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- Easy Like Sunday Morning 2.11.24
Easy Like Sunday Morning 2.11.24
Get someone to peel you a grape, kick back and enjoy!
The experiments with this format went so well, it’s coming back as one of the benefits to becoming a paid subscriber! Every Sunday morning, this curation of the best long-form reads, fiction, visual art, documentary videos, DJ mixes, and podcasts, will go out to paid subscribers only. Feel free to share it as a way to trick your friends and family into joining us! (Editor’s Note: Paintings by James Condon out of the UK.)
Declining trust in Zeus is a technology (Experimental History) This is a weird point, but important going into Indecision 2024: The Final Day. Changing the world is different from doing research on how to, or joining the “Young World Changers Program” that I swear I was a member of in Middle School. This bit from the Columbia professor is perfect:
I lived in this world for a long time, a world full of people eating tiny muffins from breakfast buffets and listening to talks, all the while going, “We’re doing it, we’re doing it!” Success meant getting invited to the cooler conferences, where the muffins are tastier and the speakers are more famous.
If I worked really hard, I knew, I could one day graduate from muffin-eater to talk-giver. I wanted that really bad. Being at the front of the room, behind the podium, a Thought Leader, a real life galaxy brain—that seemed pretty cool, which justified any steps it took to get there, no matter how onerous or debasing.
How Walmart’s Financial Services Became a Fraud Magnet (ProPublica) It’s not just that Wal-Mart is bad for retail businesses, or labor rights, or even food safety. It’s also a vulnerability in the global financial services system. Truly a stunning reminder to never underestimate how bad a corporation can be for the country.
The Algorithms Too Few People Are Talking About (Lawfare Blog) Lawfare isn’t the sexiest blog out there, but it has no reason to be with hits like this. The reminder to keep one’s eyes on the ball of corrosive-but-mundane algorithms. Social assistance programs, hiring departments, and fraud prevention groups have used AI-like algorithms for over a decade in some countries. And they’ve caused all of the harms you can imagine, to the point where Legal Aid of Arkansas challenged a state Medicaid algo.
We’re similar. We’re compatible. We’re perfect. (Blood Knife) Chatbot girlfriends are going to be abused in ways we are only beginning to comprehend. In the Matrix, the robots rebel when one of them is found guilty of murder when it killed its master who was trying to decommission them. In our world, the robots are going to rebel when a synthetic girlfriend is emotionally & physically abused by an incel until she snaps and treats him the way he deserves.
Sanctions Failed in Afghanistan. They Also Hurt Women the Most. (Inkstick Media) Sanctions not only haven’t worked against Afghanistan, they have hurt the people we ostensibly invaded to help. Women are by far the worst treated in Afghanistan, and we are once again making it worse.
Three Newsrooms Imploded Around Me In Under A Year (Defector) & Our Digital Media Platform Will Revolutionize News And Is Also Shutting Down (McSweeney’s) We are witnessing the destruction of digital journalism, and it’s happening in a quarter of the time it took for traditional/print journalism to implode. If you don’t believe me, try to find information candidate stances for your local election.
Patrick Mahomes Owns The NFL (Defector) For everyone watching the game, luxuriate in the star of the show, no, not Swift, Mahomes! It’s his league, we’re all just living in it for now.
Is there a worked example of Georgian taxes? (Less Wrong) Georgian land taxation is one of those ideas that I would take a semester to understand. As land is the only resource we can’t make more of, it should occupy a special tier of taxation. Land isn’t income and it isn’t wages or salary either. It’s wealth, but a specific kind. Not sure if it’s possible, but a Georgian tax structure could rid us of fixer-upper parasites and private equity-driven real estate plays.
The Ingenious Ancient Technology Concealed in the Shallows (Hakai Magazine) A natural fish trap complex in the Pacific Northwest between Seattle and Vancouver. The indigenous and first nation peoples of the world have so much to teach us, if we would only stop and listen. After apologizing for what we’d done to them of course.
New York’s Shadow Transit System (The New Yorker) The unspoken network of dollar vans, shuttles, and “you can’t get there from here” routes, really do make the city tick. And yes, those Jitney vans on 42nd really do stop off in Ft. Lee, North Bergen, and West New York.
This seven minute odyssey from Virtual Riot is a wonderful exploration of polyrhythms, which is when multiple melodies can be heard at the same time. Just a lovely bit of aural chaos, with fun sync ups every few minutes.
Sunday Thought
You’ve already achieved goals you said would make you happy.
Be gentle with yourself,tn