A newsletter about Pop Culture, Software Studies, Business Strategy, Media Platforms, Algorithmic Management, Game Design, and everything in between.

FEATURED

Essays

Ensemble

When two instruments in an orchestra play simultaneous pure tones at sufficient intensity, a third tone nobody is playing emerges.

Essays

Boomerang

Empires have a way of seeding their own destruction.

  • Déjà Vu: Was ancient India the world’s forgotten superpower?

    Listen: https://ift.tt/xG3nDmE Long before Europe ruled the seas, India’s vast ocean trade linked it to the world. Thinkers like Brahmagupta and Aryabhata spread mathematical ideas that shaped the Renaissance and the modern age. Then colonialism shifted the balance of power.… more ›

  • France: One step closer to ending the CFA franc

    The end of the CFA franc is one step closer, after the French Council of Ministers’ meeting on 20 May passed a bill ratifying the reform of the monetary agreement https://www.theafricareport.com/28690/france-one-step-closer-to-ending-the-cfa-franc/ more ›

  • AI Wants Your Life: Tech Boss Meredith Whittaker Says No | The Mishal Husain Show

    Meredith Whittaker has spent years arguing that privacy is a prerequisite for a free society. As the president of the nonprofit foundation behind the encrypted messaging app Signal, she now finds herself defending that principle in the face of mounting… more ›

  • ‘NAZA’: The film shocking Israeli society

    In this extended interview, directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor speak powerfully about their explosive new documentary, NAZA. [Subscribe to our Substack newsletter: https://ift.tt/j9uGMWe%5D The film features 24 Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers breaking ranks to expose the reality of… more ›

  • NAZA – official trailer

    Watch the official trailer for NAZA, an award-winning documentary produced by the Guardian that details the systems behind Israel’s mass killings in Gaza. Subscribe to The Guardian on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/user/theguardian?sub_confirmation=1 The critically acclaimed film, produced with the team behind… more ›

  • Money for machines

    In conversation with Chris Dixon: The machine economy, fly brains, and the breakthroughs that happen when entrepreneurs can “just go do stuff” https://a16zcrypto.substack.com/p/money-for-machines-circle-ceo-jeremy?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=oj2p5 more ›

  • What Comes After Stablecoins? (ft. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire and Chris Dixon)

    Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire joins a16z crypto founder and founding partner Chris Dixon for a conversation about stablecoins, Circle’s Arc blockchain, and what happens when programmable money meets increasingly capable machines. Drawing on decades of building and investing… more ›

  • How Donald Trump Made Himself Into The Dominant American Of Our Age | Vanity Fair

    The 45th and 47th president has been called consequential, imaginative, influential—sometimes for better, mostly for worse. Ta-Nehisi Coates takes it one beat further in a bid to examine just how pivotal this president will prove to have been. https://www.vanityfair.com/story/donald-the-great more ›

  • Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Lasting Wreckage of Trump’s Second Term

    Vanity Fair senior staff writer Ta-Nehisi Coates’ latest column catalogs the sweeping impact that Donald Trump’s second term in office has had on American life and reckons with the profound damage the administration has done to the country’s institutions. Speaking… more ›

  • U.S. Demands to Access Africans’ Data Raise Privacy, Sovereignty Concerns — ProPublica

    The United States is requiring access to health data as part of lifesaving aid deals with African countries. The U.S. says the data will be aggregated and anonymized, but privacy experts fear the information could be misused or exploited. https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-state-department-africa-uganda-aid-medical-data-privacy more ›