Habermas Machines

Rob Horning | Internal Exile | 19th October 2024

Should we let machines arbitrate our fraught public sphere? Google researchers suggest that LLMs can help people find common ground on divisive issues. “That sounds like the Habermas Machine, something that resembles a public sphere but is actually software architecture. It may be that the process of producing common ground is what makes the subsequent working together possible” (1,500 words)

Kafka’s Creative Block

Maria Popova | Marginalian | 20th October 2024 | U

Kafka’s diary reveals entirely relatable anxieties about creativity. He complains that his day job at the insurance company leaves him with no time to write, yet laments his procrastination — “the shameful lowlands of writing”. Global events wreck him: during WWI, he “sinks into an inner darkness, anxiety rising to untenable heights”. He is crippled by envy; Goethe’s writings paralyse him for a month (3,100 words)

Time To Build The Exoplanet Telescope

Casey Handmer | Palladium | 18th October 2024

Since Galileo, telescopes have been doubling in size every half a century. There is no reason not to go faster. Why not build a Monster Scope, "the largest physically possible space telescope", and answer big questions about the universe within the span of one human lifetime? A device with a mirror diameter of 1km would enable us to see nearby planets as clearly as we currently see the Moon (2,000 words)

The Real Keys For Winning The White House

Chandler Dean & Jonathan Van Halem | McSweeney’s | 17th October 2024

Parody of Allan Lichtman's "thirteen key" list for election prediction. Some, such as the "Sentience Key", hit home rather well: "This key is awarded if the candidate can persuade the public that they are conscious. Not environmentally conscious or socially conscious; that has never mattered. Rather, voters love knowing that the person they elect is able to perceive the external world" (800 words)

A Nobel For The Big Big Questions

Noah Smith | Noahpinion | 15th October 2024

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics went to a trio of US-based economists whose research has "demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity", according to the official citation. But what is "an institution"? Their theory "resonates strongly on an emotional level", but is difficult to evaluate with evidence. This is work that is more philosophical than it is scientific (3,300 words)

I Don't Drink

Katie Stone | Plant Based | 4th October 2024

Tips on navigating a social life when you don't drink alcohol — in the writer's case, because it "tastes bad" and makes her ill. Remember that nobody likely cares what is in your glass, and if they do, “that’s a them problem”. Ask mixologists what they can make for a non-drinker and you will never be bored while out for "drinks". Be confident, but don't "proselytise the non-drinking lifestyle" (1,400 words)

America Sanitises The Horror Of Its Wars

Noam Chomsky | LitHub | 16th October 2024 | U

Chomsky is still writing at 95, albeit now with the assistance of co-author Nathan J. Robinson. This extract from their latest book looks at the ways in which the US has "curated" accounts of its post-war military exploits to hide their full impact from citizens. "Americans are never shown what it actually looks like when a US drone strike hits a wedding party, or a child is crushed by a US tank" (1,800 words)

Ignorant But Confident

John Timmer | Ars Technica | 15th October 2024 | U

On the illusion of adequate information, a corollary to the Dunning-Kruger effect. People tend to believe that they have enough data to make an informed decision, regardless of the information they actually have. This leads to an unearned confidence in their conclusions. The good news: people do change their minds once given more information. You can find the highly readable research article here (1,200 words)

Podcast: Tartans | Omnibus. Everything tartan, from the distinctive plaid patterns of various Scottish clans to the mythologised narratives around their choices (1h 27m)

Video: The Exchange | YouTube | Birdbox Studio | 2m 22s

Animated short of a ransom situation gone hilariously awry, all seen through the lookout’s binoculars.

Why Do We Get The Wrong Leaders?

