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- Factual Dispatch #40c: The Best Things I Read This Decade (Part III of III)
Factual Dispatch #40c: The Best Things I Read This Decade (Part III of III)
2017-2019: Staring at the Molasses Apocalypse through our personal Skinner Box.
This is a picture of the moon from the other side. It was taken by the Deep Space Climate Observatory, a thing NASA built to monitor various facets of the planet’s climate. It’s also a great reminder of what we’re capable of when we’re not slapping each other. One last time, into the breach.
2017
Corporate Surveillance in Everyday Life (Cracked Labs) by Wolfie Christl - How you’re being tracked goes way past Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
The rise of “three-car garage rock”: How the tony suburbs of the West Valley launched early 2000s alternative rock (Curbed LA) by Jennifer Swan - Three-Car Garage Rock is an amazing term that I’m shocked I’ve never heard before.
Saving the Free Press from Private Equity (The American Prospect) by Robert Kuttner & Hildy Zenger - It’s not just Facebook, private equity is also responsible for the slow destruction of journalism.
The Root of All Cruelty? (New Yorker) by Paul Bloom - Meditation on why those who brutalize and do violence to us, do so.
Rule by Nobody (Real Life) by Adam Clair - Sobering reminder that algorithmic bias in decision-making should not obviate someone from blame, and yet, here we are.
To Donald Trump, the American City Will Always Be a Dystopic, “Eighties” Movies” New York (MTV) by Ezekiel Kweku - David Roth said it the best, and this article reinforces it: Donald Trump’s brain never left 1980s NYC.
How America Became a Colonial Leader in its Own Cities (Vanity Fair) by Chris Hayes - More commentary from Twilight of the Elites, focused towards why minorities don’t call the cops or feel secure around law enforcement officers.
Bless This Oafish Koch Heir And His Hideous Shirts (Deadspin) by David Roth - A hysterical & seminal work on the Koch Brothers, focused on how the failsons of empire prove that the rich are no better than us.
Linear Thinking in a Nonlinear World (Harvard Business Review) by Bart de Langhe, Stefano Puntoni, and Richard Larrick - We are all terrible at thinking nonlinearly, I promise you.
The Problem with Muzak (The Baffler) by Liz Pelly - Fascinating look at the way Spotify’s users passive listening habits (i.e. while at work vs. going to a rock concert) are starting to flatten the sonic profiles of not just single acts, but entire genres of music.
Cognitive Collaboration: Why humans and computers think better together (Deloitte) by Jim Guszcza, Harvey Lewis, and Peter Evans-Greenwood - Annoyingly correct white paper on the hopeful idea that the market works best in when humans work in tandem with computers, not replaced by them entirely.
The Year in Apocalypses (Hazlitt) by Anthony Oliveira - We can believe in something better, something more, than just the end.
2018
The Anatomy of AI by Kate Crawford & Vladan Joler - Gorgeous visualization and micro-site devoted to the totality of the Amazon Echo & Alexa. A spectacular piece of informing art.
Political Correctness has Run Amok - on the Right (Chronicle of Higher Education) by Aaron R. Hanlon - I am so exhausted with the faux issues of tone policing college kids in the face of identitarians and the network of nationalists growing around the globe. If you are as well, instead of arguing with them, just send them this.
The Intellectual We Deserve (Current Affairs) by Nathan J. Robinson - Jordan Peterson is a lazy thinker, an obtuse academic, and a contributor to stochastic terrorism. If you or someone you love is into his rhetoric, please make sure the interested party consume both the Current Affairs article and this New York Review of Books article in full.
The Digital Maginot Line (Ribbon Farm) by Renee DiResta - The parallels between the maginot line and information warfare are scary. We need to evolve online, and fast.
Why Betsy DeVos’s Family Yacht & Others Fly Foreign Flags (Capital & Main) by David Sirota - In case you needed more reasons to hate Yachts, oligarchs who bypass labor laws, or the Devos family, David Sirota has you covered.
How YouTube Blew It (LA Review of Books) by Aymar Jean Christian YouTube had such promise before it became Six Degrees of Extremism.
The Most Important Skill Nobody Taught You (Medium) by Zat Rana - We put kids in time out for the same reason Candy Crush was unstoppable: No one besides elder monks likes sitting alone with their thoughts.
Non consensual bots and personal space (Artifice of Intelligence) by Flavia Dzodan Provocative look at how even benevolent bots like Threader, can bypass consent, extracting profit from creators online.
A Week in Xinjuang’s Absolute Surveillance State (Palladium) by Vadim Mikhailov - One of the articles that inspired me to start this Dispatch, a jaw-dropping look at what the Chinese have done to Xinjiang, the place where millions of Uighurs are being held in concentration camps.
Delete Your Account: On the Theory of Platform Capitalism (LA Review of Books) by Leif Weatherby - Platform Capitalism is our current form of “free market” and it’s also why most anti-trust efforts against Big Tech are hopelessly outdated and will fail.
Data Factories (Stratechery) by Ben Thompson - To understand why old styles of anti-trust action will fail, this article by Ben Thompson about how these sites can be thought of as Data Factories, is super helpful.
