đź”® The Prophet of the Revolt →
September 30, 2020 • #Of this year’s reads so far, Martin Gurri still holds the crown on my favorite with his 2014 book The Revolt of the Public.
That book has the best diagnosis of the current state of politics, the culture war, polarization, and the media’s inability to make sense of all of it (while contributing themselves to the chaos).
This is a wide-ranging interview on public trust, social media, and the state of our institutions:
I would not say that our institutions are mired in a period of secular incompetence and decline. That is actually true, but I wouldn’t use those words. I would say that our institutions are structurally (and, I believe, catastrophically) maladapted to the new information environment, and that the people who run them are both unable and unwilling to reform them.
- The Case for Muddling Through — Brink Lindsey on our current crises, with a ray of optimism we'll get through it.
- Weekend Reading: Readwise's Next Chapter, Reviewing Revolt of the Public, and the Helicopter State — Readwise launches a reading app, Scott Alexander reviews Martin Gurri, and Jonah Goldberg on the helicopter state.
- Weekend Reading: Commercial Imagery, Proof Mechanisms, and Cinematic Universes — Commercial satellite imagery business models, proof mechanisms in social media, and ancient cinematic universes.