via:
Friday, March 24, 2023
ChatGPT Plugins
In line with our iterative deployment philosophy, we are gradually rolling out plugins in ChatGPT so we can study their real-world use, impact, and safety and alignment challenges—all of which we’ll have to get right in order to achieve our mission.
Users have been asking for plugins since we launched ChatGPT (and many developers are experimenting with similar ideas) because they unlock a vast range of possible use cases. We’re starting with a small set of users and are planning to gradually roll out larger-scale access as we learn more (for plugin developers, ChatGPT users, and after an alpha period, API users who would like to integrate plugins into their products). We’re excited to build a community shaping the future of the human–AI interaction paradigm.
Plugin developers who have been invited off our waitlist can use our documentation to build a plugin for ChatGPT, which then lists the enabled plugins in the prompt shown to the language model as well as documentation to instruct the model how to use each. The first plugins have been created by Expedia, FiscalNote, Instacart, KAYAK, Klarna, Milo, OpenTable, Shopify, Slack, Speak, Wolfram, and Zapier.
Plugin developers who have been invited off our waitlist can use our documentation to build a plugin for ChatGPT, which then lists the enabled plugins in the prompt shown to the language model as well as documentation to instruct the model how to use each. The first plugins have been created by Expedia, FiscalNote, Instacart, KAYAK, Klarna, Milo, OpenTable, Shopify, Slack, Speak, Wolfram, and Zapier.
by OpenAI | Read more:
Image: ChatGPT
[ed. Well, that didn't take long. The first thing you do with any new technology is, obviously, design new ways to sell things to people (after experimenting with various applications to porn). I guess now we'll be able to buy all kinds of new apps for our AI. Great. See also: this Twitter thread.]
Cherry Blossom Season in Japan
Robin Rohwer
Mom asked, "I wonder when cherries bloom in Japan?" So I found 1200 years of data online and made her a plot.
via (Twitter)
Half An Hour Before Dawn In San Francisco
I try to avoid San Francisco. When I go, I surround myself with people; otherwise I have morbid thoughts. But a morning appointment and miscalculated transit time find me alone on the SF streets half an hour before dawn.
The skyscrapers get to me. I’m an heir to Art Deco and the cult of progress; I should idolize skyscrapers as symbols of human accomplishment. I can’t. They look no more human than a termite nest. Maybe less. They inspire awe, but no kinship. What marvels techno-capital creates as it instantiates itself, too bad I’m a hairless ape and can take no credit for such things.
The skyscrapers get to me. I’m an heir to Art Deco and the cult of progress; I should idolize skyscrapers as symbols of human accomplishment. I can’t. They look no more human than a termite nest. Maybe less. They inspire awe, but no kinship. What marvels techno-capital creates as it instantiates itself, too bad I’m a hairless ape and can take no credit for such things.
I could have stayed in Michigan. There were forests and lakes and homes with little gardens. Instead I’m here. We pay rents that would bankrupt a medieval principality to get front-row seats for the hinge of history. It will be the best investment we ever make. Imagine living when the first lungfish crawled out of the primordial ooze, and missing it because the tidepool down the way had cheaper housing. Imagine living on Earth in 65,000,000 BC, and being anywhere except Chicxulub. [ed. asteroid impact crater, Yucatan Peninsula.]
Everyone here thinks the world will end soon. Climate change for the Democrats, social decay for the GOP, AI if you’re a techbro. Everyone here is complicit in their chosen ending - plane flights, porn, $20/month GPT-4 subscriptions. “We have walked this path for too long, and everything else has faded away. We have to continue in wicked deeds [...] or we would have to deny ourselves.”
The sky is still dark, but the streets begin to stir. The Muni slithers past a line of self-driving cars wearing lidars like silly hats. The few visible human commuters pump thick black Arabian hydrocarbons into their vehicles, or thick black Ethiopian methylxanthines into their bodies. The city is a machine made of submachines, each with its own fuel. A particle accelerator, a summoning circle, a stargate, choose your favorite megastructure that calls up things of dubious put-downability.
Somewhere to the south, Ray Kurzweil walks into his office at Google. Twenty years ago, he conjectured that all human history - no, all evolutionary and geologic history - was a series of accelerating movements, which would crescendo at the end of time in approximately 2029. Six years to go. San Francisco doesn’t feel like the sort of place willing to wait another six years. The doomed summoning-city at the end of time seethes with palpable impatience. Too much Ethiopian methylxanthine, that’s my diagnosis. It feels eerie and unreal in the darkness, like everything is underwater, and I remember Poe:
Everyone here thinks the world will end soon. Climate change for the Democrats, social decay for the GOP, AI if you’re a techbro. Everyone here is complicit in their chosen ending - plane flights, porn, $20/month GPT-4 subscriptions. “We have walked this path for too long, and everything else has faded away. We have to continue in wicked deeds [...] or we would have to deny ourselves.”
The sky is still dark, but the streets begin to stir. The Muni slithers past a line of self-driving cars wearing lidars like silly hats. The few visible human commuters pump thick black Arabian hydrocarbons into their vehicles, or thick black Ethiopian methylxanthines into their bodies. The city is a machine made of submachines, each with its own fuel. A particle accelerator, a summoning circle, a stargate, choose your favorite megastructure that calls up things of dubious put-downability.
Somewhere to the south, Ray Kurzweil walks into his office at Google. Twenty years ago, he conjectured that all human history - no, all evolutionary and geologic history - was a series of accelerating movements, which would crescendo at the end of time in approximately 2029. Six years to go. San Francisco doesn’t feel like the sort of place willing to wait another six years. The doomed summoning-city at the end of time seethes with palpable impatience. Too much Ethiopian methylxanthine, that’s my diagnosis. It feels eerie and unreal in the darkness, like everything is underwater, and I remember Poe:
Lo! Death has reared himself a throneA Muslim woman walks by in traditional dress, followed by a dark black man in African garb. All clothing sends a message; theirs is “everything that ever happened anywhere in the world however far away has converged here for this moment; it was all for this.” A crazy person walks by, mumbling to himself. We nod at him and let him pass; he seems to know the score. Here we have all gathered, abandoning our green and pleasant homes in Pakistan or Nigeria or Michigan to see the doomed summoning-city at the end of time.
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
[ed. Then again, there's always L.A. (Randy Newman/YouTube).]
Thursday, March 23, 2023
Dr. Anthony Fauci Would Like to Set the Record Straight
In a wide-ranging interview with Rolling Stone, Fauci discussed everything from the lessons he learned from his father to the lab-leak theory and possible origins of the Covid pandemic.
How’s retirement going for you? What are you liking about it and what are you not liking about it?
You know, it’s interesting because it’s not “retirement” in the sense of not doing things. I was at the NIH for 54 years, and I was the director of the Institute for 38 years, so I stepped down from those official government roles — and also being the chief medical advisor to President Biden — but the things I’m doing right now are the continuation of commitments I made when I was the director. I say “retirement” tongue-in-cheek, because when I decided to step down at the end of 2022, it was not with the intention of essentially going to play golf, going to a beach, or getting a boat and sailing around the world, which I couldn’t do even if I wanted to since I don’t like sailing. [Laughs] What I’ve done is I’ve been giving a number of lectures, writing a number of prospectives and commentaries, and I very likely will associate myself with a university medical center. I will stay in Washington, D.C. I’ve been here 54 years and don’t see myself physically leaving. It isn’t really retirement.
You mention in the documentary how, during your time under Trump, you would regularly receive late-night calls from a blocked number that was always Trump, who would then proceed to berate you for clarifying the disinformation he spread about Covid. What was the wackiest late-night call you got from Trump?
Well, I wouldn’t say “wacky.” It just was one of those things where the tension between me and the president — less so the president than the people around him, but he felt strongly about [Covid] — put me in this uncomfortable position. We’d be up there on the podium of the press room in the White House, and the president would get up and say something like, “Hydroxychloroquine is going to be a cure,” or “the virus is going to disappear like magic next month,” and then, since I would be standing there with him, the press would say, “What do you think, Dr. Fauci?” And, in order to preserve my own personal and professional integrity, but more importantly to fulfill my obligation to the American public as a public health official, I had to do something very uncomfortable, which was say, “No I’m sorry, I disagree. Hydroxychloroquine does not work. And it won’t disappear like magic.” Then, the press would call me up and ask me to amplify on that, and I would go through the data on why it’s clear that this isn’t going to disappear, and why there’s no evidence whatsoever that hydroxychloroquine, or bleach, or anything else works. [Trump] would read that in the paper and call me and go, “Why can’t you be more positive about it?” and my response would be, “Gulp, I’m sorry I can’t be, because I need to be responsible about it.”
You looked like your soul was leaving your body during those press conferences.
Yup. Yup… It’s uncomfortable because the far-right have interpreted that as I was nefariously trying to harm Trump, which absolutely was the furthest thing from the truth. I’m fundamentally about science. So, they didn’t understand that I didn’t like the fact that I had to get up and contradict the President of the United States. It’s not like I did it, went home to my wife, and said, “Hey, look what I did today!” That’s not how it happened. It was a very uncomfortable situation to be in. (...)
Do you feel like we’re taking Covid seriously enough right now in America? Most of the country just seemed to reach the point of “enough is enough,” and the Biden administration even declared the pandemic “over.”
Well, I think we have to put it in the context that we’re in an unprecedented situation. In 1918, the historic pandemic influenza was even worse than this. It killed 50-100 million people worldwide. But we’ve never had a situation as serious as this that’s lasted now going into its fourth year. We are in year four. It started in January of 2020. Having said that, we are tired of Covid. Everybody wants to put Covid in the rearview mirror and say, “We’re done with it,” so it’s a natural, understandable, though not necessarily correct viewpoint that we’re out of the woods. One thing is true: We’re much better off now than we were a year and a half ago. A year and a half ago, we were getting 800,000-900,000 infections and 3,000-4,000 deaths. Today, we’re having 300-400 deaths a day. Even though that’s much better than where we were, it’s not where the endgame should be. Because that means you’re talking about up to 3,000 deaths per week, which is really a high level. So, to your point: Are we underestimating Covid now? Yes, because we’re so used to it that we’re accepting a level of infection and death that under any other circumstance would be alarming. (...)
