Every so often, someone proudly declares that they’ve “quit algorithms.” They’ve left Facebook, stopped using Spotify, deleted Instagram and Twitter — and feel liberated from the invisible code that shapes our attention. I understand the impulse. Social media recommendation engines can be addictive, manipulative, and mentally draining. But to say you’ve opted out of algorithms altogether is a comforting illusion. Algorithms are not just the feeds on your phone. They are the quiet, unseen logic that keeps modern life running. The GPS that shows you the fastest way home runs on sophisticated graph algorithms. The payment systems that move money between your bank and a shop depend on cryptographic algorithms to stay secure. Hospitals schedule surgeries and analyze scans using algorithmic decision tools that save lives. Energy grids use optimization algorithms to balance wind and solar power so the lights don’t go out. Every time you take a photo, a bundle of algorithms sharpens, brightens, and stabilizes it. Even the most analog-seeming experiences rely on them. Airline routes, package delivery, and train timetables are optimized by complex code. Climate models and weather forecasts — the ones we trust before a weekend trip — are massive algorithmic simulations. Noise-canceling headphones? Algorithms. Automatic braking in your car? Algorithms. Your phone’s spell-check? Algorithms. Avoiding algorithmic feeds might be wise for mental health. But algorithms themselves aren’t optional. They’re infrastructure — as fundamental as electricity or roads. The real question isn’t whether to use them, but how to use them well, with transparency and restraint, instead of letting them quietly shape our lives without oversight. You can log off Instagram. You can delete Spotify. But you can’t live outside algorithms. They’re woven into the modern world — often invisibly, often for your benefit.
09/28/2025 14:22:22
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Every so often, someone proudly declares that they’ve “quit algorithms.” They’ve left Facebook, stopped using Spotify, deleted Instagram and Twitter — and feel liberated from the invisible code that shapes our attention. I understand the impulse. Social media recommendation engines can be addictive, manipulative, and mentally draining. But to say you’ve opted out of algorithms altogether is a comforting illusion. Algorithms are not just the feeds on your phone. They are the quiet, unseen logic that keeps modern life running. The GPS that shows you the fastest way home runs on sophisticated graph algorithms. The payment systems that move money between your bank and a shop depend on cryptographic algorithms to stay secure. Hospitals schedule surgeries and analyze scans using algorithmic decision tools that save lives. Energy grids use optimization algorithms to balance wind and solar power so the lights don’t go out. Every time you take a photo, a bundle of algorithms sharpens, brightens, and stabilizes it. Even the most analog-seeming experiences rely on them. Airline routes, package delivery, and train timetables are optimized by complex code. Climate models and weather forecasts — the ones we trust before a weekend trip — are massive algorithmic simulations. Noise-canceling headphones? Algorithms. Automatic braking in your car? Algorithms. Your phone’s spell-check? Algorithms. Avoiding algorithmic feeds might be wise for mental health. But algorithms themselves aren’t optional. They’re infrastructure — as fundamental as electricity or roads. The real question isn’t whether to use them, but how to use them well, with transparency and restraint, instead of letting them quietly shape our lives without oversight. You can log off Instagram. You can delete Spotify. But you can’t live outside algorithms. They’re woven into the modern world — often invisibly, often for your benefit.
