Thursdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at the troubling source of the world’s seafood.
Quote of the Day
"As financialised culture proliferates and ordinary digital life becomes gamified, the impact of finance on our everyday reality becomes insidious."
(Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou)
Books
- An excerpt from “Ours Was the Shining Future” by David Leonhardt. (nytimes.com)
- Michael Strain talks with James Pethokoukis author of "The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised." (fasterplease.substack.com)
- A Q&A with Helen Czerski author of "The Blue Machine: How the Ocean Works." (e360.yale.edu)
- A Q&A with Taylor Lorenz author of "Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet." (theverge.com)
- An excerpt from "I’ve Been Thinking" by Daniel C. Dennett. (behavioralscientist.org)
Business
- The business of carbon offsets is built on a lie. (newyorker.com)
- Unlike the rest of the toy industry, Lego continues to gain ground. (on.ft.com)
- The writer's strike is over but Hollywood is still facing existential issues. (hollywoodreporter.com)
The news
- We didn't always have instant access to war coverage. (readtrung.com)
- Losing local newspapers is bad, but let's not romanticize their history. (propublica.org)
- Disappointment with Michael Lewis' narrative-driven, light-research method. (every.to)
- How the telegraph changed the world. (novelinvestor.com)
Food
- Fertilizer shortages are reverberating throughout the world. (nytimes.com)
- How Lunchables ended up on the menu in school cafeterias. (wapo.st)
- Pomologists are trying to build an apple that withstand higher temperatures. (on.ft.com)
Longreads
- Linette Lopez, "China's leader, Xi Jinping, has shifted the CCP's raison d'être to national security over the economy. Getting rich isn't China's big project anymore; the project is power." (businessinsider.com)
- Why governments should focus on subjective well-being. (vox.com)
- How to get solar power from space to Earth. (on.ft.com)
- Why we now give the idea of convalescence short shrift. (newyorker.com)
- Why do half the NFL teams still play on artifcial turf? (espn.com)
