: http://bit.ly/cEDEV5
RT @GuardianBooks: Google partners with Italy for groundbreaking book scanning deal http://bit.ly/dxVwE7
Looking for avant-garde film & video? Andy Warhol, Philip Glass, Allen Ginsberg, Jean Genet, etc. Visit @ubuweb http://bit.ly/amomfw
RT @philosophybites: Notes and links from the Tate Modern Classic Aesthetics course (Plato, then Hume) on www.artandallusion.com
RT @dylanschenker: Watch The Academy Award Winning Animated Short ‘Logorama’ Online http://bit.ly/9yUvQw
RT @freemusicarchiv: http://freemusicarchive.org now hosts over 18,000 free & legal mp3s curated by @wfmu @cbcradio3 @creativecommons & more
Chopin’s 1848 piano played for his 200th birthday: http://bit.ly/9zyhZR Thanks Leisha
Historian Tony Judt’s struggle with ALS (and his recent intellectual life) chronicled in New York Magazine. http://bit.ly/a8hT1W
Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World: http://bit.ly/bgyZay Presented originally via @Longnow
@ScottSigler “Who Needs You, Big Publishing? How Authors Can Own All Rights and Make More Money” http://bit.ly/diR2xV (via @sethharwood
RT @EliseBlackwell: Don DeLillo on Samuel Beckett: http://bit.ly/9GuwMg (via @RhysTranter)
RT @heoj: i love this article! Algebra in Wonderland http://nyti.ms/aaPH9w
Spoken Verse YouTube Channel – http://bit.ly/aRTRkn – added to our Smart YouTube collection: http://bit.ly/SouTb Thanks Ryan for the tip.

Culture Tweets of the Week – March 13 is a post from: Open Culture

Tweets of the Week – February 20

Dan Colman — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:17:16 +0000

A quick wrap up of the cultural items we tweeted and re-tweeted this week via our Twitter stream. You can start following us here: @openculture

RT @jonathanlandman: Insufferably brilliant: Bernstein on the Blues – Video Library – The New York Times -http://nyti.ms/dCkoqH
Deep Thinking Alive and Well on the Web http://bit.ly/dfAJtL
RT @TEDchris: Clever BBC video: #TED attendees on what the world needs in 18-seconds http://bit.ly/dCUdvq
Digital Books and Your Rights: A Checklist for Readershttp://bit.ly/bfFCnc (via BoingBoing)
RT @GuardianBooks: Harry Potter author JK Rowling faces plagiarism allegations http://bit.ly/b3gI2v
RT @artsbeat: Rowling Denies Plagiarism Charge http://nyti.ms/daPewI
Hunter S. Thompson calls customer service. (Contains, as expected, some NSFW language): http://bit.ly/cSeNcG via Metafilter
RT @Richard_Florida: “Orders of magnitude greater” than the printing press – the future of digital publishing @nybooks http://bit.ly/cWtWBo
How can you travel through novels with Google Earth? Google Lit Trips! Details here: http://bit.ly/9dHXSf
Kindle for Blackberry, anyone? New app is out …http://bit.ly/9dCv3b
RT @nybooks: David Levine: An Audio Portrait. The late artist talks about his caricatures in a narrated slide show.http://bit.ly/cLcAKU
RT @creativecommons: Peer 2 Peer University launches second round of courses and new site via BY-SA. Apply by Feb 28 http://is.gd/8EO9D
Descartes was apparently ‘poisoned by Catholic priest’http://bit.ly/9Cw1jt
RT @guardianculture: JD Salinger letters reveal he was writing regularly long after 1965 http://bit.ly/aqDyQM

Tweets of the Week – February 20 is a post from: Open Culture

Tweets of the Week (2/13)

Dan Colman — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:35:55 +0000

Why let good tweets (and re-tweets) go to waste? Each week, we’re going to list some of the cultural goodies that appeared in our Twitter stream. You can start following Open Culture on Twitter here.

Fun video. Notre Dame Marching Band Doing Things Differently RT @mwesch: OK Go – This Too Shall Pass http://bit.ly/9DZ8h7
Ira Glass on the Art of Story Telling http://bit.ly/U9cRm
Author, 17, Says It’s ‘Mixing,’ Not Plagiarism:http://nyti.ms/94tpIK
What info do people (like you) tend to share on Twitter? A university research team gets interesting results:http://bit.ly/b1PjnX
RT @kirstinbutler: An ancient language thought to have existed for 65,000 years goes extinct http://is.gd/7Wvth
RT @nytimesarts: Unsealed Letters Offer Glimpse of Salinger http://nyti.ms/c0i3It
Odd article on the dangers of singing Sinatra’s “My Way” in Filipino karaoke bars. http://nyti.ms/cnYX1z
@brainpicker: NPR’s This American Life launches iPhone app, just $2.99 to stream any episode from the last 15 yearshttp://ow.ly/16SeB
RT @Harvard_Law: Lessig in The New Republic: Google, copyright and our future: http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2010/02/05_lessig.html
RT @philosophybites: Who is Obama’s favourite ‘philosopher’? Answer here: http://tinyurl.com/yfr2jqf
Habermas on Twitter? Not the real deal: http://bit.ly/bi84s1

Tweets of the Week (2/13) is a post from: Open Culture