Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
My friends: Alistair Croll (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”
Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:
- Deja Vu (But Worse) – Biden Versus Trump Featuring “Weird Al” Yankovic – Schmyoho – YouTube. “Schmoyoho (the Songify channel from The Gregory Brothers) was the only thing that could soothe my rage at watching the US presidential debate. It feels like we’re in a cosmic version of The Emperor’s New Clothes, where nobody will say the quiet part out loud. The book I’m currently reading, The Unaccountability Machine, talks about how the modern world is made up of systems, companies, and governments that operate according to policies and standardization – in the name of scale and predictability, but at the expense of accountability. If you’re angry right now, it may be because we built a self-steering ship and everyone’s forgotten how to grab the helm and steer it away from some pretty big icebergs. But until then, there’s Juice Burger.” (Alistair for Hugh).
- Andre 3000 Is At Peace (For Now) – The Bitter Southerner. “On June 30th, Mitch and I went to Place Des Arts, and sat in the Salle Wilfred Pelletier theater as part of the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Arguably the best soundstage in the city. We were there to see what the venerated André 3000, of Outkast fame, has been up to since the release of his last album two decades ago. The result was… well… it was an experience? A cacophony of talented musicians spent two hours working really hard not to find a song. Were we being trolled? André’s mid-concert spoken word piece, delivered in earnest, suggested that we were. After two minutes of unintelligible gibberish, he confessed that ‘I made all that up, but you were listening so seriously.’ The $115 t-shirts felt like another troll. But there was no doubt they were chasing something, and most of the audience – including the friends who invited us – delivered thunderous applause. The following morning, one of them sent me this, for context. ‘I’m not sad I went; it was one hell of a sensory onslaught.’ I had no expectations, and was not disappointed. Mitch, I suspect, had a different take.” (Alistair for Mitch).
- Nukes, Nubs And Coners: The Unique Social Hierarchy Aboard A Nuclear Submarine – The Warzone. “A friend of mine was in the US military as a nuclear submarine officer. He doesn’t bring it up, but is happy to answer questions, and his answers always amaze me. Imagine being underwater for weeks on end in a 500-foot long, 42-foot wide tube, that happens to be powered by a nuclear power plant, and containing twenty nuclear missiles, with one hundred other people.” (Hugh for Alistair).
- Wikipedia Will Survive A.I. – Slate. “My go to for quick information used to be Wikipedia, and I contribute both a few dollars every year to their fundraising, and clean up the odd article. But for the past six months or so, I use Perplexity AI (ai chatbot that cites sources) to answer my questions. What happens to Wikipedia if only the machines are reading it? Maybe everything will be OK?” (Hugh for Mitch).
- Joe Rogan Experience #2171 – Eric Weinstein & Terrence Howard – YouTube. “Whooo boy… this is a brain melter. I’m here for it. All four hours of it. Yes… four hours. Sidebar: if you would have told me ten years ago that some of the biggest podcasts in the world would have episodes that were four hours long… well… I would have thought that you did not understand the media landscape. So, yes… this one is over four hours. Now, Terence Howard (yes, the actor known for his work on Empire, Hustle & Flow, Dead Presidents, Mr. Holland’s Opus and so many more) has some thoughts on mathematics, science, gravity, geometry and more… which has culminated in several patents related to his own ‘language of logic’ which ‘proves’ the statement that 1 x 1 = 2. Like I said… brain melter. In this episode, one of my favorite big brains, Eric Weinstein, is brought in to help either validate or dismiss Terence’s thinking and… yeah… I don’t think I understood 99% of this conversation, but it is both entertaining and interesting… just watching Weinstein try to unpack and explain all of this is worth the price of admission…” (Mitch for Alistair).
- Are We Headed For AI Utopia Or Disaster? – Nick Bostrom And Chris Williamson – YouTube. “I’m a big fan of philosopher Nick Bostrom. If you haven’t read his latest book, Deep Utopia – Life And Meaning In A Solved World, it’s deep (and worth it). In this episode of Chris Williamson’s podcast, they discuss and debate artificial intelligence and the possibility that this utopia we have been looking to create (where humans and machines thrive together) might be derailed… or, at least, quite different than what we had planned for. So, what is a ‘perfectly solved world’? What does the future of humanity look like? Will this be a utopia or an outright catastrophe? What will ‘meaning’ look like if the goal-posts have been moved? And, so much more. Bring your notebook, lube up your brain… this one might boil your noodle…” (Mitch for Hugh).
Feel free to share these links and add your picks on X, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.
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