Kickoff For August 31, 2020
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Monday Kickoff, a collection of what I’ve found interesting, informative, and insightful on the web over the last seven days.
Let’s get this Monday started with these links:
Technology
Home Screens, wherein Drew Austin postulates that while the tech industry claims digital solutions can replace face-to-face interactions, the coronavirus pandemic is drawing attention to what technology can’t do.
The Power of Lo-TEK, wherein we’re introduced to the local technologies, traditional ecological knowledge (Lo-TEK) movement, which explores so-called primitive technologies and how we can use them in the modern world.
The Digital Afterlife, wherein Brian J. Barth explains what happens, and what should happen, to our online accounts and digital assets after we die.
Ideas
How social and physical technologies collaborate to create, wherein we’re treated to an examination of how both technologies evolve, hand in hand, as physical change spurs social change, which spurs physical change.
A New Connection with the Lost Art of Phone Conversation, wherein Daphne Merkin discusses how the traditional phone call is coming back into vogue, all thanks to COVID-19 lockdowns.
is minimalism the antidote to runaway industrialization?, wherein Greg Fish looks at the financial, environmental, and human costs of people continually buying cheap goods which they must regularly replace.
Business and Economics
Garbage Language, wherein Molly Young looks at the growth of meaningless language in business and the workplace, and how it’s become the norm at all levels in an organization.
Draining the Risk Pool, wherein Jathan Sadowski examines how so-called corporate wellness programs lead employers and insurers to adopt surveillance technologies that invade both the work and private lives of employees.
Why We Need Cooperatives for the Digital Economy, wherein James Muldoon argues the need to shift to community run and owned digital platforms, ones which put people and their communities, and not profits, first.
And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.