history of technology 
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SOURCE: Contingent
8/12/2022
The Missouri Social Worker Who Founded the Global Internet Name Registry
by Ayden Férdeline
Marilyn Cade played a major role in establishing the global governance structure of the internet.
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SOURCE: Dissent
6/27/2022
Ben Tarnoff on Building an Internet for the People
While the media pays significant attention to the influence of social media platforms, the structure of the internet is dicated by the privatization of the physical architecture of the internet since the 1990s.
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SOURCE: The Nation
6/11/2022
Intimacy at a Distance: A New Book on Teletherapy Reviewed
by Danielle Carr
Hannah Zeavin's book traces the roots of the contemporary surge in mental health apps and pandemic-driven teletherapy, arguing that psychiatry has always relied on a fantasy of unmediated communion between two separate people that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
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SOURCE: The Baffler
6/9/2022
Meet the New Middleman, Same as the Old Middleman
by Kathryn Judge
The internet's promise to cut out any number of middlemen from the consumer experience has been a failure.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
6/2/2022
The Ideology of the Bicycle
The bicycle since its invention has found itself at the center of debates about who public space is for.
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8/22/2021
Can the Nuclear Genie Be Put Back In the Bottle? Must It?
by David P. Barash and Ward Wilson
We won't eliminate nuclear weapons by expunging the science behind their creation but by comprehending their uselessness and letting them join the ranks of abandoned technologies.
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12/6/2020
How Wood Helped America Become Great – But Mislay its Sense of History
by Roland Ennos
Industrializing America's infrastructure was much more likely than Europe's to be made of wood. This accident of nature and geography helped drive rapid expansion, but today means much of the 19th century built environment of the United States has vanished.
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SOURCE: War on the Rocks
6/8/2020
The Promise and Risks of Artificial Intelligence: A Brief History
by Rebecca Slayton
Machines have been taking over tasks that otherwise require human intelligence for decades, if not centuries.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
7/10/19
How antitrust laws can save Silicon Valley — without breaking up the tech giants
by Margaret O'Mara
For AT&T in the 1950s, antitrust enforcement helped increase competition while keeping Ma Bell intact.
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SOURCE: Slate
6/19/19
Historians Luke Fernandez and Susan Matt ask: Has Technology Made Us Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid?
by Rebecca Onion
A new book takes a historical look at how tech affects our collective mental state—and somehow, it’s not tedious.