Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
On journalism, ideas, “ideas”, free speech, and tech. A while ago, I did a Q&A with a venture capitalist who had formerly worked in media. The conversation took place on Clubhouse, the explosively growing audio-driven social network. The topic was the tech industry and journalism, and the discussion had been precipitated by a few weeks…
This weekend, the New York Times published a piece by Cade Metz about Scott Siskind, the brilliant blogging psychiatrist formerly known as Scott Alexander, and the so-called “rationalist” community that grew up around his former blog, Slate Star Codex (SSC), which Siskind sunk to the bottom of the sea this summer because Metz was working…
How a controversial rationalist blogger became a mascot and martyr in a struggle against the New York Times. Illustration by Ben Wiseman On June 22nd, visitors to Slate Star Codex, a long-standing blog of considerable influence, discovered that the site’s cerulean banner and graying WordPress design scheme had been superseded by a barren white…
One day in March of this year, a Google engineer named Justine Tunney created a strange and ultimately doomed petition at the White House website. The petition proposed a three-point national referendum, as follows: 1. Retire all government employees with full pensions. 2. Transfer administrative authority to the tech industry. 3. Appoint [Google executive chairman]…
When theologian Martin Luther debuted his Ninety-five Theses in 16th-century Germany, he triggered a religious Reformation — and also a media revolution. 1630 map of the Maluku Archipelago (Moluccas, or Spice Islands) The printing press, invented approximately 50 years before the 95 Theses, extended Luther’s reach from the door of the cathedral to the entirety…
We’re in the midst of an all-out panic over vaping, spurred by real concerns after hundreds of people have fallen ill after vaping and several people have died. While the exact causes are unknown, it’s become fairly clear that the main culprit, if not the only one, is the addition of Vitamin E oil to…
“It’s so hard to see the future right now,” says Maddy, a teenager from New Jersey. “I worry that the world is going to end. I worry because of climate change. I worry about my family’s safety.” Nancy, 17, is from Boise, Idaho. She rates how excited she is for the future a solid 1…
You can’t really blame journalist and activist Lauren Duca for being a little nervous about agreeing to an interview. When I first asked to profile her in advance of her new book, How to Start a Revolution: Young People and the Future of American Politics, I did it over Twitter DM. She agreed, but seemed…
Here is the best news I have personally read today: notorious far-right grifter and overall racist, misogynist, and general white supremacist Milo Yiannopoulos is trying to pivot to being a furry—but the furries don’t want him. Jared Holt over at Right Wing Watch has the scoop from monitoring Milo’s Telegram messaging channel, the small corner…
The empire begins with a brothel. It stands, sturdy and square, at the heart of a gold-rush boomtown in northwest British Columbia, a monument to careful branding. The windows of the Arctic Restaurant have no signs offering access to prostitutes—even in a lawless Yukon outpost in 1899, decorum rules out such truth in advertising—but Friedrich…