Mondays might not be your favorite day of the week, but the good news is that we’re all in this together ladies and gentlemen. As purveyors of prime Grade A web content, the SolidSmack crew has done some of the heavy-lifting to make sure you get your Mondays started on the right track.

Welcome to The Monday List.

Each Monday, we’ll link you up with some of the most insightful, informative, and socially-relevant stories to keep tabbed, bookmarked, reading listed, pocketed, or what have you. Be sure to check in each Monday morning for a new crop of freshly sprouted words curated straight from the source of your favorite homegrown ‘Smack.

What We’re Reading This Week:

How Humans Can Force the Machines to Play Fair
Theoretical computer science can be as remote and abstract as pure mathematics, but new research often begins in response to concrete, real-world problems. Such is the case with the work of Cynthia Dwork.

If Animals Have Rights, Should Robots?
We can think of ourselves as an animal’s peer—or its protector. What will robots decide about us?

Sketch Things Better with the 7 Ways of Seeing
You can make sketches in a sketchbook, on a piece of paper, on index cards or even on sticky notes.

Affluenza Anonymous: Rehab for the Young, Rich, and Addicted
It’s easy to sneer, but maybe there’s something to the premise that wealthy kids have a particular set of mental health and addiction problems.

Here’s What Placebos Can Heal—And What They Can’t
The latest research in biochemistry reveals that your brain can actually self-medicate.

Running Into Danger on an Alaskan Trail
“It happened so fast: One moment I was running trails, the next I was staring a black-bear sow in the face, so close I could smell it, wild and pungent and alarming, and I knew it could smell me, too, my fear.”