Welcome to issue #193 of meshedsociety weekly.
Short question before we get started with this week's recommended reads: Have you experienced "sonder" at some point in your life?
There is a great moving video version, too.
Now lets get to it.
Note: Some of the publications may use “soft” paywalls. If you are denied access, open the URL in your browser’s incognito/private mode (or subscribe if you find yourself reading a lot of the content on a specific site and want to support it).
- The Art of Making You Feel Small
(medium.com, 5 minutes)
“Work in Silicon Valley long enough and you’re sure to have experienced this: you sit down to talk with someone… and get up feeling small”, writes Ceci Stallsmith. But: From the most accomplished people she has worked with, none made her feel small. Thought-provoking reflections and a few suggested action points.
- The Algorithmic Trap
(perell.com, 13 minutes)
A fascinating, critical exploration of how the internet’s dominant algorithms lead to increasingly homogenic physical environments, and how this negatively impacts local culture and travel. My thoughts on this are overall a bit more ambivalent than the author’s, but I do think his overall description of the situation is correct.
- To Make AI Smarter, Humans Perform Oddball Low-Paid Tasks
(wired.com, 10 minutes)
A new phenomenon is emerging, dubbed “crowd acting”: People getting paid for recording themselves while repeatedly doing everyday tasks (such as drinking from a can). These videos are then used to train AIs.
- Like Being Judged by Strangers? Get Used to It
(bloomberg.com, 5 minutes)
There is no escape: Everybody is being rated by various companies and has their habits as consumers, borrowers, investors and producers quantified.
- Believing without evidence is always morally wrong
(aeon.co, 5 minutes)
I couldn’t stop nodding in agreement while reading. One of several important points the author makes: “Careless believing turns us into easy prey for fake-news pedlars, conspiracy theorists and charlatans.”
- Hunting for a Hot Job in High Tech? Try ‘Digitization Economist
(hbswk.hbs.edu, 6 minutes)
Amazon is the largest employer of tech economists—with more working full-time than even the largest academic economics department. But the company is far from alone in this trend. Some 50 tech companies “have been snapping up economists at a remarkable scale”.
- The Original Sin of Internet Culture
(thefrailestthing.com, 2 minutes)
“We burdened the internet with messianic hopes—of course we were bound to be disappointed.”
- LinkedIn Is Now Home To Hyperpartisan Political Content, False Memes, And Troll Battles
(buzzfeednews.com, 7 minutes)
It’s almost a bit of an insult to LinkedIn that armchair hyperpartisan commentators and trolls saw the platform only as their last resort.
- Why the Google Walkout Was a Watershed Moment in Tech
(nytimes.com, 6 minutes)
After the recent protest of more than 20,000 Google employees against how the company handled high-profile cases of alleged sexual harassment, little at the internet search giant — and, perhaps, little in Silicon Valley — will be the same again, predicts Farhad Manjoo.
- Can Spotify Ever Meet Investors’ Expectations?
(musicindustryblog.wordpress.com, 3 minutes)
In music industry terms Spotify is doing a great job, in tech stock terms, less so. Pleasing both groups of stake holders – labels and shareholders – might be impossible.
- The Quest to Build the Impossible Laptop
(gizmodo.com, 4 minutes)
Creating a superior 2-in-1 device (combining laptop and tablet) is actually quite a challenge.
- The very human challenge of safe driving
(medium.com, 3 minutes)
Here is the Alphabet subsidiary Waymo explaining that a recent collision between a self-driving car and a motorcycle in Silicon Valley could have been avoided. How? Well, the crash happened shortly after a human safety driver had taken over the control over the car to avoid a potential accident with another car – and unfortunately missed the motorcycle. From the post: “Our simulation shows the self-driving system would have responded to the passenger car by reducing our vehicle’s speed, and nudging slightly in our own lane, avoiding a collision.“
- Technology Myths and Urban Legends
(nngroup.com, 6 minutes)
Technology myth: An (often inaccurate) user-generated theory about how a system functions, based on personal perceptions or second-hand experiences rather than any true understanding of the system’s functionality.
- Relationship of gender differences in preferences to economic development and gender equality
(science.sciencemag.org, 3 minutes )
New research adding to the growing body of evidence suggesting that the gender equality paradox is a real thing. It comes down to this: The more that women have equal opportunities, the more they on average differ from men in their preferences.
- In Praise of the Coin Flip
(medium.com, 4 minutes)
Sometimes, making a random choice is great. I also like rock–paper–scissors as a decision-making mechanism.
- The three princes of Serendip: Notes on a mysterious phenomenon
(ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, 7 minutes)
If one allows randomness to take decisions, one effect is that serendipity comes as a by-product.
- Half of YouTube viewers use it to learn how to do things they’ve never done
(theverge.com, 3 minutes)
Been there done that. Most recently I searched for videos showing how to make Eggs Benedict.
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Martin
martin@meshedsociety.com
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meshedsociety weekly - made in Stockholm.
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