This week’s best bits from around the web.
ECONOMICS
– American shopper: The world is once again relying too much on American consumers to power growth
OPINION
– WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT MACHINES THAT THINK?
– Freedom vs security: freedom at any cost? What are we willing to sacrifice to feel safe? Are we prepared to give up our personal freedom?
BOOKS
– Among the disrupted: Amid the rise of technologism and scientism, the replacement of wisdom by quantification, and the recasting of life as data, what’s become of humanism?
CULTURE
– The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur
– Why Are These Moms Drunk on YouTube?
– The danger of too many selfies: We’re striving for perfection that won’t come
PEOPLE
– Topless Cellist: The Improbable Life of Charlotte Moorman by Joan Rothfuss – review
– The Life and Death of Mr. Basketball
– My own life: Oliver Sacks on learning he has terminal cancer
– The Shape of Things to Come: How an industrial designer became Apple’s greatest product.
– Among the reindeer: A woman running a media consultancy in New York takes a DNA test. She learns that she is descended from the Sami people, who herd reindeer in the Arctic Circle. What happens next? A memoir by Laura Galloway
EDUCATION
– The rich man’s dropout club
– How to Read Intelligently and Write a Great Essay: Robert Frost’s Letter of Advice to His Young Daughter
HEALTH
– Worried well: Since ancient times philosophy has tried to cure us of anxiety. But worry is an important part of being a moral person
– How to Detect Infectious Diseases Like Ebola Faster: New tools aim to deliver quicker test results—and prevent disease from spreading
TECHNOLOGY
– Spies Can Track You Just by Watching Your Phone’s Power Use
– How Internet Giants Upended the Networking-Hardware Business
– Microsoft Has Suddenly Gotten Serious With Mobile
WORLD
– What ISIS Really Wants: The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.
– How Vladimir Putin is waging war on the West – and winning