Kickoff For 11 August, 2025
Just to let you know, starting next week you'll see some small tweaks to the letter. Nothing major, and you might not notice them. Rest assured that it'll be the same Monday Kickoff that you've come to know and love. Or, at least, like a lot.
With that out of the way, let's get Monday started with these links:
Toward a Realpolitik for AI — Wherein Emanuel Moss argues that we need to take a harder and more critical stance when it comes to so-called artificial intelligence and its effects (current and potential) on us both personally and professionally.
From the article:
So long as the current iterations of AI systems appear to point toward a future where they might soon exceed humans at a wide range of tasks, companies are willing to exchange current capital expenditures for future labor cost savings. They adopt the latest AI services, invest in scarce hardware, and restructure their organizations around the promises of new efficiencies in the workplace.
Can you turn off generative AI from social media and your phone? — Wherein we learn why tech firms pushing AI on to customers have few incentives to let those customers opt-out, and uncover ways we might be able to do that on some big social media platforms.
From the article:
Some advice online suggests social media users tap ‘not interested’ or ‘don’t recommend’ on AI-generated posts, or resetting the suggested content in settings (TikTok, Instagram). This doesn’t completely remove them from your feeds, but it may lessen their frequency.
Mi Kasa Es Tu Kasa? The Unspoken Rules of Umbrellas in Japan — Wherein Joe Pinner takes us through the intricate, and often unspoken, etiquette of not just the use of umbrellas in Japan but also their status as a somewhat communal resource during rainy season.
From the article:
Honestly, it’s hard to say. On one hand, there’s a low-level chaos and annoyance that comes with everyone carrying and misplacing identical umbrellas. On the other, it is quite charming. There’s something oddly communal about how people deal with umbrellas here. It’s like an honor system that works—until it doesn’t.
I Deleted My Second Brain — Wherein Joan Westenberg recounts why she shovelled all of her notes, links, ideas, and other ephermera into the digital dustbin, and looks at the problems with so-called personal knowledge management.
From the article:
My new system is, simply, no system at all. I write what I think. I delete what I don’t need. I don’t capture everything. I don’t try to. I read what I feel like. I think in conversation, in movement, in context. I don’t build a second brain. I inhabit the first.
How Field Notes went from side project to cult notebook — Wherein we learn about the origins of the small, pocket-sized notebooks, how the company behind them slowly and steadily grew, and why the notebooks became so popular.
From the article:
They sold the 3.5-by-5.5-inch 48-page books in packs of three, and the business grew slowly—but steadily. And as it grew, Coudal says, it became easier: The more notebooks you make, the cheaper each one becomes because you’re buying in bulk. When they began scaling up their print runs, they were able to get the price down to a couple dollars per book, and sell the three-packs for $13 to 15—which got them into stores.
AI Already Knows Us Too Well — Wherein we learn about how deeply AI chatbots have become embedded in our digital lives, and the problems and perils facing us (whether we use those tools or not).
From the article:
This is dangerous. In isolation, a particular user coming to a manipulated conclusion in this way might be minimally disruptive to society, although we’ve seen that it can have grave personal impacts, leading to mental health crises or even suicidal behavior. Enhanced danger comes when droves of users are herded like this. Multiple users thinking and behaving in similar ways, especially if such cohesion is orchestrated for nefarious purposes, is more powerful and potentially far more dangerous than only a few targets of manipulation.