Brilliant business writing.
Brendan, thanks for the link.

Great language.

Quoted: How financial panic influenced the philosophies of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Complete lectures (transcripts and video) from Yale's philosophy class on Death.

I started reading with lecture 23, "How to live given the certainty of death." It was good; I'd like to read the rest when time permits.

Quoted: Complete list of all sessions for PHIL 176: Death.

by Nick Bostrom, Director, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University. Great job title!

Quoted: This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true:

(1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage;

(2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof);

(3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.

Quoted: It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.

Quoted: Computers, in Wozniak's scheme, will increase our intellectual capacity and enhance our rational self-control. Wozniak is a kind of algorithmic man. He's exploring what it's like to live in strict obedience to reason. On first encounter, he appears to be one of the happiest people I've ever met.

Quoted: Let's face it. Zen is boring. You couldn't find a duller, more tedious practice than Zazen. The philosophy is dry and unexciting. It's amazing to me anyone reads this page at all. Don't you people know you could be playing Tetris, right now? That there are a million free porno sites out there? Get a life, why don't you?!

Quoted: ...you will walk a long mile to find someone who has more respect for the power of reason than I have. However, there are regions of life, thought and behavior that are beyond reason's scope, and ought to stay there.

Quoted: Humanism is a broad category of active ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appeal to universal human qualities—particularly rationalism. Humanism is a component of a variety of more specific philosophical systems, and is also incorporated into some religious schools of thought.

Quoted: Humanism entails a commitment to the search for truth and morality through human means in support of human interests. In focusing on the capacity for self-determination, Humanism rejects transcendental justifications, such as a dependence on faith, the supernatural, or divinely revealed texts. Humanists endorse universal morality based on the commonality of human nature, suggesting that solutions to human social and cultural problems cannot be parochial.

"The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there."

That would be the Zen of the Burton Custom X. Aww yeah.

Quoted: The Seventies bestseller Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was the biggest-selling philosophy book ever. But for the reclusive author life was bitter-sweet. Here, he talks frankly about anxiety, depression, the death of his son and the road trip that inspired a classic.