what fred read

and what he learned

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Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power by Byung-Chul Han – review

An examination of the internet age suggests that we should cultivate the heresies of secrets and silence

Perhaps [...] true freedom is an intolerable burden and so we invented God in order to be guilty and in debt to something. That’s why, having killed God, we invented capitalism. 

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Why You Should Hate Your Job

The case against the work ethic.

... the work ethic fosters a culture of perpetual disappointment. 

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The Confidence Gap

Evidence shows that women are less self-assured than men—and that to succeed, confidence matters as much as competence. Here's why, and what to do about it.

Success, it turns out, correlates just as closely with confidence as it does with competence.

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How the news took over reality

The long read: Is engagement with current affairs key to being a good citizen? Or could an endless torrent of notifications be harming democracy as well as our wellbeing?

... the news has often been crazy. What it hasn’t been is ubiquitous. 

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Good enough to eat? The toxic truth about modern food

We are now producing and consuming more food than ever, and yet our modern diet is killing us. How can we solve this bittersweet dilemma?

The greatest thing that we have lost from our eating today is a sense of balance, whether it’s the balance of meals across the day or the balance of nutrients on our plate.

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White gold: the unstoppable rise of alternative milks

The long read: How wellness upstarts spoiled milk’s healthy reputation – and built a billion-dollar industry from juicing oats and nuts

The forces driving us towards plant milk are really something bigger: a manifestation of a collective anxiety that something is wrong with our bodies. That we aren’t as healthy and happy as we could be – or perhaps, should be – and something, or someone, must be to blame.

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For some professors, a shallow, fashionable nihilism is all the rage.

Being radical used to take a lot of work [...] Now all one needs to do is succumb, conspicuously, to hopelessness. 

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Hand dryers v paper towels: the surprisingly dirty fight for the right to dry your hands

The long read: For a century, the humble paper towel has dominated public toilets. But a new generation of hand dryers has sparked a war for loo supremacy

The hand dryer’s essential ambition is to break a human habit tens of thousands of years old, and to persuade us that the few times we dry our hands daily, for a few seconds every time, warrants a machine.

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SpongeBob at 20: how the pineapple-dwelling fry cook endured

Ever since his debut in 1999, the cartoon has remained a constant in popular culture, inspiring impassioned fandom and endless memes

The secret to SpongeBob SquarePants’ power is that there’s remotely nothing cool about him. 

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What wrapping a rope around the Earth reveals about the limits of human intuition | Aeon Videos

... if something that seems obvious to almost everyone can be totally false, what else might we be wrong about?

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Has legal cannabis killed the bong?

Under cannabis prohibition, nothing signified one’s love of the plant more than bongs – but health-conscious users who prefer to vape don’t have much use for them

The bong is gentrifying. 

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Truffle chips, truffle pizza, truffle popcorn … how a luxury item became ubiquitous

The ‘food of the gods’ is now within everyone’s reach. But is there less to the new snacks than meets the eye?

“It feels real.”

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What animals can teach us about politics

The long read: Decades of studying primates has convinced me that animal politics are not so different from our own – and even in the wild, leadership is about much more than being a bully

Civilisation does all sorts of great things for us, but does so by co-opting natural abilities, not by inventing anything new. 

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One step ahead: how walking opens new horizons

Whether it’s to the North Pole or across LA, walking is the fastest way to make more time for life

“... when you walk you might not experience anything great. But you always experience something.”

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Human Contact Is Now a Luxury Good

Screens used to be for the elite. Now avoiding them is a status symbol.

The richer you are, the more you spend to be offscreen.

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The Aldi effect: how one discount supermarket transformed the way Britain shops

The long read: When Aldi arrived in Britain, Tesco and Sainsbury’s were sure they had nothing to worry about. Three decades later, they know better

... a place where “people who don’t hate their money can safely go shopping”.

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A water-based religion: how fishing liberates the mind

... [fishing] concentrates the mind, while at the same time liberating it.