I also love this proposed government based on sortition and ostracism. It seems like it could be a lot better than what we have right now.
https://www.metafilter.com/182510/Make-America-A-Democracy#7762457
Month: September 2019
Finally a proper English language profile of Turkish star rapper Ezhel.
https://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/can-turkeys-rebel-rapper-stay-out-of-prison/96150
Medialab fallout
Some of the Medialab faculty seem to be outraged because its current head Joi Ito took money from Jeffrey Epstein. Those that can are leaving. Power to them.
The outrage though seems to stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Medialab is. Higher education institutions of that scale and stature in our current world do not exist without a vast pool of dark money behind it. Take any such institution’s investments, endowments and funding streams, dig a little and there’s no telling what you’ll turn up. Epstein money is particularly egregious but at this scale, there is no clean currency.
Ito’s role there is mostly to be a frontman and channel those money streams in a way that benefits the institution and himself while offering plausible deniability to those who work under him. By all accounts that seems exactly what he has been doing.
The man knows his job. It would be good if others did as well (some already do).
https://medium.com/@EthanZ/on-me-and-the-media-lab-715bfc707f6f