Carsten Knoch
@carstenknoch.bsky.social
Management consultant, business ethnographer/ anthropologist, vision enabler, thinker, listener, reader of books & the web, angry but hopeful. https://carstenknoch.com
"Today’s crisis didn’t begin with the loss of manufacturing jobs, and simply bringing those jobs back won’t solve it." www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/o...
Opinion | Bruce Springsteen’s Father Complicates a Powerful American Narrative
www.nytimes.com
November 8, 2025 at 9:09 PM
"Today’s crisis didn’t begin with the loss of manufacturing jobs, and simply bringing those jobs back won’t solve it." www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/o...
"Even if a truce is reached to end the trade war, the national resistance against America will persist. As Trump continues to belittle and toy with Canada, its people have lost faith that its neighbor will treat it decently." nymag.com/intelligence...
You Have No Idea How Furious the Canadians Are
There’s nothing like a common enemy to make a country come together.
nymag.com
July 27, 2025 at 2:59 PM
"Even if a truce is reached to end the trade war, the national resistance against America will persist. As Trump continues to belittle and toy with Canada, its people have lost faith that its neighbor will treat it decently." nymag.com/intelligence...
"Conspiracy-based TV shows did not invent the idea of plots and cabals. But as stories often do, the television serials that captivated audiences of millions trained us to think a certain way." www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/a...
How TV Trained Us to Be Conspiracy Theorists
www.nytimes.com
July 25, 2025 at 10:43 AM
"Conspiracy-based TV shows did not invent the idea of plots and cabals. But as stories often do, the television serials that captivated audiences of millions trained us to think a certain way." www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/a...
"Historians have noticed a pattern across centuries of American life: When the role of women in society changes, a moral panic about children soon follows." www.nytimes.com/2025/07/25/m...
The Conservative Crusade That’s About So Much More Than Epstein
www.nytimes.com
July 25, 2025 at 10:41 AM
"Historians have noticed a pattern across centuries of American life: When the role of women in society changes, a moral panic about children soon follows." www.nytimes.com/2025/07/25/m...
"You get to a point where context-switching back and forth is so exhausting on your brain that the only thing you have energy left to do is just the administrative overhead." www.vulture.com/article/atte...
How I’m Fixing My Broken Attention Span
The infinite scroll has ruined our ability to focus. Is wasting more time the key to getting it back?
www.vulture.com
June 15, 2025 at 2:41 PM
"You get to a point where context-switching back and forth is so exhausting on your brain that the only thing you have energy left to do is just the administrative overhead." www.vulture.com/article/atte...
"How apartheid South Africa became a road map for the far right: More than 30 years after the collapse of the racist regime, its ideas echo once again." www.ft.com/content/c600...
How apartheid South Africa became a road map for the far right
More than 30 years after the collapse of the racist regime, its ideas echo once again
www.ft.com
June 14, 2025 at 1:51 PM
"How apartheid South Africa became a road map for the far right: More than 30 years after the collapse of the racist regime, its ideas echo once again." www.ft.com/content/c600...
"Welcome to the world of what3words. If you have driven somewhere rural and remote recently you will probably need no explanation of what on earth what3words might be." www.economist.com/britain/2025...
What on earth is what3words?
It sounds odd but it is changing how people find their way
www.economist.com
May 30, 2025 at 1:23 AM
"Welcome to the world of what3words. If you have driven somewhere rural and remote recently you will probably need no explanation of what on earth what3words might be." www.economist.com/britain/2025...
