Weekend Reads: September 18, 2020
Welcome to Lowercase Weekend Reads. Grab a warm drink, a comfortable seat and get ready for our weekend reads highlighting the most important articles of the week.
Violence in the name of Trump | US news
Just another reason not to like Trump. A good summary but also very scary. My bet is that we will see more of these as polarization increases in the U.S.
The jazz singer's mind shows us how to improvise through life itself
Jazz is improvisation in its purest form. I’m not a music snob (ed note: the only thing he’s not a snob about) but I can appreciate the analogy here.
We are currently obsessed with what technology is doing to us. This is a great article about distractions and what to do about it. I like it because it shifts the blame from tech. Sheds light on our inner demons that help trigger this obsession we have with our phones. The ability to be ok with boredom may just be one of the challenges our generation faces.
Privacy matters because it empowers us all
“Don’t just give away your privacy to the likes of Google and Facebook – protect it, or you disempower us all”. Nothing makes me more upset than people saying “I have nothing to hide” when discussing privacy and why we should protect it. If you yourself think this, I implore you to read this article.
A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human?
We are fucked.
This week we watched the documentary “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix. Do yourself a favour and watch it. This is the most important documentary you will watch this year. We are a breaking point. I said before that capitalism is at stake given how big tech has amassed monopoly power. But after reading the Age of Surveillance Capitalism and watching the documentary I will go back and say that humanity is at stake. Our brains have been hacked and something needs to change. This is in line with the podcast episode released this week. Stay tuned for Part II
What we are reading:
The Honor Code by Kwame Anthony Appiah.
Next in line:
Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty