Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #427

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, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, Pandemonio, and ResolveTO, Author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto) 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:

Vengeance As Justice: Passages I Highlighted in My Copy of “Eye for an Eye” – The Scholar’s Stage. “Modern societies often say tit-for-tat vengeance is unjust—’an eye for an eye leaves both men blind.’ But as this fascinating dig into William Ian Miller‘s Eye for an Eye shows, that isn’t the case. In fact, in many incidences, lex talionis forces the wrongdoer to properly value the crime — and compensation — where otherwise they might discount it. ‘The talion structures the bargaining situation to simulate the hypothetical bargain that would have been struck had I been able to set the price of my eye before you took it.’ Eye for an Eye — taste it again for the first time!” (Alistair for Hugh).
Rockburg – Music industry simulation game. “I learned about this and a horde of other projects when Josh Pigford decided to share all the things he’d worked on (with their payoff, and what they were) for the last couple of decades in a Google Doc. It’s a rock band simulator. I figure it’ll give Mitch a taste of fame. 😉 Mostly I’m impressed about Josh’s candor (and productivity!) but this seemed more fun than just a spreadsheet.” (Alistair for Mitch).
Jack Mintz: Actually, evidence shows ‘diversity’ makes countries weaker — not stronger – Financial Post. “I’m not sure the data holds up to agree with this conclusion, but I share this because of one chart in the article that I found fascinating: ‘Fragmentation of Large Countries.’ In the chart, academics Alberto Alesina et al have measured ‘ethnic fragmentation’ in a country by shares of ethnic and linguistic groups, which generate a number (1= totally fragmented, 0=totally homogenous), and measured that number against GDP. Canada has the highest fragmentation in the list at 0.7124 (note: I wonder how much French/English contributes to that number, versus immigration?). Japan is the least fragmented at 0.0119. Other highly fragmented countries include: the USA (0.4901), India (0.418), Brazil (0.5408) – low fragmentation countries include: South Korea (0.02), Australia (0.0929), France (0.1032). Interesting.” (Hugh for Alistair).
Digital Humanism – A Conversation with Jaron Lanier – Sam Harris. “I used to get very annoyed at Jaron Lanier, and his criticism of Wikipedia, free information, and other projects and ideas I hold dear. I, like many people, am much more open to his critique of web culture and the technology that underpins it now, than I was a decade ago. He was right about many things. Here he is in conversation with (the occasionally infuriating) Sam Harris.” (Hugh for Mitch).
God is in the machine – The Times Literary Supplement. “Did you catch Kara Swisher from Recode on Real Time with Bill Maher the other week? It was great (watch it here). Kara said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook’s credo was ‘move fast and break things.’ Well, she said, ‘they broke things… now what?’ Here’s a fascinating article about the true complexity of algorithms, how they get developed and deployed, and – more importantly – how completely unchecked things are. If tech didn’t scare you yet, maybe read this? Power… many have it (and nobody is watching them).” (Mitch for Alistair).
Skim reading is the new normal. The effect on society is profound – The Guardian. “I’m doing my best to read only one kind of content: longform. Books (mostly). Articles (sometimes). The book that I am currently in the middle of is: Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf. It’s very deep. It looks at the impact of screens and digital reading, and how much different it is from reading books. This is not a book about culture and the impact of screens in our lives. It is a scientific look at how our brains (and evolution) shifts as we move away from longform and focused reading. I am shocked at how ‘different’ our brains are becoming because of this. I’m going to fight this evolution. I think you should too. Especially after reading this book. Granted, in this day and age, maybe just glance through this article by the author.” (Mitch for Hugh).