RETURN
@returndotlife
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Terry A. Davis, a brilliant programmer and remarkable individual, died four years ago today.
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For all the millions of dollars spent on obesity research, the cause of the obesity epidemic remains a mystery. A group of lay researchers is making sense of the data. An interview of @mold_time by @default_friend.
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A @default_friend interview with one of the central Online Dissident storytellers, @kaschuta.
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RETURN invites submissions on building a more human way of life in the digital age. Reviews, interviews, and fresh views of our social landscape are all welcome. Send pitches or drafts to editors@return.life.
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We're very excited to announce RETURN has moved to @SubstackInc. We want to thank the team over there for helping us and we can't wait to showcase some of the stories we've been working on.
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"Many people seem to live in such a way that if they were dropped off in a different house in a different suburb of a different state, they almost wouldn’t notice, as long as their house had a TV and internet," writes @simonsarris.
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Will Web3 deliver on its promises? How much of it is smoke and mirrors? We asked @nic__carter, @galenwolfepauly, @lndian_Bronson, & @mwilcox. their thoughts.
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RETURN invites submissions on building a more human way of life in the digital age. Reviews of devices, products, and services; interviews and profiles of significant figures; and fresh views of our social landscape are all welcome. Send pitches or drafts to editors@return.life.
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The @tiktok_us ban is a cyber Patriot Act 2.0 that will turbocharge the surveillance state. @petergietl lays out the origins of the RESTRICT Act and what we can do to stop it.
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“I’m good at one thing. Or maybe two things. That is, pissing people off and writing.”. In an interview with @default_friend, @emeriticus discusses the past, present, and future of the media machine and how he got involved.
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Many have tried to define the "femcel" but few have the taxonomical chops. @default_friend addresses the problem of pinning down the elusive femcel diaspora.
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You are probably infected with the sleeper agent of a disease with serious consequences. Most medical experts aren't even thinking about this. | @rivatez .
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On TikTok, @DanishaCarter4 places community before brand. "There are so many years lost to women being taught to see women as competition and to value male validation over everything.". An interview by @default_friend.
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“Nymphets,” not to be confused with femcels, combine “symbols of femininity with symbols of violence and melancholy, which may indicate discontent with the postfeminist, neoliberal social conditions in which they live.” | @default_friend .
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We pulled out all the stops to make our first print issue a beautiful product to hold in your hands. Today is the last day to subscribe to get it:.
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The arrogance to brag about *allegedly* helping to facilitate a multi billion dollar scam, blowing millions of investor money on frivolities, and impose your left wing world view through bribery with stolen cash, and then paint yourself as a victim to grift is wild.
As an engineer at Alameda Research, I had my entire life savings stolen from me by my former boss: Sam Bankman-Fried. Now, after months of recuperation from the craziness of the FTX collapse, I’m ready to tell my story. Let’s start at the beginning:. (1/25) 🧵. #SBF #FTX
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We're excited to announce RETURN has been acquired by @theblaze. We look forward to continuing the vision of @jamespoulos and @docMJP in creating vital stories about our digital age. A big thank you to all the great people @NewFoundingOrg. Stay tuned. .
Blaze Media is thrilled to announce its acquisition of Return and Align, two exciting new media brands from New Founding. Welcome to the team! @docMJP @jamespoulos
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"You’ve been broken by an ideological program by which you were explicitly instructed to abide by people you should have been able to trust with your life.". @helen_of_roy, host of the Girlboss, Interrupted podcast in an interview with @default_friend.
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The “two canonical examples of decarbonizing the electricity sector… were accomplished with nuclear.”. A @default_friend interview with the @nukebarbarian.
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David Krakauer, president of the Santa Fe Institute, explains the significance of the external environment for cognition.
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Issue 02 is landing in mailboxes this week. Over 130 pages of content in an exclusive, small-batch print run that makes contact with tech unlike any other publication.
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In the face of a surfeit of techno-atomization, some seekers are turning to religion. @spiderfoods lends his experience.