James Vitali | Engelsberg Ideas | 10th October 2024

Political leaders in the West seem to be lacking the elusive quality of judgement. For Max Weber, it was “the ability to strike a balance between two divergent ethical imperatives”. Judgement is not to be conflated with expertise, for this presumes that with enough knowledge, a person may become an expert in politics. Rather, it involves making decisions responsibly without knowing whether they are correct (2,500 words)

Empty Vessels Of Time

Heidi Lasher | The Good Question | 7th October 2024

A “culture of busyness” has replaced leisure as the new status symbol. The “harried leisure class” is always pursuing a “hectic agenda, filled with productive and edifying activities”. This author ekes out an afternoon watching the shadows play on her walls. “My kids drifted into the room as if magnetised by my lack of agenda. Like butterflies landing on my hand, they stayed and watched the shadows with me” (2,000 words)

Plutocrat Archipelagos

Jack Self | MacGuffin | 28th September 2024 | U

The ultra wealthy, especially those who inherited money rather than made it, cut themselves off from the world by walls by visible and invisible. The physical barriers include "razor wire fences; galvanised spikes; electrified perimeters; soaring planes of solid brickwork, blockwork and concrete". The intangible separation is achieved through "paranoia, distrust and fear" (2,100 words)

The First Billion Years Comes Into View

Rebecca Boyle | Quanta | 9th October 2024 | U

The "firehose" of new, bright images from the James Webb Space Telescope is not even fully open yet. Much of what we have seen so far is strange. "Galaxy size, brightness, mass and shape are all weird. Black holes are weird. The efficiency of star formation is weird; the correlation between brightness, astronomical power and an object’s mass are not as astrophysicists expected" (3,900 words)

Why Is Everything So Ugly?

Editors | n+1 | 20th September 2024

A century ago, H. L. Mencken deplored the American "libido for the ugly". Matters have not improved. Even with better design and construction techniques than ever, we have managed to produce a homogenous world of unoriginality. "Our built environment tends overwhelmingly toward the insubstantial, the flat, and the grey, punctuated here and there by the occasional childish squiggle" (3,900 words)

Written On The Body

Rumaan Alam | Esquire | 8th October 2024

In praise of a tattooed middle age. "Most of us have some instinct to capture these things; that’s why we save ticket stubs and outgrown baby clothes, take photographs of every memorable taco. We want to remember. This is a losing battle, and we know it. Maybe if I inscribe this stuff on my very body, it will last however long my body does. Maybe I’ve landed on a workaround" (1,400 words)

The Coal Conquest

Anton Howes | Age Of Invention | 4th October 2024

Why did coal become the predominant fuel in industrial Britain? From ironmaking to glassmaking, industry after industry replaced wood with coal in the late 16C. This wasn’t for a dearth of trees. Coal freed up woodland that had to provide fuel, allowing for their conversion to agriculture. “The rise of coal was not caused by deforestation. Deforestation was caused by the arrival of cheap coal” (9,500 word

China’s Sentinel State

Minxin Pei & Dalia Parete | China Media Project | 7th October 2024

Interview about China’s unique surveillance methods. Instead of a large, centralised security apparatus, tasks are decentralised across security agencies. During the pandemic, China used cell phone monitoring and “grid management”, dividing communities into grids to be monitored by an individual. The Party now plans to introduce a cyber ID scheme, hoping to increase self-censorship (1,900 words)

An Undulating Thrill

Douglas Small | Aeon | 4th October 2024

Cultural history of cocaine. In the 1880s, it was fashionable as pain relief and as a stimulant. It was so popular that the cost per ounce briefly exceeded that of gold. Its anaesthetic properties had knock on effects: tattoo artists flourished, now that the pain of being inked could be easily numbed. By the 1920s, though, it had become "a frightening and corrupting source of addiction" (3,300 words)

What’s In A Gateway?

Kerri Culhane & Yin Kong | Urban Omnibus | 2nd October 2024

Chinatown neighbourhoods are often marked by a gateway built in a traditional Chinese architectural style. Along with other signifiers like culturally relevant businesses and bilingual street signage, these edifices help make clear an otherwise ill-defined boundary. Manhattan’s Chinatown is about to get such a structure. Should it look like a traditional paifang, or something new? (3,200 words)