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to participate in the great decisions of government. There was, Lippmann brooded, no “intrinsic moral and intellectual virtue to majority rule.” Lippmann’s disenchantment with democracy anticipated the mood of today’s elites. From the top, the public, and the swings of public opinion, appeared irrational and uninformed. The human material out of wh
... See moreMartin Gurri • Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium
The issue here does not concern how many jobs will be created, how much income generated, how many pollutants added... Rather, the issue has to do with the ways in which choices about technology have important consequences for the form and quality of human associations.
Langdon Winner • Do Artifacts Have Politics?
American Architect Keller Easterling is well known for her book Extrastatecraft (2014), which looked at the power of infrastructural space and how this defines the operating system of the modern world. Her most recent text, Medium Design: Knowing How to Work on the World (2021) looks at the spaces between things, syste
... See moreJesse McKee • From Polycrisis to the Smart Commons
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
Jon Gertner • 1 highlight
amazon.com
Yet the cultural dominance of the iPhone — and the transformation of the open internet into “walled gardens” and apps focused on simplifying the user experience — has taken the “triumph of seamless usability” to a new level. This “tyranny of convenience,” to borrow Tim Wu’s phrase , should sensitize us to what may be lost when democratization proc
... See moreROGERS BRUBAKER • Hyperconnected Culture and Its Discontents