Right-sizing the Transnational Jihadist Threat (Crisis Group) by Sam Heller A big word for “figuring out how many goons they have,” this rational look at terror cells might help reassure your more fact-focused IR geek friends.
Statistical pitfalls of personalized medicine (Nature) by Stephen Senn - Deep look at the trials and tribulations of the much touted field of “personalized medicine.”
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Laundering Cash, Whitewashing Reputations (Journal of Democracy) by Alexander Cooley, John Heathershaw, and JC Sharman - I’ll just copy/paste the abstract and get out of the way of the authors:
A growing body of analysis has explored how kleptocrats systematically capture and loot their domestic state institutions, but scholars and policy makers have paid less attention to how globalization enables grand corruption, as well as the laundering of kleptocrats' finances and reputations. Shell companies and new forms of international investment, such as luxury real-estate purchases, serve to launder the ill-gotten gains of kleptocrats and disimbed them from their country of origin. Critically, this normalization of "everyday kleptocracy" depends heavily on transnational professional intermediaries: Western public-relations agents, lobbyists and lawyers help to recast kleptocrats as internationally respected businesspeople and philanthropic cosmopolitans. The resulting web of relationships makes up a "transnational uncivil society," which bends global-governance institutions to work in its favor.
Who Really Killed Avicii (GQ UK) by William Ralston - We do not support our artists. In fact, we put them in circumstances that accelerate their self-destruction. Tim was one of the best of us, but his success couldn’t keep him ahead of his troubles.
The Empty Brain (Aeon) by Robert Epstein - Your brain is not a computer, it doesn’t work like a computer, and anyone who says it is has not taken enough neuroscience for their opinion to be worth holding on to.
Luck vs. Hard Work by James Clear - The author says it the best here: Absolute Success is Luck. Relative Success is Hard Work.
The Great NFL Heist: How Fox Paid for and Changed Football Forever (The Ringer) by Bryan Curtis - Longform read on exactly how Fox crosschecked the other networks into the glass and invented the modern pregame show and football as we know it.
Even When I Lie (Epsilon Theory) by Rusty Guinn - An absolute tour de force, dovetailing religion, authoritarian, and political lies.
Brett Kavanaugh & the Information Terrorists Trying to Reshape America (Wired) by Molly McKew We need to start calling them what they are, information terrorists. See also, the “Hack Gap.”
This is All Donald Trump Has Left (Deadspin) by David Roth - One of the best pieces that will ever be written about Donald Trump. My favorite bit:
It’s so easy to see the shape of what Trump wants in the ways that he lies and lies about what is—in the way he gooses crowd numbers, in the way he tells stories about strong men weeping at his feet in gratitude for all he’s done for this country, in the gap-intensive conspiracies and bizarre causal helixes that he invents to explain away his failures. What’s most striking about Trump’s lies, beyond their overwhelming volume and bombast, is how they reflect his own monomania. So Many Are Saying various things that somehow all wind up being about him; they’re Saying It More And More because there is nothing else and no one else that he could imagine anyone wanting to talk about. The metastasizing They that opposes him grows by the day, and cares about him every bit as much as he cares about himself. They will do, are always somewhere doing, whatever it takes to make him look like an idiot who fucks up and lies constantly. Nothing, certainly not the lives of any number of strangers or whatever is left of any national ideal, is more important than the survival of his most obvious throwaway fantasy.
2019
Engineers of the Soul: Ideology in Xi Jinping’s China (Sinocism) by John Garnaut, posted by Bill Bishop - This talk by John Garnaut is the most important discussion of what Xi Jinping believes, how it’s related to Stalinism, Maoism, and “communism with Chinese characteristics.” Critical read for anyone trying to understand where Xi’s (and by extension the CCP’s) head is at.
How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump As An Icon of American Success (New Yorker) by Patrick Radden Keefe - If you wanted to lay the election of Trump (and commensurate national destruction) at the feet of any single person, it wouldn’t be at Hillary’s, or Bernie’s, Jill Stein’s or even Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s. That honor goes to Mark Burnett. You know, the Survivor guy? If Trump wasn’t on NBC hosting The Apprentice for 14 (FOURTEEN!) years, does anyone think he would’ve made it out of the 2016 primary?
About Face (Popula) by Nate Powell - Terrifying reminder of how we’re normalizing force against citizens and how Blue Lives Matter draws a line in the sand, dividing our nation.
The Absurdities of “Franchise Fatigue” & “Sequelitis” (ReDef) by Matthew Ball - Stat-filled, mythbusting discussion of how Marvel, Disney, and the mega-franchise universe is affecting the movie box office and sales across the spectrum.
Different Types of Stupid (Collaborative Fund) by Morgan Housel - In the same way that there are many types of smart, there are many types of stupid.
An Epidemic of AI Misinformation (The Gradient) by Gary Marcus - AI press releases are often quietly retracted, scope-limited, or just fundamentally misleading. Don’t believe the hype.
