Friday morning articles
Why the Age of American Progress Ended: Invention alone can’t change the world; what matters is what happens next. (The Atlantic)
Bored Ape Yacht Club Conquered NFTs. Can It Master the Metaverse Next? Two founders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club talk to CNET about how BAYC became the poster child for NFTs — and what comes next. (CNET)
Blue Bird vs. Cash Cow: Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase has become a big problem for Tesla. (Slate)
What bodybuilders do to their bodies — and brains: Creating a physique that can win at the highest level of professional bodybuilding requires superhuman self-discipline, intense training and genetic good fortune. Increasingly, say the people familiar with the culture and its consequences, it cannot be done without illicit drugs and a willingness to push a body to — or past — its limits. (Washington Post)
What Makes a Movie the Greatest of All Time? The much-respected Sight and Sound poll of the best films ever shows that what is valued onscreen has changed over time, sometimes radically. (New York Times)
What Sam Bankman-Fried Got for His Baffling Media Blitz: The disgraced FTX founder didn’t help his case, and he probably made it worse. (Slate)
The High Price of Bad Business: Corporate America’s Biggest Settlements: BP’s Deepwater Horizon to Bernie Madoff, these are some of the biggest payouts for everything from tax violations to insider trading.. (Businessweek)
The Untold Story of the Insular Texas Family That Invaded the U.S. Capitol: The Munns became a national curiosity after five of them were indicted for participating in the insurrection. But the full scope of their malignant behavior is little known—including to the federal prosecutors tasked with investigating their crimes. (Texas Monthly)
The 80-year-old book that explains Elon Musk and tech’s new right-wing tilt: The long shadow of James Burnham’s The Managerial Revolution. (Vox)
Elon Musk Is Turning Twitter Into a Haven for Nazis: Musk has welcomed neo-Nazis back onto the platform, engaged with them on his timeline, and posted multiple tweets that appeal directly to them. (Vice)
The Corruption of Supreme Court Conservatives: The Court’s falling approval is worsened by conservative Justices’ blatant partisanship. Many of its decisions are untethered from any form of recognizable jurisprudence, and the contempt of conservative Justices for precedent is incomprehensible. The collapse of public approval for the Court – dismissed in arrogance by people like Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito – has nothing to do with disagreeing with “objective” decisions. Rather, it is a wide recognition that justices like Alito and Clarence Thomas consider themselves no different than lifetime senators, and don’t even bother to hide it. (The Threats Within)