Hello 👋
I interviewed Franz Josef Allmayer, founder of the blockchain project SEEDS, for Emerge. Read the full write-up of our conversation or skim the highlights on Twitter. Those mad, beautiful hippies at Emerge are also recruiting for a Director of Emergence role if that sounds like your thing.
In other news, I’ve pulled together a bunch of resources for freelance writers on my website – some new, some very old – so go have a nosy. If you discover something useful, don’t forget to buy me a coffee to say thanks and help me create more handy lists and guides like this in future.
Anyway, below is the coolest stuff I found on the internet this week. Enjoy!
-Lauren
🎬 🎨 Give yourself permission to be creative (TED)
Ethan Hawke has made some brilliant, terrible and downright strange films over the years. As it turns out, though, Hawke does books and music too, and he’s worked remarkably hard to cultivate an artistic life. This talk is a powerful call-to-action for creatives struggling to get their shit together and make good stuff to share with the world.
🗞️ 👥 Mothers for QAnon (The New York Times)
This reported story from badass digital culture researcher Annie Kelly delves into the QAnon conspiracy theory and its resulting movement – which includes an alarming number of women, but perhaps not for the reasons you'd expect. If you’re not sure what the heck QAnon even is, this piece serves as a good introduction.
🖥️ 😻 r/WhatsWrongWithYourCat (Reddit)
An online community of 200k+ who spend time documenting the strange behaviour of their cats. The images and videos shared here contain all the good cat cliches you’ve come to know and love: they sit where they fit, they sing and they shout, they run around upside down, and they are often dissatisfied with their human overlords.
📖 🔬 Smoke & Mirrors: How Hype Obscures the Future (Little Brown)
Gemma Milne’s debut is a no-nonsense take on the hype and idealism around science and technology in the 21st century. Examining nine research areas – from solving world hunger and achieving limitless energy; from discovering aliens to artificial intelligence – Milne helps makes sense of what’s going on in the world, and tells us how to pursue real progress.
🎧 🗺️ The big wooing of international students (Borderline Pod)
In this podcast for "defiant global citizens", journalist Isabelle Roughol interviews well-placed experts for insights on the most pressing issues of the day. This conversation explores the international higher education landscape after Covid-19: from Asian universities wooing African students to young folks in Western countries cancelling their gap years.
🗞️ 💼 Why the UK is sleepwalking into a job crisis (New Statesman)
In this piece, George Eaton analyses six months of pandemic employment politics in the UK, revealing the country’s stark outlook when furlough ends next month. The long-term political story of Covid-19 is only just taking shape, and governments everywhere are battling to control the narrative. Better hope your country has their own Eaton to lead you through the bullshit.
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-Lauren