There’s a candid moment in the documentary where you apologize for your messaging on masking early on in the pandemic. On March 8, 2020, you said, “Right now, in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.” Wouldn’t common sense lead you to believe that masking was good, since it was so effective in battling SARS-CoV-1?
The point I was trying to make was that my statements in January, February, and early March were based on data as we knew it. We did not know aerosol transmission occurred. We did not know that 50 to 60 percent of the transmission were from those asymptomatic. We were told there was a shortage of masks. There were no studies to show that masks actually work. So, when I said, “I don’t think people should be wearing masks,” I based that on the data that we had. However, as the months went by and it became clear, a) that there’s no shortage of masks, b) aerosol transmission is important, c) many studies show that masks work, and d) 50 to 60 percent of the transmissions occur from someone with no symptoms, I changed my mind and said masks should be worn. You can say that’s flip-flopping — I guess you could — but it really is following the data. Now, the reason that I sort of apologized in the documentary is about something you said: Common sense should have told us early on that you’re not sure masking works, but why not wear ‘em? That’s probably what I should have said back then. Common sense should have told us early on that it can’t hurt and likely can help.
How’s retirement going for you? What are you liking about it and what are you not liking about it?
You mention in the documentary how, during your time under Trump, you would regularly receive late-night calls from a blocked number that was always Trump, who would then proceed to berate you for clarifying the disinformation he spread about Covid. What was the wackiest late-night call you got from Trump?
Well, I wouldn’t say “wacky.” It just was one of those things where the tension between me and the president — less so the president than the people around him, but he felt strongly about [Covid] — put me in this uncomfortable position. We’d be up there on the podium of the press room in the White House, and the president would get up and say something like, “Hydroxychloroquine is going to be a cure,” or “the virus is going to disappear like magic next month,” and then, since I would be standing there with him, the press would say, “What do you think, Dr. Fauci?” And, in order to preserve my own personal and professional integrity, but more importantly to fulfill my obligation to the American public as a public health official, I had to do something very uncomfortable, which was say, “No I’m sorry, I disagree. Hydroxychloroquine does not work. And it won’t disappear like magic.” Then, the press would call me up and ask me to amplify on that, and I would go through the data on why it’s clear that this isn’t going to disappear, and why there’s no evidence whatsoever that hydroxychloroquine, or bleach, or anything else works. [Trump] would read that in the paper and call me and go, “Why can’t you be more positive about it?” and my response would be, “Gulp, I’m sorry I can’t be, because I need to be responsible about it.”
You looked like your soul was leaving your body during those press conferences.
Yup. Yup… It’s uncomfortable because the far-right have interpreted that as I was nefariously trying to harm Trump, which absolutely was the furthest thing from the truth. I’m fundamentally about science. So, they didn’t understand that I didn’t like the fact that I had to get up and contradict the President of the United States. It’s not like I did it, went home to my wife, and said, “Hey, look what I did today!” That’s not how it happened. It was a very uncomfortable situation to be in. (...)
Do you feel like we’re taking Covid seriously enough right now in America? Most of the country just seemed to reach the point of “enough is enough,” and the Biden administration even declared the pandemic “over.”
Well, I think we have to put it in the context that we’re in an unprecedented situation. In 1918, the historic pandemic influenza was even worse than this. It killed 50-100 million people worldwide. But we’ve never had a situation as serious as this that’s lasted now going into its fourth year. We are in year four. It started in January of 2020. Having said that, we are tired of Covid. Everybody wants to put Covid in the rearview mirror and say, “We’re done with it,” so it’s a natural, understandable, though not necessarily correct viewpoint that we’re out of the woods. One thing is true: We’re much better off now than we were a year and a half ago. A year and a half ago, we were getting 800,000-900,000 infections and 3,000-4,000 deaths. Today, we’re having 300-400 deaths a day. Even though that’s much better than where we were, it’s not where the endgame should be. Because that means you’re talking about up to 3,000 deaths per week, which is really a high level. So, to your point: Are we underestimating Covid now? Yes, because we’re so used to it that we’re accepting a level of infection and death that under any other circumstance would be alarming. (...)
There’s a candid moment in the documentary where you apologize for your messaging on masking early on in the pandemic. On March 8, 2020, you said, “Right now, in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.” Wouldn’t common sense lead you to believe that masking was good, since it was so effective in battling SARS-CoV-1?
The point I was trying to make was that my statements in January, February, and early March were based on data as we knew it. We did not know aerosol transmission occurred. We did not know that 50 to 60 percent of the transmission were from those asymptomatic. We were told there was a shortage of masks. There were no studies to show that masks actually work. So, when I said, “I don’t think people should be wearing masks,” I based that on the data that we had. However, as the months went by and it became clear, a) that there’s no shortage of masks, b) aerosol transmission is important, c) many studies show that masks work, and d) 50 to 60 percent of the transmissions occur from someone with no symptoms, I changed my mind and said masks should be worn. You can say that’s flip-flopping — I guess you could — but it really is following the data. Now, the reason that I sort of apologized in the documentary is about something you said: Common sense should have told us early on that you’re not sure masking works, but why not wear ‘em? That’s probably what I should have said back then. Common sense should have told us early on that it can’t hurt and likely can help.
by Marlow Stern, Rolling Stone | Read more:
Image: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty
Trump Asked Supporters to Take to the Streets
By the early evening of the prophesied day of former President Donald Trump’s detainment—Tuesday, March 21—defeat was hanging heavy in the air. A few intrepid news crews were still trying to report live from Collect Pond Park, a pondless square of green space and concrete that faces the art deco fortress of the Manhattan District Criminal Courthouse building. This courthouse may, or may not, book Trump in the next few days on charges of cooking the books to pay a porn star to shut up, back in 2016. At this point, it might be easier to count the number of politicians who haven’t hushed up a sex scandal using shady money than the ones who have, but here we are nonetheless. The number of presidents who schemed for months to hold onto power after losing an election still stands at one, and it seems to be the liberal consensus that one criminal charge is as good as another.
Let’s get you caught up on the pageantry of waiting outside a courthouse in New York City for Donald Trump to get arrested. There are police barricades. There are policemen. What there haven’t been, to speak of, are the protesters that Trump summoned to this spot—there are perhaps two at this point, though it’s hard to tell for sure. There are no Trump flags here, no signs, no bombastic speeches about God and country and freedom.
The absence of anything resembling news complicates things significantly for on-the-ground reporting, but the assembled news anchors are doing their best. “Police are on high alert for—” an Australian woman says into the camera. Then she falters; then she starts again. The situation behind her can’t be helping her concentration; a retired Marine is loudly dressing down the tiny remaining pocket of dejected, signless demonstrators. “This ain’t Trump’s world! This is God’s world, motherfucker! Fuck Trump! Fuck Trump! Fuck YOU!”
I first encountered the retired Marine on Monday evening, when members of the New York Young Republican Club gathered to make their grievances known. At 6:00 p.m., the park was chaos, a riotous crush of bodies jockeying to bring their message to the world. Unfortunately for the young Republicans of New York, those bodies belonged not to furious young conservatives but the media. At least 200 of them swarmed the few protesters present, microphones outstretched, maneuvering in vain to find a camera angle that captured the demonstrators without a thousand obvious press members standing in the background.
Toward the edge of the fray, an earnest man in a brown coat with a hand-lettered sign with three lines that read “Alvin Bragg / Releasing The Violent / Prosecuting Political Enemies” spoke to one reporter after another, each circling and waiting for the crew in front to finish before they pounced. Suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, his words ran out. “I’m sorry,” he said after a few seconds. “I’ve been talking for hours. I’ve been here since noon.” He tried feebly to extricate himself, but the woman currently interviewing him begged him to answer just one more question. And so it went, crew after crew: a special kind of hell.
A half-hour later, the starving media had figured out a more orderly formation for feeding. A sardine-packed semicircle pressed relentlessly into the tiny cohort of Young Republicans who had answered Trump’s call to PROTEST and TAKE OUR NATION BACK. The club’s leadership delivered speeches into a bouquet of microphones. I could hear none of it, on account of the soundproofing crush of press bodies and also the retired Marine, who wanted them to leave. “You should go to Buffalo Wild Wings!” he shouted in a booming voice doubtless crafted through decades of military service. “Donald Trump don’t even know your name. Fuck outta here. Fuck Trump. Fuck you!”
New York City is uniquely unsuited to a MAGA rally. Its citizens infamously have no time for bullshit, and conservative news stories about a murder on every street corner and a needle in every arm have terrified many Patriots with long histories of Facebook posts regarding a certain Tree of Liberty and its thirst for patriot and tyrant blood. The city is large, it’s loud, and people are spectacularly good at minding their own business. It’s a hard place to impress. (...)
This is what happens when you tell your supporters to rally for you and then they get arrested en masse and then you leave office without pardoning them. All of Trump’s boldest soldiers are in jail, headed to jail, or terrified of going to jail. Much of the hard-core alt-right remembers and is vocally bitter about this, but everyone else has largely reached an undeclared yet firm position on the subject. We’ll support you, Mr President, but don’t expect us to show up for you anymore.
by Laura Jadeed, TNR | Read more:
The absence of anything resembling news complicates things significantly for on-the-ground reporting, but the assembled news anchors are doing their best. “Police are on high alert for—” an Australian woman says into the camera. Then she falters; then she starts again. The situation behind her can’t be helping her concentration; a retired Marine is loudly dressing down the tiny remaining pocket of dejected, signless demonstrators. “This ain’t Trump’s world! This is God’s world, motherfucker! Fuck Trump! Fuck Trump! Fuck YOU!”
I first encountered the retired Marine on Monday evening, when members of the New York Young Republican Club gathered to make their grievances known. At 6:00 p.m., the park was chaos, a riotous crush of bodies jockeying to bring their message to the world. Unfortunately for the young Republicans of New York, those bodies belonged not to furious young conservatives but the media. At least 200 of them swarmed the few protesters present, microphones outstretched, maneuvering in vain to find a camera angle that captured the demonstrators without a thousand obvious press members standing in the background.
