Hello! I’m back from a short summer break and am heading back to Taiwan this week. Here’s what I’ve been reading the past few weeks.
Five Good Reads
#1 Authenticity: What does authenticity mean in the modern context? This long read explores how authenticity has gone from hipster culture to mainstream dominance:
Unfortunately, when your new WeWork office displays the same hand-lettered signage as your neighborhood coffee shop, has the same brick walls as your fast casual farm-to-table lunch spot, and advocates the same “do what you love” message celebrity entrepreneurs have told you since grade school, it becomes impossible to think outside of authenticity politics.
…as well as the authors own contemplation of his inconsistencies:
For years my anxieties around work had centered on far-flung future goals—a sort of personal teleology about what I was supposed to achieve and the type of person I was supposed to become. It struck me then that there is a deep entitlement to the idea of an authentic self.
fascinating read all around - let me know what you think?
#2 Bad Arguments: Scott Alexander argues against a certain type of lazy thinking. Here is a taste:
“Suppose someone wants to build a statue honoring Martin Luther King Jr. for his nonviolent resistance to racism. An opponent of the statue objects: "But Martin Luther King was a criminal!"
He walks through other examples of arguments about abortion, capital punishment, taxation and affirmative action. Read the full post here.
#3 Post-Truth: Aaron Lewis offers this fascinating take on the post-truth world. It starts:
The future is already here, it’s just not universally understood. I know I’m not alone when I say that I can feel the gap between my world and my parents’ world widening. They barely know what memes and influencers are — and yet, our culture is being completely re-shaped by them. Making sense of 2019 feels like a part-time job. What’s real, what’s fake? It’s hard to keep up.
He explored much of the manipulation that is happening in the digital world and some potential paths to combat it.
He also introduced me to the term Agnotology
#4 Money out of thin air: Are we going to see “helicopter money” in the next recession? Japan might attempt this in the fall.
#5 Karoshi: A short 11-minute video episode about “Karoshi” and overwork