Six Ideas That Made Us Think

1. Lonely Planet

Nick Eberstadt’s blockbuster article about population decline will become a touchstone of social and policy debate for years to come. He provides indisputable evidence that the world’s population is shrinking: France, for example, had fewer births last year than it did in 1806. Eberstadt worries “thinkers and policymakers are not ready for this new demographic order”:

Most people cannot comprehend the coming changes or imagine how prolonged depopulation will recast societies, economies, and power politics. But it is not too late for leaders to reckon with the seemingly unstoppable force of depopulation and help their countries succeed in a world gone gray.

2. Take a Note

David Deming’s history of how communication tools have shaped office work over the past 100 years is fascinating. Deming contends that “note taking” – whether by handwriting, shorthand, or recording – created modern business. Typewriters pushed it to another level. Then the world changed:

 At its peak in 1980, office and administrative support work accounted for 12.7% of all workers in the U.S. economy. That’s one in eight jobs devoted entirely to the production, processing, storage, delivery, and retrieval of written information.

Yet since 1980, employment in all three occupation categories has declined rapidly, falling from 12.7% to only 6.8% in 2022. Today, secretaries and administrative assistants are as common as a share of all jobs as they were in 1920.

3. Howard Roark Goes to the Movies 

The New Yorker imagines how Ayn Rand, the libertarian author of Atlas Shrugged, might have reviewed classic children’s films. Some samples:

 “Old Yeller”
A farm animal ceases to be useful and is disposed of humanely. A valuable lesson for children. —Four stars.

“Mary Poppins”
A woman takes a job with a wealthy family without asking for money in exchange for her services. An absurd premise. Later, her employer leaves a lucrative career in banking in order to play a children’s game. —No stars.

“Bambi”
The biggest and the strongest are the fittest to rule. This is the way things have always been. —Four stars.

4. The Pour Over Coffee Conspiracy

Nick Whitaker drinks deeply from into the history and culture of pour over coffee. The story, of course, features a villain:

Coffee poseurs hate Starbucks because they resent the delicious frappuccinos. Genuine coffee lovers hate Starbucks because they killed the Clover…One hundred units of the Clover machine were sold in their first year, 2006. Sales grew rapidly in 2007. Rumor has it that Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz had his first Clover coffee at Café Grumpy in Manhattan and said it was the best coffee he had ever had. On 13 March, 2008, the company was acquired by Starbucks. Sales were cut off to outside cafés. CloverNet, a support forum, was shut down 60 days after the acquisition.

5. Do Readership Numbers Matter?

In its annual “Power Issue,” New York magazine offers a sprawling take on the current state of media, with opinions from prominent names in TV, journalism, and infotainment. Much of the focus is on the surging success of newsletters and substacks. Not everyone gets it:

 What actually has succeeded this year are operations — many of them run through Substack — that have low overhead and a focused appeal. Some longtime media executives find this new world befuddling. “I’m surprised that people are okay with the subscription model, where they don’t have that many listeners or viewers but are making money, so they’re just good with it,” says one of them. “The Substack writers, people with Patreon podcasts. My generation was wired completely differently. We wanted to be read or listened to by as many people as possible. And now this new generation is like, I’m totally cool with having 9,000 die-hard fans.”

“I think the most moronic thing I’ve ever heard,” says Jim VandeHei of Axios, “was that we reached peak newsletters.”

6. Fighting Influencers with Fake Tips

London residents are sick of would-be influencers showing up at their favorite restaurants and encouraging mobs of tourists to do the same. On Reddit, a counterstrategy has emerged. They’re “lovebombing” subpar restaurants, like the chain Angus Steakhouse, by creating fake recommendations:

 The trend seemed to start on the r/London subreddit, where a user complained about a spot in Borough Market being “ruined by influencers” on Monday: 

"Last 2 times I have been there has been a queue of over 200 people, and the ones with the food are just doing the selfie thing for their instapages and then throwing most of the food away."

As of this writing, the post has 4,900 upvotes and numerous responses suggesting that Redditors talk about how good Angus Steakhouse is so that Google picks up on it. Commenters quickly understood the assignment.

Websites Worth Reading

Sportico: The business of sports

270 to Win: Create your own election forecast

Incredibly Specific Japanese Halloween Costumes: Part 1

Feeds We Follow

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@SplitTicket_: Political analysis aggregator