Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Apple’s Scorched-Earth IPhone Fight With Google
Over a few hundred years, inhabitants used the gigantic palm trees around them as rolling surfaces on which to haul stones; they then used more trees to lever the stones into place on platforms. Competing chieftains built larger statues on larger platforms. Eventually, the last tree was gone and the island was covered only in grasses and shrubs, leading to starvation and even cannibalism. Diamond explains that there was no signal crisis:
“Gradually trees became fewer, smaller, and less important. By the time the last fruit-bearing adult palm tree was cut, palms had long since ceased to be of economic significance. That left only smaller and smaller palm saplings to clear each year, along with other bushes and treelets. No one would have noticed the felling of the last small palm.”
The Easter Islanders’ incremental march toward disaster is an apt analogy for Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s decision to keep Google Maps off the newly released iPhone 5, the latest of a series of steps toward control by powerful actors over users’ online behavior. The question is whether the pattern is clear enough for regulatory authorities to take action. (...)
Users of the iPhone whose maps application was swapped out when they upgraded to Apple’s iOS 6 platform have had a glimpse of what the carriers’ power could entail: Just as Apple chose to remove its reliable maps app that used Google (GOOG)’s data when the two companies’ business relationship became complicated, the cable companies can make services such as Netflix subject to data caps while exempting their own online video offerings. Users may be irritated, of course, but there’s nothing they can do about it.
Anil Dash, the co-founder of the media and technology consulting firm Activate.com, said last week that the move against Google Maps was the first time Apple had put “boxing out competitors” ahead of serving the interests of iPhone users. Similarly, a vertically integrated, market-dominating carrier such as Comcast could now employ its usage caps (which wouldn’t necessarily apply to its own or affiliated services) to effectively squeeze out competitors providing information, entertainment or connections that Comcast didn’t want to support.
Virtual Diving with Google Maps
The Catlin Seaview Survey will allow internet users to share the discoveries of scientists who are using new technology to study the composition and health of the Great Barrier Reef.
Up to 50,000 high-definition panoramic images of the reef will be taken by the world's first tablet-operated underwater camera and geolocated. When the rapid-fire images are linked together, users will be able to choose a location along the reef, dip underwater and go for a viewer-controlled virtual dive using the street view feature of Google Maps.
Dives already completed at three islands on the Great Barrier Reef, as well as sites in Hawaii and the Philippines, will be available today, with more images virtual dive sites added as the scientists map 20 separate reefs along the 2,300km system to a depth of 100m.
by Jessica Aldred, The Guardian | Read more:
Photograph: Catlin Seaview Survey
Download, Print, Fire
[ed. Legal issues surrounding 3-D weapons printing technology.]
Last week, Wiki Weapon, a project to create the first fully printable plastic gun received the $20,000 in funding it needed to get off the ground. The project's goal is not to develop and sell a working gun, but rather to create an open-source schematic (or blueprint) that individuals could download and use to print their own weapons at home.
The technology that makes this possible is 3D printing, a process during which plastic resin is deposited layer by layer to create a three dimensional object. In the past few years 3D printers have become increasingly affordable, and just last week the first two retail stores selling 3D printers opened in the United States with models ranging from $600 to $2,199. (...)
According to Dave Kopel, the research director of the Independence Institute, it is legal to create pistols, revolvers and rifles at home, although some states are stricter than others. As long as an inventor isn't selling, sharing or trading the weapon, under federal law, a license isn't necessary. Homemade creations also don't need to be registered with the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and are legal for use by the individual who created the weapon.
But there are some exceptions to what can be printed legally. Military-grade weapons like machine guns, rocket launchers, sawed-off shotguns and explosives, as well as concealed firearms (like guns within phones or pens) need prior ATF approval before a manufacturer can create them. Federal law also requires "any other weapon, other than a pistol or revolver, from which a shot is discharged by an explosive if such weapon is capable of being concealed on the person" to be subject to ATF review. Since a potential Wiki Weapon would likely be "any other weapon", the ATF would probably have to approve a prototype, and the bureau has said as much.
