Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
about the bleating idiocy of American mass media in the era after 9/11 and the run-up to the Iraq War. In it, he offers a thought experiment that has stuck with me. Imagine, he says, being at a party, with the normal give and take of conversation between generally genial, informed people. And then “a guy walks in with a megaphone. He’s not the smar... See more
Chris Hayes • On the Internet, We’re Always Famous
faster churning of companies in and out of the S&P 500, the death of news and the newspaper, the failure of established
Martin Gurri • Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium
The hipster was an information-sorting algorithm: its job was to always have good taste . The hipster listened to bands you’d never heard of. The hipster drank beers brewed by Paraguayan Jesuits in the 1750s. The hipster thought Tarkovsky was for posers, and the only truly great late-Soviet filmmaker was Ali Khamraev. The hipster bought all his toi... See more
Sam Kriss • All the Nerds Are Dead - By Sam Kriss - Numb at the Lodge
In America, losing a job means making a hundred phone calls to a state unemployment-insurance system. Getting hit by a car means becoming your own hospital-billing expert. Having a disability means launching into a Jarndyce v. Jarndyce–type legal battle. Needing help to feed a toddler means filling out a novel-length application for aid.
The Atlantic • The Time Tax
news that’s fit to print,” but it delivered a large enough proportion of published topics that, as a practical proposition,
Martin Gurri • Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium
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
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