Six Ideas That Made Us Think

1. Handwriting’s Comeback

First Draft makes the case that, against all predictions, handwriting may have a future. Though writing by hand “seemed destined to follow typewriters and vinyl records” as “relics prized more for their tactile charm than their usefulness,” there is growing research suggesting that “for retention and comprehension, it appears the pen is mightier than the keyboard”:

It seems the very ease of typing seals its inferiority as a study aid. Handwriting is slow. This slowness forces us to take shortcuts, which amount to little acts of translation. The activeness of this process — of turning long form ideas into shorter ones — helps things lodge in the mind. In other words, it is possible, and indeed tempting, to type mindlessly. Handwriting, meanwhile, makes us think. 

2. Tech Goes to the Ramparts

In a deliberately provocative and bombastic 3,000-word post, Silicon Valley eminence Marc Andreesen writes an unapologetic “techno-optimist” manifesto, calling technology “the glory of human ambition and achievement, the spearhead of progress.” A sample:

We believe the techno-capital machine of markets and innovation never ends, but instead spirals continuously upward. Comparative advantage increases specialization and trade. Prices fall, freeing up purchasing power, creating demand. Falling prices benefit everyone who buys goods and services, which is to say everyone. Human wants and needs are endless, and entrepreneurs continuously create new goods and services to satisfy those wants and needs, deploying unlimited numbers of people and machines in the process. This upward spiral has been running for hundreds of years, despite continuous howling from Communists and Luddites. Indeed, as of 2019, before the temporary COVID disruption, the result was the largest number of jobs at the highest wages and the highest levels of material living standards in the history of the planet. 

“This reads a bit as though he’s arguing with the class Trotskyist in the cafeteria about whether markets are good,” writes Ben Evans, a former Andreesen Horowitz employee. 

3. Byron Wien’s Lists

Byron Wien, who died last week, was one of the most influential Wall Street figures of the last 50 years. Much of his renown grew from two of his lists: 10 Surprises, an annual letter that offered contrarian economic predictions for the year ahead (many proved wrong, but that didn’t matter), and Life Lessons, a collection of 20 things he learned in his career. One that stands out:

On philanthropy, try to relieve pain rather than spread joy. Music, theater and art museums have many affluent supporters, give the best parties and can add to your social luster in a community. They don’t need you. Social service, hospitals and educational institutions can make the world a better place and help the disadvantaged make their way toward the American dream.

His 10 Surprises for 2023 are still worth reading.

4. Judi Dench’s Bad Review

The Guardian assesses Judi Dench’s memoir about the impact of Shakespeare on her life. One of the most striking anecdotes concerns a bad review she got while playing opposite Anthony Hopkins in Antony and Cleopatra: 

She recalls reading a vitriolic letter backstage about her performance, written by a disgruntled punter in Forest Row, Sussex, and becoming more and more upset until her colleague Michael Bryant took it from her, tore it up and set it alight, which immediately caused all the fire alarms in the building to go off. “I think of it every time I go through Forest Row,” she says.

Dench’s spontaneous recitation of Shakespeare’s 29th sonnet on a British television show last week is a thing of beauty.  

5. A History of Fake Photos

Photography has always involved a degree of deception, argues Nick Heer on the blog, PixelEnvy. In an absorbing essay prompted by the controversy about manipulating photos through AI or other technology used by Adobe or Google Pixel phones, Heer takes a historical perspective: 

We have not been able to wholly trust photographs pretty much since they were invented. The only things which have changed in that time are the ease with which the manipulations can happen, and their availability. That has risen in tandem with a planet full of people carrying a camera everywhere. If you believe the estimates, we take more photos every two minutes than existed for the first hundred-and-fifty years after photography’s invention. In one sense, we are now fully immersed in an environment where we cannot be certain of the authenticity of anything. Then again, Bigfoot and Loch Ness monster sightings are on a real decline.

6. TikTok’s Secret Agents

Wired takes us inside the business side of TikTok and YouTube influencers. Of course, they have agents, managers, and impresarios who have become indispensable players in creating celebrity out of nothing:

The creator economy is projected to be worth $480 billion by 2027. In many ways, that figure represents an enormous redistribution of wealth: a tide of ad dollars and other revenue ebbing away from established studios and publishers, and flooding toward individual creators and the technology giants that host their work. But the corporations are the only ones on a secure footing in this arrangement. If individual creators want to stay afloat for longer than a brief moment, they still need managers to help them navigate the algorithmic churn.

Websites Worth Reading

Halloween Spending: Annual Halloween expenditure

Candy Store: Most popular Halloween candy of 2023

Billboard: Most popular Halloween costumes for 2023

Feeds We Follow

@Peter_Orszag: Policy wonk becomes Lazard CEO

@criticalthreats: AEI project on global threats

@HitchMagee: Bates College scholar of mass violence