Careful what you wish for
+ The one consequence of global warming more people should be aware of (#443)
It's bit of a crazy week over here, so the annual call for book recommendations will have to wait for another week or two. But it's coming and I can't wait to see all the great books you'll be recommending to each other. Until this, this week's recommendations:
1. Reasons Not to Become Famous
If you don't happen to be the most humble person on earth, you will have had moments when you thought to yourself that it might be nice to be famous. Maybe not Beyoncé-famous, but proper famous within your area of expertise. This candid post by Tim Ferriss provides you with ample reasons to reconsider. It's not just that, «when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job». If your audience is large enough, by sheer probability, you end up with death threats, stalking, attempted fraud, identity theft, even kidnapping. What I like about the post is that he isn't complaining (he's still privileged in many ways), but giving comfort to all unhappily unfamous ones.
2. Global heating will push billions outside ‘human climate niche’
The world is currently on track for 2.7 degrees of warming. Of all the consequences this is still one of the most mind-boggling ones — and yet surprisingly little talked about: It would mean that 2 billion people — a quarter of the entire population of the planet — will soon experience average annual temperatures above 29 degrees celsius, a level at which very few communities have lived in the past. That means a lot of suffering, and migration like we've never seen before.
3. Your identity pieced together from stolen data
Insightful and unsettling: This interactive piece explains how bits and pieces of personal information from data breaches add up. And how your personal information ends up in data breaches from services you've never used or even heard of. If you dare, you can see it for your own data.