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"Many people seem to live in such a way that if they were dropped off in a different house in a different suburb of a different state, they almost wouldn’t notice." . @simonsarris on home.
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In a @default_friend interview, @thegoddisk of MemeAnalysis on YouTube refuses to diminish memes as merely play. "Myth is the most effective means for spreading esoteric truth, and for understanding deeply complex phenomena.".
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Endgamers: A History of Accelerationism. In this piece, @Jacob__Siegel explores how Nick Land’s breed of arcane futurists declared war on time.
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“Most commentators in the mainstream have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to radicalization – none.” . @naamakates discusses incels in an interview with @default_friend.
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The only people worried about “misinformation” online are those who want to decide what that means. For the rest of us, it’s a matter of sorting the wheat from the chaff, the trash from the treasure. | @matthimes.
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In our Age of Pornography, we convince ourselves that we are not isolated and atomized in a self-indulgent search for pleasure and pseudo-intimacy. @monalisavitti questions the impacts of commodifying the most base and intimate parts of ourselves.
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“TikTok has the most effective algorithm in social media, bar none. As for the psychic implications, it’s like an acid that burns your nerves,” claims @thegoddisk in an interview with @default_friend.
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"If anything, America’s security is imperiled by tech wokies’ insistence on 'reimagining' our form of government away from its constitutional origins toward a compulsory social credit system." - @jamespoulos
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"The lack of a unifying Internet narrative has been disastrous," @thegoddisk of MemeAnalysis harps on the importance of memes in an interview with @default_friend.
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The view that “chemical imbalances” are the monocausal explanation for mood disorders was never held by the scientific community, only the general public.
Little evidence that chemical imbalance causes depression, UCL scientists find
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What -- and who -- is behind GDI, the international group contracted to decide who's suppressed online? And why is the US government funding them? We talk to @dcexaminer's @gekaminsky, the reporter cracking open the case:
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RIP to one of the greatest novelists our country ever produced. Cormac McCarthy's prose was as haunting and epic as the American vistas he set his stories in. His final works were towering triumphs, exploring the nature of truth and the power of words.
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"Men with this issue have never previously congregated together," @naamakates on incels. A @default_friend interview with the creator of the @IncelProject podcast.
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"Here’s our conversation where we discuss how he got into nuclear, whether my kids will grow extra limbs if we ever see widespread nuclear adoption, and why it feels like the nuclear scene has a punk edge.". @default_friend interviews the @nukebarbarian.
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Netflix’s quality was a stronger blow to media piracy than any legislation could ever strive to be. But now as Netflix is on the decline, piracy is on the rise.
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Our media diets are far from healthy. We need “a digital realm that breaks from base habits, from isolation, and empty calories; that engenders more stable behaviors akin to the contemplation felt when walking into a museum or a church.” | @PabloPeniche.
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Pages on the internet can disappear like the flash of a struck match. And that’s a problem when the best-known archive purges itself of “offensive” content. Become a historian. Index the web yourself. A how-to guide:.
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An interview with one of the central chroniclers of Internet Dissidents, @kaschuta. By @default_friend.
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There are spiritual implications to Elon’s purchase of Twitter. @jamespoulos explains why this isn’t just another company acquisition.
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"Privacy shouldn’t be something we enjoy only at the whim of our elected representatives."
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Open source has powered much of our experience with computers, and its ideology is more relevant than ever before. But what is it? @rudzki shines some light.
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The internet is no place for the cringe of the girlboss. Under the spell of a culture bound up in irony and reflexive contrarianism, women are 'liberating' themselves by becoming bimbos.
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In our world of artifice and imitation, "it is important to remember our sense of taste and our sense of smell.".
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Bringing an internet community to life, Vibecamp organizer @gptbrooke on her project: "I think of social media as a way to find our tribes; it’s up to us to translate those connections into meaningful IRL relationships.". A @default_friend interview.
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Nuclear isn’t perfect, but it's not dirty. Opposition comes from discredited activism that has been limping on since the '70s.