Either way, if a fully functional plastic Wiki Weapon is printed, it may be illegal upon creation thanks to an obscure law from the late 1980s. In 1988, Congress passed the Undetectable Firearms Act after the Glock company provoked controversy by selling firearms made with plastic polymers. The technique, which was revolutionary at the time but is common in the industry today, alarmed many gun control advocates who were concerned that plastic guns wouldn't register in airport x-ray machines.
Gun rights advocates remember the uproar as hyperbolic because Glocks do contain metal, and x-ray machines don't even distinguish between metal and plastic. The legacy of the Glock controversy is a law that mandates that all US guns must contain at least 3.7 ounces of steel. However, the law is set to expire in December 2013. If Congress doesn't renew it, Wilson and company wouldn't have to worry about the legislation.
"I haven't felt any real heat yet, but I think it's very possible the project might happen outside of America or the files might be hosted outside of America," said Wilson who is cognizant of the statute. "The point of manufacture might also have to be outside of the United States."
Of course, even if a plastic gun is illegal, it would be incredibly easy to print if a schematic were available. Under US law there's nothing illegal about creating or sharing a schematic for a weapon unless that weapon is copyrighted or patented. Publications like the Anarchists Cookbook and nuclear bomb schematics are available online.
by Alexander Holz, The Guardian | Read more:
It's Time to Break Up the Euro
Today Bootle is betting his professional reputation on another bold contrarian call, one with long-term ramifications for the world economy and global stock markets: He strongly believes that at least a partial breakup of the eurozone is inevitable and that massive changes are coming for the euro, the currency now shared by 17 nations accounting for one-eighth of world GDP.
In July, Bootle and his team won the prestigious Wolfson Economics Prize for providing the best answer to the following question: "If member states leave the Economic and Monetary Union, what is the best way for the economic process to be managed?" In a 114-page report, "Leaving the Euro: A Practical Guide," Bootle delivered a blueprint for the steps a nation should take in exiting the common currency. He also went further, summoning a powerful argument for why an exodus of weak countries is the only solution for Europe's deep malaise.
Bootle is not shy about championing his highly unpopular view. "The euro is a depression-making machine," he tells Fortune. "The politicians keep throwing money to support the weaker nations' debt problem. They never talk about restoring growth. Far from a disaster, a breakup of the euro is the only way to bring back growth and get Europe out of this mess. It can't happen soon enough."
Policymakers continue to take a diametrically opposite approach. Almost without exception, Europe's political leaders and regulators strongly back the euro's survival and generally claim that a breakup would bring economic Armageddon. Optimism that the eurozone will hold rose on Sept. 6, when Mario Draghi, chief of the European Central Bank, announced a giant program for purchasing the sovereign debt of weak eurozone nations. Draghi further stated that "the euro is irreversible." Then, on Sept. 12, a German court approved the country's participation in the European Stability Mechanism, a rescue fund with a lending capacity of $645 billion. Over five trading sessions, the S&P 500 jumped 2.4% in a potent relief rally.
But the continued bailouts are just buying time. Even economists who dread a euro breakup admit that it will probably happen eventually unless Germany and other healthy nations provide far greater support to their weak neighbors. "Europe needs to create federal-style debt shared by all the eurozone members," says Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis. "If that doesn't happen, the eurozone will probably dissolve."
The bet here is that Bootle is right and that the euro will fracture in the next few years. The result will be extremely messy in the immediate aftermath, bringing severe hardship to the exiting countries -- a rash of bankruptcies, giant defaults on sovereign debt, and temporary panic in world stock markets. But the pain that a breakup compresses into a one-time shock will happen anyway if weak nations remain in the euro. It will simply stretch over a number of years and turn out far worse. As Bootle argues, Europe must choose growth, and a split in the euro will bring it back with surprising speed. Let's use his report as a guide for how a successful breakup could play out. (...)
