Hello GentleReader,
Didn’t find much time to read anything truly compelling this week? Well, we’ve got you covered.
The week’s top reads
The mindfulness conspiracy
Ronald Purser, The Guardian
“Instead of encouraging radical action, mindfulness says the causes of suffering are disproportionately inside us, not in the political and economic frameworks that shape how we live.”
Feminists never bought the idea of a mind set free from its body
Sally Davies, Aeon
“What’s most instructive about transhumanism, though, isn’t what it exposes about the hubris of rich white men…Since Plato, generations of philosophers have been gripped by a fear of the body and the desire to transcend it – a wish that works hand-in-hand with a fear of women, and a desire to control them.”
‘One giant leap’ explores the herculean effort behind the 1969 moon landing
Dave Davies, NPR
“There was no computer memory of the sort that we think of now on computer chips. The memory was literally woven ... onto modules and the only way to get the wires exactly right was to have people using needles, and instead of thread wire, weave the computer program. ...”
There is nothing more depressing than positive news
Joanna Meng, The Outline
“Ideas about motivation and individual action, rather than social circumstance or political will, are indeed the genesis of positive news curation. Critics of the so-called hyper-negativity of the news cite studies showing that unhappy stories create depression and apathy in readers, but this reasoning suggests that knowledge of a problem is useless unless it inspires work towards a solution.”
The Greens are Germany’s leading political party. Wait, what?
Jochen Bittner, The New York Times
“Last year, Germany witnessed the highest average temperatures since record-keeping began and the most arid summer most citizens could remember. It felt like a climate change turning point: After years of abstract talk, we were finally living through the new, ugly reality.”
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Until next week!