Mule

This is how far The New Yorker, once the absolute pinnacle of non-fiction prose, has fallen. From recent article on microchips: "There are a handful of truly monumental collective achievements in our history: Machu Picchu, the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Giza, and perhaps, if we’re being generous, the Roman aqueducts. Modern global civilization has made one contribution to this eternal pantheon. It is not the moon landing. It is the semiconductor supply chain." Not the steam engine? Not the automobile? The printing press? The interstate highway system? Airplanes? Nuclear energy? The international space station? Television? The moving picture? How about oil rigs that dig 7 miles underneath the ocean? How about antibiotics? NONE of these are as "monumental an achievement" as...Machu Picchu? Is Macchu Picchu even really that different than, say, Stonehenge, Easter Island, or Angkor Wat? Of course the subtext here is that listing any of the above "achievements" would be to glorify the white man too much. He even throws a little extra shade on Rome "if we're being generous." Thank you so much for your generosity Gideon Lewis-Kraus! Could it really be that not one editor questioned your exhaustive and unimpeachable list of the 5 greatest things ever created by humanity? Do you realize how ignorant and chauvinistic such a list would be in literally any other context? An absolute joke. Garbage in garbage out. It's time for a new age of magazines.