Every Monday on Global Comment, we share the slow, thoughtful, considerate words that our brains – and souls – need but that it’s easy to miss in our busy world. We distil the best of the web and recommend just three links every week that you absolutely must see.
No fluff, no fuss, just three exceptional reads.
Here are this week’s recommendations:
They Studied Dishonesty. Was Their Work a Lie? (Gideon Lewis-Kraus / The New Yorker)
Yet some believed that Ariely had always had a tortuous relationship with the truth. When Ariely gained public renown, it seemed as though empirical results became a mere prelude to lively storytelling. The former senior researcher told me that she once heard him talking on the radio about a study his lab had conducted. “His numbers were wrong,” she said. Beyond this, she continued, “he misstates entire findings, he talks about research that doesn’t replicate—he just doesn’t really care that much about the facts. It was, like, ‘No, you can’t make these outrageous claims—you’re a scientist!’ ” (Ariely said that his papers adhere to academic standards, but that he sometimes simplifies how he communicates about his work for a general audience.)
It’s not just you. LinkedIn has gotten really weird. (Rob Price / Business Insider)
With 950 million members as of July, LinkedIn is poised to soon have a billion users, joining a rarefied three-comma club with the likes of Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Started in 2003 as little more than an online repository for résumés, the Microsoft-owned behemoth has recently transformed. Not only are there more users to post, but they’re posting much more often. The number of LinkedIn posts grew 41% from 2021 to 2023. But it’s the content of the posts that’s shifted the most, turning LinkedIn into one of the world’s strangest social networks.
Take one post from Peter Rota, an SEO specialist from Massachusetts. “I have a secret,” he wrote to his thousands of followers in August 2022. “Most people are not even aware this is a real thing. Since 2015, I have struggled with peeing in public restrooms.”
American Reacts to David Attenborough’s BEST Moments (Tyler Rumple)
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Image: Aleksandar Pasaric