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Join us for our second Twitter Space to discuss @NewFoundingOrg’s new Talent Placement platform. @j_clemans and @JustinSteffen will be chatting about getting people out of Big Corp and into fulfilling, mission-aligned work.
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Does anyone other than book reviewers read book reviews—or books? @DylanoA4 breaks the circuit.
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@default_friend @thegoddisk “Of course, I’d be remiss not to argue that perhaps meme magic or even more evocatively, memetic warfare is just propaganda by another name, updated for the digital age.”.
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Falling short on promises to tackle some of the biggest questions of our time, HBO is removing—not just canceling—Westworld.
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We interviewed @rdnxyz about the future of Bitcoin, @canonicxyz, the transformation of Google into the DMV, and lessons from Eastern Europe on how to govern competing hierarchies. #bitcoin #google .
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“In 1996, Terry Davis had a revelation from God … build the Third Temple, as is prophesied in the Bible. So Terry got to work and a decade later, he had made a new operating system, from scratch, all by himself.”.
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Can AI Produce Great Art? @JRhysParry explores what art criticism and aesthetic beauty teach us about the artificial artistic age.
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For Tolkien, creative making was a form of gift-giving and genuflection. But it’s hard to imagine he would want his work under the ownership of Amazon — the hungriest monolith of late-modern industrial capitalism. Our latest explains Tolkien’s stance.
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Without more accurate terminology, criticizing the overreach of technology can easily be written off as Luddism. "Appropriate technology" is a term that should be adopted to help in demarcating where tools stop serving us.
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To create a new, better state @balajis believes you must start in the digital world. With his support, @afropolitan is the first project of its kind to take the steps needed to do so. The team speaks with @default_friend in an interview about their goal.
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It’s 4 am. You wake in a cold sweat. Duo is holding your mouth shut, and has a knife in his hand. “Your streak will end in 30 minutes,” he warns.
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“Isolation was an important part for Terry, since he programmed a random word generator through which he believed God spoke directly to him.”.
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In homeschooling his nine children, @DrKodyCooper observes, "What [he has] found is that, very often, old things that were once discarded need to be rediscovered again. This is especially true in education.".
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The lexicon of the extremely online tells the story of our addiction to crisis. We have all become fixated on these stories of chaos and upset we tell ourselves. | @CallGenova.
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Will the chaos of modernity lead to a more stable future? @michaelgarfield teases out the signal from the noise.
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Blazing to prominence in the literary world of the early 2000s, JT LeRoy’s life was marred by tragedy. His works were fawned over by Hollywood A-listers and his work was adapted into a film. But he never existed.
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Wrestling with starting over in a small town and the technology that chains us and sets us free.
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Developments in AI enable an unprecedented production of new art. @default_friend believes "There is such a thing as too much.".
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@default_friend @thegoddisk Katherine: Why do you think myths are meaningful? . Chris: Myth is the most effective means for spreading esoteric truth, and for understanding deeply complex phenomena. The lack of a unifying internet narrative has been disastrous.
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For our first issue, we profiled George Hotz. He's now behind Elon Musk's overhaul of Twitter's search function. To see what he's about, check it out:.
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An interview with @ellegist, co-founder of @swandating, who is going beneath the surface to make online dating efficient without being soulless. | @default_friend .
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"We might know what we want to watch on TV or eat for dinner, we might proclaim whom we find attractive and where we want to live, but we cannot discern on our own whether we are sick or well. We need a test for that.". @AimeeWalleston on sickness.
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In the age of the smartphone, we are all part machine. This necessitates self-adoption: become your own father to maintain your humanity.
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The widespread belief that chemical imbalances explain mood disorders is incorrect.
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The root cause of 40% of the population being obese is uncertain. An anonymous group of lay researchers who go by @mold_time lay out their explanation in an interview with @default_friend.
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Human agency is eroded by the choice architecture constructed by Amazon, which has become the default mode of structuring decision making on digital platforms.
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