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Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #627

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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: 

  • Jesse Willms, The Dark Lord of the Internet – The Atlantic. “A friend just finished Money Men, a book about online cash fraud, and loved it so much it belongs on my (too-long) bookshelf queue. Reading about the book took me to this 2014 The Atlantic piece about con artist extraordinaire, Jesse Willms. What he was up to eight years ago was already remarkable; when he was eventually caught, he paid less than $1M of the $350M+ settlement, and continued. And the big search engines were all complicit. I can’t wait for the Netflix doc.” (Alistair for Hugh).
  • I Should Be Able To Mute America – Gawker. “America has no chill, and it’s leaking across the borderless world of social media. Hollywood shaped global culture, and now the US dominance of social media (what does Europe have? Minitel?) is shaping global discourse. Exhibit A: This hilarious screed from an Australian about what happens when another country goes viral, and America chimes in.” (Alistair for Mitch).
  • Richard Wolff: Marxism and Communism – Lex Fridman Podcast. “Great conversation between AI researcher/podcaster Lex Fridman and Marxist Richard Wolff.” (Hugh for Alistair).
  • Camera Mortis – The Yale Review. “So, apparently they used to dress up dead bodies to pose for the camera.” (Hugh for Mitch).
  • The Petty Pleasures of Watching Crypto Profiteers Flounder – Galaxy Brain – The Atlantic. “There are three (maybe more) components of Web3 that I believe are paramount to the future of our economy and society. One, the ability for digital assets to have provenance. Two, the ability for digital assets to replicate the physical world in relation to items that are abundant and those that are scarce (Web3 gives virtual assets scarcity). Three, direct access between creator and community/audience (the end of unregulated monopolies focused on eyeballs and attention). Now, with that, I’m not sold on what I am seeing in the current world of Web3, NFTs and crypto. Yes, the economy is funky, but check out this article and – more importantly – watch the two videos that are included in it. It’s hard to believe that these ‘leaders’ are floundering and flopping over the power of Web3, when you consider where all of this money and experience is said to be housed. This will blow your mind…” (Mitch for Alistair).
  • CryptoPunks Spiked 957% The Day Before Noah Davis Announcment — And Insider Trading Rumors Followed – ARTnews. “All investments are (always) speculative. Still, there are many who know enough/have seen enough to see the scams from a mile away. What’s funny (in a very unfunny way) is how many of these stories seem to be ‘breaking news’ with each and every passing day. When do the regulators step in? When do we really start to understand that maybe (just maybe) those with the centralized power, money and access are pulling everyone’s strings by using words like ‘decentralized’, ‘community’ and ‘experimentation’?” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

Are you interested in what’s next? How to decode the future? I publish between 2-3 times per week and then the Six Pixels of Separation Podcast comes out every Sunday. Feel free to subscribe (and tell your friends)