Top 5: Consumerism, longtermism, Dune-ism
The Top 5 articles for your week:
“Against Longtermism” (Aeon Magazine)
Because a former proponent of longtermism argues why the ideology is dangerous — it reduces humans to their potential and existential threats to blips in time.
…the topic of our extinction has received little sustained attention from philosophers until recently, and even now remains at the fringe of philosophical discussion and debate. On the whole, they have been preoccupied with other matters. However, there is one notable exception to this rule: over the past two decades, a small group of theorists mostly based in Oxford have been busy working out the details of a new moral worldview called longtermism, which emphasizes how our actions affect the very long-term future of the universe – thousands, millions, billions, and even trillions of years from now.
“The Methods of Moral Panic Journalism” (Substack - Confirm My Choices)
Because Michael Hobbes has some super provocative arguments about how [now] common narratives around the “illiberal left” take on a similar structure.
But the problem with “illiberal left” stories, even when they include a paragraph-seven acknowledgement that Republicans are worse, is that the public does not form its views based on what articles actually say. The length, prominence, headline and graphics have a far greater impact than the content of any given story, much less the blithe, tossed-off caveat that it should not exist.
“JOE ROGAN DESTROYSSSSSS CNN YOU WONT BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT” (Substack - Galaxy Brain)
Because if you liked the Hobbes essay above, you’ll probably be interested in this, too, which looks at how the media creates cheap and shallow interactions.
It’s the kind of media that suffocates nuance, venerates self-assuredness, and equates self-reflection and principled concessions with weakness. It’s the type of information loop that you’d design if you wanted to make sure nobody ever feels like it’s safe to change their mind.
“Stop Shopping” (The Atlantic)
Because the wealthiest are causing the big supply chain bottleneck, according to Amanda Mull.
According to Tim Kasser, a psychologist and professor emeritus at Knox College who has spent decades studying materialism, the word citizen has slowly come to be replaced by the word consumer in newspapers and books. “It’s become more and more a sort of a default, to think of people as consumers instead of the myriad other roles that they play,” he told me. That’s also how people are socialized to think of themselves.
“Why Dune endures” (Vox)
Because I am a new Dune fan and Alissa Wilkinson can deep-dive on movies like no other.