Literature: The Ultimate Answer to the Algorithm

Building a Solid Self in a Shaky Society: Reviewing Luke Burgis’s ‘The One and the Ninety-Nine’

In his book Wanting, Luke Burgis offers us something we rarely pause to consider: the idea that most of what we desire, crave, and long for is mediated through webs of social influence of which we are largely oblivious.

One expression of this dynamic to which people are increasingly alert? The algorithm. Social media feeds us curated cues of desire through posts, v…