Five Things: Gatekeepers, FOMO, Heatwaves, Bubbleverse, Missing Information
The Boss is always right.
Welcome to the latest edition of Five Things! I’m Nico, I read a lot and I like to share the best articles I read this week with you.
Even though you’re reading this newsletter early on Sunday Morning, I usually don’t get up really just for you, instead I use the evening hours to finish this newsletter after compiling the articles all week. So I’m sitting here, it is past midnight and I’m still singing “Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh” in my head. I just got back from seeing Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performing live in Hamburg. It was amazing.
As you might know, I'm from Northern Germany, and consider myself Nordic by Nature, but I spent my senior year of highschool in Des Moines, Iowa, and ever since then I have two hearts beating in my chest, a German and an American one, or a Midwestern one, to be more specific. And for me Bruce Springsteen embodies all that is good about the USA and all that I love about this amazing country that is so torn and yet so beautiful and complicated. And I just love his music and his energy. I wish I could play guitar like he does when I’m 73 years old, which is highly unlikely, as I have never played guitar before. Anyhow, it was a great evening with my best friend and I’m really glad my wife gave me the tickets for my birthday a year ago. This was the fourth time I have seen Bruce Springsteen together with my best friend, twice in Hamburg and twice in Berlin.
When we left the stadium, a father took a pair of scissors out of his pocket and cut some of the grass that could be seen through the panels we were standing on. The concert was at Volksparkstadium, where even in League 2 almost all games are sold out and fans cheer on their home team HSV. He looked at me and said: “my son will be so happy when I give this to him!”
Sometime during the concert I wondered if German audiences are especially easy to motivate to do something when some charismatic guy is on stage, but probably I should not be going into that direction…
Above the stage was the German flag and the star-spangled banner. This reminded me how lucky we are in Europe right now that the US has a President who deeply believes in the transatlantic partnership that has helped both Germany and the USA in the last decades after World War II. And yet, hearing Bruce Springsteen sing about the American dream and its challenges, I kept thinking about how difficult life has become for both the working class and the middle class in the States. Joe Biden really doesn’t get enough credit for Bidenomics at the moment, as he is pushing so much money into the system to revitalize the economy again, which will help millions of families.
By the way, The River is such a fantastic song and an entire stadium singing Because the Night is also just wonderful.
Thanks for reading Five things - here’s my Sizzling Summer Subscription offer!
Sponsored
As you trust me with five articles a week that you should read, also trust me with these three recommendations for interesting newsletters that deserve your attention.
The Copilot - Get Smart About AI
The Rundown AI - Get the rundown on the latest developments in AI before everyone else.
The Goodnewsletter - There’s a lot of good news out there. Just read it.
The Gatekeepers of Knowledge Don’t Want Us to See What They Know
“Whatever their flaws, the old gatekeepers were, at least on paper, beholden to the public. The new gatekeepers are fundamentally beholden only to profit and to their shareholders.” - the big issue is: how can we hold these platforms accountable? (New York Times)
FOMO Has Never Been Worse on the Internet
So, who of you joined Threads immediately when it become available? Thought so. I even had to circumvent the georetardation as Europeans are not allowed to use Threads. The author does remind us about the former fastest growing social network that reached a 100 million users and then went nowhere. I’m still mad at Google, not for shutting down Google+, but for not getting it done right. I was part of the oboarding recommendation scheme for German users and had 65k followers after a few weeks, but that never really materialized into any fame at all. Let’s see how well Threads will do. (The Atlantic)
The simple ways cities can adapt to heatwaves
The magic of trees, the color white and water. It will be interesting to see, how quickly cities can adapt this and become more liveable. Paris is a really good example that conventional wisdom can be beat and cars can be kicked out of the cities. Here in Germany, of course, the conservatives still believe that people only go shopping when they can park in front of the shop, but recent studies show that people like a city without cars much more and prefer to shop in pedestrian areas. (BBC)
Masters of the Bubbleverse
I’m always in awe how easy it is for some people to raise lots of money and set up fund after fund, even though the fund thesis is spray and pray at best. But then I’m also intrigued to see how they do a few years down the road. Currently it doesn’t look too good for Tiger Global. (New York Magazine)
This WWII Story Made Us Better Thinkers
“Remember the bullet-ridden airplane meme whenever you hear someone discuss what they concluded from the information they have. It should cue you to wonder about the information they are missing, because what’s present may not be representative of what’s absent.” This is brilliant - and yes, it makes sense to look for the stuff that’s missing to figure out how to improve something. (Nautilus)
That’s it. Have an amazing Sunday! And listen to the Boss!