thom
This is a lot, but the articulation of a technology ecosystem optimized for poison is good. Also liked the comparison of AI content to PFAs in our soil. Calling Mark Zuckerberg a "putrid ghoul" is maybe the best thing I've read all year and it's January 3rd.
On how Netflix is becoming Blockbuster.
"The losing goes on and on so long you begin to watch with curiosity, wondering how low you can go."
An economic analysis of enshittification.
An old Ted Chiang short story that feels very relevant in Trump 2.0 world.
Getting a little heavy on the New Yorker pieces, but this is just too good.
I discovered this while looking for another article. Some great names in here ("Mavis Stranger," "Minona Seagrove"). Wonderful vignettes of hitchhiking. But the best imagery is about how the place you're from spins you both like a web and a top. How true that rings.
Written the last time it felt like things were falling apart, democratically. Great read on historical progress and our role in it, if at all.
Sisyphus couldn’t stop pushing his boulder—but you can.
Reframe on development economics.
Don Luigi Ciotti leads an anti-Mafia organization, and for decades he has run a secret operation that liberates women from the criminal underworld.
On the pleasure of better dictionary entries.
The very-bad-no-good White Sox are still having fun.
A bracing and eccentric epic of espionage and hippos.
Why are we letting algorithms rewrite the rules of art, work, and life?
A veteran diplomat explains how to navigate the U.S. development ecosystem, master the interagency process, and bring electricity to 200 million people.
Scientists have shattered our self-image as principled beings, motivated by moral truths. Some wonder whether our ideals can survive the blow to our vanity.
Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and vastly cheaper than mined diamonds. Beating nature took decades of hard graft and millions of pounds of pressure.