The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

“You should do that for money.” LeSigh… Everything is a commodity. Good long read here. Sorry for the wall of text, but it’s complicated to break it down to a blur. Just go read it, lol!

“There must exist professions that are free from capture, but I’m hard pressed to find them. Even non-remote jobs, where work cannot pursue the worker home, are dogged by digital tracking: a farmer says Instagram Story views directly correlate to farm subscriptions, a server tells me her manager won’t give her the Saturday-night money shift until she has more followers. Even religious guidance can be quantified by view counts for online church services, Yelp for spirituality. One priest told the Guardian, “you have this thing about how many followers have you . . . it hits at your gut, at your heart.”

But we know all this. What we hardly talk about is how we’ve reorganized not just industrial activity but any activity to be capturable by computer, a radical expansion of what can be mined. Friendship is ground zero for the metrics of the inner world, the first unquantifiable shorn into data points: Friendster testimonials, the MySpace Top 8, friending. Likewise, the search for romance has been refigured by dating apps that sell paid-for rankings and paid access to “quality” matches. Or, if there’s an off-duty pursuit you love—giving tarot readings, polishing beach rocks—it’s a great compliment to say: “You should do that for money.” Join the passion economy, give the market final say on the value of your delights. Even engaging with art—say, encountering some uncanny reflection of yourself in a novel, or having a transformative epiphany from listening, on repeat, to the way that singer’s voice breaks over the bridge—can be spat out as a figure, on Goodreads or your Spotify year in review.

I tell you all this not because I think we should all be very concerned about artists, but because what happens to artists is happening to all of us. As data collection technology hollows out our inner worlds, all of us experience the working artist’s plight: our lot is to numericize and monetize the most private and personal parts of our experience. “

ASMP Calls Out Adobe for Its ‘Shocking Dismissal of Photography’

Yeah this is pretty awful of adobe. Plus, the AI functions are pretty garbage for anything above 2k.

“At the beginning of the month, PetaPixel reported that Adobe was running advertisements for its software on various social media platforms with the tagline “skip the photoshoot.”

The ASMP felt strongly about this statement — enough to write an open letter to the Silicon Valley software giant, calling them out for attacking the very creators it relies on.

“As one of the largest professional associations representing photographers and all visual creators, and as our 6,500 members well know, creating a career in photography is harder than ever, with the average photographer having to navigate stolen images, copyright infringement, broken business promises, and now, the specter of wholesale replacement of their art and craft by AI platforms,” ASMP Chair Gabriella Marks writes.

“But while fighting these battles on these multiple fronts, photographers would not have expected to have to defend themselves from attack by the company whose products are inseparable from the current and past toolbox of the professional photographer. Put simply, why, Adobe, would you dismiss and discount all that your most fervent and loyal customers aspire to?

“And this was an attack; an attack on the creativity of the photographer, on the skill and nuance they bring to the photoshoot, and the countless hours they spend preparing for, and working after the photoshoot you are so cavalier to simply throw away.”"

Rich Idiots Are Killing The Media To Please The Tech Industry

The Better Offline podcast is perhaps my favorite podcast so far this year and I listen to A LOT of podcasts, Here is a banger for you. The death of Vice and Sports Illustrated are pretty damn sad.

Practically speaking, this meant that outlets were forced by the idiotic executives to chase the dragon of social media and search traffic, and they'd optimize their content not for a person or a living being of any kind, but to please algorithms that they didn't control, run by companies like Meta and Google who didn't give a shit about them. As a result, it's been a fairly apocalyptic decade in journalism...

As private equity and venture capital money is flown into the media industry, so of the rotten demands for eternal growth.

…

Corey Hike is an example of the media world's failure to police itself. She is a career failure. This is now the second publication she's driven into the ground because she does not understand what she is doing, and that op ed I previously mentioned the twenty seventeen Vox one she claimed that we were in the early stages of a visual revolution in journalism. To be clear, Corey Hike is not a journalist. She's not an editor. She's not a creator. She's not a creative. She doesn't write things, she doesn't speak things, she doesn't take photos, and she doesn't draw things. She is a parasite. And these walking stains on the earth. They got rich. They got rich as hundreds of people lost their jobs.

Why Is Everything So Ugly?

Interesting read on Greige and the blandification of everything. Another interesting piece I read, that I will try to dig up, is about how any “authentic” space, like a coffee shop, wine bar or straight up bar bar, has all been smeared into the same styled spaces because of social media. Once on barista posts their new paint, every other barista on instagram does the same shit. I’ll look for it. Anyways, some takeaways from this piece.

“Our new neighbor is a classic 5-over-1: retail on the ground floor, topped with several stories of apartments one wouldn’t want to be able to afford.

