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Umberto Eco curated an exhibition on the topic of lists & I‘ve been hunting for a reasonably priced copy of the catalog for a while. Here’s an interview about it, with the banger quote being, „We like lists because we don’t want to die.“

https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/spiegel-interview-with-umberto-eco-we-like-lists-because-we-don-t-want-to-die-a-659577.html?sara_ref=re-so-app-sh

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Not to mention Eco's list for identifying fascism: https://faena.com/aleph/umberto-eco-a-practical-list-for-identifying-fascists

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A list of lists—how meta! Seriously, AI and algorithms routinely misinterpret my interests because I write federal résumés for a living. I’m forever getting sent ads for colleges across the country because the federal template requires a city and state for each institution of higher learning and for military training programs because I need to include veterans’ ranks and decorations for them to get preference in the job search. It’s not myself I’m searching for; it’s SGT John Smith or CPT Mary Jones! I guess that’s why it’s called *artificial* intelligence…

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Corollary: Serge Becker & Lisa Anno's one-off List Magazine from the early aughts. Excellent stuff. https://www.ideanow.online/list

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List history is huge!!

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This book might be of interest to listiphiles:

listfulbook.co.uk

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