Hey everyone,
Welcome or welcome back! If you’re new here, this newsletter is a weekly list of the best resources & content I find online to help you learn instead of scroll. I basically trawl through the internet so you don’t have to.
Without further ado, here are this week’s finds:
This website is so cool. It explains all sorts of ideas and debates in culture using interactive visuals and really engaging storytelling. It’s very data-focused, but it’s a great way to understand numbers and statistics without it actually feeling like you’re reading about numbers and statistics.
From visual stories about how women are misrepresented in the news to models that predict the quality of wine based on its properties, it covers a pretty vast range of topics. If you’re like me and love learning about niche, slightly random things, you’ll probably spend hours on this site. Highly recommend.
Why Science Needs Outsiders - Works in Progress
This article explains that some of the biggest scientific breakthroughs came from outsiders rather than deeply established experts. Einstein was a patent examiner, and a man with no postgraduate training, named Tu Youyou, discovered a malaria treatment that saved millions.
The author argues that deep expertise can create blind spots, while ‘outsiders’ are more willing to question assumptions and try new approaches. It’s a great read if you enjoy challenges to the status quo and are curious about how to overcome the pitfalls of academic snobbery (without tipping over into anti-intellectualism).
Rest of the World is a great publication with an admirable mission: to highlight how technology affects non-Western countries.
I was so pleased to discover it because, as someone living in the UK, I’ve become a little sceptical about how “objective” mainstream tech reporting really is, given that its default perspective almost always centres on Western audiences. This isn’t exactly surprising, but it’s something we’ve all become accustomed to, though it often misses important nuances and perspectives.
According to Rest of the World’s about page, the name was chosen as it “encapsulates the problems [they] fight head-on: a casual disregard for billions of people, and a Western-centric worldview that leaves an unthinkable number of insights, opportunities, and nuances out of the global conversation.”
I highly recommend exploring it if you want to broaden your perspective, step into other people’s shoes, and diversify your news sources.
This video (and channel generally) is a gem. This one in particular breaks down the future of the world’s population with 10 numbers, showing how countries like India, China, and those in Africa will grow, shrink, or age over the next century.
If you’re curious about why populations rise and fall, and how fertility, mortality, and demographics shape economies, this explains it all in a super clear, simple way. I’m a sucker for concise, to-the-point explainers, and this video is exactly that.
That’s it for this week. If you watch, read, or use any of the things I’ve mentioned in this list, please let me know your thoughts. And as always, if you have any feedback on how this newsletter is structured or how I can make it more useful for you, leave a comment to let me know.
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Thanks so much for reading,
Notea
really looking forward to reading ‘why science needs outsiders’ - thank you