Here's how the mechanics might work if, say, Spain decided to withdraw. The government would announce the decision on a Friday, shortly after the Prime Minister and cabinet reached the decision. It would state that by 12:01 a.m. Monday all wages, bank deposits, pensions, and prices would be reset in pesetas at a 1-to-1 ratio with the euro. Over the weekend, all ATMs and bank branches would be closed and no electronic transfers allowed, to prevent citizens from moving money to, say, Switzerland before the conversion. Bootle recommends that departing nations start printing notes and coins only after the announcement. In the interim all transactions would be via credit or prepaid cash cards. Euros would also be accepted for cash purposes for a fixed period. Starting on Monday morning, the euro would make its debut as a foreign currency. Its value would rise sharply against the new peseta. So a taxi fare priced at two pesetas might go for just one euro within days.
How about the debt issue? Bootle advises nations to re-denominate all sovereign bonds in local currency. The re-denomination really amounts to a default, since the foreign creditors would take big losses. Bootle advocates going further. He wants exiting nations to immediately cease all interest payments and demand a write-down bringing debt to a manageable 60% of GDP. Between the devaluation and the write-down, most creditors would lose 70% of the face value of the bonds. Bootle's argument is that their original value is a pure fiction anyway and a default of that magnitude is inevitable.
Hidden in a Nook, Mastery in Plain Sight
Tiny, hard-to-spot restaurants are a longstanding tradition in Japan, and Ichimura at Brushstroke is steeped in tradition. Mr. Ichimura, 58, practices the Edo-mae style of sushi that he learned decades ago in Tokyo. Developed in street stalls in the era before refrigeration, Edo-mae sushi was made with fish that had often been cured in salt or vinegar, or stored in soy sauce to keep it from spoiling.
Mr. Ichimura’s sushi is a direct descendant of this style, and while he has toned down his use of salt over the years, his fish still offers stronger flavors than are encountered in most New York sushi restaurants. Even the rice, seasoned with a blend of three vinegars, is unusually assertive; it may ruin other sushi for you.
In a phone interview translated by Jamie Graves, Brushstroke’s manager, Mr. Ichimura said he first went to work in a sushi restaurant 42 years ago as a dishwasher. Only after a few years was he permitted, under close supervision, to cut the heads off some fish.
“Nobody actually tells you how to press sushi,” Mr. Graves translated, “so he would do it at night based on watching the chefs do it during the day.” Mr. Ichimura kept a wad of paper in his pocket and when nobody was looking he would copy the motions he had seen: index finger laid over the paper, elbows flexed, he would extend his arms slightly to project a quick, even, gentle pressure. Eventually, still in secrecy, he began to practice after hours with actual fish instead of paper.
He learned the kobu-jime technique, layering fish with kelp, which pulls water from the flesh and leaves behind a umami flavor and a green color. One night, Mr. Ichimura served me fluke that had been prepared that way several days earlier, then carved off a slice of pure white fluke that had arrived just that morning. It was a concise refutation of those who say that sushi chefs don’t do any cooking.
