Kickoff For December 24, 2018

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.

It's Christmas Eve here at the bottom of the world, and I still published a new Kickoff. Don't say I never get you anything. Seriously, though, for those of you who celebrate the season, have a merry one. If you don't, I hope you get to take some time off, and spend some of that time with those you're closest to.

And just a reminder: my newsletter, Weekly Musings, debuts on January 9, 2019. If you want to read my (informed) opinions on a new topic every seven days, you can subscribe here.

Let's get this Monday started with these links:

Business

Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?, wherein we discover that more and more employees of tech firms, both large and small, are finally questioning the ethics of (some) of what their employers are creating.

The Crash That Failed, wherein Robert Kuttner recounts the 2008 financial crisis, which should have discredited the belief that unregulated markets produce and distribute good and services more efficiently and how, in the aftermath of the crisis, it's a case of meet the new (financial) boss, same as the old boss.

The real Goldfinger: the London banker who broke the world, wherein we hear the tale of how Siegmund Warburg created a new way for the rich to shuffle money around the world, which revitalized the City of London and eventually led to today's stratospheric inequality

Technology

Look up from your screen, wherein Nicholas Tampio argues that an education involves more than feeding facts into brains via a screen, but rather requires a mix of the passive and the tactile.

All In: The Hidden History of Poker and Crypto, wherein Morgen Peck ponders how the problems online poker encountered in the early 2000s might have been the inspiration for Satoshi Nakajima to create Bitcoin, and explores how that's influencing the development of cryptocurrecy today.

Delete Your Account Now, wherein Harper Simon sits down with digital contrarian Jaron Lanier and discusses how and why the online world has become such a toxic place, and we learn why we should consider sending our social media accounts to the glue factory.

Productivity

Disconnect, wherein we learn that to be our most productive and creative we need to back away. Not just from the internet, but from people and things that can distract us.

A neuroscientist’s baby-step guide from multitasking to single-tasking, wherein we get three pieces of simple, solid advice that can help us complete the task (yes, the use of the singular is deliberate) at hand.

The Little Handbook for Getting Stuff Done, wherein Leo Babauta looks at the benefits of getting stuff done and outlines a program to help us do just that.

And that's it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.

— Scott Nesbitt