Links #2
27 May 2016 | Reading time: 1 minExamining the Accidental Life:
I remember saving aggressively to fund a summer backpacking trip to Europe in 1998, on a shoestring budget (which I bragged about for years after). Then there were the years and years of road trips, short and long, criss-crossing the US multiple times. Those were good times. Peacefully lost wandering times. As close as you can get in the real human world to hitchhiking the galaxy, armed only with a towel.
How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds — from a Magician and Google’s Design Ethicist:
If I convince you that I’m a channel for important information, messages, friendships, or potential sexual opportunities — it will be hard for you to turn me off, unsubscribe, or remove your account — because … you might miss something important[.]
How To Be Attractive (a very strange piece which I don’t endorse, but is beautifully crafted):
People rarely change: practice makes you better at being who you already are. “I spend hours refreshing the same three websites and I don’t enjoy any of them.” Seems reasonable. You’re playing to your strengths.
Americans want to know who’s winning. Sex, money, and violence just happen to be the games in which everyone has a score.
Going Veggie Would Save Trillions of Lives, Not Millions:
Each year, around 70 billion land animals are killed for food.
What Happens Next Will Amaze You:
Ad blockers help us safeguard an important principle—that the browser is fundamentally our user agent. It’s supposed to be on our side. It sticks up for us. We get to control its behavior. No amount of moralizing about our duty to view unwanted advertisements can change that.