That charge is especially untrue in Mr. Ichimura’s case. He makes the zensai and other cooked dishes that begin each meal. These may include salty fermented tuna, octopus suckers dabbed with wasabi and plum paste, or soy-marinated trout roe on top of tofu skins, so soft they barely hold together during the trip from bowl to mouth.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances... so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
Monday, September 24, 2012
A Modern Man
I'm a modern man. A man for the millenium. Digital and smoke free. A diversified multicultural postmodern deconstructionist, politically, anatomically, and ecologically incorrect. I've been uplinked and downloaded, I've been inputted and outsourced. I know the upside of downsizing I know the downside of upgrading. I'm a high tech lo-life. A cutting-edge, state-of-the-art, bi-coastal multitasker and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond. I'm new wave but I'm old school and my inner child is outward bound. I'm a hotwired, heatseaking, warmhearted cool customer, voice activated and biodegradable. I interface with my database and my database is in cyberspace, so I'm interactive, I'm hyperactive, and from time to time I'm radioactive. Behind the eight ball, ahead of the curve, riding the wave, dodging the bullet, and pushing the envelope. I'm on point, on task, on message, and off drugs. I got no need for coke and speed. I got no urge to binge and purge. I'm in the moment, on the edge, over the top, but under the radar. A high concept, low profile, medium range ballistic missionary. A streetwise smartbomb. A top-gun bottom feeder. I wear power ties; I tell power lies; I take power naps; I take victory laps. I'm a totally ongoing bigfoot, slamdunk rain maker with a pro-active outreach, a raging workaholic, a working rage-a-holic, out of rehab and in denial. I got a personal trainer, a personal shopper, a personal assistant, and a personal angenda. You can't shut me up, you can't dumb me down, cause I'm tireless and I'm wireless. I'm an alpha-male on beta-blockers. I'm a non-believer and an overacheiver, laid-back but fashion foward, up front, down home, low rent, high mantinence, supersize, long lasting, high definition, fast acting, oven ready, and built to last. I'm a hands on, footloose, knee-jerk headcase, prematurely postraumatic, and I have a love child who sends me hate mail. But I'm feeling; I'm caring; I'm healing; I'm sharing; a supportive, bonding, nurturing, primary caregiver. My output is down, but my income is up. I take a short position on the long bond and my revenue stream has its own cash flow. I read junk-mail; I eat junk food; I buy junk bonds; I watch trash sports. I'm gender specific, captial intensive, user friendly, and lactose intolerant. I like rough sex; I like tough love; I use the f-word in my email, and the software on my hard drive is hardcore; no soft porn. I bought a microwave at a minimall; I bought a minivan at a megastore. I eat fast food in the slow lane. I'm toll free, bite size, ready to wear, and I come in all sizes; a fully equipped, factory authorized, hospital tested, clinically proven, scientifically formulated medical miracle. I've been pre-washed, pre-cooked, pre-heated, pre-screened, pre-approved, pre-packaged, post-dated, freeze-dried, double wrapped, vacuum packed, and I have an unlimited broadband capacity. I'm a rude dude but I'm the real deal, lean and mean, cocked, locked, and ready to rock; rough, tough, and hard to bluff. I take it slow; I go with the flow; I ride with the tide; I got glide in my stride; driving and moving, sailing and spinning, jiving and grooving, wailing and winning. I don't snooze, so I don't lose. I keep the pedal to the metal and the rubber on the road. I party hardy and lunchtime is crunchtime. I'm hanging in, there ain't no doubt, and I'm hanging tough, over and out.
Sometimes Formica Beats White Tablecloths
The last time I ate in a four-star white-tablecloth restaurant, I was frustrated and unhappy. (Bear with me; I’m not asking for sympathy.)
This wasn’t an isolated incident: It simply isn’t what I want anymore. It’s become painful, not in the visiting-the-dentist sense, but in the “you have to go to synagogue; it’s Yom Kippur” sense, a long, drawn-out affair in which even the obviously beautiful and enjoyable parts — the $10,000-a-week flower arrangements, the custom glassware and china and sometimes even the carefully prepared if almost always overly subtle (to my taste) food — were overwhelmed by the sheer tedium.
These are temples of ceremony, with (normally absent) chefs as priests; they’re circuses without clowns or trapezes.
Start with the obligatory greeting. Even done well, it can feel white-tooth phony; done badly, you feel slighted. Move on to the choices of water. Really? We have to talk about that?
The drink order. The presentation of the menus and then the wine list. The visit of the wine guy, if you appear as if you’ll open your wallet even further. The discussion of the menu. The waiting to order. The opening of the wine, the flourish, the tasting, the nod, the waiting for the wine guy to leave.
The waiting for the amuse-bouches, which were originally meant to keep you happy while you were waiting for those first few things to happen and now usually happen long after you’ve already become grumpy because, after all, it’s a restaurant and you’re hungry. (Whatever happened to a few pieces of salami and some olives sitting on the table, or a couple of pickles, even?)