Toward the edge of the fray, an earnest man in a brown coat with a hand-lettered sign with three lines that read “Alvin Bragg / Releasing The Violent / Prosecuting Political Enemies” spoke to one reporter after another, each circling and waiting for the crew in front to finish before they pounced. Suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, his words ran out. “I’m sorry,” he said after a few seconds. “I’ve been talking for hours. I’ve been here since noon.” He tried feebly to extricate himself, but the woman currently interviewing him begged him to answer just one more question. And so it went, crew after crew: a special kind of hell.
A half-hour later, the starving media had figured out a more orderly formation for feeding. A sardine-packed semicircle pressed relentlessly into the tiny cohort of Young Republicans who had answered Trump’s call to PROTEST and TAKE OUR NATION BACK. The club’s leadership delivered speeches into a bouquet of microphones. I could hear none of it, on account of the soundproofing crush of press bodies and also the retired Marine, who wanted them to leave. “You should go to Buffalo Wild Wings!” he shouted in a booming voice doubtless crafted through decades of military service. “Donald Trump don’t even know your name. Fuck outta here. Fuck Trump. Fuck you!”
New York City is uniquely unsuited to a MAGA rally. Its citizens infamously have no time for bullshit, and conservative news stories about a murder on every street corner and a needle in every arm have terrified many Patriots with long histories of Facebook posts regarding a certain Tree of Liberty and its thirst for patriot and tyrant blood. The city is large, it’s loud, and people are spectacularly good at minding their own business. It’s a hard place to impress. (...)
This is what happens when you tell your supporters to rally for you and then they get arrested en masse and then you leave office without pardoning them. All of Trump’s boldest soldiers are in jail, headed to jail, or terrified of going to jail. Much of the hard-core alt-right remembers and is vocally bitter about this, but everyone else has largely reached an undeclared yet firm position on the subject. We’ll support you, Mr President, but don’t expect us to show up for you anymore.
by Laura Jadeed, TNR | Read more:
Image: Fatih Atkas
[ed. Sorry... can't help it. Sometimes you just need a good laugh.]
Everything You Think You Know About Homelessness is Wrong
There are few topics I can think of that break people’s brains more than the topic of homelessness. A failure or unwillingness to carefully look at the data has led countless people to believe that the primary drivers of homelessness are drugs, mental health, poverty, the weather, progressive policies, or virtually anything and everything that isn’t housing. And while some, but not all, of the aforementioned factors are indeed factors in homelessness, none of them, not a single one of them, are primary factors. Because if you want to understand homelessness, you have to follow the rent. And if you follow the rent, you will come to realize that homelessness is primarily a housing problem. (...)
Because unlike poverty and mental illness and drug abuse and weather and welfare benefits and other factors, the places that have the highest housing costs, and the least housing supply, have the largest homeless populations:
In literally any other realm, this would come as no surprise. You can’t have what you can’t afford. If someone says, “I want a $2000 laptop, but can’t afford it,” nobody would find that hard to believe. But if someone says, “I really want the single largest and most crippling expense known to man, housing, but can’t afford it,” for some bizarre reason people would say, “that’s not true!,” or “correlation isn’t causation,” or “homelessness isn’t a housing problem,” or something patently insane. As I said before, the topic of homelessness breaks people’s brains.
In literally any other realm, this would come as no surprise. You can’t have what you can’t afford. If someone says, “I want a $2000 laptop, but can’t afford it,” nobody would find that hard to believe. But if someone says, “I really want the single largest and most crippling expense known to man, housing, but can’t afford it,” for some bizarre reason people would say, “that’s not true!,” or “correlation isn’t causation,” or “homelessness isn’t a housing problem,” or something patently insane. As I said before, the topic of homelessness breaks people’s brains.
Everything you think you know about homelessness is wrong (Noahpinion/Aaron Carr)
Image: Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
When's a Good Time? (How About Never?)
Larry Summers Says Now Is Not The Time For ‘Moral Hazard Lectures’ About Bailouts
Lawrence Summers, an economist who worked in the Clinton and Obama administrations, has been tweeting up a storm this weekend, advocating for a complete bailout of Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed on Friday after a bank run reportedly led by billionaire Peter Thiel. But Summers doesn’t want to hear any “moral hazard lectures,” as he puts it, about the risks of helping companies that had accounts with SVB.
“I hope and trust that the authorities are on a path to doing what is necessary to restore confidence. Acting decisively and rapidly is both the cheapest for taxpayers and the best for the economy. Failure to act strongly enough would be a Lehman-like error,” Summers tweeted on Sunday.
Summers, a man who helped repeal the Glass-Steagall Act while Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton, also says any other banks should get help to protect the U.S. banking system more broadly.
“It is a clear imperative that all #SVB segregated assets and uninsured deposits be fully backed by Monday morning. Also imperative that sufficient support be provided to other banks to insure full availability of deposited funds across the banking system,” Summers tweeted.
Anticipating the reaction Summers would surely receive to such a strong call for government intervention to ensure that companies still had all their money, Summers tweeted that he didn’t want to hear any lectures about “moral hazards.”
“This is not the time for moral hazard lectures or for lesson administering or for alarm about the political consequences of ‘bailouts’,” Summers tweeted, putting “bailouts” in scare quotes despite the fact that he was proposing a bailout by the simplest definition possible. (...)
Oddly enough, Summers doesn’t believe the collapse of SVB is a “systemic risk,” which would seemingly contradict the argument that the bank needs an immediate bailout.
Summers also took a very different attitude when the people who might get a “bailout” where average Americans with college loan debt. Back in 2022, Summers tweeted against student loan relief, arguing that money for that relief would be better spent on allowing people who couldn’t afford to go to college a new opportunity to go to college—precisely the idea behind student loans to begin with.
"Listen: people aren't pissed off about the bailout because they want startups to fail. They're pissed off because they are living in the century of "socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor":
They're pissed off because the Treasury official who presided over the theft of millions of houses by corrupt, bailed-out banks after the 2008 Great Financial Crisis and then wrote academic articles defending the decision to "foam the runways" for the banks with everyday Americans' homes is about to join the Federal Reserve Board"
Also: Every Libertarian Becomes a Socialist The Moment The Free Market Screws Them (Current Affairs).
“I hope and trust that the authorities are on a path to doing what is necessary to restore confidence. Acting decisively and rapidly is both the cheapest for taxpayers and the best for the economy. Failure to act strongly enough would be a Lehman-like error,” Summers tweeted on Sunday.
“It is a clear imperative that all #SVB segregated assets and uninsured deposits be fully backed by Monday morning. Also imperative that sufficient support be provided to other banks to insure full availability of deposited funds across the banking system,” Summers tweeted.
Anticipating the reaction Summers would surely receive to such a strong call for government intervention to ensure that companies still had all their money, Summers tweeted that he didn’t want to hear any lectures about “moral hazards.”
“This is not the time for moral hazard lectures or for lesson administering or for alarm about the political consequences of ‘bailouts’,” Summers tweeted, putting “bailouts” in scare quotes despite the fact that he was proposing a bailout by the simplest definition possible. (...)
Oddly enough, Summers doesn’t believe the collapse of SVB is a “systemic risk,” which would seemingly contradict the argument that the bank needs an immediate bailout.
Summers also took a very different attitude when the people who might get a “bailout” where average Americans with college loan debt. Back in 2022, Summers tweeted against student loan relief, arguing that money for that relief would be better spent on allowing people who couldn’t afford to go to college a new opportunity to go to college—precisely the idea behind student loans to begin with.
by Matt Novak, Forbes | Read more:
Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty
[ed. See also: Learning from Silicon Valley Bank's apologists (Pluralistic):]"Listen: people aren't pissed off about the bailout because they want startups to fail. They're pissed off because they are living in the century of "socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor":
They're pissed off because the Treasury official who presided over the theft of millions of houses by corrupt, bailed-out banks after the 2008 Great Financial Crisis and then wrote academic articles defending the decision to "foam the runways" for the banks with everyday Americans' homes is about to join the Federal Reserve Board"
Also: Every Libertarian Becomes a Socialist The Moment The Free Market Screws Them (Current Affairs).
Monday, March 20, 2023
Everybody Knows
Seven years ago, I called Leonard Cohen's Everybody Knows "the perfect anthem for our times."
That was just after Cohen died, and while the world seems to want to settle on Hallelujah as his totemic song, Everybody Knows keeps inserting itself into the discourse, in the most toxic, hope-draining way possible. Whenever some awful scandal involving the great and the good breaches, we're told that "everybody knew" already, so let's move on.
This current has been running through our society for decades now. Remember when the Snowden leaks hit and a yawning chorus of nihilists told us that they knew already and so should anyone else with the smallest iota of sophistication? Back then Jay Rosen coined a rejoinder to this counsel of despair: "Don't savvy me" (...)
Everybody knows. It's what we heard after the Panama Papers. Swissleaks. Luxleaks. The Paradise Papers. Everybody knows! It's what the nothing-to-see-here crowd said about Propublica's explosive IRSLeaks, back in 2021:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/15/guillotines-and-taxes/#carried-interest
The leaks revealed the tax-dodges of the richest and most powerful people in America, which were jaw-dropping in their audacity and shamelessness. Sure, maybe you suspected that the 400 richest people in America paid less tax than you – but did you really guess that the means by which they did this was through taking massive deductions on their elite hobbies? (...)
Propublica isn't done with the IRS Files. Today, they published a long investigation into ultra-rich corporate executives who buy and sell their competitors' stock for massive profits with suspiciously precise timing. The data comes from 1099-B filings, which brokerages file with the IRS with each trade, but which the IRS doesn't share with the SEC:
https://www.propublica.org/article/secret-irs-files-trading-competitors-stock
Here are some examples:
Ohio billionaire August Troendle, CEO of Medpace, repeatedly bought and sold shares of $Syneos – his company's archrival, timing the transactions with a management shakeup that dropped the stock by 16% in one day, and an SEC investigation that crushed Syneos's stock by 25%. His precision timing made him at least $2.3m in profit.
