Category Archives: Long Reads

Google’s ban harms democracy, but is that democracy worth our dependency on information?

In a world filled with immense noise and distraction, what could be more harmful to political discourse than limiting what can be said and how? Twitter has banned political ads outright and now Google is cutting off all data targeting in its political advertising — a misguided move that will merely make all political advertising more expensive,…

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Perpetual consciousness and how we abuse abstraction (Reflections on leaving Twitter)

Returning home in the 1920’s, Romano Guardini reflects on the paradigm shift afflicting the southern Italian countryside. He is saddened by new technologies and manufacturing growth which threaten to break his fellow countrymen who lack “the grim seriousness, violent power, and inner alertness to the monstrous that is demanded.” (What social platform does that sound…

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The Cam-Bridge to Nowhere

Rereading Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle The strangest thing about…Cambridge, Facebook, Donald Trump, the Russians, and all my friends who milked 2016 for everything it was worth…is that no one really did anything wrong — not from a technological standpoint, at least. And none of it is even new technology. And yet, everyone innately senses that something…

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The Telegraph Changed How You Spend Your Time

Photo: George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images

Technology was supposed to usher in an age of infinite connectivity and ever-deepening relationships. Sold on that promise, we’ve spent the past century accelerating toward instantaneous communication without any hesitation or discussion of its effects. The increasing volume of media and tools has absolutely increased opportunities for connectivity. There is no debate. But has the sea of noise…

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