Lifehacks with Dr. Turin Horse

Dr. Horse, hard at work on his dissertation.

Lifehack: Don't go to grad school. This is the first and greatest Lifehack.

Lifehack: Control the means of production and extract the surplus labor value of others.

Lifehack: Talk is cheap, feelings are cheaper, invisible Third World labor is cheapest.

Lifehack: Might – plus "humanitarian intervention" – makes right.

Lifehack: Identify the Crimean Peninsula in your life and just take it.

Lifehack: Socially liberal, fiscally conservative.

Lifehack: Calling yourself "libertarian" makes you a cool Republican.

Lifehack: Calling yourself “liberal” means you can have your cake and eat it too.

Lifehack: The purpose of the liberal arts is to teach the Chinese nouveau riche how to spend their money.

Lifehack: The purpose of history is to provide a theodicy of the present.

Lifehack: The highest form of politics is styling the pattern of your consumption choices.

Lifehack: Like everything but country and rap.

Lifehack: Be dumb in a zeitgeist-appropriate way, and mighty forces will rush to your aid.

Lifehack: Turn every discussion to first principles in order to protect vested interests.

Lifehack: When in doubt, rationalize.

Lifehack: The status quo is the first mover.

Lifehack: Bourgeois feminism, right-wing Deleuzianism, post-racism.

Lifehack: White privilege, patriarchy, habitus, fossil fuels, unrestricted drone warfare.

Lifehack: Guns, religion, waves of topical hysteria.

Lifehack: Fuck the planet.

Lifehack: Global warming is real, but it won't affect you.

Lifehack: Evolutionary psychology isn't real, but that won't affect you.

Lifehack: Viewed from the standpoint of geological time, oceans are enormous mouths that open and close over the course of millenia.

Lifehack: Natura non contristatur.

Lifehack: Reality is violence on every level. Dissimulation of this is just another form of violence.

Lifehack: Violence is just a flimsy metaphor masking the lassitude and inertia at the heart of reality.

Lifehack: Smoking is only the most visible and stylized way in which you are being poisoned by your environment.

Lifehack: Start smoking and never stop.

Lifehack: Hold your joy close, like a knife to your throat.

Lifehack: The copper in a penny is worth more than a penny.

Lifehack: Copper melting in a veterinary crematorium.

Lifehack: The price to gentrify is to criticize gentrification.

Lifehack: The wind will carry you, if you're white.

Lifehack: Test prep culture.

Lifehack: Gamify, medicalize, nostalgize.

Lifehack. You don’t have to wear a uniform to be a cop. You can be a cop in your spare time. You can be a cop to your friends. You can be a cop to your family. You can be a cop to your lover. You can be a cop in your own head. Anyone can be a cop.

Lifehack: New York City is the worst place possible except that all other places are even worse.

Lifehack: Plunge into the everydayness characteristic of Dasein and never look back.

Lifehack: Late at night, animal closeness is good enough.

Lifehack: If you try hard, you can feel the Internet.

Lifehack: Trade time for space, stuff, and symbol. Sardanapalize.

Lifehack: The world is your earbuds.

Lifehack: The world is your comment thread.

Lifehack: The world is your black site.

Lifehack: The world is your coltan mine.

Lifehack: The world is your Kola Superdeep Borehole.

Lifehack: The world is your deep-sea oil-well.

Lifehack: The world is your Carter doctrine.

Lifehack: The world is your combat zone cleared for drone strikes.

Lifehack: Robots can’t commit war crimes.

Lifehack: The world is your ground to stand.

Lifehack: The world is yours to stop and frisk.

Lifehack: The world is your brownstone.

Lifehack: The world is your gingerbread house.

Lifehack: The world is your gallows.

Lifehack: Best is never to be born at all; second best is to die quickly.

Lifehack: Sleeping on your left side wears your heart out quicker.

Lifehack: If you believe your dentist, try sunlight.

Lifehack: Boxed wine.

Lifehack: Functional alcoholism.

Lifehack: Do shut up. The game now is how much infinity we can stack against you.

Lifehack: The aphorism doesn’t matter. Literature and scholarship don’t matter. Words don’t matter. Only these Lifehacks – and David Brooks – matter.

Lifehack. Everyone's a critic, but how many are willing to pick up a gun and become actual cops?