Tolkien, who saw almost all his friends die in the Somme, and knew the seduction of despair, wrote both Denethor and Saruman as doomers.

Social media rewarded simple narratives and, in some cases, lies. it cultivated information bubbles. it stole content and repackaged it. and it vacuumed money out of news organizations.

In my mind, the economics failed journalism a couple of decades ago. as a profession it's barely holding on. As the Fourth Estate was hollowed out, what took its place was entertainment and very well-funded partisan press, mostly on the right.

I would read a roundup of dumb things said by local pols on fringe podcasts!

I just tried Anthropic Claude, which is generally pretty great: Less wrong but more hilarious.

I'm kind of mad at you for making me listen to old Pink Floyd this morning.

The Mormons later said if they'd been delayed the two weeks it took to build the road, they wouldn't have gotten any crops in the ground, and they were sorely needed the next year.

The pioneers came down Emmigration Canyon using a road that was built by the Donner Party. It took over two weeks for the Donner Party to make it down the canyon the year before the Mormons came.

I can say that at a local paper, this was absolutely devastating. You find something out, google takes it and serves it on its own. Unstainable if you want to have people who can work finding things out for the rest of us.

it's early, and at first glance i read this as "evil-based newsletters"

There's a non-zero chance :)

Phillip Dick? Winston Churchill?