Twelve Lessons on Power (Epilogue) by Samuel Miller McDonald - One of the best things I’ve read this century, this narrative is a great encapsulation of how my generation saw the brutal ways authoritarians swept into power since 2000.
How Dreams Change Under Authoritarianism (New Yorker) by Mirelle Juchau - Fascinating look at why your dreams might have gotten a bit more turbulent in the last few years.
How to Fix America’s Dysfunctional Diplomatic Toolkit (Responsible Statecraft) by Gordon Adams - Diplomacy is powerful, and it’s not dead yet.
Geopolitics for the Left (N+1) by Ted Fertik - The Left’s conception of foreign policy usually cleaves to either isolationism or a calcified allergy to globalism. This is a wonderful look at another way forward.
Open Borders Are a Trillion-Dollar Idea (Foreign Policy) Gorgeously illustrated piece provocatively advocating for not just immigration expansion, but truly open borders. A surprisingly compelling case is made, so pass it around before Easter.
The Revised Boy Scout Manual: William S. Burroughs’ Manifesto for Overthrowing a Corrupt Government with Fake News (Open Culture) by Josh Jones - I might need to buy this book.
How black residents of Long Beach fought racist real estate policies and influenced a nation (Long Beach Post) by Brian Addison - Black people have been dragging us into the future, kicking and screaming, for decades now.
Privileged (The Players’ Tribune) by Kyle Korver - Stunningly good long-form read by an ally in the NBA, when he realized he had to stand up for his teammate (Thabo) being brutalized by the cops.
Modernity’s Spell (New Atlantis) by Clare Coffey - Why debunking things only makes the belief in it by some, stronger.
The Shady Cryptocurrency Boom on the Post-Soviet Frontier (Wired) by Hannah Lucinda Smith - Crypto production has found a new home scattered across Eastern Europe.
The New Fugitive Slave Laws (New York Review of Books) by Manisha Sinha - Laws designed to punish illegal immigrants and their families are the new fugitive slave laws, no matter what the GOP says.
The Day One Agenda (The American Prospect) by David Dayen - A rational, sobering read about what a progressive/liberal president could do on the first day they entered the White House to start repairing the damage Trump has done.
Peter Thiel’s Religion by David Perell - Sprawling read that gets inside the head of Peter Thiel better than anything I’ve encountered.
The Financialization of the American Elite (American Affairs Journal) by Sam Long - This piece, and the next one, both by the American Affairs Journal, are long, complex, but mandatory reading for anyone who wants to understand the transformation that has occurred across the country, over the last 30 years.
America’s Drift Toward Feudalism (American Affairs Journal) by Joel Kotkin - Ditto, but somehow worse, more depressing, and detailed to the point of mild hopelessness.
Click Here to Kill: The dark world of online murder markets (Harper’s) by Brian Merchant - I had no idea, and boy oh boy is this terrifying.
The El Paso Shooting & the Gamification of Terror (Bellingcat) by Robert Evans - Terrorism is changing, 8chan is helping, and the livestreaming of mass shootings became commonplace this year.
The Problem with Sugar Daddy Science (The Atlantic) by Sarah Taber - Critical reminder that elite universities that take no-strings donations, usually are hamstrung by the process, with very little to show for it.
Zero Hedge, Russia, and the Business of Conspiracies (Trump/Russia) - by Seth Hettena - Stop reading Zero Hedge, stop posting Zero Hedge, and stop considering it anything but a font of propaganda. For more info on this, the BylineTimes had a great review of how trolls, sock puppets, and gullible organic lifeforms contribute to disinformation campaigns.
What if you call 911 and no one comes? (NBC News) by Erika Edwards - For years, I’ve asserted that the biggest mistake Democrats made in the last century was allowing the GOP to whittle away at public services in flyover country. Now, with many of those services non-functional, the GOP is able to effectively weaponize their uselessness against Democrats to dismantle the social welfare state.
In This Is All: Memory, Meaning, and the Self (Lapham’s Quarterly) by Jim Holt - Enrapturing meditation on two schools of thought about how memory, narrative, storytelling, and philosophical ideals intersect with the real world. One of my favorite bits:
On one side are those who believe the most important thing about the self you fashion is that it be original and new—not something copied from a preexisting template, not an imitation of someone else. Let’s call these people Nietzscheans. On the other are those who insist that the “good” you are questing after in your self-fashioning story must be truly good—not just something you happen to love for subjective reasons. Let’s call these people Platonists.
The insane news cycles of 2019 (Axios) by Stef W. Kight - No, you weren’t losing your mind, the news cycles of 2019 were completely bonkers.
2020 is off to a potentially earth-shattering bang, so I couldn’t let this go out with the best perspectives I could find on the situation. This piece from the New Yorker in 2013 details his rough history, how he came to power, and how we blew it when it came to him being an ally in the early 2000s. This article in the New Statesman by Emily Tamkin, published this morning, details that this action by us shows we’ve not learned the lessons of Iraq. And this is a great read on the Millennium Challenge, that war game in 2002 where an American General showed how easily the Iranian military could beat us.
We’re here, so hug the ones you love, fight for truth over zealotry, and stay sharp.
Yours,