A roundup of the most thought-provoking things I read this past week.
We’re getting the social media crisis wrong
“What purports to be a collective phenomena; the ‘voice of the people;’ is actually in private hands; is, to a very great extent shaped by two extremely powerful individuals.”
Henry Farrell argues that the fundamental problem with social media is not that it misinforms people about what’s true or false–although that’s still a problem–but that social media directs public conversation, limits what people think about and how they think about it, and creates what he calls “publics with malformed collective understandings.”
Farrell admits that he doesn’t have any answers to the questions he raises. Nor do I. But one thing we can do is seek out, preserve, and spread truth.
“Everyone on the political Right is a liar. Some, like Trump, just make up crap to spew, but most of them lie in more subtle ways. Right wing women lie by living like feminists while making bank complaining about feminism.”
Karen Cox has another approach: also has one answer: “One thing we can all do is expose right wing lies and hypocrisy.” That she does, in this case documenting the outright lies by the writer of a recent piece in The Federalist.
“Williams penetrated a new generation of paramilitary leaders, which included doctors, career cops and government attorneys. Sometimes they were frightening, sometimes bumbling, always heavily armed.”
Joshua Kaplan’s article reveals the lengths one man went to to expose how would-be tyrants are building a movement backed by money and weapons to remake the country by force. A chilling and necessary read.
Sam Altman says “we are now confident we know how to build AGI
“Tech companies don’t say this out loud very often, but AGI would be useful for them because it could replace many human employees with software, automating information jobs and reducing labor costs while also boosting productivity.” The potential societal downsides of this could be considerable”
Altman strikes me as a huxster, saying whatever will attract venture capital to his failing business. But I’m genuinely concerned about a technology that is deliberately aimed not at making humans more productive, but making them obsolete.
New Achilles Heel Exposed in Antibiotic Resistance
“The researchers showed that, by resisting carbapenems in zinc-limited conditions, the bacteria left themselves wide open to azithromycin—one of the most commonly prescribed antibiotics in the world.”
It’s been about twenty five years since Zinc was touted as the miracle cure for the virus that causes the common cold. Research showed that taking Zinc supplements had mixed results and some serious side effects. Now, researchers at McMaster University have shown that the absence of zinc creates a vulnerability in drug-resistant bacteria. This discovery may result in new treatment options for bacteria that has developed resistance to common antibiotics.
The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss
Margalit Fox
Random House
I picked this book up recently at my local independent bookseller, Tombolo Books. It’s a fascinating look at the life and crimes of Fredericka Mandelbaum, who came to New York city in the 1850s and built a criminal organization with continent-spanning reach. Margalit Fox weaves in fascinating details of life in post-Civil War America as well as the specifics of Mrs. Mandelbaum’s underworld empire. I haven’t finished it yet, only because it’s worth savoring.
Semantics & So On 