Brian Merchant – Medium

Brian Merchant
in
Debugger

My Internet Happy Place: Gather, an Antidote to the Sterile Professionality of Zoom

At the end of a year in which we could not explore much IRL, team OneZero is sharing our favorite places we found online.

2 min readJan 1, 2021

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Brian Merchant
in
OneZero

Amazon’s Plague Year

As small businesses closed and layoffs hit, Amazon expanded its power — despite a string of crises and worker uprisings

6 min readDec 21, 2020

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A photo of an Amazon package in one of the company’s fulfillment centers.

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Brian Merchant
in
OneZero

The Best Tech Books of 2020 Are All About Giving Power to the User

These 21 books about technology and its impact on society are crucial to understanding our fractious future

12 min readDec 11, 2020

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A square graphic with the text “OneZero Best Tech Books 2020” placed over a background image of stacks of books.

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Brian Merchant
in
Future Human

When the Arecibo Telescope Is Demolished, It Will Take an Era of Space Exploration With It

Arecibo is the last gasp of ambitious, publicly funded efforts to understand the universe

3 min readNov 20, 2020

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When the Arecibo Telescope Is Demolished, It Will Take an Era of Space Exploration With It

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Brian Merchant
in
OneZero

This Week, Remember That Literally Any Future Is Possible

If anyone has any ideas about what the hell is going to happen this week, it’s speculative fiction writers

3 min readNov 2, 2020

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This Week, Remember That Literally Any Future Is Possible

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Brian Merchant
in
OneZero

The Future of Decent Work Depends on the Failure of Prop 22

If the Uber-backed ballot initiative passes, it may lay the groundwork for unrest not seen since the onset of the Industrial Revolution

8 min readOct 30, 2020

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The Future of Decent Work Depends on the Failure of Prop 22

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Brian Merchant
in
Future Human

Your Complete Guide to Dreaming Up a Survivable, Sustainable Future

How ‘visionary fiction’ can be used as a framework for building a better world for all humans

2 min readOct 23, 2020

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Brian Merchant
in
Debugger

RIP Eddie Van Halen, Accomplished Technologist

The late rock god was also an unsung tech genius

2 min readOct 8, 2020

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RIP Eddie Van Halen, Accomplished Technologist

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Brian Merchant
in
OneZero

Amazon Uses Automation to Hide a Disastrous Record of Workplace Injuries

As robotization scales up, so do injuries

4 min readSep 30, 2020

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Amazon Uses Automation to Hide a Disastrous Record of Workplace Injuries

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Brian Merchant
in
OneZero

The First Scientific Utopia Still Matters 400 Years Later

‘New Atlantis’, Francis Bacon’s pioneering work of proto-science fiction, has just been reissued. Here’s why it still matters.

9 min readSep 1, 2020

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The First Scientific Utopia Still Matters 400 Years Later

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Brian Merchant

Brian Merchant

Senior editor, OneZero, books, futures, fiction. Author of The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone, founder of Terraform @ Motherboard @ VICE.

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