Friday Fodder #1
What's trending and what's transcendent?
I’m starting something new here: some suggested reading each week. Some will be trendy and timely and very relevant to the here and now. And some will focus on longer term ideas that might still be very key to where we’re going right now, but aren’t wrapped up in the crazy-fast weekly news cycle.
Books should always have a place in reading habits, so we’ll include a couple of recommendations there too.
Ready? Here we go!
Timely
Have The Vibes Shifted Back? - Tyler Cowen doubles down on the vibe shifts.
The Media Thought Misleaders - Mike Pesca outlines the problem with conclusion-first journalism and why it’s such a stupid mess. What does it mean to beat a monster if you become a monster? A particularly nasty kind of pyrrhic win.
Fight! - Substack founder Hamish McKenzie’s call for us to become an audience that deserves a better media. “You can take back your mind.”
Give Parents The Vote - Childless cat ladies are having their somewhat rage-y moment, but should they have even less influence? This paper argues that giving children more political power - through their parents - solves every problem we have. I’m as skeptical of panaceas as I am monocausal blame, but this is still a fascinating argument.
Timeless
Situational Awareness - Leopold Aschenbrenner lays out an utterly fascinating view of the next 10 years in AI. He sticks to his exponential curves, walks through the implications for energy use and geopolitics, and explains why the West must win. This is lucid, scary, and the most complete take on a view of the future of AI. It’s 100+ pages but totally worth the time.
Want a summary? Fine, here’s a good one along with a reasonable criticism - that is, unhobblings are a key aspect of Aschenbrenner’s model and totally unknown solutions.Common logical fallacies surrounding capitalism - Alex MacCaw has a great breakdown. You could consider this timely I guess.. but really these are the mistakes that people have been making since capitalism became a thing. Also, shoutout to Reflect.
Is Silicon Valley Building Universe 25 - Ted Gioia is one of the best cultural critics right now. His call here evaluates our fundamental desires and animal instincts. In his words, “Are we deliberately creating a ‘leisure’ world of narcissism, violence, and asexuality?”
Bullshitifization and Common Indifference - One of my favorite philosophy books is On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt, so Venkatesh Rao had my full attention with this excellent breakdown based on a paper called “Bullshit as a Problem of Social Epistemology”.
Books
Five Decembers by James Kestrel - starts with classic detective noir starting in Honolulu around Thanksgiving 1941 and becomes something else after Pearl Harbor.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - I never read The Martian, the movie was good but it’s really just one character fighting a harsh world. Hail Mary has a great premise, aliens, and does a great job dealing with pragmatic sci-fi problems like space, language, and biology. It’s the kind of book you have to stay up through the early hours to finish it. That’s what I did.
Trust Me, I’m Lying by Ryan Holiday - What an indictment of the news system. If you’ve heard of Gell-Man Amnesia and you think that’s scary, this is the book for you. Holiday does a tactical breakdown of how he manipulated bloggers and reporters to get the results he wants. Attention is the ultimate currency.
1984 by George Orwell - I only just read this for the first time this year. It is demented and yet appropriate for our times. Worth the read, even if Big Brother looks a lot different here in 2024. Chuck Pahalniuk of Fight Club fame modernizes the Big-Brother vision:
“Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother's busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed. He's making sure your imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix. He's making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.”
