Sparks 👁️

but whether parasocial content is desirable or not, it points to a growing crisis on the internet: So much of what we encounter online just doesn’t matter , and even worse, offers no mechanism for us to start caring about it. The average human living today sees more things they don’t care about in one week than a medieval peasant did in their... See more

But Alfani’s observation that the rich as a group have no clear social function is borne out by the fact that, in the Musk era, they have reacted to populist pressures largely by justifying their fortunes as individuals. When they maintain a combative social-media presence, fixate on meritocracy, employ idealistic language to describe for-profit... See more

Slow Is Smooth And Smooth Is Fast

According to data aggregated by Cargo Facts Consulting, Temu ships around 4,000 tonnes a day, Shein 5,000 tonnes, Alibaba.com 1,000 tonnes and TikTok 800 tonnes. That equates to around 108 Boeing 777 freighters a day, the consultancy said.

Technology should be a force for good, but we don’t live in a world of wise elders who release it gradually to keep pace with our maturity as a species. Dissonance arises from the desire to believe in technology as a shared human endeavour for the greater good, while knowing that most world-changing technologies are injected into society’s... See more

Intelligence is not central to the success of most life on Earth. Consider the grasses: they’ve flourished across incredibly diverse global environments, without planning or debating a single step. Planarian worms regrow any part of their body and are functionally immortal, a trick we can manage only in science fiction. And a microscopic virus... See more

In taming the world, we have tamed ourselves