推薦一位文字作者

雖然在每天挑選文章的時候，刻意的會(hui) 去找一些不同的話題，但文字讀多了，總歸會(hui) 有些個(ge) 人的傾(qing) 向，所以有的時候就變成了不是在挑文章，而是在挑作者。這種方式當然是安全的，畢竟建立起來的對某個(ge) 作者的文字信任，大概率不會(hui) 讓我們(men) 失望。這個(ge) 就像看順著自己喜歡的導演，去看ta的係列作品，大抵都會(hui) 是符合期待的。

今天要推薦的文字作者，其實不是常規挑文章的時候會(hui) 留意的。最初因為(wei) 話題挑的文章，後來讀完了以後，感覺想再多去看一下這位作者的文字（讀的時候還刻意的圈了下作者）

找到作者的時候，發現之前的有一篇覺得有很多可以學習(xi) 點的文章也是來自於(yu) 她的。

作者（Tressie McMillan Cottom）介紹

A trenchant cultural critic, celebrated sociologist, and award-winning writer, Tressie McMillan Cottom is known for rearranging your brain in the span of a carefully-turned phrase. Her breadth is phenomenal – it moves from the racial hierarchy of beauty standards and the class codes of dressing for work to the predation of for-profit colleges and the stain of racial capitalism on our plural democracy – all while reimagining the essay form for the 21st century as she goes.

兩(liang) 篇我們(men) 讀過的文字：

❶ We’re All ‘Experts’ Now. That’s Not a Good Thing.

❷ The Strange Allure of the Blockchain

覺得好的原因

# 觀點

看觀點性的文字，目的不是拿別人的觀點變成自己的。基本功能上至少有兩(liang) 個(ge) ，如果是自己認同的，那麽(me) 可以看下自己所認同的觀點，可以怎麽(me) 表達；如果是和自己想的不一樣的，可以看下對方的理由有哪一些

作者有一些比較有意思的觀點，這是她的文字吸引的第一的原因

❶Any good carnival psychic can tell you that anything is true at the right level of abstraction.  主要足夠的抽象，聽上去就很有道理。

They also reflect technological change. For instance, you had mail fraud in the 19th century, and telegraph scams were all the rage in the first decades of the 20th. 行騙的方式隨著科技的進步而變化著

Pop music, R&B and hip-hop are all about the producer. Country music, Americana and folk music are about the songwriter.  流行音樂(le) 的核心是製作人，民俗、鄉(xiang) 村音樂(le) 的核心是曲作者。

❷While he is figuring out his second act, he views crypto as the way to build “generational wealth” and “freedom.” I put those words in quotes because you hear them a lot in conversations around financial-sector schemes, and I am not sure they mean anything in those contexts.  如果人雲(yun) 亦雲(yun) 的講大道理，說明還不夠了解。

The average cryptocurrency trader is under 40 (mean age is 38) and does not have a college degree (55 percent). Two-fifths of crypto traders are not white (44 percent), and 41 percent are women. 玩加密貨幣的人群可能和我們(men) 直覺的不同。

I don’t think of blockchain as a technological innovation so much as it is a cultural iteration. 區塊鏈不是技術革新，而是文化（價(jia) 值觀）的宣傳(chuan) 。

... healthy skepticism is a good place to start when deciding whether something is a scam or merely risky. 健康的批評總是好的。

It reminds me of another legitimate scheme in higher education, which I researched and wrote about for years: Telling people that their very expensive, low-quality degrees from these schools may not be a good solution for them rarely worked. That is the power of culture. 當一個(ge) 觀念成了文化，就很難異議了。

# 語言

文字整體(ti) 是比較直白易懂的，所以對於(yu) 寫(xie) 作的模仿也是很好的

## 引入的方式

The best piece I have read so far on how variants change our experience of Covid is by Sarah Zhang in The Atlantic. The gist is that ...  (先介紹出處是什麽(me) ，然後引入主旨gist)

Speaking of high-quality information, it is time to continue our conversation about scams and scam culture... (用speaking of 過渡，引入要講的內(nei) 容)

Off the top of my head = without careful thought or investigation.

e.g. Off the top of my head, I can list a half dozen other institutional failures and the scams that capitalized on them: cryptocurrency, counterfeit goods, degree mills, spam, identity theft, phishing.

# 結構

## 開頭

兩(liang) 篇文章的開頭都比較一致，都是由自己的生活瑣事作為(wei) 引入，然後開始討論這個(ge) 瑣事背後引出來的社會(hui) 現象（作者的sociologist 的身份會(hui) 讓討論肯定往這個(ge) 方向去）

❶ Happy New Year!

My family’s holiday season was far more muted than planned. Giddy from vaccines, we planned to gather in the Blue Ridge Mountains and then head to a celebration in a venue overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. Alas, the Omicron variant made both trips too risky. After I initiated “The Talk” about risk factors, we ended up canceling all of our holiday plans.

...

第一篇由假期講到Omicron, 後麵會(hui) 講到對於(yu) 疫情的解讀，然後開始說信息質量和 scam culture的文章重點

❷My family managed to get together for a small Thanksgiving dinner last year. It was our first gathering since April 2020. After a big meal, my cousin only wanted to talk about one thing: cryptocurrency. He is a middle-aged Black man from New York, just a few years older than I am, but those years make a huge difference in his job security. ...

第二篇由節日聚餐，過去到家人聊crypocurrency, 後麵開始說blockchain 的文章主題

## 從(cong) 讓步，到自己觀點

.... Some people talk about crypto as being revolutionary because it promises to democratize access to financial markets and give individual investors control of their destiny. .....

For my part, the discussion over Thanksgiving leftovers brought home a data point about women’s and people of color’s interest in cryptocurrency. ...

## 並列結構

When Covid hit, we were knee-deep in spoofed phones numbers slamming our cellphoness about fake car warranties. We were wading through emails trying to steal our identities. We were triangulating Yelp reviews and Consumer Reports summaries with testimonials and marketing research just to buy a new mattress or an air fryer. We were checking out our own purchases at the grocery store and waiting on hold to replace the credit card that got hacked for the umpteenth time. We were staring, bleary-eyed, into apps that promised less “friction” in our everyday lives if we would just consent to tracking — not that we had a clue as to what exactly we were consenting to. ... (大的句間並列)

It is no wonder that so many of us think that we can parse vaccine trial data, compare personal protective equipment, write school policy and call career scientists idiots on Facebook. （幾個(ge) 連續動作的並列）

# 其他

兩(liang) 篇文章都有鋪墊介紹後續相關(guan) 內(nei) 容的部分。這個(ge) 當然是行文上的特點，不見得是我們(men) 一定要模仿的，隻是在其他的類似大報的專(zhuan) 欄裏麵比較少看到類似的安排。覺得還是挺有意思的

❶ ...In a lot of ways, scam culture is the foundation of the misinformation and disinformation that plagues our public discourse on the pandemic. Over the coming weeks, I’ll continue to unpack what this means.

❷ ....The conversation was so rich that I will write about it in a two-part discussion starting next week. (下周的專(zhuan) 欄話題提前預告了下)

作者不僅(jin) 僅(jin) 有推薦自己專(zhuan) 欄的後續文章，也會(hui) 推薦類似話題其他的資料

If you want a delicious profile of one of the characters who prompted our scam culture discussion, you will want to read Olivia Nuzzi’s take on Dr. Mehmet Oz’s run for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania in New York magazine. I also enjoyed — if that is the right word for the feeling associated with a good essay about a constitutional crisis — a guest essay in The Times on the Jan. 6 riots by Jedediah Britton-Purdy....