"For some, minimizing the visibility of their views might feel like the right way to reduce risk. For others, staying publicly vocal and visible with their beliefs might feel too important to compromise. It's what decision they can live with." bit.ly/3YKWLAK
Keep calm (but delete your nudes): the new rules for travelling to and from Trump’s America
Many people have decided a trip to the US isn’t worth the risk after recent border detentions. But if you are going, what do you need to know? Immigration lawyers explain it all
bit.ly
May 15, 2025 at 11:34 AM
"For some, minimizing the visibility of their views might feel like the right way to reduce risk. For others, staying publicly vocal and visible with their beliefs might feel too important to compromise. It's what decision they can live with." bit.ly/3YKWLAK
"It is easy for organisations to forget, even when they are trying to remember." on.ft.com/44uZXEb
The value of institutional memory
Why some organisations are condemned to repeat the same mistakes over and over again
on.ft.com
April 19, 2025 at 10:35 PM
"It is easy for organisations to forget, even when they are trying to remember." on.ft.com/44uZXEb
"The real Trump derangement syndrome afflicts those who keep seeing a rational actor, or an economic chess game, where none exists." on.ft.com/3R6sF6F
Trump has no idea what he has unleashed
There is no school of foreign policy realism or trade mercantilism that could explain the US president’s actions
on.ft.com
April 8, 2025 at 10:18 PM
"The real Trump derangement syndrome afflicts those who keep seeing a rational actor, or an economic chess game, where none exists." on.ft.com/3R6sF6F
"When you hear of an American company making a product abroad for $5, it sounds like America is sending money away and just getting a doodad in return. In reality, that $5 buys us a product plus the fuel to power $20 of domestic economic activity." nyti.ms/3RGqQxk
Opinion | I Invented a Popular Kitchen Gadget. Trump’s Tariffs Will Kill My Business.
The government’s promise to re-shore the production of simple items like mine looks, from where I sit, like something of a fever dream.
nyti.ms
April 8, 2025 at 12:41 PM
"When you hear of an American company making a product abroad for $5, it sounds like America is sending money away and just getting a doodad in return. In reality, that $5 buys us a product plus the fuel to power $20 of domestic economic activity." nyti.ms/3RGqQxk
"It's useful to see your own country through the eyes of those who have felt the rough end of its power and the chill of its indifference. The question, it seemed, was less what the United States is becoming, than whether Americans realize what it already is." nyti.ms/3R6EUQy
Opinion | Trump Is Turning America Into Something Else. Four Columnists Zero In On What.
America is in a period of profound national regression. Where will the country end up?
nyti.ms
April 5, 2025 at 2:54 PM
"It's useful to see your own country through the eyes of those who have felt the rough end of its power and the chill of its indifference. The question, it seemed, was less what the United States is becoming, than whether Americans realize what it already is." nyti.ms/3R6EUQy
"Every generation has its burdens. The particular plight of Gen X is to have grown up in one world only to hit middle age in a strange new land." nyti.ms/42oKeVQ
The Gen X Career Meltdown
Just when they should be at their peak, experienced workers in creative fields find that their skills are all but obsolete.
nyti.ms
March 30, 2025 at 3:25 PM
"Every generation has its burdens. The particular plight of Gen X is to have grown up in one world only to hit middle age in a strange new land." nyti.ms/42oKeVQ
"Since the federal government is opposing a phenomenon it takes to be real, it stands to reason that it should tell us how to recognise that phenomenon and how to tell the difference between its impermissible and potentially permissible forms." bit.ly/3RpbDAC
Judith Butler · This Is Wrong: Executive Order 14168
When diversity, equity and inclusion become ‘threats’ to the order of society, progressive politics in general is...
bit.ly
March 27, 2025 at 5:36 PM
"Since the federal government is opposing a phenomenon it takes to be real, it stands to reason that it should tell us how to recognise that phenomenon and how to tell the difference between its impermissible and potentially permissible forms." bit.ly/3RpbDAC
"It turns out that I don't really want to buy a cheeseburger-shaped lamp. I do, however, want to know about the life of the person who, at one point, couldn't live without that lamp." nyti.ms/4l04QLl
The One Place on Social Media That Still Feels Human
You could call Facebook Marketplace a digital thrift shop. But that underplays how unique and bizarre the platform is.
nyti.ms
March 19, 2025 at 12:34 PM
"It turns out that I don't really want to buy a cheeseburger-shaped lamp. I do, however, want to know about the life of the person who, at one point, couldn't live without that lamp." nyti.ms/4l04QLl
"Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is perhaps unfamiliar with the Battle of Chateaugay. The last three letters are, after all, gay, and as such, the battle has doubtless been expunged from Defense Department websites and databases, meeting the same fate as the Enola Gay." bit.ly/4hI8F4R
Invading Canada Is Not Advisable
We’ve tried before. It didn’t work out.
bit.ly
March 16, 2025 at 5:13 PM
"Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is perhaps unfamiliar with the Battle of Chateaugay. The last three letters are, after all, gay, and as such, the battle has doubtless been expunged from Defense Department websites and databases, meeting the same fate as the Enola Gay." bit.ly/4hI8F4R
"The most effective leaders aren't the ones who seem to have all the answers. The most effective leaders are those who question themselves. They are ambivalent. They feel and exhibit conflicting emotions and can hold two contradictory thoughts or feelings in their head." on.wsj.com/4iSJr4Q
The Best Leaders Aren’t Decisive. They’re Ambivalent.
