<
https://www.garbageday.email/p/every-new-beginning-comes-from-some-other-beginning-s-end>
"Last week,
The Atlantic published “The End Of Reading Is Here,” digging into
the literacy crisis that has, apparently, arrived. To say that this piece
detonated like a bomb among the pundit class, localized largely on X, is an
understatement. Journalist Derek Thompson’s four-point summary of the article
went exceptionally viral, which maybe proves the point of the article.
But, as Timothy Noah over at
The New Republic pointed out,
The Atlantic
does this kind of thing a lot. Noah accused
The Atlantic of having an
“end-ism” fetish, estimating that
The Atlantic has written hundreds of
stories over the last decade about the end of everything from social media, to
sex, to the rule of law, to the entire world, democracy, and even history
itself. Noah admitted he used two different AI platforms for research, though.
So, again, maybe the end of reading really is here.
The Atlantic might be right to use the same frame for reading as they do for
sex, however. If only because both are topics that we are terrified that young
people aren’t doing anymore. If I had to describe post-pandemic culture in
America, I would say it was a borderline pathologic anxiety about what other
(usually younger) Americans are doing — or not doing — with themselves and each
other behind closed doors. And outlets like
The Atlantic tend to oscillate
between fear-mongering about sex and literacy whenever they want to frighten
those of us who still do either. And, of course, it gets a lot of attention."
Also see the linked article at the bottom:
The Most Famous AI Writing Tic Is Also the Most Mysterious
<
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/07/ai-chatbot-writing-tic-negative-parallelism/687892/?gift=A_VYuI0Bs4X1cJsYonaJVKZI8BKMs-1E0bmyL5bl368>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