Three hours later, there is no sense of wonder or excitement or even an attack on your hunger; your appetite simply diminishes and then gives up. Nor is there a single conversation between you and your companion(s) that is left uninterrupted for more than five minutes. All this for $200.
There are, I think, better entertainments. If the food isn’t mind-blowing, what’s the point?
by Mark Bittman, NY Times | Read more:
This wasn’t an isolated incident: It simply isn’t what I want anymore. It’s become painful, not in the visiting-the-dentist sense, but in the “you have to go to synagogue; it’s Yom Kippur” sense, a long, drawn-out affair in which even the obviously beautiful and enjoyable parts — the $10,000-a-week flower arrangements, the custom glassware and china and sometimes even the carefully prepared if almost always overly subtle (to my taste) food — were overwhelmed by the sheer tedium.These are temples of ceremony, with (normally absent) chefs as priests; they’re circuses without clowns or trapezes.
Start with the obligatory greeting. Even done well, it can feel white-tooth phony; done badly, you feel slighted. Move on to the choices of water. Really? We have to talk about that?
The drink order. The presentation of the menus and then the wine list. The visit of the wine guy, if you appear as if you’ll open your wallet even further. The discussion of the menu. The waiting to order. The opening of the wine, the flourish, the tasting, the nod, the waiting for the wine guy to leave.
The waiting for the amuse-bouches, which were originally meant to keep you happy while you were waiting for those first few things to happen and now usually happen long after you’ve already become grumpy because, after all, it’s a restaurant and you’re hungry. (Whatever happened to a few pieces of salami and some olives sitting on the table, or a couple of pickles, even?)
Three hours later, there is no sense of wonder or excitement or even an attack on your hunger; your appetite simply diminishes and then gives up. Nor is there a single conversation between you and your companion(s) that is left uninterrupted for more than five minutes. All this for $200.
There are, I think, better entertainments. If the food isn’t mind-blowing, what’s the point?
Shame on me, I know, for failing to enjoy something so luxurious. But this isn’t the Grand Canyon; unless each time somehow surpasses the time before, it loses its luster.
by Mark Bittman, NY Times | Read more:
Illustration: James Yang
Dappled Things: Pinkhassov on Instagram
Digital photography and its mewling new children, Instagram among them, are causing arguments. There are studiedly old fogeys like Danny Lyon, who insist that a machine that doesn’t use film cannot be considered a camera. It’s no longer a common view: most photographers, professional or otherwise, either use digital or tacitly approve of it. Meanwhile, some serious photojournalists have reported wars and revolutions with the camera on a phone, and have won recognition for it.
The statistics beggar belief: 380 billion photos were taken in 2011, and about 10% of all the photographs currently in existence were taken in the past twelve months. Amateurs with Canon cameras and overpriced L-lenses have something to do with this; even more culpable is the incessant and overwhelming production of camera-phone images by huge numbers of people. (By the way, why is it called a “camera-phone” rather than the more logical “phone-camera”?)There are good reasons to be suspicious of this flood of images. What is the fate of art in the age of metastasized mechanical reproduction? These are cheap images; they are in fact less than cheap, for each image costs nothing. Post-processing is easy and rampant: beautiful light is added after the fact, depth of field is manipulated, nostalgia is drizzled on in unctuous tints of orange and green. The result is briefly beguiling to the senses but ultimately annoying to the soul, like fake breasts or MSG-rich food. I like Matt Pearce’s thoughtful polemic on this subject, published here on these pages: “Never before have we so rampantly exercised the ability to capture the way the world really looks and then so gorgeously disfigured it.”
