We Eat Ourselves To Change (?)

Leon Wieseltier: “Everything will be different: this is a ubiquitous sentiment. In all our upheavals — social and epidemiological — so much seems to be wrong and so much seems to be slipping away that one may be forgiven for enjoying a fantasy of total change. All these horrors, all these outrages, all these marches, and the world stays the same? So the first thing that needs to be said in the effort to keep our heads is that everything never changes.” – Liberties Journal

How The Millennial Generation Burned Out

According to Anne Petersen, the main difference between millennials and the rest of the precariat is that we once had such great expectations. Molded in the mythos of meritocracy, our generation was raised to believe that we could beat bad circumstances and secure personal stability — if we simply worked hard enough. This happy ending has not materialized for most of us, and there has been extensive emotional fallout. – Los Angeles Review of Books

What Happens When Independent Machines Make Mistakes (And They Will)?

“Products and services that make decisions autonomously will also need to resolve ethical dilemmas—a requirement that raises additional risks and regulatory and product development challenges. Scholars have now begun to frame these challenges as problems of responsible algorithm design. They include the puzzle of how to automate moral reasoning.” – Harvard Business Review

Could The Arts Help Unify Our Fractures?

“In European nations, “save our cultural institutions” is widely regarded as a necessary cause. In the United States, the same cry is not heard. What is going on? Were the arts always a negligible component of the New World experience, insufficiently cultivated? Or did they become negligible? Are we as a nation simply too young to dig deep expressive roots? Too diverse? Too much crippled by our original sins of slavery and the Indian Wars?” – American Purpose

How Consolidation Is Killing Good Art

“The lack of options marketed to consumers has created a missing middle: the zone between mass market and niche market where experimentation is supposed to proliferate and engender variety. Worse, the consolidation of the country’s vast creative sector into fewer, more powerful production and publishing companies has come at the direct expense of the quality of their product.” – The New Republic

If The U.S. Wants To Keep More College Students Enrolled, It Can Try This One Simple Trick

What will it take? Money. Cash money. Direct cash money, to the students, for their survival, with few barriers – and given out quickly. “Many students … aren’t sure they can afford to return for another college semester. They need financial support delivered flexibly, quickly, and respectfully. They should not have to demonstrate their poverty or rehash trauma to merit support.” – The Atlantic