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July 5 · Issue #20 · View online
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“We must learn to hope with teeth.”
Welcome back, he whispers quietly more to himself than to his audience. It feels like, with every issue of this newsletter, the world has gone to shit a bit more. Maybe that’s a good excuse for having fallen off the bandwagon a bit. Or to stop trying to comment on the world affairs and focus on pointing to the unusual, odd, fresh and alternative viewpoints that don’t give you hope but provide you with a starting point from where you just might see the next torch in the fog. That for me is the point about being critical. Not to piss on someone’s parade but to say “we can do better than this.” That’s the idea behind most of the articles from the last month that I’ve collected below. Although I fail at it too often myself, I believe that now is the perfect time to spend more time with thinking about and reflecting on the undercurrents. Ok, two lightly salted almonds left…
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The Limits of Utopia
An amazing speech by China Miéville about what I would call “utopia for grown-ups.” It’s from 2014 but it feels perfect for the state we’re in right now.
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Third Wave Commentary
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Systems fiction: a novel way to think about the present
Seen in literary fiction as well as SF, this genre weaves together complex debates in a way that can offer a clearer view of the future – think Atwood, DeLillo and Asimov
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The Singularity has been postponed
Taken together some of the recent articles, that I’ve linked to on this newsletter, form a harsh take-down of the main theories behind the technological singularity and some true AI scaremongering. That’s why I put them all together in a post, mainly so that I can link to them easily.
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Salvaging the Future
A review of a special journal issue on “The Futures Industry.” This article made me really furious how difficult it is to get your hands on the featured magazine and why the publishers won’t offer a pdf.
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Don’t Believe the Hype
Neuroscientist Catherine Kerr is concerned about how mindfulness meditation research is being portrayed in the media.
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The Unquestioned Pursuit of Weight Loss Had Us Eating Wrong for Years
Leigh Alexander plows through 30 years of dietary fads and leaves you wondering if we have learnt anything at all about how to eat reasonably.
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When Perfect Is the Enemy
The common perception that a thin person is more healthy than an overweight person remains an opinion that is difficult to change. This one by Susan Smith will go into the ‘revisit monthly’ folder because I still need to recalibrate my perception of health and weight (my own and how I perceive others) on a regular basis.
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Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social - Facts So Romantic
“Loneliness, longing, does not mean one has failed, but simply that one is alive.”
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In televangelist of technology Kevin Kelly’s divinely-guided The Inevitable, the future isn’t quite for everyone
So Kevin Kelly has written the bible for the Borg Complex, basically. And Molly Sauter is not only giving it the beating it deserves. She also puts into fine words some of the biggest problems with technology determinists.
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My friend, the bot
Beautifully personal account of Jay Ownes about experiencing friendship with a Twitter bot, based on the tweets from a friend.
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How Virginia Heffernan is reinventing tech criticism
Sara M. Watson reviews Heffernan’s book Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art and reflects on the role of the tech critic in general.
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“We need to stop seeing technology criticism as destructive; rather, it gives us the opportunity to shape the future of technology in our everyday lives.”
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