Mostly Bits Newsletter - Issue #27
Tony's Pick
Continuing a trend with a previous pick, Oro is another small publisher with tons of beautiful books, mostly focused on architecture and urban design. I first learned about Emergent Tokyo (which is on the way!), but many of the other books look great too!
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good luck coming up with a joke caption for this, Kyle |
Kyle's joke sub-caption
“Manga for hipsters, Volume 1”
Kyle's Pick
I enjoyed this video essay about the intersection of technology, mental health, and capitalism. Game journalist Jacob Gellar reviews and compares several consumer-facing apps, then dives into a history of technology in mental health. His concern is that we may end up in a world where mental health apps are cheap and ubiquitous for people who lack access today (great!), but health insurers and employers will prefer these apps to live therapy and stop offering any mental health benefits (bad![1]).
Some of his analysis comes from a recent book called The Distance Cure about the history of teletherapy. He also covers one of my favorite visual novel PC games, Eliza, about using humans as the face of algorithmic therapy.
[1] Bad in a world where insurers and employers are still playing a major role in the US healthcare system, which is where we are stuck for now.