What I highlighted the weeks of June 26 and July 1, 2023

Jul 8

Articles

Maximum Canada is happening by Noah Smith

I wish Americans could tell themselves a positive narrative like Canada’s — of immigration as the way to build a multicultural nation. Many of us have tried to tell that narrative, and have foundered on the rocks of America’s age of division. As John Higham wrote, when America is underconfident — when we start to doubt who we are as a people and a nation — we instinctively think about closing the door. Right now, America definitely doesn’t know who we are, as a people and as a nation. Maybe next decade we’ll remember.

A great Noah Smith essay on pro immigration frameworks in Canada that the US could learn from. I've been working on a smaller version of this in our new home city, Pittsburgh, with a group of leaders in the city committed to turning around the population decline this city and region have faced for decades. One of our main focus areas is in-bound immigration, of all kinds.

The True Threat of Artificial Intelligence

But this ideology — call it A.G.I.-ism — is mistaken. The real risks of A.G.I. are political and won’t be fixed by taming rebellious robots. The safest of A.G.I.s would not deliver the progressive panacea promised by its lobby. And in presenting its emergence as all but inevitable, A.G.I.-ism distracts from finding better ways to augment intelligence.

With A.G.I., this reliance will only deepen, not least because A.G.I. is unbounded in its scope and ambition. No administrative or government services would be immune to its promise of disruption.
Dave Grohl on loss

Grohl has dug himself, and his band, out of a trough, but absence, to borrow from W. S. Merwin, goes through him like a thread through a needle, stitching everything with its color.
Patricia Highsmith on David Foster Wallace
An amazing longread on Gini and Clarence Thomas

I wish I lived in a world where I had to know less about the personal lives of Supreme Court justices to understand where my country was headed. But this is not that world. So learning about the histories and psychologies of these people remains fascinating.

Past Lives was extremely emotionally affecting. But less impressive cinematically.
Asteroid City was a blast. And more people should be talking about its meta-modern themes like we did with Everything Everywhere All At Once
Showing Up was an excellent Kelly Reichardt film, I think tied with First Cow as my favorite of her films.

I watched the first half of The Bear S2 and it was excellent. The music, as in S1, has been a real highlight. And unlike many prestige shows from the last few years, this show has the distinct advantage of all the main characters being eminently hang-out-able. I don't know if I can say that I'd particularly want to hang out with Kendal Roy, Walter White, or Don Draper. But Carmy, Richy and the gang, absolutely.
Not exactly a TV show (but also yes a TV show), I enjoyed John Mulaney's Hot Ones episode.

This Jungian Life on bipolar disorder

One of the best episodes from this podcast, which I generally love. I've found myself thinking about some of the frameworks they presented around mania, hypomania, the American culture, especially corporate culture, as bipolar. I feel like I'm going to come back to this one a few times over the years.