The big picture of human history can be terrifying or comforting, depending on how you look at it. In the grand scheme of things, as individuals, we don’t matter much at all. Stars will die and black holes will swallow galaxies. Entropy will eventually destroy everything—including us. What can we accomplish as a society before that […]
Should We Pull The Plug on Social Media?
What have social media platforms done to our society? That’s the unsettling question that international reporter Max Fisher explores in The Chaos Machine. With many examples of how Big Tech has earned billions of dollars by spreading violence, misinformation, and hate speech, Fisher examines how Facebook and other platforms have caused chaos all over the world. […]
Data Doesn’t Lie
Your intuition is a liar. It’s safer to trust the numbers, but data-driven answers are often not what you would expect. They may point to different decisions than what your instincts are telling you. In Don’t Trust Your Gut, data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz demonstrates how data-driven decision making can improve every area of your life. Make More […]
Your “Weak Ties” Matter More Than You Think
Researchers at the Harvard Study of Adult Development have had happiness under the microscope since 1938. Unlike most studies, which tend to be short lived, this one has followed participants over decades and generations to understand why people thrive. The Results Are In So what can we learn from the longest-running scientific examination of happiness? […]
A Next-Level Gaming Story
How would you like to be a professional game player in a utopian space society? Sounds better than sitting at home on your PlayStation, right? Here’s the scene in The Player of Games: Having mastered every tactic and strategy, Jernau Morat Gurgeh finds that he has become bored with easy victories. So he decides to go on […]
Life Advice From an Insta Superstar Poet
Yung Pueblo, the young man known also as Diego Perez, is a huge personality on Instagram and other social media platforms. His writing emphasizes the power of self-healing, developing good relationships, and knowing yourself. Our latest Instaread delves into his recent bestseller, Lighter. Change Is Normal We all have a tendency to respond to change with […]
The Dark Past of German Moguls
Porsche cars, Dr. Oetker products, and billionaire dynasties such as the Quandts are very famous names and brands. But few people know about their horrifying pasts. Investigative journalist David de Jong aims to change that with Nazi Billionaires, an explosive story that uncovers the truth about modern-day German conglomerates that have swept their Nazi pasts under […]
Engineered Happiness?
We’re living in an era when some of the wildest plots described in science fiction stories sound. . .well, a little too much like contemporary life. Take Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, for Instance. The book describes a future in which people are brainwashed to be happy by taking a drug called soma. An Extremely Banned […]
The Answer To The Ultimate Question of Everything
New in the Instaread library: one of the most famous books in all of science fiction. Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy follows Arthur Dent’s improbable hitchhike across the galaxy with his alien friend Ford Prefect after the Earth’s destruction. The Tour Begins Arthur’s journey takes him from the President of the Galaxy’s ship to a […]
Women on Wall Street
Jamie Fiore Higgins was one of the few women in the highest ranks of Goldman Sachs before she resigned in 2016. In Bully Market, she exposes the toxic culture at Goldman Sachs, which was rife with misogyny and bullying in her nearly two decades with the financial giant. Racial and homophobic slurs were common, and her male […]
