Kickoff For April 15, 2024
I'm hoping you like the (somewhat) new format of The Monday Kickoff. I thought it was time to change things up a bit, and the move to Buttondown gave me the opportunity to do just that.
Let's get this Monday started with these links:
The Luddites defended their work against automation. What can we learn from them? — Wherein Jaime Rubio Hancock looks at how advances in modern technology mirror those of the early 19th century, and what the struggle of the Luddites shows us about the challenges facing us today when it comes to new technologies.
From the article:
This movement’s example helps us identify the technological, economic, and social challenges we face, and teaches us that we can ask more of technology
Everyone’s Existential Crisis — Wherein Miya Perry examines the idea of social knowledge and why it gives that ever elusive quality of “meaning” to our lives.
From the article:
We must go beyond the question of what we should believe or do, to the question of how any of those choices are formed in the first place
The Atomic Disease — Wherein Rachel Greenley explores her relationship with nuclear power and nuclear weapons in an effort to understand her husband's leukaemia diagnosis.
From the article:
Plutonium had never been made. Few questioned how to dispose of the production byproducts. Few asked how a substance that didn’t occur in nature could be controlled.
Blowing Up the Crypto Cartel — Wherein we learn about the allegations that a small group of people control cryptocurrency (something which isn't supposed to happen) and the efforts to expose those people.
From the article:
It’s a cartel in the classic economic and business sense—OPEC, not Sinaloa—a small group of connected actors working together to dominate a market that they only recently helped create. For crypto, where money is fake, value is purely hype-based, and new tokens can be spun out of nothing, it makes perfect sense.
The Many Myths of the Boston Tea Party — Wherein Meilan Solly looks at the myths and misconceptions surrounding a seminal moment in the early history of what would become the United States.
From the article:
The real underlying issue, says Benjamin L. Carp, author of Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America, was the possibility that this price cut would “seduce the colonists … into buying taxed tea, which would give up the principle of no taxation without representation.”
How We Obscure the Common Plight of Workers — Wherein Jonathan Malesic highlights the dichotomy of academics being the de facto voices of marginalized workers — people who mean well but who really can't always relate to those for whom they're speaking.
From the article:
Again and again, keywords like burnout that scholars and activists developed in the 1970s and early 1980s to make sense of changes in American work have been co-opted and ultimately distorted by the intra-elite rivalries of the past decade.
CBGB: The scuzzy 1970s New York club that ushered in a new age of rock — Wherein we learn a bit more about the iconic Bowery dive that helped bring several bands to prominence and which had an outsized influence on popular (and not-so-popular) music.
From the article:
The club was located below a cheap single-room occupancy hostel favoured by the homeless, and it wasn't uncommon to have to dodge bottles dropping from the windows above when people would loiter outside to chat in between bands and get some air. It was far from a hip destination to begin with.
The Consultants Behind 'Union Busting' — Wherein we delve into the murky world of persuaders, people hired by companies to try to convince employees not to unionize and who sometimes succeed.
From the article:
When they speak to workers, many persuaders cast themselves as neutral parties who can provide unbiased information about the unionization process. But the contract between Teague’s firm and MAC laid bare the real purpose of persuader work, in almost militaristic terms. One of the primary goals: “Minimize the likelihood of future union encroachment.”
The Perils and Pleasures of Bartending in Antarctica — Wherein we learn a little about the history of slingers of alcoholic drinks at research stations at the bottom of the world.
From the article:
But it wasn’t all cryogenic cocktails and sharing news from home. During the long months on a barren, isolated ice cap, drinking was often the only escape from the cold and monotony.