Jacob Harold: “There are two lessons in design thinking that I believe are essential to apply to the work of social change, whether you are in a nonprofit organization, at a foundation, in a corporation, or in a government agency. The two lessons are so simple as to seem obvious, but I think if you look at the record, you’ll see that they are not applied with the consistency that the world demands. The first lesson is the importance of listening and absorbing information from those who are closest to the action. The second is iteration—to have a cycle or process where you’re constantly learning, measuring the results of your actions, and applying that to a next iteration.”
Nilanjana Roy on book clubs: “My own reading circle, a group of eight to 10 of us, began in 2009 with the aim of discussing books on creativity and inspiration as a break from the solitude that accompanies writing. We meet online, since our members live in six different countries, and that gives me a small flavour of reading tastes around the world. We debate books with zest and sometimes disagree but often find ourselves on unexpected common ground. A book flares into life when it is shared, and squabbled over. Reading together, it turns out, is as lasting a pleasure as reading alone.”
Steven Pinker: “[I]ndusrialization has been good for humanity. It has fed billions, doubled life spans, slashed extreme poverty, and, by replacing muscle with machinery, made it easier to end slavery, emancipate women, and educate children. It has allowed people to read at night, live where they want, stay warm in winter, see the world, and multiply human contact. Any costs in pollution and habitat loss have to be weighed against these gifts.” [via CafeHayek]
The Art and Science of Spending Money: by Morgan Housel. “There is a science to spending money – how to find a bargain, how to make a budget, things like that. But there’s also an art to spending. A part that can’t be quantified and varies person to person. In my book I called money “the greatest show on earth” because of its ability to reveal things about people’s character and values. How people invest their money tends to be hidden from view. But how they spend is far more visible, so what it shows about who you are can be even more insightful. Everyone’s different, which is part of what makes this topic fascinating. There are no black-and-white rules. But here are a few things I’ve noticed about the art of spending money.”
Elliot Hershberg: “AI is transforming the digital world. Machines can now interpret complex images and human language. They can also generate beautiful images and language—effectively propelling us into a world of Endless Media. While this will forever change our digital lives, the physical world hasn’t yet been impacted in the same way. One major exception has been biology. Here, I’ll make the following claim: Biology is the most powerful way to transform the physical world using AI.”
WSJ: “Social media reflects and intensifies human nature, for good and for ill. If you are intrigued by football, knitting or jazz, it feeds you streams of video, images and text that encourage those passions. If you are fascinated by authoritarianism or unproven medical procedures, the very same algorithms—at least when left to their own devices—steer that material your way. If people you know are rallying around a cause, you will be sent messages meant to bring you along, whether the aim is championing civil rights or overthrowing the government. Studies show that incendiary content travels faster and farther online than more benign material and that we engage longer and harder with it. The bare algorithms thus favor vitriol and conspiracy theories over family photos and puppy videos. For the social-media companies, the clear financial incentive is to keep the ugly stuff alive. The great aim of reformers and regulators has been to figure out a way to separate what is enriching about social media from what is dangerous or destructive. Despite years of bill-drafting by legislatures, code-writing in Silicon Valley and hand-wringing at tech conferences, no one has figured out quite how to do it.”