Isaac Larian, CEO of Bratz-maker MGA, made $28m trading shares in Mattel, MGA's nemesis and frequent litigant – during a period when Mattel stock crashed by 57% (!). Larian boasts that "I made a LOT more money shorting Mattel stock than they did running a $4.5 billion toy company."
Larian's trades also involved some very precise timing. Sometimes, he took positions just before his own company announced its upcoming products, and others positions immediately preceded major disclosures from Mattel. Larian's subordinates told Propublica that he is "is a boss with an endless appetite for information about his company and its competitors, constantly grilling subordinates on minutiae about the industry."
Larian couldn't explain the timing of these trades. His lawyer told Propublica that it was "false and defamatory" to suggest that he "possessed material, nonpublic information that Larian knew was obtained in breach of a duty."
Next up is Gerald Boelte, founder and chair of the massive oil company LLOG. LLOG partners with other companies for its oil drilling. Companies like Stone Energy. Boelte bought a huge position in Stone the day before the company's 2015 earnings report, in which they revealed an increase their reserves' value, pulling in a 65% one day profit. He'd never bought shares in Stone before.
Boetle told Propublica, "I do not and have never traded on any material, non-public information of competitors, business partners or others… Any implication that I was investing based upon advance knowledge is therefore clearly false."
Jim Sankey is CEO of Invue. He bought $3.2m worth of shares in his rival Checkpoint, while checkpoint was in secret negotiations to be acquired by CCL Industries. Sankey was already thoroughly connected to Checkpoint, having sold a $150m product line to them in 2007. There's no record that he'd ever traded Checkpoint before. He made $2.3m. Sankey says "he did not know Checkpoint was going to be acquired." He says that his company was not approached by Checkpoint as a potential acquirer.
Barry Wish was a board member of Ocwen, a company he co-founded. After the Great Financial Crisis, Ocwen bid unsuccessfully to buy $215b worth of Bank of America mortgages. The winning bidder was Nationstar. Three weeks before Nationstar's winning bid was announced, Wish bought $600k worth of Nationstar shares. After the bid was announced, he sold them for for a $157k profit.
Wish told Propublica that he never traded competitors' stock: "No, not at all." Propublica read him the details of the trade from his leaked 1099-B. He said "You might see it, but I don’t have any recollection" and hung up.
Steven Grossman is a cardboard heir – a nepobaby who inherited Southern Container Corp from his grandpa. After he sold the company to Rock-Tenn for $1b in 2013, he stayed on as a senior exec. Over the next 5 years, he traded large blocks of shares in Rock-Tenn's competitors, companies like Temple-Inland, a company that he made a 37% profit on after its acquisition was announced in 2011, one week after Grossman started buying its shares.
Grossman falsely told Propublica, "I haven’t traded stock since then." IRS records show that Grossman continued to trade. Grossman also told Propublica that he had no role with Rock-Tenn, despite being on their payroll for five years. When asked about his extremely lucky timing buying and selling Temple-Inland, he said "That was 10 years ago" and hung up.
As Propublica's Robert Faturechi and Ellis Simani write, Securities regulations have their origins in the crash of 1929, and the subsequent collapse in confidence in markets and capitalism, the sense that the system was rigged for the wealthy and political insiders. That is a pretty good summation of sentiment today:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout
It's not just that corporate executives are corrupt, it's that they're lavishly, shamelessly, endlessly, incorrigibly corrupt.
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows (...)
This current has been running through our society for decades now. Remember when the Snowden leaks hit and a yawning chorus of nihilists told us that they knew already and so should anyone else with the smallest iota of sophistication? Back then Jay Rosen coined a rejoinder to this counsel of despair: "Don't savvy me" (...)
Everybody knows. It's what we heard after the Panama Papers. Swissleaks. Luxleaks. The Paradise Papers. Everybody knows! It's what the nothing-to-see-here crowd said about Propublica's explosive IRSLeaks, back in 2021:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/15/guillotines-and-taxes/#carried-interest
The leaks revealed the tax-dodges of the richest and most powerful people in America, which were jaw-dropping in their audacity and shamelessness. Sure, maybe you suspected that the 400 richest people in America paid less tax than you – but did you really guess that the means by which they did this was through taking massive deductions on their elite hobbies? (...)
Propublica isn't done with the IRS Files. Today, they published a long investigation into ultra-rich corporate executives who buy and sell their competitors' stock for massive profits with suspiciously precise timing. The data comes from 1099-B filings, which brokerages file with the IRS with each trade, but which the IRS doesn't share with the SEC:
https://www.propublica.org/article/secret-irs-files-trading-competitors-stock
Here are some examples:
Ohio billionaire August Troendle, CEO of Medpace, repeatedly bought and sold shares of $Syneos – his company's archrival, timing the transactions with a management shakeup that dropped the stock by 16% in one day, and an SEC investigation that crushed Syneos's stock by 25%. His precision timing made him at least $2.3m in profit.
Isaac Larian, CEO of Bratz-maker MGA, made $28m trading shares in Mattel, MGA's nemesis and frequent litigant – during a period when Mattel stock crashed by 57% (!). Larian boasts that "I made a LOT more money shorting Mattel stock than they did running a $4.5 billion toy company."
Larian's trades also involved some very precise timing. Sometimes, he took positions just before his own company announced its upcoming products, and others positions immediately preceded major disclosures from Mattel. Larian's subordinates told Propublica that he is "is a boss with an endless appetite for information about his company and its competitors, constantly grilling subordinates on minutiae about the industry."
Larian couldn't explain the timing of these trades. His lawyer told Propublica that it was "false and defamatory" to suggest that he "possessed material, nonpublic information that Larian knew was obtained in breach of a duty."
Next up is Gerald Boelte, founder and chair of the massive oil company LLOG. LLOG partners with other companies for its oil drilling. Companies like Stone Energy. Boelte bought a huge position in Stone the day before the company's 2015 earnings report, in which they revealed an increase their reserves' value, pulling in a 65% one day profit. He'd never bought shares in Stone before.
Boetle told Propublica, "I do not and have never traded on any material, non-public information of competitors, business partners or others… Any implication that I was investing based upon advance knowledge is therefore clearly false."
Jim Sankey is CEO of Invue. He bought $3.2m worth of shares in his rival Checkpoint, while checkpoint was in secret negotiations to be acquired by CCL Industries. Sankey was already thoroughly connected to Checkpoint, having sold a $150m product line to them in 2007. There's no record that he'd ever traded Checkpoint before. He made $2.3m. Sankey says "he did not know Checkpoint was going to be acquired." He says that his company was not approached by Checkpoint as a potential acquirer.
Barry Wish was a board member of Ocwen, a company he co-founded. After the Great Financial Crisis, Ocwen bid unsuccessfully to buy $215b worth of Bank of America mortgages. The winning bidder was Nationstar. Three weeks before Nationstar's winning bid was announced, Wish bought $600k worth of Nationstar shares. After the bid was announced, he sold them for for a $157k profit.
Wish told Propublica that he never traded competitors' stock: "No, not at all." Propublica read him the details of the trade from his leaked 1099-B. He said "You might see it, but I don’t have any recollection" and hung up.
Steven Grossman is a cardboard heir – a nepobaby who inherited Southern Container Corp from his grandpa. After he sold the company to Rock-Tenn for $1b in 2013, he stayed on as a senior exec. Over the next 5 years, he traded large blocks of shares in Rock-Tenn's competitors, companies like Temple-Inland, a company that he made a 37% profit on after its acquisition was announced in 2011, one week after Grossman started buying its shares.
Grossman falsely told Propublica, "I haven’t traded stock since then." IRS records show that Grossman continued to trade. Grossman also told Propublica that he had no role with Rock-Tenn, despite being on their payroll for five years. When asked about his extremely lucky timing buying and selling Temple-Inland, he said "That was 10 years ago" and hung up.
As Propublica's Robert Faturechi and Ellis Simani write, Securities regulations have their origins in the crash of 1929, and the subsequent collapse in confidence in markets and capitalism, the sense that the system was rigged for the wealthy and political insiders. That is a pretty good summation of sentiment today:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout
It's not just that corporate executives are corrupt, it's that they're lavishly, shamelessly, endlessly, incorrigibly corrupt.
by Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic | Read more:
Image: uncredited
Did Everyone Buy a Guitar in Quarantine or What?
To some people, guitars are almost as essential as toilet paper. While the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the global economy, seriously hurting and shuttering many businesses, some companies — like Amazon and Procter & Gamble, for example — posted jaw-dropping financials. And in a less predictable turn of events, it appears the same can be said for major music retailers.
In conversations with Rolling Stone, instrument sellers Sweetwater, Guitar Center, and Reverb reported a bang-up year for online sales. In 2020, online-only store Sweetwater surpassed $1 billion in revenue for the first time in the company’s 42-year history. It also served over 1.5 million customers in 2020, up from a million in 2019. CEO Chuck Surack says shipping out 15,000 to 20,000 orders a day was normal for most of the year, resulting in about a 40 percent increase from the previous year. And when “Black Friday stuff picked up” the numbers increased to 22,000 to 24,000 orders a day, peaking at about 30,000.
While the Etsy-owned Reverb — an online-only marketplace similar in design to Etsy, but for musical equipment — has not yet released its gross merchandise sales (GMS) data for the fourth quarter, CEO David Mandelbrot tells Rolling Stone that Reverb saw its highest quarterly GMS yet in 2020’s second quarter. And the third quarter numbers were up more than 30% compared to the same period last year.
Even Guitar Center — the only one of these three with brick-and-mortar locations — saw an uptick, despite filing for bankruptcy to reorganize debt. While Guitar Center doesn’t share exact revenue figures, its chief marketing and communications officer Jeannine Davis D’Addario says Guitar Center’s online business has “been booming as consumers visit significantly more frequently, with sales up substantially in most categories compared to 2019.” According to Guitar Center, online sales more than doubled in 2020 when compared to 2019. (...)
