Pluralistic: Dow promised to turn sneakers into playground surfaces, then dumped them in Indonesia (26 Feb 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Society
Friedman doctrine - Wikipedia
The United States Has Never Recovered From the Falklands War
The conflict confirmed some of South America’s worst assumptions about its northern neighbor.
Why Don’t American Farmers Embrace Peasant Farming?
Last June, I quit my office job and booked a flight to France. I was 24 and dewy-eyed, and I wanted to farm—or, at least, I wanted to try. A few weeks later, I was face-to-face with 64 goat udders, being told plus de force, (less delicately), as I wiped them down for milking. It was a stark contrast to the day jobs I had known before, writing endless emails and leaving voicemails in professional-speak—“Looking forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience!” Staring down dozens of goats udders, not a meeting agenda or email inbox to be found,
How the seeds of environmental racism were planted in the Progressive Era
Africatown, the only U.S. community established by West Africans who survived the Middle Passage, reveals a longer history of environmental injustice.
Pluralistic: This is your brain on fraud apologetics (24 Feb 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
There’s a Growing Crisis in Our Social Lives. Is the Cure This Simple?
We’re suffering from a “quiet catastrophe.” What if the fix is something we used to do all the time?
Most young men are single. Most young women are not.
More than 60 percent of young men are single, nearly twice the rate of unattached young women, signaling a larger breakdown in the social, romantic and sexual life of the American male. Men i…
How our history of downzoning is an argument against "local control" in the legislature and has huge impacts on racial discrimination in housing
Eastside Olympia in the midst of large downzone. As the legislature discusses zoning reform that would allow for modest density increases ...
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Civil War
The congresswoman is too influential within the GOP—and too representative of its views—for her calls for secession to be dismissed.
A Solution in Search of a Problem?
The great software question is always, “what’s it for?” Much like the “five-whys” protocol, or Amazon’s “so what?” test, this question is designed to
The Anti-Industry Industry | Newgeography.com
Pluralistic: Fighting the privacy wars, state by state (23 Feb 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
I Made an AI Clone of Myself
After Winnie the Pooh, these other characters will soon enter the public domain
'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' was a hit. Next, Sherlock Holmes, Mickey Mouse, and Superman will enter the public domain, complicating things for Disney, Warner Bros., and other studios
Orange Alternative - 99% Invisible
In the months following the invasion of Ukraine, cryptic anti-war graffiti began popping up across Russia. People started writing out the phrase “no war” using asterisks instead of the various letters in order to disguise the meaning of the message. Then back in September, a woman in Russia wrote out the Russian word for “no”
How Monopoly Destroys Democracy
Today on TAP: The new movement to connect the restoration of democracy with the revival of antitrust and competition
Pluralistic: Matt Ruff’s “Destroyer of Worlds” (21 Feb 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Predictions from *Average is Over* - Marginal REVOLUTION
My book is from 2013, here are some of the key predictions: 1. Increases in the power and generality of artificial intelligence will prove a major breakthrough within a foreseeable time period. 2. Labor market returns will accrue to individuals capable and willing to work with such services. 3. Resources and land are going to […]
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer - Wikipedia
Yard Sale Model
Universal Basic Income Isn't "Left" or "Right". It's Forward.
Let’s talk about humanity. Human civilization was not ready for COVID-19, nor is it ready for the continuing impacts of climate change, nor the impacts we will increasingly feel as we automate more and more employment.
The New York Times: Should a New Controversy Affect the Archives?
The New York Times has the most robust online archives of any newspaper, but it’s proving difficult to square their handling of a recent controversy.
We Must Thank Jordan Peterson for Drawing Attention to a Brilliant Marxist
(And that's all we must thank him for.)
Episode 183: Breaking into the FBI (2.25.2022)
In 1971, a woman visited an F.B.I. office in Pennsylvania. She identified herself as a college student interested in learning about opportunities for women in the F.B.I. None of that was true. She was there “to see whether there were security alarms before we could decide if we could break in.”
The "sufficiently restrictive" Fed. Part 1: The labor market
Fed officials will eventually decide that they have raised interest rates enough. How they make that call is of great importance, and the Fed should share its thinking.
The failed promises of exporting American-style capitalism | Boing Boing
How do you define the economic, political, and cultural system named capitalism that organizes the world? A system contested and imposed through media, policies, laws, and forgeries of memory.and m…
‘Aims’: the software for hire that can control 30,000 fake online profiles
Exclusive: Team Jorge disinformation unit controls vast army of avatars with fake profiles on Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, Instagram, Amazon and Airbnb
Revealed: the hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections
Unit led by Tal Hanan that boasts vast army of bots exposed by undercover reporters and leaked emails
Weak nations with strong currencies
Two unlikely currencies were among the world's strongest currencies in 2022: the Yemeni rial and the Afghan afghani . Yemen is currently in...