The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction. Or call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But it’s not art or entertainment, just ceaseless activity. - Honest Broker
In a YouGov survey released in 2023, nearly half of Americans said they didn’t consider themselves artistic. At 58 percent, even more respondents said they weren’t familiar with famous artistic movements or styles. - Vox
Art, I have preached, is for bildung, self-development, especially within the context of an undergraduate education. Art helps you to become a deeper, freer version of yourself, etc., etc., blah blah blah, you’ve heard the song a thousand times. So what’s the difference between that and “art is good for us”? - Salmagundi
Seeking information using a search engine could be almost completely replaced by this new generation of large language model-powered systems. - The Wall Street Journal
When a couple bought the Bridgeport, Illinois space for $1, they weren’t, perhaps, thinking it would take quite this much. "When asked if the project lives up to the initial idea they had back in 2017, Emily Nevius quickly responds, ‘This is so much bigger.’" - Chicago Sun-Times
Perhaps it’s not ideal to take Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as marriage advice, but movies, including that one, have a lot to teach, or so says one fan. - NPR
But why aren’t more celebrities using their money for this kind of baffling, joyous, wacky creative venture? “It is genuinely exciting to see an A-lister in the pursuit of pure, honest, sincere cringe." - Slate
”In the future, a company’s AI agent—basically the AI version of that company—will be just as important as their website,” says Taylor. “It's going to completely change the way companies exist digitally.” - Wired
In a famous essay, the economist and philosopher Amartya Sen pointed out that we are all in favour of equality. We just disagree about whether we mean equality of money, or power, or respect, or legal standing, or whatever. - Literary Review
Though invisible to most people, copyright, the authors point out, is the legal matrix underlying the wealth of nations today, with copyrights in design, software and popular culture accounting for nearly all the valuation of “six of the largest corporations in the world — Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Disney.” - Washington Post
“Biological extinction, that’s not the point. The light of humanity and our understanding, our intelligence — our consciousness, if you will — can go on without meat humans.” - Jacobin
Efforts to grow and embrace diversity at America’s great research universities have made them better than ever. If you want excellence, you need to find, attract, and support talent from every sector of society, not just from privileged groups and social classes. - The Atlantic
This young century, Americans have collectively submitted to a national experiment to deprive ourselves of camaraderie in the world of flesh and steel, choosing instead to grow (and grow and grow) the time we spend by ourselves, gazing into screens. It’s been a weird experiment. And the results haven’t been pretty. - The Atlantic
The vocation of theory to give us perspective on the production of ideas—on their historical conjuncture, their class interests, their philosophical deficiencies, their determined style—flounders in the current anti-idea immediatism. - e-flux