...

Attempts have been made to classify structures like this one and the ethos behind their appearance: SimCityist, McCentury Modern, fast-casual architecture. We prefer cardboard modernism, in part because The Josh looks like it might turn to pulp at the first sign of a hundred-year flood.

...

In 2020, a study by London’s Science Museum Group’s Digital Lab used image processing to analyze photographs of consumer objects manufactured between 1800 and the present. They found that things have become less colorful over time, converging on a spectrum between steel and charcoal, as though consumers want their gadgets to resemble the raw materials of the industries that produce them. If The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit once offered a warning about conformity, he is now an inspiration, although the outfit has gotten an upgrade. Today he is The Man in the Gray Bonobos, or The Man in the Gray Buck Mason Crew Neck, or The Man in the Gray Mack Weldon Sweatpants — all delivered via gray Amazon van. The imagined color of life under communism, gray has revealed itself to be the actual hue of globalized capital. “The distinct national colors of the imperialist map of the world have merged and blended in the imperial global rainbow,” wrote Hardt and Negri. What color does a blended rainbow produce? Greige, evidently.”

The, "New Not Normals?"

The New Yorker asks, “The Terrible Twenties? The Assholocene? What to Call Our Chaotic Era?” It’s a damn good question. Some outtakes.

“Online life has befuddled more than enlightened us. The New Dark Age is “an age in which the value we have placed upon knowledge is destroyed by the abundance of that profitable commodity,”

…

“She traces the dawn of the Age of Unhingement to the election of Donald Trump, but sees its true expression in post-pandemic times, as we’ve been confronted with the realization that there are more horrors to come, and there is little sense of normalcy to return to.”

…

“The modern era, the long twentieth century, offered a kind of teleology of progress, a line on a chart going upward and to the right. Systems worked; certain logical frameworks—for markets, for politics, for labor—reasonably applied. “What if the gravitational center is just kind of lost?” Tooze asked. “There isn’t any longer that anchoring; we drift in a permanent state of being out of equilibrium.” Defining any kind of era implies that the era may at some point come to a close and make way for another coherent stretch of time. Tooze told me that he tries to resist that kind of “stability thinking.” Our current age is not dark; it may simply not be an age in the first place, because a linear, finite period of historical time may be an outmoded framework for our current reality—in which case, the scariest part would be that it doesn’t require a name at all. We just have to live through it”

On Marc Andreessen's "techno-optimist manifesto"

Why can't our tech billionaires learn anything new?

“Who is lying to us, Marc? You serve on the boards of trillion-dollar companies. A few of your peers own media companies. A few others have chosen to bankrupt media companies that write mean things about them. You have been celebrated for thirty years as the genius-inventors-of-the-future. If the public is turning against you, who ought to be held responsible for such a change in the public mood? “

“They promised that technology would solve our environmental problems. And there has, just recently, been some real progress in clean tech. But the trend lines are somewhere between bad and cataclysmic. We do not inhabit the future they insisted they were building. For Andreessen, in 2023, to declare that “there is no material problem – whether created by nature or by technology – that cannot be solved with more technology” is an act of willful self-deception. Just how long are we supposed to clap-and-wait while Andreessen’s investment portfolio tries to science the shit out of the climate crisis?

(That line in the manifesto also reads like an unintentional homage to Homer Simpson, btw. Marc Andreessen is worth something like $1.7 billion. He should hire an editor.):”

Really good read and well done reply to that manifesto.

‘Tear Gas Tuesday’ in Downtown Portland

A War Crimes Team Investigated the Portland Police. The Results Are Damning

The investigative findings released Monday by Forensic Architecture are stark:

  • On the night of June 2, 2020 — infamous to locals as “Tear Gas Tuesday” — Portland Police fired nearly 150 “tear gas” munitions across a tight area of downtown. 

  • The CS gas deployed resulted in protesters being exposed to concentrations far higher than those deemed “immediately dangerous to life and health” by a federal agency. In some instances, that safety threshold may have been exceeded by 2,200 times.

  • Clouds of chemical compounds spread half a mile, hanging in the air between downtown buildings for hours that night. With settling and runoff, more than four pounds of the caustic compounds polluted the nearby Willamette River, threatening wildlife.”

Yikes, entirely AI created fake Podcast appears

Yikes people, this is the stuff we are heading for faster than I believe we can deal with. A fully AI created Joe Rogan podcast. I am not a fan but this just goes to show how AI can start pumping this stuff out and flooding the internet with whatever someone wants to put out there. Get ready for a new reality.