In with the new
Retailers also noticed an uptick specifically in new customers and beginner musicians that continued through 2020, meaning that their reach is now wider than it was at the start of last year.
Guitar Center’s D’Addario says that while guitar sales continue to increase, that’s especially clear with “beginner instruments at entry price points, particularly our Guitar Center Exclusive instruments, which have been selling out given their high quality to value.” She adds that the company has seen an increase in purchases among women and younger players. “With 40+-year-old players, we saw increased interest in learning to play an instrument,” D’Addario continues. “Additionally, we continued to see increases in our lessons students in both the 11-to-15 age range and over-40-year-old during shelter-in-place.”
Reverb’s Mandelbrot points out that people buying recording equipment — either for podcasting or DIY music-making — was a big trend, but the increase in beginners was even bigger. Based on conversations he’s had with customers, he’s found that needs for stress relief and breaks from looking at screens all day inspired a lot of newcomers. “We talked to a freelancer in Brooklyn who was having trouble finding work at the onset of the pandemic, so he found a mandolin on Reverb to help him occupy his mind and his time,” says Mandelbrot, who adds that basic instruments can act as a gateway drug to a seemingly endless world of gear. “People who bought music gear on Reverb for the first time in Q2 and Q3 continue to return to Reverb to browse for and buy music gear,” he says. (...)
“A lot of people said, ‘Hey, I’ve always wanted to play guitar,” says Gibson’s Curleigh. “So, guess what? All of a sudden, beginners came into to it. Intermediate players who had sort of gotten to a certain level, picked their guitar up again and started playing. And advanced and expert players were like, ‘Oh, my god, I have a wish list for this guitar. Life’s too short not to have my dream guitar. I’m going to buy it.’ The whole spectrum started taking action around that July, August time… I fundamentally believe, in the last year, more guitarists have been created and engaged than in the previous 10 years combined. If we manage this dynamic as an industry, we’ve got a whole new generation of guitarists for the next 10, 20, 30 years.”
In conversations with Rolling Stone, instrument sellers Sweetwater, Guitar Center, and Reverb reported a bang-up year for online sales. In 2020, online-only store Sweetwater surpassed $1 billion in revenue for the first time in the company’s 42-year history. It also served over 1.5 million customers in 2020, up from a million in 2019. CEO Chuck Surack says shipping out 15,000 to 20,000 orders a day was normal for most of the year, resulting in about a 40 percent increase from the previous year. And when “Black Friday stuff picked up” the numbers increased to 22,000 to 24,000 orders a day, peaking at about 30,000.
Even Guitar Center — the only one of these three with brick-and-mortar locations — saw an uptick, despite filing for bankruptcy to reorganize debt. While Guitar Center doesn’t share exact revenue figures, its chief marketing and communications officer Jeannine Davis D’Addario says Guitar Center’s online business has “been booming as consumers visit significantly more frequently, with sales up substantially in most categories compared to 2019.” According to Guitar Center, online sales more than doubled in 2020 when compared to 2019. (...)
Guitars gone wild
All three retailers report that the guitar was the most popular product they sold in quarantine. “Based on what we saw in 2020, one thing is certain: The guitar is thriving,” says Reverb’s Mandelbrot. “Orders and searches for guitars have been up significantly — including an increase in searches for popular guitar brands like Fender, Gibson, and Taylor — as well as searches for music gear that you pair with your guitar, like amps, guitar straps, effects pedals, and more.” Both searches for acoustic guitars and acoustic guitar amps were up by 50 percent year over year.
He adds that living-room-friendly acoustic guitars like the Taylor GS-Mini have been undeniably popular, but Reverb “continued to sell some really rare vintage guitars — like a beautiful 1965 Fender Stratocaster that Brian Setzer sold through his Reverb Shop.” Limited edition, boutique pedals also did particularly well. Mandelbrot says the selling price of classic and rare effects pedals from vintage brands like Klon and Mu-Tron went up “significantly” in 2020. And drops of limited-edition pedals on Reverb sold out within minutes and, in one case, in less than a minute.
“We’re now selling a thousand guitars every day,” adds Sweetwater’s Surack. “It blows me away.” In 2019, Sweetwater had days where it would peak at 800 or 825 guitars, but one thousand has since become the daily average.
Fender’s EVP of Sales for the Americas and EMEA Tammy Van Donk describes 2020 as a “roller coaster ride” for the guitar industry. “Demand evaporated in March, rebounded in April and exploded from May on,” she explains. “2020 ended up being the best year in [Fender’s] history with record sales of over $700 million, up 17% from 2019.” Gibson CEO James ‘JC’ Curleigh agrees, making a Dickensian reference to 2020: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” he says. “April, May, and June were a challenging three months. But since then, we’ve been more than making up for it.” Gibson’s fiscal year ends in March, so annual numbers aren’t final yet but Curleigh says Gibson has seen a “steady increase in sales and growth” since August.
About a year ago, roughly a third of guitars were being sold online, according to Curleigh. And at that time, Curleigh says he predicted it would be about five years before it became a 50/50 dynamic between brick-and-mortar and virtual sales. “What we’re seeing now is that is that the five-year prediction of 50/50 is happening now,” he tells Rolling Stone. “Even in a post-Covid world, I think the guitar and music industry will settle into a 50/50 balance of online to in-store… People talk about necessity being the mother of invention. Well, necessity was the mother of access and acceleration for guitars.”
All three retailers report that the guitar was the most popular product they sold in quarantine. “Based on what we saw in 2020, one thing is certain: The guitar is thriving,” says Reverb’s Mandelbrot. “Orders and searches for guitars have been up significantly — including an increase in searches for popular guitar brands like Fender, Gibson, and Taylor — as well as searches for music gear that you pair with your guitar, like amps, guitar straps, effects pedals, and more.” Both searches for acoustic guitars and acoustic guitar amps were up by 50 percent year over year.
He adds that living-room-friendly acoustic guitars like the Taylor GS-Mini have been undeniably popular, but Reverb “continued to sell some really rare vintage guitars — like a beautiful 1965 Fender Stratocaster that Brian Setzer sold through his Reverb Shop.” Limited edition, boutique pedals also did particularly well. Mandelbrot says the selling price of classic and rare effects pedals from vintage brands like Klon and Mu-Tron went up “significantly” in 2020. And drops of limited-edition pedals on Reverb sold out within minutes and, in one case, in less than a minute.
“We’re now selling a thousand guitars every day,” adds Sweetwater’s Surack. “It blows me away.” In 2019, Sweetwater had days where it would peak at 800 or 825 guitars, but one thousand has since become the daily average.
Fender’s EVP of Sales for the Americas and EMEA Tammy Van Donk describes 2020 as a “roller coaster ride” for the guitar industry. “Demand evaporated in March, rebounded in April and exploded from May on,” she explains. “2020 ended up being the best year in [Fender’s] history with record sales of over $700 million, up 17% from 2019.” Gibson CEO James ‘JC’ Curleigh agrees, making a Dickensian reference to 2020: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” he says. “April, May, and June were a challenging three months. But since then, we’ve been more than making up for it.” Gibson’s fiscal year ends in March, so annual numbers aren’t final yet but Curleigh says Gibson has seen a “steady increase in sales and growth” since August.
About a year ago, roughly a third of guitars were being sold online, according to Curleigh. And at that time, Curleigh says he predicted it would be about five years before it became a 50/50 dynamic between brick-and-mortar and virtual sales. “What we’re seeing now is that is that the five-year prediction of 50/50 is happening now,” he tells Rolling Stone. “Even in a post-Covid world, I think the guitar and music industry will settle into a 50/50 balance of online to in-store… People talk about necessity being the mother of invention. Well, necessity was the mother of access and acceleration for guitars.”
In with the new
Retailers also noticed an uptick specifically in new customers and beginner musicians that continued through 2020, meaning that their reach is now wider than it was at the start of last year.
Guitar Center’s D’Addario says that while guitar sales continue to increase, that’s especially clear with “beginner instruments at entry price points, particularly our Guitar Center Exclusive instruments, which have been selling out given their high quality to value.” She adds that the company has seen an increase in purchases among women and younger players. “With 40+-year-old players, we saw increased interest in learning to play an instrument,” D’Addario continues. “Additionally, we continued to see increases in our lessons students in both the 11-to-15 age range and over-40-year-old during shelter-in-place.”
Reverb’s Mandelbrot points out that people buying recording equipment — either for podcasting or DIY music-making — was a big trend, but the increase in beginners was even bigger. Based on conversations he’s had with customers, he’s found that needs for stress relief and breaks from looking at screens all day inspired a lot of newcomers. “We talked to a freelancer in Brooklyn who was having trouble finding work at the onset of the pandemic, so he found a mandolin on Reverb to help him occupy his mind and his time,” says Mandelbrot, who adds that basic instruments can act as a gateway drug to a seemingly endless world of gear. “People who bought music gear on Reverb for the first time in Q2 and Q3 continue to return to Reverb to browse for and buy music gear,” he says. (...)
“A lot of people said, ‘Hey, I’ve always wanted to play guitar,” says Gibson’s Curleigh. “So, guess what? All of a sudden, beginners came into to it. Intermediate players who had sort of gotten to a certain level, picked their guitar up again and started playing. And advanced and expert players were like, ‘Oh, my god, I have a wish list for this guitar. Life’s too short not to have my dream guitar. I’m going to buy it.’ The whole spectrum started taking action around that July, August time… I fundamentally believe, in the last year, more guitarists have been created and engaged than in the previous 10 years combined. If we manage this dynamic as an industry, we’ve got a whole new generation of guitarists for the next 10, 20, 30 years.”
by Samantha Hissong, Rolling Stone | Read more:
Image: Reverb
[ed. Except... where are all the great guitar songs these days?]
Americans Don’t Care About the Iraqi Dead. They Don’t Even Care About Their Own.
If you write a 4,500-word article about a 20-year war, you might want to mention how many people were killed.
