Hey guys, welcome to a new section of this newsletter!
A lot of you that have been reading this newsletter regularly may know how vocal I have been regarding the evils of algorithmic content curation since it can deprive us of novel thoughts and ideas, and so I’ve decided to start posting a weekly curation of the most interesting and unique articles/ideas I’ve found on the internet.
Curated by a perplexed human being, not an algorithm.
#1 INSIDE THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD OUT OF AFGHANISTAN - Bari Weiss
On Saturday night I had just sat down to have a drink with a friend when he got a call. He apologized for having to take it, but it was urgent: it was about the Afghan women’s orchestra. They were stuck in Kabul and desperate to get out. He was involved in the effort to extract them.
Twenty minutes later, we ordered another martini.
I’ve been thinking a lot these past two weeks about luck. The luck of where we are born. The luck of the parents we are born to. And, right now, the luck of who we know.
Knowing — or having proximity to someone who knows my well-placed friend, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — is a matter of life or death for untold numbers of Afghans.
#2 Drug abuse: From addiction to an inevitable fatality - Ashmit Bharadwaj
You would often hear sayings like, “Don’t do drugs kids”, or “Stay away from drugs”. The truth is, most people don’t understand the severity and grave detriment that is posed by drug addiction.
This newsletter will analyse how opioids work, where they come from, what they can do to a person, and why you MUST stay away from them.
“Opium”, is a highly addictive non-synthetic narcotic that is extracted from the poppy plant, Papaver somniferum.
#3 Can Carbohydrate Restriction “Starve” Cancer Cells? - JJ Lim
The Warburg effect explains that cancer cells have a higher rate of glucose uptake than non-cancerous cells, via a process known as aerobic glycolysis. This phenomenon was described by Otto Warburg in 1956.
In cancer cells, aerobic glycolysis results in glucose being metabolised into carbon compounds to build cellular substances and secrete lactic acid into the environment as byproducts. That is why you often heard that cancer cells thrive in an “acid environment”. But no, alkaline water doesn’t help with cancer prevention or treatment.
In normal cells, glucose would be completely oxidised into ATP and carbon dioxide, a process known as respiration. However, cancer cells also “respire”, but is often overlooked because Warburg did not mention it.
#4 I Wrote on Medium Every Single Day For a Year And Here’s Everything I’ve Learned - Khadeja
What a ride.
This has been a post in the making for a year. There have been a ton of ups and downs. I’m still flabbergasted I made it this long.
I still classify myself as a “halfway decent” writer because I’m nowhere near a Medium master. But I’ve figured out a few tricks along the way. So if you’re new to the platform and you’re struggling to make it past year one, here is everything I’ve learned and my results to get you through it.
#5 The First Decentralized Writing Platform That Pays Writers Is Here - Tim Denning
Writing online is full of bear traps.
Once you’ve been writing for a while you will no doubt experience the following:
Your content being deleted or moderated.
A ban from a platform.
Poor quality content that exploits readers (intentionally or unintentionally).
Misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Weaponized comments pointed at you.
Other content creators who troll you for likes.
These challenges are normal. It’s no platform’s fault and it’s not intentional. Jack Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter, reflected on the difficulty of running a social media platform after the Trump ban when he said:
“The reason I have so much passion for #Bitcoin is largely because of the model it demonstrates: a foundational internet technology that is not controlled or influenced by any single individual or entity. This is what the internet wants to be, and over time, more of it will be.”
#1 Not An Algorithm
I really like this, Vishisht. Every day I have to remind myself I am not an algorithm, because I am treated like one. How many shows in Netflix's library: many thousands? It seems like 40, because the algorithm thinks it knows what I like. Same in social media, ads, other streaming services. It thinks it knows what I like. I have yet to meet an algorithm that knows anything about what I really like and don't like at all.