The internet is headed for a 'point of no return,' claims professor

I remember the early internet and how it seemed to hold so much promise. Hell, I started this blog back in 1998 if you can believe that. If I were to go back in time and be some kinda hero in a “Terminator” movie plot. “No, we must destroy the internet for it becomes a power for evil!”. No one would have bought it.

“Can the internet, in fact, be fixed? "There may come a point when that's no longer possible, after which time the adverse consequences can no longer be controlled. The internet is headed for a point of no return, and Big Tech is probably already aware of this, too. Mark Zuckerberg has moved away from his social media platforms and launched Meta, as if nothing's wrong and we can just start over again, but it's clearly already broken."

...

"This price is a psychological one in the first place. Not only are a lot of young people suffering from a distorted self-image and anxiety disorders, there's also been an externalization of functions: certain critical functions of our brains are being outsourced. Our short-term memory is getting worse, and our attention is becoming increasingly fragmented and very specifically directed."

...

Repercussions are also to be expected here as control becomes increasingly more sophisticated. "In China, it's already the case that you can't board a train if you have a 'wrong' opinion. In the United States, you have to share all of your social media profiles if you want to apply for a visa. Things don't seem to be so bad in western Europe yet, but your online activity is so traceable and visible now that there's a real possibility that at a certain point people will no longer be able to travel or get a mortgage or insurance."

The Balenciaga controversy, explained - Glossy

This is pretty wild ride to read about. IMO, it’s all on Balenciaga. No way they did not approve or make mood boards, have someone, if not 5 people on set, and then have teams of people sign off on this before it went live. Suing the SET DESIGNER for $25 million? Give me a break. Balenciaga screwed the pooch here and need to just say, “Whoops, our bad. In trying to be edgy we pushed to far.” Otherwise, this is gonna just drag out in the new for a loooong time.

“One ad included a child model standing with a teddy bear that was wearing black leather and chains that many compared to BDSM apparel. The other, even stranger, included a pile of legal documents, one of which included the text of a Supreme Court decision related to child pornography.

On Friday, November 25, Balenciaga brought a $25 million lawsuit against North Six for being responsible for the spring ad featuring the Supreme Court documents, but not against the photographer, Chris Maggio. Balenciaga called the inclusion of the document in the ad “malevolent or, at the very least, extraordinarily reckless.”

A rep for North Six told the New York Post that the company had no creative control over the content of the ad. Chris Maggio has not made a statement. Gabriele Galimberti, who shot the teddy bear ad but had no involvement with the spring campaign, said in a statement on Instagram that he too was given no control over the creative content of his shoot, other than details like lighting and framing. The content — pairing child models with the teddy bear bag — had already been decided before he was hired, he said.

Essentially, Balenciaga, North Six and the photographers all point to each other as the ones who carry the blame.”

Twitter analytics staff decimated by layoffs and resignations -AdAge

The Twitter dumpster fire continues and is spreading pretty deeply into their advertising space. Pretty stupid move there…

“The Audience Insights unit, which was heavy with technical talent and looked at conversation volume and trends and worked with Twitter sales and marketing teams, lost 70% of its staff, the source said.

The Advertising Research group that worked with client teams for big advertisers such as Samsung, Verizon, AT&T and Google, doing custom studies and handling third-party measurement, also lost more than 70% of its people, this person said, leaving only two to handle prioritized work for a host of tech and telecom advertisers.

However, staff cuts could make it hard for brand advertisers that have paused spending to return to Twitter. And they also raise a question of whether Twitter can continue to provide brand safety controls for advertisers or get MRC accreditation for its processes, since almost every person on the team working on the audit is now gone, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Of course, the brand safety team at Twitter has one less thing to monitor these days. Sky News reports that Twitter has quietly dropped its policy against sharing Covid-19 misinformation. And the same advertisers that want brand lift studies and third-party audience measurement also tend to be the ones most concerned about brand safety.”

The first cubesat to fly and operate at the Moon has successfully arrived.

Being kind of a geeky person, kinda surprised I knew nothing of this project.

“After a journey of nearly five months, taking it far beyond the Moon and back, the little CAPSTONE spacecraft has successfully entered into lunar orbit.

"We received confirmation that CAPSTONE arrived in near-rectilinear halo orbit, and that is a huge, huge step for the agency," said NASA's chief of exploration systems development, Jim Free, on Sunday evening. "It just completed its first insertion burn a few minutes ago. And over the next few days they'll continue to refine its orbit, and be the first cubesat to fly and operate at the Moon."

This is an important orbit for NASA, and a special one, because it is really stable, requiring just a tiny amount of propellant to hold position. At its closest point to the Moon, this roughly week-long orbit passes within 3,000 km of the lunar surface, and at other points it is 70,000 km away. NASA plans to build a small space station, called the Lunar Gateway, here later this decade.”

