My “Millennial’s Manifesto” is up as an audio essay on Apple Podcast. Go have a listen! Also consider subscribing to the podcast channel. The cadence of these audio essays is slow, one essay every one or two months, so you won’t be overwhelmed by content. I know many people prefer to listen to their content rather than reading (more about that below), and my decision to start publishing audio essays is my attempt to cater for that. Thanks again for reading and listening.
Read MoreMillennials, according to the internet, are people born between 1981 and 1996. That's a bit of a gap, so it will be useful to narrow down the definition of our protagonist somewhat. This is a story about a relatively old Millennial, born in 1984. It is not at all inconceivable that this person will have a different perspective from a namesake born in the middle of the 1990s. This is a bias that we must accept such as it is. Even more specifically, this is a story about European millennial, born in Denmark, who has ended up in the United Kingdom. He is married to a Canadian woman of Guyanese, and ultimately Indian, descent, who is now a naturalised English citizen. The melting pot is real, and millennials are sizzling in its cauldron.
Read MoreThus asks The Point—another magazine that I think you should subscribe to—based on a recent exchange between Becca Rothfeld, herself a writer for the Point, and Sam Kahn, who is as far as I can see a prolific Substacker. You can find the initial flurry, on Substack, via by following the link above from The Point. The subsequent exchange between Becca and Sam, hosted by The Point, comes in three chapters. So, we have a debate on the merits of Substack as a platform, which began on the platform itself, and is since hosted by the magazine employing one of the belligerents itself. Very meta!
In preview, Rothfeld is arguing the counter position to Substack, while Kahn is arguing the position in favour of the platform. It is a good discussion, and one that gets to the core of what Substack does well, what it doesn’t do well. It’s interesting, however, that the exchange neglects to mention one of the most glaring deficiencies of the platform, namely the economics of the consumers, the readers, a topic I discuss here.
Read MoreI am a big fan of US economist and academic Glenn Loury. He is smart, honest and well-articulated. He is also not afraid of an intellectual scrap if he stumbles upon one. He is an indispensable public commentator and intellectual whose ideas and influence go far beyond the confines of race, and associated social issues, in the US where he has staked his claim to fame and authority most comprehensively. Glenn has an impressive back-catalogue of writing and citations, but the best way to get a sense of him is by listening to his podcast the Glenn Show, which can be found on all the usual platforms. I am also a big fan of his co-conspirator, John McWorter, a US linguist and public intellectual, with whom Glenn runs a bi-weekly conversation on his podcast, and Q&A for paying subscribers. It is a must-listen. On this occasion, however, I want to recommend Glenn’s recent discussion with Larry Kotlikoff, a US academic economist, in which they discuss the economic policy ideas of the two candidates in the upcoming US presidential election ideas, and the US economy more generally. As the title of the podcast goes; if only we had an economist in the White House!
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