Sunday Reads: Luddites loom large, TikTok Shop talk

Hi Quartz members!

We so appreciated the shoutout we got this week from Everything Everywhere All at Once filmmaker Daniel Kwan during a packed session at the Clinton Global Initiative. Asked to comment on artificial intelligence and the future of creative work, Kwan, in a clearly unscripted moment, cited an “amazing” article he had just read—“I forget where, was it on Quartz?” he said—about the Luddites and the real reasons they fought technology.

Alas, Kwan was thinking of a recent op-ed in the Washington Post by Brian Merchant, whose new book Blood in the Machine recounts the Luddites’ historic rebellion. We fessed up; Kwan was gracious. But funny enough, back in the Quartz newsroom, our own Gabriela Riccardi had already finished reading an advance copy of Merchant’s book and was working on an article that very day about its uber-contemporary themes. Her piece ran soon after, and it’s one of our picks this week in Sunday Reads. Daniel, we hope you’ll like this one, too.

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5 things we especially liked on Quartz

📖 History looms large. It’s usually no compliment to be referred to as a Luddite. But maybe that’s a hasty judgment. The industrial-age clothworkers who came to be known as the Luddites, Gabriela Riccardi writes, “were perhaps the first people to see machines come for their jobs.” And their rebellion, chronicled in Brian Merchant’s new book, Blood in the Machine, offers lessons to modern workers whose livelihoods today are threatened by artificial intelligence.

🚆 The (high-speed) train has left the station. Brightline’s new, 3.5-hour rail journey from Miami to Orlando marks an important milestone for American transit, and for private investment in it. Julia Malleck looks back at what led Fortress Investment Group to support Brightline, and ahead to other private high-speed rail projects underway in Texas and the Pacific Northwest.

🪢 Entangled. The US Defense Department is investing $94.1 million in E-VAC Magnetics to support construction of a domestic factory making rare earth permanent magnets, which power wind turbines, iPhones, and electric-vehicle motors. The goal: to make the US less reliant on rare earth magnets from China. The reality: E-VAC Magnetics has a lot of ties to Beijing, Mary Hui reports.

🛒 Profits and pay cuts. Instacart’s public offering had an unusual feature for a gig-economy IPO: the company makes money. But that’s in no small part due to recent reductions in the minimum pay it offers on grocery deliveries. Michelle Cheng notes that the resulting resentment isn’t just sour grapes on the part of gig workers; it’s a risk factor for the business.

🧑‍ Scott Nover needs a hairbrush. Or so TikTok seems to believe. Our internet culture reporter takes stock of TikTok Shop, and finds the social media app’s new commerce effort completely devoid of the entertainment factor and smart personalization that made TikTok so popular in the first place.

5 great stories from elsewhere

🎸 Smells like t-spirit. Whether newly printed and hanging in a Walmart, or a distressed vintage original, Nirvana t-shirts have become a mainstream symbol of counterculture. The Ringer writes about this ironic development for a ‘90s grunge band known for being critical of consumerism and commodification.

🎨 Color change. Muted colors have dominated interior decor styles for the past decade. But it could be that, at last in 2023, bland is out, and color is in. A story from The Walrus discusses why the pandemic and economic conditions may have shifted paint preferences in a more vibrant direction.

♨️ Micro-why? A staple in many households, microwave ovens are outdated appliances with a dumb design. So argues a story from The Atlantic on why companies are keeping the mee-crow-wah-vay (in the words of Nigella Lawson) mediocre and what might change that.

🧂 Taste test. Humans can detect five major flavors, but have evolved extra sensitivity to one particular chemical: salt. Our salt consumption needs to stay within a goldilocks zone, as Knowable explains, which is why we’ve actually evolved two different systems for perceiving the taste. The science behind that dual process, however, is still somewhat of a mystery.

🍅 Splat! For 25 years, Rotten Tomatoes has been a go-to website for movie ratings, combining critics’ takes into a percentage score that spans from “certified fresh,” to “fresh,” to “rotten.” But a story from Vulture argues the site may not be all that reliable because it’s vulnerable to hacking and manipulation.

🗓️ What to watch for this week

Here’s what our newsroom will be keeping an eye on in the coming week:

• Monday: Huawei (the smartphone maker whose new phone defeated US chip sanctions against China) is having a media event to talk about new products
• Tuesday: Costco reports earnings
• Wednesday: Meta hosts its Connect event focused on AI and virtual reality
• Thursday: Nike reports earnings

Thanks for reading! Here’s to the week ahead, and don’t hesitate to reach out with comments, questions, feedback, climate disaster photos, and unique hotel site reviews. Sunday Reads was brought to you by Heather Landy, Julia Malleck, Susan Howson, and Morgan Haefner.