(09/28/2025 14:22:22)
One compelling thread in Karl Ove Knausgaard’s essay The Reenchanted World (also in Weekendavisen as Verden, der forsvandt / Tallenes tale) is the idea—voiced explicitly by James Bridle—that we need to understand the technologies that shape our lives. Not just use them. Understand them. Bridle calls it technological literacy, and recounts how learning to code and building solar-powered tools helped lift them out of climate paralysis. It gave them agency—“a feeling of competence in the face of very complex systems.” This recalls Douglas Rushkoff’s famous warning: “Program or be programmed.” In a world governed by algorithms and abstract systems, those who don’t understand how computation works risk becoming passive objects of its influence. Knausgaard seems to agree—but can’t quite follow through. He describes himself as technologically illiterate and overwhelmed. The entire essay is a kind of lyrical circling around this alienation, filled with metaphors of lost connection and pseudo-experience. He travels, reads, talks, observes—but never crosses the line into technical engagement. While Bridle builds tools and teaches code, Knausgaard remains on the other side, writing about not understanding. The result is a moving and beautifully written meditation on technological disempowerment—but also a quiet reminder that understanding begins with participation. https://rushkoff.com/books/program-or-be-programmed/
(08/15/2025 18:17:01)
Just finished reading Karl Ove Knausgaard’s two-part essay on computers and technology—first published in Harper’s as The Reenchanted World, now also translated in Weekendavisen (Verden, der forsvandt and Tallenes tale). I must admit I was expecting insight into how Knausgaard sees the role of computers, information technology, and artificial intelligence in our lives today. What I got instead was a long meditation on not knowing anything about computers, interspersed with memories of his youth in 1980s Norway, a gardening anecdote, a brain surgery observation, and an ayahuasca trip in Greece. Yes, the writing is evocative. Yes, the mood of alienation is palpable. But the structure wanders so much that it ends up mirroring the very problem he’s describing: being overwhelmed, adrift, disconnected. I kept wishing he’d go deeper into the actual functioning and logic of digital systems, or offer a more coherent critique of how computation and abstraction have restructured our reality. Instead, it becomes an essay about not being able to write an essay on the topic—ironically highlighting the loss of “an outside” to technology while never quite grappling with the inside of it. A missed opportunity, though with beautiful detours. https://harpers.org/archive/2025/06/the-reenchanted-world-karl-ove-knausgaard-digital-age/
(08/15/2025 18:06:51)
When Mark Zuckerberg’s wealthy Palo Alto neighbors — doctors, lawyers, business leaders — complain about his buying 11 houses for a private compound, media present it as “inequality.” This is an elite-on-elite dispute, yet both neighbors and media use their symbolic-capital power to frame it as moral outrage, steering attention away from the far more urgent inequalities affecting the truly disadvantaged. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/us/mark-zuckerberg-palo-alto.html
(08/11/2025 15:42:47)
Macron was right about Europe’s need for strategic autonomy—but France can’t afford the rearmament it requires. Denmark can. As The Economist writes about Macron and Danish PM Mette Frederiksen: “The difference between them was stark. One had the right idea; the other has found a way to put it into practice.” I’m grateful to live in a small, fairly mono-cultural country where we feel like one big family—committed to making the household budget add up. https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/07/24/macron-was-right-about-strategic-autonomy
(07/26/2025 16:28:54)
A recent government investigation, mentioned in the Danish newspaper Weekendavisen, has revealed significant ethnic and gender bias and discrimination in the grading practices of Danish high schools. Some schools systematically award higher grades to certain groups of students—grades that don’t match their exam results. This undermines trust in the meritocratic principles of the education system and raises urgent questions about fairness and equal opportunity. https://www.weekendavisen.dk/samfund/meritokratisk-fallit
(07/25/2025 19:31:48)
Went for a 6.5 km run (38 minutes) on a rainy morning here in South Møn. Wind, sea, and soaked shoes – but also the kind of peace and raw beauty you only find in places like this. A perfect way to start the day. 🌧️🌾🌊
(07/22/2025 11:15:11)
Back on beautiful Møn. Jeanne and I have been coming here for years—first with our two boys, now often just the two of us. Many of our friends have summer houses here. Møn is a small island in the southeastern part of Denmark, known for its rolling hills, chalk cliffs, and wide-open views. The landscape never disappoints—even the typical Danish summer rain feels right at home up here.
(07/22/2025 11:12:41)
Spent a beautiful summer day at Rokkedyssegaard in North Zealand picking fresh raspberries and strawberries 🍓☀️ The first photo shows the day’s harvest—baskets full of sun-ripened berries and a few bottles of homemade juice. The second photo is a guide to the many delicious berry varieties available for self-picking. A perfect way to slow down and taste the season. Highly recommended if you’re in Denmark!
(07/20/2025 09:53:36)
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