The New Romantics

The point Klinenberg wanted to make was this: If there was no such thing as a library, and someone proposed it today, there's a 99.9% chance they and their “radical and crazy idea” would be laughed out of the room.

But, as we know, it’s not a crazy idea.

in 2020, only 268 titles sold more than 100,000 copies, and 96 percent of books sold less than 1,000 copies. That’s still the vibe.

Something is deeply wrong when we sext the same way we order a sandwich.

We have become used to the ease and convenience of our digital lives, and we expect the same offline. A slick, transactional, no-strings-attached kind of life, predictable and controllable.

Don’t even mention dating or — gasp — sex when the simple act of looking into someone else’s eyes provokes anxiety. But what could they do? Give up their phones and the corporate-controlled, like-driven culture, which is all they’ve ever known? Silent scream emoji!

So this is what’s happened to the world: optimization trumps human preference. The people who want to win the argument are effectively prepared to ignore human truths to preserve the integrity of the artificial model.

I do not want to be in the business of manipulating your split-second attention.

“Your homework is to stop canceling each other, find out about punk, and get laidwhile you’re at it,” I told them. “Punk isn’t a hairstyle; it’s getting your friends together to make useful stories outside approved systems. And it’s still happening right now, all over the world.” MAGA has adopted an authoritarian style of punk that disdains what... See more

Today’s Young People Need to Learn How to Be Punk