Extinct Beauty

Observe, Listen, Appreciate. The World Is Beautiful Even Without You.

Another Monday, Another Naive Weekly - Curated stories on Technology and Internet Culture.

The last few weeks I have spent part of my Fridays on the streets. Here in Copenhagen we were far from the impressive numbers gathered in New Zealand, Germany and Canada (to name a few), nonetheless we were enough to make a crowd that made people around stop their daily life and take a photo.

Despite having reduced my meat consumption and never driven a car, I live in a manner that is not justifiable for future generations of humans, animals and plants. This year I’ve boarded close to as many flights as we count weeks. I am not part of the solution, I am part of the problem.

It is hard to internalize and accept the thought of being the problem. There is no amount of chanting I can do to justify my actions to the incredible school children who’ve been standing on the streets for close to a year. I need to not only march the streets, I need to live differently, to say goodbye to extractive behaviours and massive footprints.

Friday one of the speakers came with a comment that stuck with me: The climate crisis is a massive catastrophe, but it is also an opportunity to reconnect, explore and appreciate the beauty af the incredible living system we are lucky enough to be part of. It is an opportunity to stop talking and start listening. I wonder if there is a message for tech people here.

Internet Black Hole

• Techno-Utopianism
  We often hear the Internet being compared to the invention of the lightning bulb or printing press, but why not with a weapon? This article from The New Yorker sheds light on the dark side of the tech-solutionism and questions our historical foundation of the metaphors we use to describe the Internet. Printing press did not reduce the need for gatekeepers, it merely shifted the power from kings to entrepreneurs, I wonder how that relates to the Internet…

• Internet Hours <> Happiness
  I’m always defending the Internet when people are arguing that it makes us lonely. It is true that there seem to be a correlation, but I have still not seen a proper study showing the causation. The graph above is not focusing on loneliness, instead it is focusing on happiness and there seem to be a rather strong and negative correlation between the time we spend on the Internet and our own happiness. Worth reading and checking their references.

• Open Offices Are a Capitalist Dead End
  I thought I had to mention the ousting of WeWork’s CEO and Founder Adam Neuman. Consider that done now and let’s instead read Farhad Manjoo’s excellent New York Times op-ed where he rants against the open office movement embodied by WeWork.

• Nightmare (1:32min)
  This week’s horror movie was released by Facebook. I’ve no understanding of why anyone would ever want to use Facebook’s coming virtual reality world called Horizon. Everything about the video is cringe, everything about the concept is scary. Please delete.

• Soviet Soldiers Dancing
  After you have cringed to Facebook’s video above, then head to Twitter and enjoy the account Soviet Soldiers Dancing where an Internet Artist TM (my words) is synching pop songs with old dance clips.

• Aliens (Area51)
  On Facebook millions of people had clicked attending to different events all promising on raiding Area 51 on September 20th to unveil government kept secrets about aliens. If you ever organized a Facebook event you know not to count on those numbers, yet reality was starker than expected this time with only a few hundred showing up leaving us with nothing but memes.

• Verified Asshole
  I am slightly late to the game with this story, so sorry in advance if you are already tired of it. Nonetheless I think it is worth to soon have a conversation about verified accounts. A couple of weeks ago YouTube changed how their verification system worked, so it would rely more on “outside fame” than community engagement. In this process accounts like PewDiePie lost their verification sign. I am sure Felix doesn’t really care, but what is even the point of being verified? And why shouldn’t everyone just be able to be verified?

• Hegel is Ruining Our Marriage
  Let’s end on a high-note. And when you have read about how Hegel is ruining a marriage, then continue to browse the site. It is a well-curated Reddit where the posts stay even if they are deleted on reddit.

• Bonus Link: Garbage Day
  I hope one day to write a newsletter as cool as Garbage Day.

Naive Weekly

Hi, I’m Kristoffer and you have just read Naive Weekly - Curated stories on Technology and Internet Culture.

Hans. Thank you for subscribing. With your paid subscription there are now 10 people crazy enough to pay monthly/annual for me writing this newsletter. It is obviously insane. Insane is also a good description of Hans who is one of the most hard-working people I have come across. When devotion and talent is matched with a big heart, you have Hans.

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<3

Kristoffer