- Read: The oceans are transitioning to become more acidic, hotter and higher (+15m by 2500, so goodbye Netherlands… and many other cities!)
- Listen: Good discussion of how Chinese women are getting richer while women in “cloistered” cultures (think stay at home) are just waiting to be let out.
- Read: AIs offer effortless knowledge but they are likely to push us to conform to the beliefs of its algorithmic designers. Related: AIs are contributing to the “enshitification” of the Internet (Have you noticed? I see it in the fall in quality at Amazon shopping and Google search. I’m not on social media, thanks god!)
- Read this 1967 essay on the “New Industrial State” by John K. Galbraith. His main idea is that large corporations — as bureaucracies that dominate “market economies” — mean that markets are more planned than free. This theme is part of my recent post on setting prices, but JKG does make the mistake (from what I’ve read) of assuming that large firms can maintain power, despite their planning (failures). I can say this with confidence because none of the largest 10 firms in 1967 are in the top 10 today — and many are gone altogether.
- Read Jane Jacobs’s 1984 essay on urban economics and development [pdf]. Insightful!
- Read a slightly terrifying description of the personalities of the TechBros who are shaping our lives.
- Read: Local governments are bulling the press (which is calling attention to shenanigans) — just another sign of end times for America?
- Read: Climate chaos is already disrupting seasonal fruits… and much more to come!
- Read: Another step in collapse: Climate chaos is hitting Europe, but nobody is doing “anything” about it (compared to pursuing other goals that make CC worse)
- Read: We need more heresy, not less.