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: 

• Our democracy is completely unrepresentative: Citizens United, gerrymandering, and the real story behind the GOP’s takeover – Salon. “So, with a title like that, not confrontational at all? But whatever side of the political aisle you’re on, if you want to learn, you should listen to Lawrence Lessig. He’s the guy behind Creative Commons, and this excerpt from his new book, Republic Lost: The Corruption of Equality and the Steps to End It. And what he has to say should make anyone angry.” (Alistair for Hugh).
• The State Of Hardware For 2015 – TechCrunch. “It’s nearly the New Year, and that means an interminable list of top-tens, round-ups, and prognostications. But if there was one big shift in recent months, it was the Internet of Things came online. As one smart person opined, ’we don’t have an Internet of Things; we have a lot of things, on the Internet.’ But those things are becoming commonplace: We expect connectivity now. While some of those features seem daft — does anyone need a tweeting fridge? — hardware is the new software, and this is a darn good roundup of the state of the art.” (Alistair for Mitch).
• Most violence in the world is motivated by personal morality – Quartz. “There are a handful of psychological traits that I find fascinating, and depressing. One is the differences in how different stripes of humans assess risk, with a key political difference being how some groups of people see climate change as a great risk to humanity; while others see terrorism. Another strand that comes up again and again is our view of violence, some of which think of as repugnant, and some of which we think of as justified. How do me make that judgement so easily? Very often, personal morality drives our justification of violence. Nothing surprising there, I suppose.” (Hugh for Alistair).
• Time Picks the Best Space Photos of 2015 – Time. “And now for something to remind us that we are mere specs, in a glorious universe.” (Hugh for Mitch).
• Tech Startups Long for the Days of Yahoo’s Binge Acquisitions – Bloomberg Business. “So, what happens when something like Yahoo fails, gets acquired, or who knows what stealth plans may be underway. It turns out that everything is an ecosystem. See, it’s not just a buzzword. So, if Yahoo does go away (or changes in some substantive way), what is the likelihood that it could stifle innovation, talent and new products to market out of Silicon Valley? My guess is that most would not have thought twice about it. Well, maybe you should.” (Mitch for Alistair).
• Bret Easton Ellis on Living in the Cult of Likability – The New York Times. “What happens when famed author and cultural commentator, Bret Easton Ellis, take a look at our reputation economy? A world where we toss out likes and shares at almost anything (without checking for facts), and a world where we’re not just reviewing the restaurants that we like/dislike, but our Uber drivers are reviewing us – the customers? It’s easy to say that it’s good and it’s democracy. It gets a little trickier when you really start thinking about the implications.” (Mitch for Hugh).

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