While that seems obvious, Max Boot, an energetic backer of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, has written a lengthy article on the war’s 20th anniversary that fails to note the number of deaths. The toll is in the hundreds of thousands, if not more — the carnage is too vast for an exact count — but Boot merely mentions a “high price in both blood and treasure” and quickly moves on.
How high a price? Whose blood? There is no explanation.
Boot is hardly the only anniversary writer unable to mention the apparently unmentionable. Peter Mansoor, a retired colonel with several deployments to Iraq, likewise failed to squeeze a reference to the death toll into his 2,000-word assessment of what happened. Mansoor’s story, like Boot’s, was published by Foreign Affairs, which is funded by the Council on Foreign Relations and is pretty much the true north of establishment thinking in Washington, D.C.
Their failure, which is replicated in about 99 percent of America’s discussions about Iraq, is a lot more than sloppy journalism. The Pentagon and its enablers prefer to turn the killing and maiming of civilians into an abstraction by calling it “collateral damage” so that it becomes a detail of history that we can pass over.
Ignoring civilian casualties is a necessary act of erasure if you wish to avoid a frank assessment of not just the Iraq War, but also the legacy and future of U.S. foreign policy. If you specify those casualties — which is not just hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis in an illegal war begun with lies, but also millions of people injured, forced out of their homes, and traumatized for the rest of their lives — the discourse must change. The “high price” reveals itself as so grotesque that discussions can no longer center around the finer questions of how to better fight an insurgency or why “mistakes were made” by supposedly well-intentioned leaders. It becomes a matter of when do the trials start; who should be in the dock with George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice; how large should Iraq’s reparations be; and when can we impose on ourselves something like the constitutional ban on the use of military force to settle disputes that we imposed on Japan after World War II?
Killing Ourselves
Until Covid-19 came along, I thought the willful ignorance of Iraqi casualties was principally a matter of Americans not caring about the deaths of foreigners, especially those who are not white and not Christian. And that’s certainly true: We don’t care enough about those deaths, even if (or especially if) we are responsible for them. But the larger truth is that we also don’t even care about the deaths of our own citizens. Choices have been made that caused America to have one of the highest per-capita rates of Covid deaths, with more than a million dying so far, and probably another 100,000 dying this year. The numbers tick upward, but most of us hardly notice.
In addition to the Covid toll, there is also the violence America inflicts on itself with guns, cars, opioids, and a predatory health care system that yields the highest maternal mortality rate among the world’s richest nations. We are an exceptional nation but not in the way we have been told: America kills its own at rates that are far higher than peer nations. The situation is getting worse, not better, because life expectancy in the U.S. is plummeting while in comparable countries it is increasing.
It would take more than 4,500 words to get to the bottom of why America is so ruthless to itself as well as others.
[ed. See also: "Trauma never goes away": as America forgets, Iraq war stays with U.S. Veterans; and, The architects of the Iraq war: where are they now? They’re all doing great, thanks for asking. (The Intercept).]
While that seems obvious, Max Boot, an energetic backer of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, has written a lengthy article on the war’s 20th anniversary that fails to note the number of deaths. The toll is in the hundreds of thousands, if not more — the carnage is too vast for an exact count — but Boot merely mentions a “high price in both blood and treasure” and quickly moves on.
Boot is hardly the only anniversary writer unable to mention the apparently unmentionable. Peter Mansoor, a retired colonel with several deployments to Iraq, likewise failed to squeeze a reference to the death toll into his 2,000-word assessment of what happened. Mansoor’s story, like Boot’s, was published by Foreign Affairs, which is funded by the Council on Foreign Relations and is pretty much the true north of establishment thinking in Washington, D.C.
Their failure, which is replicated in about 99 percent of America’s discussions about Iraq, is a lot more than sloppy journalism. The Pentagon and its enablers prefer to turn the killing and maiming of civilians into an abstraction by calling it “collateral damage” so that it becomes a detail of history that we can pass over.
Ignoring civilian casualties is a necessary act of erasure if you wish to avoid a frank assessment of not just the Iraq War, but also the legacy and future of U.S. foreign policy. If you specify those casualties — which is not just hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis in an illegal war begun with lies, but also millions of people injured, forced out of their homes, and traumatized for the rest of their lives — the discourse must change. The “high price” reveals itself as so grotesque that discussions can no longer center around the finer questions of how to better fight an insurgency or why “mistakes were made” by supposedly well-intentioned leaders. It becomes a matter of when do the trials start; who should be in the dock with George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice; how large should Iraq’s reparations be; and when can we impose on ourselves something like the constitutional ban on the use of military force to settle disputes that we imposed on Japan after World War II?
Killing Ourselves
Until Covid-19 came along, I thought the willful ignorance of Iraqi casualties was principally a matter of Americans not caring about the deaths of foreigners, especially those who are not white and not Christian. And that’s certainly true: We don’t care enough about those deaths, even if (or especially if) we are responsible for them. But the larger truth is that we also don’t even care about the deaths of our own citizens. Choices have been made that caused America to have one of the highest per-capita rates of Covid deaths, with more than a million dying so far, and probably another 100,000 dying this year. The numbers tick upward, but most of us hardly notice.
In addition to the Covid toll, there is also the violence America inflicts on itself with guns, cars, opioids, and a predatory health care system that yields the highest maternal mortality rate among the world’s richest nations. We are an exceptional nation but not in the way we have been told: America kills its own at rates that are far higher than peer nations. The situation is getting worse, not better, because life expectancy in the U.S. is plummeting while in comparable countries it is increasing.
It would take more than 4,500 words to get to the bottom of why America is so ruthless to itself as well as others.
by Peter Maass, The Intercept | Read more:
Image: Damir Sagolj/Reuters via Alamy[ed. See also: "Trauma never goes away": as America forgets, Iraq war stays with U.S. Veterans; and, The architects of the Iraq war: where are they now? They’re all doing great, thanks for asking. (The Intercept).]
Sunday, March 19, 2023
Explaining the Universe in One Small Step At a Time
Image: Martin O'Neill/The Observer
What It Means to Be Woke
This week the conservative writer Bethany Mandel had the kind of moment that can happen to anyone who talks in public for a living: While promoting a new book critiquing progressivism, she was asked to define the term “woke” by an interviewer — a reasonable question, but one that made her brain freeze and her words stumble. The viral clip, in turn, yielded an outpouring of arguments about the word itself: Can it be usefully defined? Is it just a right-wing pejorative? Is there any universally accepted label for what it’s trying to describe?
The answers are yes, sometimes and unfortunately no. Of course there is something real to be described: The revolution inside American liberalism is a crucial ideological transformation of our time. But unlike a case like “neoconservatism,” where a critical term was then accepted by the movement it described, our climate of ideological enmity makes settled nomenclature difficult.
I personally like the term “Great Awokening,” which evokes the new progressivism’s roots in Protestantism — but obviously secular progressives find it condescending. I appreciate how the British writer Dan Hitchens acknowledges the difficulty of definitions by calling the new left-wing politics “the Thing” — but that’s unlikely to catch on with true believing Thingitarians.
So let me try a different exercise — instead of a pithy term or definition, let me write a sketch of the “woke” worldview, elaborating its internal logic as if I myself believed in it. (To the incautious reader: These are not my actual beliefs.)
What is America all about, at its best? Equality and liberty. What is the left all about, at its best? Transforming those ideals into lived realities.
But this project keeps running into limits, disappointments and defeats. Everywhere you look, terrible disparities persist. And that persistence should force us to look deeper, beyond attempts to win legal rights or redistribute wealth, to the cultural and psychological structures that perpetuate oppression before law and policy begins to play a part. This is what the terminology of the academy has long been trying to describe — the way that generations of racist, homophobic, sexist, and heteronormative power have inscribed themselves, not just on our laws but our very psyches.
And once you see these forces in operation, you can’t unsee them — you are, well, “awake” — and you can’t accept any analysis that doesn’t acknowledge how they permeate our lives.
This means rejecting, first, any argument about group differences that emphasizes any force besides racism or sexism or other systems of oppression. (Indeed, the very measurement of difference — through standardized testing, say — is itself inevitably shaped by these oppressive forces.) Even differences that seem most obviously biological, like the differences between male and female athletes or the bodies that people find sexually attractive, should be presumed to be primarily culturally inscribed — because how can we know what’s really biological until we’ve finished liberating people from the crushing constraints of gender stereotypes?
It also means rejecting or modifying the rules of liberal proceduralism, because under conditions of deep oppression those supposed liberties are inherently oppressive themselves. You can’t have an effective principle of nondiscrimination unless you first discriminate in favor of the oppressed. You can’t have real freedom of speech unless you first silence some oppressors.
The answers are yes, sometimes and unfortunately no. Of course there is something real to be described: The revolution inside American liberalism is a crucial ideological transformation of our time. But unlike a case like “neoconservatism,” where a critical term was then accepted by the movement it described, our climate of ideological enmity makes settled nomenclature difficult.
So let me try a different exercise — instead of a pithy term or definition, let me write a sketch of the “woke” worldview, elaborating its internal logic as if I myself believed in it. (To the incautious reader: These are not my actual beliefs.)
What is America all about, at its best? Equality and liberty. What is the left all about, at its best? Transforming those ideals into lived realities.
But this project keeps running into limits, disappointments and defeats. Everywhere you look, terrible disparities persist. And that persistence should force us to look deeper, beyond attempts to win legal rights or redistribute wealth, to the cultural and psychological structures that perpetuate oppression before law and policy begins to play a part. This is what the terminology of the academy has long been trying to describe — the way that generations of racist, homophobic, sexist, and heteronormative power have inscribed themselves, not just on our laws but our very psyches.
And once you see these forces in operation, you can’t unsee them — you are, well, “awake” — and you can’t accept any analysis that doesn’t acknowledge how they permeate our lives.
This means rejecting, first, any argument about group differences that emphasizes any force besides racism or sexism or other systems of oppression. (Indeed, the very measurement of difference — through standardized testing, say — is itself inevitably shaped by these oppressive forces.) Even differences that seem most obviously biological, like the differences between male and female athletes or the bodies that people find sexually attractive, should be presumed to be primarily culturally inscribed — because how can we know what’s really biological until we’ve finished liberating people from the crushing constraints of gender stereotypes?
