Friday, July 03, 2015

Friday Water Cooler

The crisis in non-fiction publishing (theguardian.com), or: how non-fiction books have become really, really long Tweets.

Online is IRL (terribleminds.com). Chuck Wendig with an important reminder that there's no online persona, online brand, etc.; there's just you.

Donna Bahorich, homeschooler. Head of Texas Board of Ed.
Texas Board of Ed Will Be Headed by a Homeschooler (dailykos.com). Anyone else see the problem here?

Why do neoliberals push austerity? (jacobinmag.com) Because it serves the class interest of the precious-snowflake "too delicate to tax" upper class. Whatever makes you poor makes them richer. Why is this so hard to understand?

From Doubles Tennis to Internet Porn: My Year as a Supreme Court Clerk, by Ted Cruz (politco.com). Actually very fun to read. Kudos, Cruz.

Conservatives frustrated by GOP's inability to attract working women (WaPo). Shocker: Female heads-of-households are increasingly alienated by rich old white guys.

Al Gore: "Too early" to back Hillary Clinton (pagesix.com). Little-known fact: Gore's venture capital firm, Generation Investment Management, was founded in London with David Blood, yet somehow they didn't name it Blood & Gore.

Since 2007, the U.S. has lost 1.4 million manufacturing
jobs and gained 1.4 million waiters and bartenders
(via @zerohedge). Click to enrage.
Connecticut sees 40% reduction in firearms homicides after gun law (eurekalert.org).

FBI Builds Silencers for the Mentally Ill (tm.durusau.net). This is how our government pads the domestic-terrorist numbers? Bizarre.

Psychotherapy Is Becoming Less Effective (this blog). We're living in psychotherapy's End Times.

The Church of Self-Help (slate.com). There’s a reason the poor don’t rise up against inequality. Our culture shames them.

Contingent workers make up 40% of the workforce (gao.gov). Soon to be 90%.

Puerto Rico's Pain Tied to U.S. Wage System (wsj.com). But will they leave the Dollarzone?

Who Will Own the Robots? (technologyreview.com). Or will they own us?

Self-serve McDonalds.

How Technology Destroys Jobs (technologyreview.com). Article is from 2013, but still important for understanding what's happening to the economy.

Dutch city of Utrecht to try universal basic income (independent.co.uk). Also see:

A World Without Work (theatlantic.com). And as to how it gets paid for:

The Basic Affordability of Basic Income (huffingtonpost.com).

Join us here every Friday for freakonomic news of the weird and wonkish!


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