…

But the one-sentence mind-bender is this IMO.

“NASA plans to build a small space station, called the Lunar Gateway, here later this decade.”

Like, what? Hold up here, WHAT?

When Cities Treated Cars as Dangerous Intruders

Cars were not always the rulers of the roads. Just imagine how it would be is the car was not so totally dominant here in the States.

“To many urban Americans in the 1920s, the car and its driver were tyrants that deprived others of their freedom.”

City people saw the car not just as a menace to life and limb, but also as an aggressor upon their time-honored rights to city streets. “The pedestrian,” explained a Brooklyn man, “as an American citizen, naturally resents any intrusion upon his prior constitutional rights.” Custom and the Anglo-American legal tradition confirmed pedestrians’ inalienable right to the street. In Chicago in 1926, as in most cities, “nothing” in the law “prohibits a pedestrian from using any part of the roadway of any street or highway, at any time or at any place as he may desire.” So noted the author of a traffic survey commissioned by the Chicago Association of Commerce. According to Connecticut’s first Motor Vehicle Commissioner, Robbins Stoeckel, the most restrictive interpretation of pedestrians’ rights was that “All travelers have equal rights on the highway.”

I might have posted this before, but it kinda touches on this from another view.

It’s the cars, stupid. Why we must restrict cars to save our cities

“When you next walk around your town or city, look around at the space we dedicate to cars. When you next press what has been nicknamed the ‘beg button’ to allow you the luxury of crossing from one side of the road to another, have a think about why those travelling alone in a metal cocoon belching out poisonous fumes have priority over you.”




All COVID, all the time blog....

Good podcast here on the current state of the pandemic. 25% down and some other good news.

“The coronavirus seems to be in retreat in the United States, with instances of hospitalization and death both falling.

Although some states, such as Alaska, Maine and New Hampshire, are still seeing high figures, the number of virus cases across the country is down about 25 percent compared with a couple of weeks ago.

So, what stage are we in with the pandemic? And how will developments such as a new antiviral treatment and the availability of booster shots affect things?”

Sedition. Full Stop.

“Trump has forfeited the public trust. For that reason, he cannot remain the commander in chief. He has shown himself to be mentally unstable, and for that reason he cannot remain in charge of an apocalyptically huge nuclear arsenal. He has demonstrated a clearly criminal approach to the Constitution, and for that reason he cannot be allowed to hold high office for the next two weeks in the run-up to the transition of power. He is, in short, a clear and present danger to the constitutional order, to the country, and to the world. Congress will fail in its duties if, after confirming Biden’s election win, it doesn’t continue on, in quick order, to forcibly remove Donald J. Trump, traitor, from the White House.”

“The top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer called for President Donald Trump’s removal Thursday a day after a mob spurred by the president overran the Capitol as lawmakers tallied President-elect Joe Biden’s presidential win.

“The quickest and most effective way - it can be done today - to remove this president from office would be for the Vice President to immediately invoke the 25th amendment,” he continued. “If the Vice President and the Cabinet refuse to stand up, Congress should reconvene to impeach the president.”"

“Members of the House Judiciary Committee have announced articles of impeachment for President Donald Trump, alleging he will “remain a threat to national security, democracy and the Constitution” if he is allowed to remain in office for two more weeks.

The announcement comes after Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the majority leader, said in a statement that the president should be “immediately” removed from office, either by the 25th amendment or articles of impeachment.

Reps. David Cicilline (D-RI), Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD) have authored the articles, according to two individuals familiar with the matter.

Cicilline and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) later tweeted the articles. “[S]o proud of everyone co-leading this effort with us,” Omar wrote. “We need to move quickly to remove this President from office.”

"And my god, if these insurrectionists were Muslim, they would have been sniped from the top of buildings," Scarborough continued. "So I wanna know from the Capitol Hill police, what is it? Is it just white people?

"Or is it Donald Trump supporters? Why do you scream at people walking across the street three blocks away from the Capitol?" he added, referring to when BLM protesters were hit with tear gas and rubber bullets to clear the way for President Donald Trump's infamous June photo-op in front of St. John's Church.

Scarborough then turned his rant up a notch with some profanity on-air.

"Why are you not as bad asses around the Capitol, but then Trump supporters come in, and you open the f---ing doors for 'em!" Scarborough said.

One of the show's panelists was heard muttering "Oh my god" when Scarborough dropped the F-bomb on live TV.

"You opened the doors for 'em!" Scarborough went on. "And let them breach the people's house. What is wrong with you?"