The Top 5: Google + Social Sentinel

Plus, we aren't building starter homes anymore

Welcome to your weekly edition of the Top 5 articles we’ve read this week. Each week, we read dozens of articles in the hope we find essays and reporting that speaks to big ideas, trends, future looks, and incredible human stories. We hope you enjoy our list, and do always let us know if you have a suggestion or a recommendation! Please also consider becoming a paid subscriber if this is one of those newsletters you open up all the time or look forward to each week.

ICYMI, catch up on Wear We Are:

Episode 35: A voter guide for Christians

The Morning 5: September 19, 2022

The Morning 5: September 20, 2022

The Morning 5: September 21, 2022

The Morning 5: September 22, 2022

The Top 5 articles for your week:

1. “A Danish City Built Google Into Its Schools—Then Banned It” (Wired Magazine)

   Because in Denmark, they’re questioning the ubiquitous presence of tech companies in classrooms. “This stay-at-home dad—who had never before been involved in any kind of activism—embarked on a three-year campaign to fix what he considered to be a major flaw in the relationship between the Danish public school system and Google. It was his official complaint to Denmark’s data protection regulator, Datatilsynet, in December 2019 that inspired the Google ban in Helsingør. And his constant efforts to speak to local media and politicians have helped create one of the biggest debates ever to take place in Denmark about how to protect Danish data and have unleashed growing skepticism about the role of American companies in Europe’s public sector.”

2. “Tracked: How colleges use AI to monitor student protests” (Dallas Morning News)

   Because some US universities bought “Social Sentinel,” a technology that can help identify students at risk of harming themselves or others, but some campus police used the program to monitor what students are saying online — especially when it comes to political or social issues.

3. “Pastlessness” (Hedgehog Review)

   Because Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn argues: “we would be better off seeing history as a matter of urgent need. We should recognize the cultivation of a historical disposition that combines stewardship and moral inquiry as one of our most pressing endeavors, after feeding, clothing, and sheltering ourselves, precisely because it is a necessity if we are to succeed in all of the endeavors of this life. In the best of times, history is a mad race to grasp what we can before the evidence crumbles. In the worst, it is a matter of cultural survival. In more ways than one, we find ourselves today in a historical emergency.”

4. “Whatever Happened to the Starter Home?” (NYT)

   Because it’s getting harder and harder to build a starter home (1400 sq ft or less) at the same price-level as in year’s past — and it’s because land is now very expensive.

5. “The Ghosts of Antarctica Will Haunt the End of the World” (CNET)

   Because this is a story about climate change. We’re discovering long-lost expeditions that were once buried deep in ice, but have melted under warming oceanic conditions.