Alan Jacobs

Matt Mullenweg: “As more and more of our lives start to be run and dictated by the technology we use, it's a human right to be able to see how that technology works and modify it. It’s as key to freedom as freedom of speech or freedom of religion. So that is what I plan to spend the rest of my life fighting for.”

Scott Alexander:

Science communicators are using the same term — “no evidence” — to mean:

1. This thing is super plausible, and honestly very likely true, but we haven’t checked yet, so we can’t be sure.
2. We have hard-and-fast evidence that this is false, stop repeating this easily debunked lie.

This is utterly corrosive to anybody trusting science journalism.

I got an email from the University of Austin saying: “Since we launched last month, our promise to breathe new life into American higher education has generated broad and deep support. Within weeks, over two thousand students have contacted us inquiring about student opportunities. Over four thousand faculty have written to us to express interest in joining our efforts.” Maybe it says something about the state of American higher education that they’ve heard from twice as many interested faculty as interested students. 

Matt Stoller: “The amount of utopian bullshit and fake promises on a technology that doesn’t really work as anything but a speculative bubble and money laundering device should be a big red flag. Crypto is a movement based on the theory that the existing nation-state is a system rigged by billionaires, and the right response is to create a different and more corrupt order rigged by different billionaires, money launderers, and dictators.”

James Rebanks, English Pastoral:

One morning as I was waiting by the church with the other boys and girls for the school bus, milling about, throwing stones and kicking pine cones, my grandfather walked towards us with his sheepdog and stick. He had taken some sheep to a field and was walking back to the farm. I knew he had seen me messing about. I didn’t want him to think me a fool like the others, so I stepped away from the crowd. Perhaps I also stepped away from them because I sensed what was coming, and didn’t want them to laugh at him behind his back afterwards. He stopped and asked what I was learning about at school. I told him we were supposed to be learning about the planets. He said he didn’t know much about planets, he only knew about the sun. Then he told me about how its arc over the village changed with the passing of the year. He stabbed at the skyline with his stick where it rises on the shortest day in December, pointing to the south-east. ‘There — it comes up there,’ he said. Then he used his stick to create small loops over his head to show the path of the sun on the short winter days, explaining its changing arc through the seasons. And, in my eyes, he had turned into some giant insect as he moved through the movements of the sun across our land. One after another, he made the arcs with his stick above his head. He wanted me to know how the sun passes over, and that it was a thing of great wonder. He wanted this day to include at least one useful lesson, before I wasted the rest of it in school.

Cecilia D’Anastasio: “The idea of the metaverse has reemerged under a new sky. The current frenzy? It’s simply a succinct way for Big Tech to ­repitch its extensive lineup of products. The metaverse describes the next state of the internet’s consolidation, a marketing spin on Big Tech’s increasing reach and power. It’ll be Big Tech — just as problem-riddled as now — but bigger.”