It also means rejecting or modifying the rules of liberal proceduralism, because under conditions of deep oppression those supposed liberties are inherently oppressive themselves. You can’t have an effective principle of nondiscrimination unless you first discriminate in favor of the oppressed. You can’t have real freedom of speech unless you first silence some oppressors.
by Ross Douthat, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Sam Whitney/The New York Times
Every Break-Up You’ll Go Through Before You’re 30
Unless you’re sensationally uninvested in your own life, most people barrelling towards 30 have a bucket-list of sorts they hope to tick off before their 20’s ends. Maybe you want to move to Egypt, get a Husky or finally tell your boss where they can stick it.
Alongside this list of aspirational antics, there are all the bits you’re likely to go through whether you want them or not: Moving out, losing people you loved, having a job you don’t care for, mental health struggles. It’s a long list of undesirable, but important, experiences.
And if you’re dating – alongside various stages of commitment, casual dating, falling in love and fucking around – there’s one thing you’re almost guaranteed to go through: A break-up.
There are many types of break-ups, but most can be categorised into one of three groups: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
by Rachel Barker, Vice | Read more:
Image: Dumitru Ochievschi[ed. And some of us are lucky enough to experience all three, well past 30.]
Saturday, March 18, 2023
Rejection Letter to Harvard's Rejection Letter
Having reviewed the many rejection letters I have received in the last few weeks, it is with great regret that I must inform you I am unable to accept your rejection at this time.
This year, after applying to a great many colleges and universities, I received an especially fine crop of rejection letters. Unfortunately, the number of rejections that I can accept is limited.
Each of my rejections was reviewed carefully and on an individual basis. Many factors were taken into account – the size of the institution, student-faculty ratio, location, reputation, costs and social atmosphere.
I am certain that most colleges I applied to are more than qualified to reject me. I am also sure that some mistakes were made in turning away some of these rejections. I can only hope they were few in number.
I am aware of the keen disappointment my decision may bring. Throughout my deliberations, I have kept in mind the time and effort it may have taken for you to reach your decision to reject me.
Keep in mind that at times it was necessary for me to reject even those letters of rejection that would normally have met my traditionally high standards.
I appreciate your having enough interest in me to reject my application. Let me take the opportunity to wish you well in what I am sure will be a successful academic year.
SEE YOU IN THE FALL!
Sincerely,
Paul Devlin
Applicant at Large
This year, after applying to a great many colleges and universities, I received an especially fine crop of rejection letters. Unfortunately, the number of rejections that I can accept is limited.
I am certain that most colleges I applied to are more than qualified to reject me. I am also sure that some mistakes were made in turning away some of these rejections. I can only hope they were few in number.
I am aware of the keen disappointment my decision may bring. Throughout my deliberations, I have kept in mind the time and effort it may have taken for you to reach your decision to reject me.
Keep in mind that at times it was necessary for me to reject even those letters of rejection that would normally have met my traditionally high standards.
I appreciate your having enough interest in me to reject my application. Let me take the opportunity to wish you well in what I am sure will be a successful academic year.
SEE YOU IN THE FALL!
Sincerely,
Paul Devlin
Applicant at Large
Open Culture | Read more:
Image: Charlie Mahoney/NYT
Friday, March 17, 2023
Like. Flirt. Ghost.
A Journey Into the Social Media Lives of Teens
When Lara and Sofia are thinking, they twirl their hair. It’s like watching an Apple rainbow pinwheel spin. It’s pretty hair. Dark and curly. It matches their strong brows—brows an actress would kill for, and which lend an air of gravitas to their faces. Rather, their face, since they are identical. (...)
Of the two, Lara posts more. She has 18 photos on her account; Sofia has five. They put up lots more, but over time they delete them. In Sofia’s feed, she’s either alone or with a friend. Lara posts multiple images of herself with Sofia, where the twin effect is pronounced. I can’t help but wonder what it all signifies, and when I ask, they tell me “I don’t know” or else that it doesn’t mean anything.
Clearly both, however, know the rules. They’re bright. They get excellent grades and are wary—extremely dialed in. And while they’d never outright call them rules, they recognize guidelines that govern their social habits. For starters, as mentioned, both girls’ Instagram accounts are set to private. This is true of the great majority of high school kids. (...)
Then there is the rule about likes and comments. According to Lara and Sofia, when your friend posts a selfie on Instagram, there’s a tacit social obligation to like it, and depending on how close you are, you may need to comment. The safest option, especially on a friend’s selfie, is the emoji with the heart eyes. Or a simple “so cute” or “so pretty.” It’s too much work to do anything else. If there’s any deviation, “you have to interpret the comment,” Sofia says. “If it’s nice, you’re like, is this really nice or are you …” “... I don’t know,” finishes Lara. Is the comment sincere? Or slyly sarcastic? Formulaic responses breed zero confusion. Instagram is not a place for tone or irony.
The girls do use Facebook, but it’s their most public-facing social account and their most impersonal, relegated to dance-related posts from school and extracurricular updates like participation in charitable events. With their friends, they’re most active on Instagram and Snapchat. They don’t bother with Twitter, WeChat, Yik Yak, or Kik.
On any platform, however, oversharing is considered taboo. Or else “awkward.” Awkward is a ubiquitous teen word to denote socially unsanctioned behavior. It usually implies first- or secondhand embarrassment when you or a friend step outside the rules. Awkward doesn’t sound overtly judgmental or negative; it’s deliberately vague.
One example of awkward plays on Instagram: the “deep like.” This is where you lurk on someone’s account, going way back into the archives, and accidentally double-tap on an old picture. Many of us can relate to the horror of the deep like, the inadvertent signal that betrays your lack of indifference when you’re hate-following an ex’s ex at 3 am or crushing on someone you only peripherally know.
But for girls like Lara and Sofia, it’s just as cringe-inducing when you do this to a friend. Showing too much interest in anyone is mortifying. It lacks chill. “Maybe it’s a friend you haven’t seen in a while, and you’re like, ‘OK, what have you been up to?’ And then you like it—and then you unlike it, and that makes it worse,” Sofia says. They’ll get the notification that you liked it, and if your name is missing from their list of likes, they’ll know you tried to undo the damage. When you have tools with which to stalk everyone all the time, the most seemingly aloof person wins. (...)
“I'm a young finesser,” says Ahmad, 18, a senior at Hill Regional Career High School, a predominantly black and Latino public school in New Haven, Connecticut, with just under 700 students. Ahmad’s got a mustache and a hint of scruff on his chin, and he needs a haircut, though he insists it’s part of his strategy to look extra-amazing for prom, which is in two days. He’s the class clown who runs with the popular kids, despite proudly not participating in any extracurriculars. Still, he says, he may have peaked early: “I was the shit in middle school. I dated every girl.” The last week of senior year is hectic, and he’s looking forward to being done. For Ahmad, social media is all about talking to girls. Right now he’s juggling six separate correspondences.
His M.O. when he’s crushing on someone is to like a few Instagram pictures and see if she likes anything back. Ahmad, who has 965 followers and 16 posts, scrupulously edits his feed just like Lara and Sofia do. “If I’m not touching 40 likes, I’m probably going to delete it,” he says. The window to reach 40 is about two hours. Sometimes he’ll delete a post, save it, and put it up at a better time. Dead zone for likes is 9 am to 3 pm (before school works, but rushed mornings make for dicey like counts). Ahmad primarily posts selfies (guys can get away with this more easily than girls), and he’s most inclined to post when he’s particularly pleased with his outfit: a prom photo, just him in a dark suit, ultramarine shirt with matching pocket square, and sunglasses is a perfect example. A Flashback Friday photo of him as a middle school kid goofing with a friend is a post that will be deleted by the following Monday.
When he puts up what he feels to be a particularly strong post, he’ll hit up his friends via group text to tell them to like it. The appropriate comment for male friends to leave? “No hearts, no kiss faces, no wink faces, just the gas tank.” The gas tank emoji means “gang”—it indicates fealty, like #squad. “Gang-gang, it’s like your group. Not like ‘a gang.’ It’s not that serious.”
But back to the ladies. After a few mutual photo likes, the flirtation often escalates to emoji. If an emoji with the heart eyes gets another one in return, he says, you’re good. Other positive responses: an ellipsis thought-bubble to convey that she’s thinking about you; the bashful see-no-evil monkey. “‘Oh, thank you! I appreciate it’ is what I get from that emoji,” he says. Any of these responses means he’ll take it to DM (as in direct message). Other emoji are suboptimal. “The thinky face is like, ‘What are you doing commenting on my pictures?’” He says this isn’t a hard no, but it’s not great. The worst emoji—easily—is one you may not expect. “The smiley face,” says Ahmad with a pained expression. “Yeah, that’s the ‘Thank you, but I’m not interested.’”
For teens, ghosting (where you completely disappear and stop communicating, with zero announcement or explanation) is common and not considered particularly impolite. Ask Ahmad how many girls he routinely ghosts on and he’s unequivocal: “Tons,” he says. “Just boop, delete. If I’m not interested anymore, our conversations will get dry, like ‘Hey, what you doing? Nothing. You? Nothing.’ Boom, end of conversation.” He says it’s usually a mutual, conscious uncoupling. Interest begets interest: “If you start losing juice, they’ll start losing juice.” (...)
For now Ahmad will have to keep most of his flirtations digital. And one method of conversation that ensures no one loses juice is to flirt by way of a Snapchat streak. (...)
