Links (August 2020)
Timeful texts transform how we see the world. Yet, we can’t devote cathedrals to every book. What tools can transcend books from their pages and shape our lives?
Machines + Society touches on similar themes in Tools for our brains.
Eugene Wei in TikTok and the Sorting Hat explains how TikTok's algorithm made it possible to crack the "veil of cultural ignorance" and break into the US market.
The Panopticon Is Already Here explores how a “totalitarian AI” developed by China can be exported to other regimes. It highlights the importance of leading in tech development as a way to guarantee the alignment of liberal values with new technology. Otherwise, we are just building the infrastructure for an Orwellian state.
For more on what kind of World That China Wants see Tanner Greer’s analysis of Dan Tobin's testimony to Congress.
Bryan Caplan on how social justice ideology is an “Orwellian movement” that under the guise of devotion to “diversity and inclusion” strives to achieve “uniformity via exclusion”.
I love the title of The Truth Is Paywalled But The Lies Are Free, but I don’t think that access to truth is the real problem. If there is evidence that the world is round behind a paywall, I’m not sure it would convince flat-earthers. Showering someone with facts won’t convince them. Synthesizing and making sense of new evidence is the bottleneck were are facing right now.
The fantastic Nicky Case teams us with an epidemiologist - Marcel Salathé - to create interactive simulations of COVID-19 possible futures.
Benjamin Todd showcases the most common misconceptions about effective altruism based on Will MacAskill recent paper.
A comprehensive collection of Peter Thiel’s thoughts on Progress and Stagnation (google docs link).
Jason Crawford present celebrations of progress in history and asks why haven't we celebrated any major achievements lately?
An extraordinary story on the rise, fall, and rise of the pineapple as a symbol of status.
Cory Doctorow’s new (free) book on How To Destroy Surveillance Capitalism.
Sweatpants Forever and the unravelling of the fashion industry.
Check out the digital restoration of Manhatta (1920) - the first American avant-garde film - with poetry by Walt Whitman.
Have a look at the Photoreal Roman Emperor Project with 54 Machine-learning assisted portraits.
Storytelling advice from the creators of South Park: The But & Therefore Rule.
Fiction:
Andy Bryan’s flash stories: Back From Yet Another Globetrotting Adventure, Indiana Jones Checks His Mail And Discovers That His Bid For Tenure Has Been Denied and Cookie Monster Searches Deep Within Himself and Asks: Is Me Really Monster?