Our Times
The concept of efficiency — how much one can accomplish per unit of time (or per dollar, etc.) — requires a quantitative numerator as well as a denominator. It requires a metric. Therefore, it tells us nothing about results we cannot quantify or measure. When we gear our society around efficiency, we produce more and more of the measurable, while... See more
The British writer Robert Colville says we are living through ‘the Great Acceleration’, and like Sune, he argues it’s not simply our tech that’s getting faster – it’s almost everything. There’s evidence that a broad range of important factors in our lives really are speeding up: people talk significantly faster now than they did in the 1950s, and
... See moreJohann Hari • Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention
Paul Bogard’s 2013 The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light is probably about as a good a survey of the consequences of light pollution as you’re likely to find. Bogard traces the rise of the regime of artificial lighting and its less than benign consequences for both humans and non-humans, from the
... See moreL. M. Sacasas • What Did We Lose When We Lost the Stars? - The Convivial Society
Multiple studies have now shown that the Syrian crisis was triggered in part because of the fallout and mismanagement following one of the worst droughts in centuries—linked to shifting rainfall patterns due to a warming planet. Along with the pure and immediate horror that humanized a refugee crisis many people knew of only via statistics, the
... See moreEric Holthaus • The Future Earth
In a recent newsletter, “The Shopping Cure,” Anne Helen Petersen explored the compulsion to buy and accumulate stuff that’s been fostered by technologies of frictionless consumption. Every conceivable activity or hobby one sets out to enjoy becomes an occasion to buy stuff: “They transform from sites of actual pleasure and diversion to means of
... See moreL. M. Sacasas • Ill With Want
So floriert oberhalb einer relativ niedrigen Einkommensschicht fast überall da, wo beschleunigter Konsum zur Normalität geworden ist, eine nichtssagende Nettigkeit – und zwar nicht nur in bestimmten sozialen Schichten, Berufs- oder Altersgruppen. Paul Valéry glaubte schon in den zwanziger Jahren vorauszusehen, dass die technokratische Zivilisation
... See moreJonathan Crary und Thomas Laugstien • 24/7
In his note, Abramov, who’s worked at the social network for four years, compared Facebook to a nuclear power plant. Facebook, unlike traditional media sources, can generate “social energy” at a scale never seen before, he said.
“But even getting small details wrong can lead to disastrous consequences,” he wrote. “Social media has enough power to
... See morebuzzfeednews.com • “Facebook Is Hurting People at Scale”: Mark Zuckerberg’s Employees Reckon With the Social Network They’ve Built
we’ve turned everything in life into a giant popularity contest–everything you say, everything you experience, everything you see, and even everything you feel–is a product of a giant worldwide counter of likes and follows. It’s a planet-wide exercise in objective convergence, a giant narcissism amplifier that cynically assumes that competing for... See more
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Was in anderen medialen Zeiten ein John F. Kennedy, eine Mutter Teresa, ein Nelson Mandela oder in Frankreich Simone Weil waren - anerkannt über die politischen Lager hinweg -, solch eine Person wäre heute Ansporn und Auftrag für die digitalen Hassfabriken der ganzen Welt.