But the problem with the new social photography isn’t merely about post-processing: after all, photographers have always manipulated their images in the darkroom. The filters that Hipstamatic and Instagram provide, the argument goes, are simply modern day alternatives to the dodging and burning that have always been integral to making photographs. This argument is in part true. But the rise of social photography means that we are now seeing images all the time, millions of them, billions, many of which are manipulated with the same easy algorithms, the same tiresome vignetting, the same dank green wash. So the problem is not that images are being altered—I remember the thrill I felt the first few times I saw Hipstamatic images, and I shot a few myself buoyed by that thrill—it’s that they’re all being altered in the same way: high contrasts, dewy focus, over-saturation, a skewing of the RGB curve in fairly predictable ways. Correspondingly, the range of subjects is also peculiarly narrow: pets, pretty girlfriends, sunsets, lunch. In other words, the photographic function, which should properly be the domain of the eye and the mind, is being outsourced to the camera and to an algorithm.
All bad photos are alike, but each good photograph is good in its own way. The bad photos have found their apotheosis on social media, where everybody is a photographer and where we have to suffer through each other’s “photography” the way our forebears endured terrible recitations of poetry after dinner. Behind this dispiriting stream of empty images is what Russians call poshlost: fake emotion, unearned nostalgia. According to Nabokov, poshlost “is not only the obviously trashy but mainly the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever, the falsely attractive.” He knows us too well.
by Teju Cole, The New Inquiry | Read more:
My Sister, The Candidate: The Politics Of Small-Town Campaigning
My family is intimately familiar with the intrigues of local politics. Two-and-a-half years ago, my father began publishing the weekly Washington County Observer in West Fork, Arkansas (population 2,500). The first-time editor and publisher conscripted family members into various positions—along with a few other innocents—with me as managing editor, my mom as proofreader, and my younger sister Lillian as public notices editor. From the start, the 1,000-circulation paper struggled financially, and it met its demise earlier this year, a fate roundly applauded by many city officials.
Now one of our family is stepping back into the spotlight: My sister Lillian is running for West Fork city clerk. It would have been journalistically irresponsible to not interview her about small-town campaigning, that mirror image of American politics, despite the obvious conflict of interest.
Jeff Winkler: So you’re running for West Fork city clerk?
Lillian Winkler: Yes. You have to get 30 signatures from West Fork registered voters that live in the city limits.
You know, I’m your brother and I’ve known you all your life, so I ask this as objectively as I can: As a 22-year-old, what exactly are your qualifications?
Well, I did work for two years at the local newspaper.
Yes, you did.
And I was able to learn about West Fork and how it works.
I also was the secretary in Future Farmers of America in high school. I completed real-estate school and worked in the juvenile drug court in Hot Springs. Now I work in the law school at the university [of Arkansas].
So what exactly does a city clerk do?
The City Clerk’s main job is to attend council meetings, take and transcribe the minutes, take notes and pretty much write a summary of the meetings. Also, some official documents require the signature of the mayor and the clerk.
From what I understand, the City Clerk position is currently vacant. The City Treasurer/Water Commission secretary, Kristie Drymon, had been serving in that position. But she quit after our dad filed some complaints of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) violations and she was one of those charged by the county prosecutor.
Yeah, there was an issue with her not being able to keep up with the FOIA information, so she resigned her spot. But they hired an outside person, Sarah Setzer, and she’s doing it now. Ms. Setzer actually asked me the other day if she could pay me to type up the minutes.
Pay you to type up the minutes?!
Yeah, because she has issues typing.
by Jeff Winkler, The Awl | Read more:
America the Anxious
“The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.” — Eric Hoffer
As soon as an American baby is born, its parents enter into an implicit contractual obligation to answer any question about their hopes for their tiny offspring’s future with the words: “I don’t care, as long as he’s happy” (the mental suffix “at Harvard” must remain unspoken).
Happiness in America has become the overachiever’s ultimate trophy. A vicious trump card, it outranks professional achievement and social success, family, friendship and even love. Its invocation can deftly minimize others’ achievements (“Well, I suppose she has the perfect job and a gorgeous husband, but is she really happy?”) and take the shine off our own.
