"To discover to the world something which deeply concerns it, and of which it was previously ignorant; to prove to it that it had been mistaken on some vital point of temporal or spiritual interest, is as important a service as a human being can render to his fellow creatures..."
John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty"
Think about what touches us every day?Certainly technology in many forms and soon artificial intelligence. We are touched by our consumption of media, the intense partisan divide fueled by tribalism, and the fear and frustration that sometimes makes us want to escape, and be able to look at all of this from 30K feet, so that we can see it's absurdity.
But of course moments later we’re dropped right back into it. So imagine if all of these powerful and metastasizing forces came together in a recipe that multiplies all of them.
What you’d have is Matt Richtel’s prescient new novel Dead on Arrival. My conversation with Matt Richtel: