The People Who Ruined The Internet

Amanda Chicago Lewis | Verge | 1st November 2023

They are the SEO “experts”, and it is their fault that you can’t find anything on Google. “The more I thought about search engine optimisation and how a bunch of megalomaniacal jerks were degrading our sense of reality because they wanted to buy Lamborghinis and prove they could vanquish the almighty algorithm, the more I looked forward to going to Florida for this alligator party” (8,530 words)

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A Pint For The Alewives

Akanksha Singh | JSTOR | 5th December 2023

Until the 14C when plague radically reduced the population of Europe, the brewing of beer was women’s work. It now has overtly masculine associations, but ale was once the sole liquid any medieval peasant could drink safely. The “alewife” or “brewster” performed this perpetual domestic labour, soaking and fermenting grain to produce ale for household consumption and for sale (1,060 words)

The Geopolitics Of Godzilla

Peter Tasker | 4th December 2023

Godzilla’s Japan evolves, reflecting the differing political concerns of each new age into which the monster rampages. Thus in 1954’s Godzilla, King of the Monsters! we see anti-American sentiment after a US H-bomb test, while Shin Godzilla shows residual trauma from the 2011 tsunami. The latest instalment reveals a nation newly focused on defence after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (1,380 words)

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30 Useful Principles

Gurwinder | 25th November 2023

Compilation of laws and concepts that can aid greater understanding of the world, with links out to more detailed explanations. Favourites include “Benford's Law of Controversy”, which deals with the relationship between information and emotion, and the “Toothbrush Problem” — “Psychologists treat theories like toothbrushes; no self-respecting person wants to use another’s” (1,550 words)

Audio: Kissinger | The Documentary. Recorded in 2022. The BBC's James Naughtie talks to the late Henry Kissinger about the six world leaders — Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle, Richard Nixon, Anwar Sadat, Lee Kuan Yew and Margaret Thatcher — profiled in Kissinger's final book, Strategy (49m 29s)

Video: The World Is Too Much With Us | William Bartlett | Vimeo | 1m 20s

William Wordsworth's 19th-century sonnet with 21st-century images:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers ...

Interview: Nick Bostrom

Flo Read | Unherd | 12th November 2023

Philosopher of existential risk argues that AI, if it does not kill us, will make us stronger. "I would like AI [to arrive] before some radical biotech revolution. We could go extinct through synthetic biology without even getting to roll the die with AI. Whereas if we get AI first, maybe that will kill us, but if not, if we get through that, then I think [AI] will handle the biotech, the nanotech, risks" (2,600 words)

52 Things I Learned In 2023

Tom Whitwell | Magnetic Notes | 1st December 2023

Is it that time of year already? The claims in Tom Whitwell's annual assemblage of offbeat eyebrow-raisers range, as always, from the counterintuitive to the scarcely credible. “A group of domesticated birds were taught to call one another on tablets and smartphones.” "Scientists in Singapore have developed a tiny flexible battery, powered by the salt in human tears, for smart contact lenses" (1,500 words)

Nothing Personal

Paul Nedelisky | Hedgehog Review | 23rd November 2023

Like a modern-day Diogenes, Derek Parfit tried to practise what he preached, and with similarly disconcerting results. He became a saint to some and a sociopath to others. "He spent decades arguing for the idea that we should behave more impersonally toward those close to us. His antisocial behavior reflected his philosophy. You might say he lived down to his principle" (2,160 words)

The Chimp-Pig Hypothesis

Uri Bram | Atoms vs Bits | 22nd November 2023

Place tongue firmly in cheek before accepting this invitation to reconsider Eugene McCarthy's theory that humanity's ancestor was a chimp-pig hybrid. "This is a rare theory that is internally consistent and coherent enough not to be ridiculous, overturns everything we think we know about a major area of knowledge, and doesn't have any meaningful implications for our current lives" (2,400 words)

Invisible Landscapes

Jennifer Brandel | Orion | 16th November 2023

On the discovery of a new human organ. The interstitium is a sponge-like layer that lies just beneath the skin, where fluid rushes through "a fractal, honeycombed network" that supports musculature and carries cells and information around the body. It can be seen with the naked eye during surgery, but was overlooked by a scientific approach that preferred isolated objects to systems (2,900 words)

