#59: Spyware and vibe shifts

💎 Word gems

How Democracies Spy on Their Citizens (The New Yorker / Ronan Farrow)

It feels as though citizens being spied on isn’t surprising anymore, but the scale described here certainly is. If you’ve heard about NSO or Pegasus spyware and wondered what that’s about this is worth reading in full.

Commercial spyware has grown into an industry estimated to be worth twelve billion dollars. It is largely unregulated and increasingly controversial. In recent years, investigations by the Citizen Lab and Amnesty International have revealed the presence of Pegasus on the phones of politicians, activists, and dissidents under repressive regimes. An analysis by Forensic Architecture, a research group at the University of London, has linked Pegasus to three hundred acts of physical violence. It has been used to target members of Rwanda’s opposition party and journalists exposing corruption in El Salvador. In Mexico, it appeared on the phones of several people close to the reporter Javier Valdez Cárdenas, who was murdered after investigating drug cartels. Around the time that Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia approved the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a longtime critic, Pegasus was allegedly used to monitor phones belonging to Khashoggi’s associates, possibly facilitating the killing, in 2018.

DALL·E 2 and The Origin of Vibe Shifts (Divinations / Nathan Baschez)

This is a great take on web design aesthetics. It argues the introduction of free photography websites (like Unsplash) commoditized photography, which led to a shift from image-led to illustration-led design. And now DALL·E 2 will do the same thing to illustrations.

The primary function of visual aesthetics in corporate design, in my view, is to send a costly signal to prospective partners that the company is fit to survive. “We are strong, wealthy, and reliable,” they say to your subconscious. Of course, besides visual aesthetics, a company’s marketing materials need to clearly articulate the product’s value proposition. But this essay is about how they do it. Cheap-looking design often signals a lack of resources and taste.

Analysis: How UK newspapers changed their minds about climate change (Carbon Brief / Josh Gabbatiss, Sylvia Hayes, Joe Goodman and Tom Prater)

This piece has some great data visualization showing the shifting Overton window on climate change.

The shift in editorial attitudes to renewables is illustrated by the shift in their economic framing. In 2011, editorials were more likely to describe this technology as too expensive, but in the latter half of the decade this argument had largely been flipped on its head, with editorials increasingly hailing the economic benefits of investing in renewables.

A notable spike in positive economic sentiments came in 2017, when the government awarded offshore wind contracts at record-low prices and a Times editorial welcomed the “winds of change”.

💩 Cool shit

PsyberGuide - Finding a good mental health app is more difficult than it should be. This site provides helpful expert-reviewed ratings.

Are you the asshole? - An AI version of the r/AmITheAsshole subreddit. Type something in and find out what the machine says.

New World Map - Navigate and explore an interactive map for game New World.

WTFFF!? - Explore 5 stories of people who had their nude photos shared online.

SeeSound - This is a product that visualizes sound. I have no idea if it really works, but the website does a terrific job of creating a practical, interactive product demo.

Earth Eclipsed - An audio player with a unique eclipse-inspired scrubber.

School of Theatre Showcase 2021 - This site’s navigation makes you feel like you’re exploring piles of photos grouped into different themes.

Hyper//Echo - A beautiful game-like website where you explore an isometric world.

The Facebook Papers - A collection of the leaked internal Facebook documents that have driven much of the media discussion over the past 6 months.

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