Something big is happening
Plus: Why ICE needs masks, and why the housewife is recent invention (#563)
It's me again, David, and you're reading the Weekly Filet, the newsletter for curious minds who love when something makes them go «Huh, I never thought of it this way!». This week's newsletter comes to you from a very snowy, wonderfully calm mountain village in the Swiss Alps where even color photos look like they've been taken in black and white.
And with that, let's see what the internet had on offer this week:
1. Something Big Is Happening
If you think AI might not be that big of a deal after all – or that its impact might be felt rather later than sooner – I invite you to read this. There are plenty of good reasons to be skeptical of the capabilities of AI (and the value they might create). However, I'm almost sure someone is getting it wrong when they've last tried ChatGPT, Claude et al a couple of months ago or when they are using these systems in a very superficial way, as mere chatbots. A maximalist take like this one is to be taken with a good pinch of salt, but at the very least, it will challenge you to sharpen your view.
Matt Shumer
2. What ICE Wants
To fully grasp how Trump's paramilitary force ICE operates, it's crucial to understand why they are always masked. It makes all the difference – because it takes away the last civil protection against excessive force, after the government and the Supreme Court had taken away the other layers of protection. I've long been a fan of Max Fisher's explanatory journalism on global matters, first at Vox, then The New York Times. This is one of the first videos of his own recently launched YouTube format. It's as good as you'd expect.
3. The housewife is a Victorian invention
Unpaid care work is usually brought up (and rightly so!) to make the case that women work at least as much as men do. But what if history told us that we don't even need to look beyond the actual workplace? For most of our history, «there was no such thing as a workplace distinct from the home». And thus, «women have been engaged in labor and the economy for as long as we've had an economy.» Take this excellent post by Isabelle Roughol as a gateway to her new podcast Broad History («The history you think you know – with women in it this time»).
Isabelle Roughol
4. Why This Olympic Sport Bothers Physicists
Did you know that physicists have tried to figure out for more than 100 years why curling stones spin the wrong way around? That's only one aspect that makes curling more interesting than you'd think. For one, it's a great video like we've come to expect from Cleo Abram. Beneath that, it's a testament for always staying curious even when something looks boring on the surface (see what I did there?).
5. We Don’t Remember What We Think, Only What We Do
«An idea doesn’t do anything until it becomes actions. Printing an idea on paper makes it more tangible, but keeps it in idea form. Ultimately it has to leave the realm of words and get printed onto your motor neurons.»
David Cain
There is one idea from the same author I'm often reminded of in mundane situations: You always know when you’re doing something for the first time, and you almost never know when you’re doing something for the last time.
Dataguessr of the week
Update your knowledge of the world. One quiz at a time. This week:
What else?
Instant-gratification links that make you go wow! or aha! the moment you click.
- Humans can't reliably recall colors, or can you? Color, a highly addictive browser game.
- That second chart is fascinating: Among megaprojects, Olympic Games are second to only nuclear storage in terms of budget overruns.
- This ad shows how powerful forcing a shift in perspective can be.
- Ok, guy can play the guitar.
- I mean, it's not fair to compare a Swiss city with a US one in terms of public transportation. Let's do it anyway.
Books for curious minds
Some new ones as I read them, some older ones that continue to inform how I look at the world and myself.
The core idea of the book is a bit paradoxical: Leadership can only be learned in practice. However, if you need a bit of inspiration to put into practice, this is your book. Contains lots of useful small and not-so-small things you can try as you develop your leadership skills. Buy it here.
A gem from the archive
David Bauer
The Weekly Filet archive offers more than 2800 hand-picked links since 2011, like this one. You can search by interests, explore collections or shuffle for a gem.
That's it for this week. Thanks for reading. I wish you a nice weekend and hope to see you again next Friday!
— David