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The Great Poets’ Brawl Of ‘68

Nick Ripatrazone | LitHub | 29th November 2023

The 1968 World Poetry Conference was notable for how quickly it turned violent. "The poets battled on Long Island. Drinks spilled into the grass. Punches were flung; some landed. Chilean and French poets stood on a porch and laughed while the Americans brawled. A glass table shattered. Bloody-nosed poets staggered into the coming darkness. Allen Ginsberg fell to his knees and prayed" (1,500 words)

When Deepfakes Go Nuclear

Sarah Scoles | Coda | 28th November 2023

The proliferation of computer generated imagery that looks real has implications for nuclear warfare. The problem exists at both ends — fake satellite images could end up being analysed by a compromised AI system. But even if such a system does launch a missile by mistake, it is still our fault. "Humans created the AI systems and made choices about where to use them" (3,300 words)

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Without you knowing it, your food is already full of MSG (and that’s a good thing). If you like it you should put some MSG on it.

Last Week At Marienbad

Lauren Oyler | Granta | 23rd November 2023

Witty essay about a trip to Marienbad, a fading spa town in the Czech Republic famous as a place where Kafka fought with his fiancé, where Goethe fell in love, and as the setting for a 1961 French New Wave film written by Alain Robbe-Grillet. Here, the travellers' attempt to experience true convalescence is stymied by excessive sugar consumption and too many trips to the sauna (5,200 words)

Last Love

Sophie Elmhirst | Guardian | 23rd November 2023

Love story from the end of life. "Mary had so many metaphors for it. Derek was a blinding meteorite across her sky; it was like someone switched on the sun. She was knocked off her feet, smashed over the head with love. Derek proposed. In her room one day, quietly. Did she want to get married? Yes please. He bought her an amethyst ring, because she had always wanted an amethyst" (4,000 words)

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Yaar Parivaar

Neerja Deodhar | Mid Day | 5th November 2023

Literal translation: "dude family". A growing number of urban professionals in India are choosing to remain single into middle age and beyond. They are setting up multi-person households, often with children and pets cared for communally. Informal economic instruments are emerging around these setups — as unrelated people can't open joint bank accounts, a barter system evolves (2,440 words)

The Frog That Couldn’t Jump

Kim Ju-Song | Dial | 14th November 2023

Memoir. A Japanese-born writer of Korean descent describes working as an office assistant at the Writers’ Union in North Korea, where his responsibilities included overseeing what was known as the "100-copy collection", a small library of foreign books locked in a safe and reserved for the use of Union members only. "Any mismanagement of the 100-copy collection would be prosecuted as a political crime, since it would in effect be distributing capitalist reactionary materials to the public" (4,030 words)

Hitler The Hotel Guest

Adam Bisno | 1584 | 17th November 2023

In February 1931, two years before he became chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler moved his Berlin headquarters to a suite in the Hotel Kaiserhof on Wilhelmplatz, overlooking the Reich Chancellery. The Kaiserhof started to swarm with Nazis. Jewish custom evaporated. The directors of the hotel, most of whom were Jewish, found themselves in an unenviable dilemma. Should they kick Hitler out and face the consequences? Or should they let him stay, and face the consequences? (750 words)

Death Of A Berlin Power Broker

Peter Richter | Granta | 23rd November 2023

A century ago Potsdamer Platz and Friedrichstraße were the busiest and most glamorous streets in Berlin. War and partition reduced them to wasteland. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 it seemed only a matter of time before they regained their historic position and prestige. A tidal wave of international capital financed a decade-long construction boom. The outcome has been a planning disaster. Potsdamer Platz and Friedrichstraße are now bleak, ugly, and lifeless. What went wrong? And why was the city's planning officer murdered? (6,200 words)

Twins And Individuality

Helena de Bres | Aeon | 21st November 2023

Natural human chimeras are formed when the zygotes of non-identical twins fuse or exchange cells during gestation; one person is born with two sets of genes. A chimeric mother may also be her own child's aunt. Only 100 cases of natural chimerism are documented, but some 36 per cent of twin pregnancies involve a "vanishing twin", so many more cases may exist. Physically, chimerism is an unremarkable condition, but metaphysically it is bewildering. If one body can contain two people, could one person range across two bodies? (2,600 words)