Tuesday morning articles
Crypto Story Where it came from, what it all means, and why it still matters by Matt Levine. There was a moment not so long ago when I thought, “What if I’ve had this crypto thing all wrong?” I’m a doubting normie who, if I’m being honest, hasn’t always understood this alternate universe that’s been percolating and expanding for more than a decade now. If you’re a disciple, this new dimension is the future. If you’re a skeptic, this upside-down world is just a modern Ponzi scheme that’s going to end badly—and the recent “crypto winter” is evidence of its long-overdue ending. But crypto has dug itself into finance, into technology, and into our heads. And if crypto isn’t going away, we’d better attempt to understand it. Its only the 2nd time in Businessweek’s 93-year history that a single author has written a cover-to-cover issue of the magazine. (Businessweek)
Beyond Catastrophe: A New Climate Reality Is Coming Into View: You can never really see the future, only imagine it, then try to make sense of the new world when it arrives. (New York Times)
Billionaire investor Barry Sternlicht says Jerome Powell and ‘his merry band of lunatics’ are destroying faith in capitalism and leading us toward ‘social unrest’ “So the rich guy who loses 30%, he’s still rich, right? But the poor guy who’s working in an hourly job that loses that job, he’s going to say: ‘Capitalism is broken, it didn’t work for me. I lost my job. And this whole system has to go out the door,’” Sternlicht told Fortune. “You’re going to have social unrest,” he added. “And it’s just because of Jay Powell and his merry band of lunatics.” (Fortune)
Why Signal won’t compromise on encryption, with president Meredith Whittaker: Signal messages are more private than iMessage and WhatsApp. Here’s how. (The Verge)
The Trump Tapes: 20 interviews that show why he is an unparalleled danger: In more than 50 years of reporting, I have never disclosed the raw interviews or full transcripts of my work. But after listening again to the 20 interviews I conducted with President Donald Trump during his last year as chief executive, I have decided to take the unusual step of releasing them. I was struck by how Trump pounded in my ears in a way the printed page cannot capture. In their totality, these interviews offer an unvarnished portrait of Trump. You hear Trump in his own words, in his own voice, during one of the most consequential years in American history: amid Trump’s first impeachment, the coronavirus pandemic and large racial justice protests. (Washington Post)
COVID-19 Origins: Investigating a “Complex and Grave Situation” Inside a Wuhan Lab: The Wuhan lab at the center of suspicions about the pandemic’s onset was far more troubled than known, documents unearthed by a Senate team reveal. Tracing the evidence, Vanity Fair and ProPublica give the clearest view yet of a biocomplex in crisis. (ProPublica)
Behind TikTok’s boom: A legion of traumatised, $10-a-day content moderators: Horrific videos such as these are part and parcel of everyday work for TikTok moderators in Colombia. They told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism about widespread occupational trauma and inadequate psychological support, demanding or impossible performance targets, punitive salary deductions and extensive surveillance. Their attempts to unionise to secure better conditions have been opposed repeatedly. (Bureau of Investigative Journalism)
On the Alex Jones Verdict: The Very, Very Lucrative World of Lying: How should we grapple with the current historic transformation of the public sphere? I focus on the Alex Jones trial and verdict, but my question is about the future: what can we do, what should we do, to prevent future cases? I suggest that we take a closer look at money as an incentive, and also focus on friction as an answer. (The Insight)
Bono Is Still Trying to Figure Out U2 and Himself: There are different Bonos to different people, including the man himself. He is, as you may know, the lead singer of U2, one of the most successful and longest-running rock bands of all time. He’s also a prominent activist, having helped lead campaigns that resulted in some of the world’s richest countries forgiving its loans to some of the world’s poorest and in procuring tens of billions of dollars in AIDS relief for African nations. “It’s not like you’re creative when you’re being a musician and when you’re an activist, you’re being an activist. That’s why I wrote the book: These different characters are all part of me.” (NYT Magazine)