This obsessive, driven, relentless pursuit is a characteristically American struggle — the exhausting daily application of the Declaration of Independence. But at the same time this elusive MacGuffin is creating a nation of nervous wrecks. Despite being the richest nation on earth, the United States is, according to the World Health Organization, by a wide margin, also the most anxious, with nearly a third of Americans likely to suffer from an anxiety problem in their lifetime. America’s precocious levels of anxiety are not just happening in spite of the great national happiness rat race, but also perhaps, because of it.
As a Brit living in the United States, I am acutely aware of the cultural difference between attitudes to happiness here and at “home.” Thomas Jefferson knew what he was doing when he wrote that “pursuit of happiness” line, a perfectly delivered slap in the face to his joy-shunning oppressors across the pond. The British are generally uncomfortable around the subject, and as a rule, don’t subscribe to the happy-ever-after. It’s not that we don’t want to be happy, it just seems somehow embarrassing to discuss it, and demeaning to chase it, like calling someone moments after a first date to ask them if they like you. (...)
There is something joyless about the whole shindig. I live in California, where the Great American Search for Happiness has its headquarters. The notice board of the cafe where I write offers a revolving loop of different paths to bliss: Maum Meditation, TransDance, Chod Training and, most oddly, the drinking of wolf colostrum. Customers jot down the phone numbers earnestly, although statistically they’d be better off joining the Republican Party.
The people taking part in “happiness pursuits,” as a rule, don’t seem very happy. At the one and only yoga class I attended, shortly after arriving in the United States, the tension and misery in the room were palpable. Which makes sense, because a person who was already feeling happy would be unlikely to waste the sensation in a sweaty room at the Y.M.C.A., voluntarily contorting into uncomfortable positions. The happy person would be more likely to be off doing something fun, like sitting in the park drinking.
As soon as an American baby is born, its parents enter into an implicit contractual obligation to answer any question about their hopes for their tiny offspring’s future with the words: “I don’t care, as long as he’s happy” (the mental suffix “at Harvard” must remain unspoken).Happiness in America has become the overachiever’s ultimate trophy. A vicious trump card, it outranks professional achievement and social success, family, friendship and even love. Its invocation can deftly minimize others’ achievements (“Well, I suppose she has the perfect job and a gorgeous husband, but is she really happy?”) and take the shine off our own.
This obsessive, driven, relentless pursuit is a characteristically American struggle — the exhausting daily application of the Declaration of Independence. But at the same time this elusive MacGuffin is creating a nation of nervous wrecks. Despite being the richest nation on earth, the United States is, according to the World Health Organization, by a wide margin, also the most anxious, with nearly a third of Americans likely to suffer from an anxiety problem in their lifetime. America’s precocious levels of anxiety are not just happening in spite of the great national happiness rat race, but also perhaps, because of it.
As a Brit living in the United States, I am acutely aware of the cultural difference between attitudes to happiness here and at “home.” Thomas Jefferson knew what he was doing when he wrote that “pursuit of happiness” line, a perfectly delivered slap in the face to his joy-shunning oppressors across the pond. The British are generally uncomfortable around the subject, and as a rule, don’t subscribe to the happy-ever-after. It’s not that we don’t want to be happy, it just seems somehow embarrassing to discuss it, and demeaning to chase it, like calling someone moments after a first date to ask them if they like you. (...)
There is something joyless about the whole shindig. I live in California, where the Great American Search for Happiness has its headquarters. The notice board of the cafe where I write offers a revolving loop of different paths to bliss: Maum Meditation, TransDance, Chod Training and, most oddly, the drinking of wolf colostrum. Customers jot down the phone numbers earnestly, although statistically they’d be better off joining the Republican Party.
The people taking part in “happiness pursuits,” as a rule, don’t seem very happy. At the one and only yoga class I attended, shortly after arriving in the United States, the tension and misery in the room were palpable. Which makes sense, because a person who was already feeling happy would be unlikely to waste the sensation in a sweaty room at the Y.M.C.A., voluntarily contorting into uncomfortable positions. The happy person would be more likely to be off doing something fun, like sitting in the park drinking.
by Ruth Whippman, NY Times | Read more:
Illustration: Jim Stoten
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