Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see”.

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another: 

• Unbundling Reality – Beau Cronin – Medium. “I’ve known Beau Cronin for a while, and he’s a crazy-smart machine learning/VR guy. In this post, he makes a really good point: Unless you’re part of the 1%, a virtual world will be way, way better than the real one. Actual Reality sucks for the vast majority of humans, and the lure of immersive environments where you can shape your circumstances — even for a short while — may be impossible to resist.” (Alistair for Hugh).
• Nothing to See Here – George Monbiot. “Why aren’t we talking about the fires in Indonesia? Lots of reasons, it seems, but they’re a tragedy. Right now, they’re putting more carbon into the atmosphere than the US. Interestingly, Canada’s new minister for the environment, who’s tasked with fixing our country’s backwards stance on climate change, practiced law in Indonesia. Given that this region will suffer some of the greatest displacements and impacts from rising oceans, that’s probably a good thing.” (Alistair for Mitch).
• AI will reorganize the human population – Silver Keskkula – Medium. “The AI is coming! The AI is coming!” (Hugh for Alistair). 
• Ministerial Mandate Letters. “Canada just elected a new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau (son of former PM & pirouettiste, Pierre Elliott Trudeau). Time, as they say, will tell how he does, but he got off to a… striking …start, naming a cabinet of 50% women (a campaign promise), a former Regional Chief of the Assembly of First Nations as Justice Minister, a Sikh ex-police officer and Afghan war vet as Minister of Defence. And there’s an ex-astronaut in there somewhere too. Lots of work to do in a complicated world, but Trudeau has made a welcome move to transparency by outlining clear mandates for each cabinet minister, in public. Let’s see how they do.” (Hugh for Mitch).
• There’s an awful cost to getting a PhD that no one talks about – Quartz. “I guess this begs the question: what isn’t stressing us out? If our kids don’t get into school, what kind of life will they have? If they do get into school, not only will it put them in debt for a silly amount of time, but nearly half of them will develop depression. Depression? Stress. Anxiety. That’s what a Phd will earn you these days. And, you just thought you would walk out of your post-secondary education with nothing but opportunity.” (Mitch for Alistair).
• The only affordable retirement for most Americans isn’t in America – Quartz. “Some argue that there was never anything real about the American dream. It’s a turn of phrase, but not really a part of the American culture. Still, it’s hard to not look at our world, in terms of communications and globalization, and see that all of this inter-connectedness (and the speed by which information travels) has changed everything we thought we knew about what our lives are going to look like. Thinking about what your retirement will be? Maybe a place down south? Just how far south were you thinking? Like, in the same country? Maybe not.” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.