On Snapchat there are “lenses,” which are a little like Instagram filters but way more elaborate. There’s a bug-eyed one where you barf rainbows. One makes you look like a golden cheetah; another surgically augments you to be just slightly prettier. If you harbor the suspicion that you’d look better with rhinoplasty or a chin implant, this filter will confirm it. But the feature that sets Snapchat apart is that 24 hours after you post it to your story, it disappears. This significantly lessens the pressure for everyone. For kids who are taught about digital footprints from grade school on and are regaled with cautionary tales of exemplary students who lost scholarships or college entrance because of party pictures posted to Facebook, Snapchat is easy fun. Silly, even. A quality that all other social media apps apparently lack. There’s no editing, and the backdrops for the most part are pedestrian. “I’ll just send a picture of a shoe,” says one teen I talked with. “They’ll send their ceiling back, just to keep the streak going.” The point is that everyone’s Snapchats all kind of suck.
For a streak, you send a friend a direct snap. It’s got to be a picture or a video; texts don’t count. They have to respond within 24 hours with their own picture or video. After two consecutive days you get a flame emoji by your friend’s username. Continue the volley of private messaging and the flame emoji shows a number denoting the length of the streak. If you’re about to lose the streak from inactivity, a sand timer appears to add pressure. Ahmad currently has three streaks going.
“Streaks are a big deal,” says Sofia, though the twins don’t use them for romantic pursuits. “For someone you’re really close with, you can have a 50-day streak,” she says. “But someone you’re friends with but don’t hang out with every weekend—maybe you know each other from past schools—it’s a 10-day streak.”
All the teens agree that people rarely bother with each other’s “stories.” It all goes down in the DMs, because that’s where streaks happen. The teens I talk to have anywhere from two to 12 streaks going at the same time. They all say it feels a bit like a chore but that it’s the perfect level of communication with someone you might not feel close enough to for texting. Most of the dispatches are unflattering images of close-up faces that require about as much effort as an emoji but feel infinitely less generic. If texts are for pressing logistics, snaps are to let someone know you’re thinking of them but perhaps not that hard. It’s OK to send the same snap to a few friends, but it’s considered rude to send someone a snap privately that you’ve put on your story. “That’s the worst,” they all agree.
Of the two, Lara posts more. She has 18 photos on her account; Sofia has five. They put up lots more, but over time they delete them. In Sofia’s feed, she’s either alone or with a friend. Lara posts multiple images of herself with Sofia, where the twin effect is pronounced. I can’t help but wonder what it all signifies, and when I ask, they tell me “I don’t know” or else that it doesn’t mean anything.
Clearly both, however, know the rules. They’re bright. They get excellent grades and are wary—extremely dialed in. And while they’d never outright call them rules, they recognize guidelines that govern their social habits. For starters, as mentioned, both girls’ Instagram accounts are set to private. This is true of the great majority of high school kids. (...)
Then there is the rule about likes and comments. According to Lara and Sofia, when your friend posts a selfie on Instagram, there’s a tacit social obligation to like it, and depending on how close you are, you may need to comment. The safest option, especially on a friend’s selfie, is the emoji with the heart eyes. Or a simple “so cute” or “so pretty.” It’s too much work to do anything else. If there’s any deviation, “you have to interpret the comment,” Sofia says. “If it’s nice, you’re like, is this really nice or are you …” “... I don’t know,” finishes Lara. Is the comment sincere? Or slyly sarcastic? Formulaic responses breed zero confusion. Instagram is not a place for tone or irony.
The girls do use Facebook, but it’s their most public-facing social account and their most impersonal, relegated to dance-related posts from school and extracurricular updates like participation in charitable events. With their friends, they’re most active on Instagram and Snapchat. They don’t bother with Twitter, WeChat, Yik Yak, or Kik.
On any platform, however, oversharing is considered taboo. Or else “awkward.” Awkward is a ubiquitous teen word to denote socially unsanctioned behavior. It usually implies first- or secondhand embarrassment when you or a friend step outside the rules. Awkward doesn’t sound overtly judgmental or negative; it’s deliberately vague.
One example of awkward plays on Instagram: the “deep like.” This is where you lurk on someone’s account, going way back into the archives, and accidentally double-tap on an old picture. Many of us can relate to the horror of the deep like, the inadvertent signal that betrays your lack of indifference when you’re hate-following an ex’s ex at 3 am or crushing on someone you only peripherally know.
But for girls like Lara and Sofia, it’s just as cringe-inducing when you do this to a friend. Showing too much interest in anyone is mortifying. It lacks chill. “Maybe it’s a friend you haven’t seen in a while, and you’re like, ‘OK, what have you been up to?’ And then you like it—and then you unlike it, and that makes it worse,” Sofia says. They’ll get the notification that you liked it, and if your name is missing from their list of likes, they’ll know you tried to undo the damage. When you have tools with which to stalk everyone all the time, the most seemingly aloof person wins. (...)
“I'm a young finesser,” says Ahmad, 18, a senior at Hill Regional Career High School, a predominantly black and Latino public school in New Haven, Connecticut, with just under 700 students. Ahmad’s got a mustache and a hint of scruff on his chin, and he needs a haircut, though he insists it’s part of his strategy to look extra-amazing for prom, which is in two days. He’s the class clown who runs with the popular kids, despite proudly not participating in any extracurriculars. Still, he says, he may have peaked early: “I was the shit in middle school. I dated every girl.” The last week of senior year is hectic, and he’s looking forward to being done. For Ahmad, social media is all about talking to girls. Right now he’s juggling six separate correspondences.
His M.O. when he’s crushing on someone is to like a few Instagram pictures and see if she likes anything back. Ahmad, who has 965 followers and 16 posts, scrupulously edits his feed just like Lara and Sofia do. “If I’m not touching 40 likes, I’m probably going to delete it,” he says. The window to reach 40 is about two hours. Sometimes he’ll delete a post, save it, and put it up at a better time. Dead zone for likes is 9 am to 3 pm (before school works, but rushed mornings make for dicey like counts). Ahmad primarily posts selfies (guys can get away with this more easily than girls), and he’s most inclined to post when he’s particularly pleased with his outfit: a prom photo, just him in a dark suit, ultramarine shirt with matching pocket square, and sunglasses is a perfect example. A Flashback Friday photo of him as a middle school kid goofing with a friend is a post that will be deleted by the following Monday.
When he puts up what he feels to be a particularly strong post, he’ll hit up his friends via group text to tell them to like it. The appropriate comment for male friends to leave? “No hearts, no kiss faces, no wink faces, just the gas tank.” The gas tank emoji means “gang”—it indicates fealty, like #squad. “Gang-gang, it’s like your group. Not like ‘a gang.’ It’s not that serious.”
But back to the ladies. After a few mutual photo likes, the flirtation often escalates to emoji. If an emoji with the heart eyes gets another one in return, he says, you’re good. Other positive responses: an ellipsis thought-bubble to convey that she’s thinking about you; the bashful see-no-evil monkey. “‘Oh, thank you! I appreciate it’ is what I get from that emoji,” he says. Any of these responses means he’ll take it to DM (as in direct message). Other emoji are suboptimal. “The thinky face is like, ‘What are you doing commenting on my pictures?’” He says this isn’t a hard no, but it’s not great. The worst emoji—easily—is one you may not expect. “The smiley face,” says Ahmad with a pained expression. “Yeah, that’s the ‘Thank you, but I’m not interested.’”
For teens, ghosting (where you completely disappear and stop communicating, with zero announcement or explanation) is common and not considered particularly impolite. Ask Ahmad how many girls he routinely ghosts on and he’s unequivocal: “Tons,” he says. “Just boop, delete. If I’m not interested anymore, our conversations will get dry, like ‘Hey, what you doing? Nothing. You? Nothing.’ Boom, end of conversation.” He says it’s usually a mutual, conscious uncoupling. Interest begets interest: “If you start losing juice, they’ll start losing juice.” (...)
For now Ahmad will have to keep most of his flirtations digital. And one method of conversation that ensures no one loses juice is to flirt by way of a Snapchat streak. (...)
On Snapchat there are “lenses,” which are a little like Instagram filters but way more elaborate. There’s a bug-eyed one where you barf rainbows. One makes you look like a golden cheetah; another surgically augments you to be just slightly prettier. If you harbor the suspicion that you’d look better with rhinoplasty or a chin implant, this filter will confirm it. But the feature that sets Snapchat apart is that 24 hours after you post it to your story, it disappears. This significantly lessens the pressure for everyone. For kids who are taught about digital footprints from grade school on and are regaled with cautionary tales of exemplary students who lost scholarships or college entrance because of party pictures posted to Facebook, Snapchat is easy fun. Silly, even. A quality that all other social media apps apparently lack. There’s no editing, and the backdrops for the most part are pedestrian. “I’ll just send a picture of a shoe,” says one teen I talked with. “They’ll send their ceiling back, just to keep the streak going.” The point is that everyone’s Snapchats all kind of suck.
For a streak, you send a friend a direct snap. It’s got to be a picture or a video; texts don’t count. They have to respond within 24 hours with their own picture or video. After two consecutive days you get a flame emoji by your friend’s username. Continue the volley of private messaging and the flame emoji shows a number denoting the length of the streak. If you’re about to lose the streak from inactivity, a sand timer appears to add pressure. Ahmad currently has three streaks going.
“Streaks are a big deal,” says Sofia, though the twins don’t use them for romantic pursuits. “For someone you’re really close with, you can have a 50-day streak,” she says. “But someone you’re friends with but don’t hang out with every weekend—maybe you know each other from past schools—it’s a 10-day streak.”
All the teens agree that people rarely bother with each other’s “stories.” It all goes down in the DMs, because that’s where streaks happen. The teens I talk to have anywhere from two to 12 streaks going at the same time. They all say it feels a bit like a chore but that it’s the perfect level of communication with someone you might not feel close enough to for texting. Most of the dispatches are unflattering images of close-up faces that require about as much effort as an emoji but feel infinitely less generic. If texts are for pressing logistics, snaps are to let someone know you’re thinking of them but perhaps not that hard. It’s OK to send the same snap to a few friends, but it’s considered rude to send someone a snap privately that you’ve put on your story. “That’s the worst,” they all agree.
by Mary H.K. Choi, Wired | Read more:
Image: Ian Allen/Wired
[ed. See also: David Hume’s Guide to Social Media - emancipation by the cultivation of taste (Hedgehog Review).]
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