Sublime

In recommendation media, content is not distributed to networks of connected people as the primary means of distribution. Instead, the main mechanism for the distribution of content is through opaque, platform-defined algorithms that favor maximum attention and engagement from consumers.

And worst of all, we’ve lost sight of the most salient part about computers: their malleability. We’ve acquiesced the creation of our virtual worlds, where we now spend most of our time, to the select few who can spend the millions to hire enough software engineers. So many of the photons that hit our eyes come from purely fungible pixels, yet for ... See more

While most of the coverage of Musk's wrecking crew has focused on the broccoli-haired Gen Z brownshirts who are wilding through the server rooms at giant, critical government agencies, Tkacik homes in on their boss, Tom Krause, whom she memorably dubs "the Fagin figure leading Elon Musk’s merry band of pubescent sovereignty pickpockets" (I told you... See more