What Are the Odds We Are Living in a Computer Simulation
Joshua Rothman | The New Yorker
“‘Maybe we should be hopeful that this is a simulation,’ Musk concluded, last week, since ‘either we’re going to create simulations that are indistinguishable from reality or civilization will cease to exist. Those are the two options.’ If you hope that humanity will survive into the far future, growing in power and knowledge all the while, then you must accept the possibility that we are being simulated today.”
From the Margins: Women’s Writing and Unpaid Labor
Leah Falk | VIDA
“Women who have the education and privilege to earn their own money and spend it on time devoted to non-market creative production are in some ways acting out Woolf’s dream. Every time we sit down to write, often in the economic margins of our own lives, we choose ourselves and our work over activities whose value has been set by others. Simultaneously, we determine a value scale for our writing that’s different from the one set by a magazine’s pay rates, a tenure committee, or the book-buying public.”
Who Owns Southern Food
John T. Edge & Tunde Wey | Oxford American
“In these conversations, I felt a tipping toward me of some odd power. A tentative deference was offered in exchange for my ‘black’ experience. My words were being elicited as a means to contextualize these folks’ white privilege and power—and maybe subconsciously to defend it. In these people, I saw scales falling away; they were struggling to understand a responsible place for their privilege vis-à-vis blackness. When their frustration finally metastasized into wisdom, they slowly corrected their postures, straightening up after formerly leaning toward me: things are changing, the obviousness was heavy.”
Kanye’s Chaos Theory
Justin Charity | The Ringer
“This week, the summer barricades at Webster Hall formed a glimmering cesspool of Yeezy fandom. There you’d meet nerds, preppies, and hypebeasts alike — kids with bad skin and Sith fashion sensibilities, wearing the very latest run of bright orange Pablo merch and dark leggings. Some rode in on electric unicycles, Marty McFly–style, or climbed USPS trucks and scaffolding in front of two dozen bored but watchful cops. All fandoms are a little bit mad, and pop stardom draws massive crowds in any case. The great non-concert at Webster Hall, however, proved a unique chemistry whereby Kanye, the sleepless celebrity, has cultivated his own madness as a form of entertainment.”
Rae Sremmurd’s Best Life
Naomi Zeichner | The Fader
“All week, everyone has been talking about throwing a Cinco de Mayo house party. For a moment there was a feeling that it would have to be cancelled, after flights were booked for a May 6 show in Pennsylvania and they realized they’d have to depart at 6 a.m. Migo thought maybe they should do a ‘family function’ instead, taking everyone to eat together at a Mexican restaurant. But now the party is back on. Maracas, sombreros, and plastic necklaces are spread across the dining table. In gallon-sized dispensers, there are four flavors of margaritas: classic, strawberry, pineapple, and mango. A huge order of catering arrives. The brothers’ stepfather confirms the enchiladas are delicious.”
