3 good reads

“Unfollow. How a prized daughter of the Westboro Baptist Church came to question its beliefs,” a New Yorker article by Adrian Chen. The piece meticulously details how a combination of critical conversations with others on Twitter and changes within the church caused Megan Phelps-Roper, the granddaughter of Westboro founder Fred Phelps, lost faith. (Supplement this by listening to Sam Harris’s podcast conversation with Phelps-Roper.) “36 Hours On The Fake Campaign Trail With Donald Trump,” a Buzzfeed article by McKay Coppins on the roots of Donald Trump’s flirtations with running for political office. Really gets to the heart of Trump’s insecurities […]

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3 Good Reads

Study Hacks blog. “Seneca on Social Media.” About 2000 years ago, the stoic philosopher Seneca observed that many people do not understand that “free” gifts often come with strings attached, such as what they cost us in time: “Our stupidity may be clearly proved by the fact that we hold that ‘buying’ refers only to the objects for which we pay cahs, and we regard as free gifts the thigns for which we spend our very selves.” Blogger and author Cal Newport asks us to look at our use of social media services like Facebook in terms of the cost […]

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Selfies as a totalitarian tool

“No totalitarian government has ever created a better tool for monitoring than the selfie.” This observation, which is so stunningly obvious that you wonder why you never thought of it, is made by Tim Sutcliffe, host of the BBC’s Start the Week podcast, during an episode that can be loosely described as maintaining privacy in the digital age. Yes, it’s a clichéd topic, but this is the BBC so the discussion is made fresh by Sutcliffe’s expert guests, who include Oxford Institute director Helen Margetts, co-author of Political Turbulence: How Social Media Shape Collective Action and financial journalist Gillian Tett, […]

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