The conventional wisdom is that you want a boss who is confident and clear about the path forward. But that has it backward.
on.wsj.com
March 14, 2025 at 11:04 PM
"The most effective leaders aren't the ones who seem to have all the answers. The most effective leaders are those who question themselves. They are ambivalent. They feel and exhibit conflicting emotions and can hold two contradictory thoughts or feelings in their head." on.wsj.com/4iSJr4Q
"Spotify in effect encourages musicians to produce this aural wallpaper, by showing them the data that proves this is how to make money from the platform." bit.ly/3QTzRCP
Spotify’s biggest sin? Its algorithms have pushed artists to make joyless, toothless music | John Harris
Most musicians can only make money on the platform by writing songs inoffensive enough to get on to one of its vapid playlists, says Guardian columnist John Harris
bit.ly
March 9, 2025 at 10:09 PM
"Spotify in effect encourages musicians to produce this aural wallpaper, by showing them the data that proves this is how to make money from the platform." bit.ly/3QTzRCP
"This view requires the belief that America is exceptional, the only nation capable of caring for its people and helping them achieve their potential. After a near-lifetime of being undocumented, I had stopped believing this." nyti.ms/3Xz4EbS
Opinion | After Self-Deporting From the U.S., My Life Improved
My decision to leave the U.S. seemed crazy. I believed then that America is exceptional, the only nation capable of caring for its people.
nyti.ms
March 9, 2025 at 10:01 PM
"This view requires the belief that America is exceptional, the only nation capable of caring for its people and helping them achieve their potential. After a near-lifetime of being undocumented, I had stopped believing this." nyti.ms/3Xz4EbS
"... the second time as farce." econ.st/3CQouIE
Tariffs will harm America, not induce a manufacturing rebirth
Donald Trump’s pursuit of tariffs will make the world poorer—and America, too
econ.st
February 13, 2025 at 1:07 PM
"... the second time as farce." econ.st/3CQouIE
"In my mind, eating the same thing for lunch each day represents a sober reckoning with the fundamental sameness of office life. It seems like an honest admission that life will have some drudgery in it." bit.ly/40OfuNp
The People Who Eat the Same Meal Every Day
“Variety doesn’t really matter to me. I would be perfectly happy to eat the same Caesar salad or peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich every day.”
bit.ly
January 25, 2025 at 4:03 PM
"In my mind, eating the same thing for lunch each day represents a sober reckoning with the fundamental sameness of office life. It seems like an honest admission that life will have some drudgery in it." bit.ly/40OfuNp
"Southern California's fires were the catastrophes one learned to live with, until they weren't." bit.ly/4gWbL5R
Joan Didion and Mike Davis understood LA through its fires. Even they couldn’t predict this week
Fire is an inextricable part of the region’s identity, as the writers knew. But the way this divided city burns has been transformed
bit.ly
January 12, 2025 at 2:49 PM
"Southern California's fires were the catastrophes one learned to live with, until they weren't." bit.ly/4gWbL5R
"Nestled in the discussion of a recent Gallup poll is this observation by one of the report's authors: 'Millennials are consumers of the workplace.'" bit.ly/3C8PC53
The Great Resignation 2.0 is coming – and I salute the European millennials who plan to quit
After Covid, the US saw a wave of younger workers leaving unsatisfying and exploitative jobs. Now I hear it’s France’s turn, says Guardian Europe columnist Alexander Hurst
bit.ly
January 6, 2025 at 1:59 PM
"Nestled in the discussion of a recent Gallup poll is this observation by one of the report's authors: 'Millennials are consumers of the workplace.'" bit.ly/3C8PC53
[blog post] Best new music 2024 bit.ly/40ew4FT
Best new music 2024 | carsten knoch: essays + ideas
A brief personal reflection followed by the traditional list of the best music that caught my ear during 2024.
bit.ly
December 28, 2024 at 10:24 AM
[blog post] Best new music 2024 bit.ly/40ew4FT