Big Tech Has A Big Problem
September 12, 2019
“We must not fixate on what this new arsenal of digital technologies allows us to do without first inquiring what is worth doing.”
“If the only hammer you are given is the Internet, it’s not surprising that every possible social and political problem is presented as an online nail.”
– Evgeny Morozov
There Will Be Cash: Liquid Gold’s Golden Returns
Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang has made the idea of a universal basic income (UBI) the centerpiece of his campaign. There are good reasons for having a UBI, chief among them either pulling people out of poverty, or preventing a slide into it. But one pretty consequential downside to guaranteeing people money can be contemplated by considering the trap Alaska’s in with its Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD).
The PFD was devised as a way to ensure Alaska’s nonrenewable resources provide a perpetual return to the people of The Last Frontier. 25 percent of annual mineral royalties generated from mines, oil and gas reserves is deposited into a permanent fund; the money is invested and every September the interest earnings are equally distributed to residents.
For decades that $1,000 to $2,000 annual check was a lifeline for many rural Alaskans, and the program was an unassailable success. But in 2015 oil prices dropped precipitously and devastated the state’s budget. To keep funding state services, then governor Bill Walker had to cut dividend checks in half. People were not pleased.
Republican state senator Mike Dunleavy saw this as an opportunity. In 2018 he ran for governor on a platform of giving every resident $6,700 — to make up for the previous cuts — and he won by a landslide. But when it was impossible to keep that promise and still balance the state budget, the Republican-led legislature slashed funding for health care, education, infrastructure and other vital public services. People got just $1,600 of the promised $6,700. Alaska’s experience shows how vulnerable political outcomes are to candidates willing to make unkeepable promises.
- Exploring a Timeless Wilderness, Before the Drilling Begins: On a river trip in Alaska’s starkly beautiful Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, reflections on what we’re willing to gamble for oil and money. (NYT, $)
- How Canadians Raised Millions to Save 2,000 Pristine Acres: Thousands of people came up with $2.3 million to buy the land in British Columbia and protect it from loggers. (NYT, $)
Turkey’s Big Plan: Return To Sender
- Turkey has taken in hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in the last eight years. But a deepening recession, soaring unemployment, rampant inflation and a humiliating loss for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party in a recent election has enflamed anti-Syrian feeling among Turks.
- Authorities are cracking down on Syrians working illegally or without residence papers, fining employers and forcing factories and workshops to close. Anti-Syrian messaging is flooding state and social media, and landlords are raising their rents.
- Erdogan, who has long demanded a buffer zone along Turkey’s border with Syria to keep out Kurdish forces, now wants to resettle a million refugees in a swath of Syrian territory along the border, and if that plan doesn’t work, he threatens to send them to Europe. (NYT)
Militarized Facebook Posts: The Reverse Arab Spring
- Pro-democracy activists helped oust Sudan’s president last April, but two months later their continued demands for democracy resulted in a massacre by Sudanese soldiers in Khartoum.
- Shortly thereafter a second front was launched on social media by an obscure digital marketing company in Egypt, run by a former military officer and self-described expert on “internet warfare.”
- Employees were paid $180 a month to write pro-military messages using fake accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Telegram. Covert influence campaigns complementing strongarm tactics are a favored tool of leaders in countries like Russia and China.
- In the Middle East those campaigns are being coordinated across borders to bolster authoritarian rule and stamp out the kind of popular protests that gave rise to the Arab Spring in 2011. (NYT)
Big Tech Has A Big Problem Coming
- Antitrust investigations of tech giants are being opened in 48 states. Last Friday New York’s Democratic attorney general released a press statement saying that a bi-partisan group would investigate Facebook.
- On Monday, state officials declared from the steps of the Supreme Court building that Texas will take the lead in investigating Google. Federal watchdog agencies and Congress have been increasingly scrutinizing the market power and corporate behavior of huge tech companies; having states involved will add investigative muscle and political momentum. (NYT)
- The great breakup of big tech is finally beginning: Google and Facebook are the subject of large antitrust investigations. This is good news for our democracy and a free press (Guardian)
- How Each Big Tech Company May Be Targeted by Regulators (NYT, $)
- How Apple’s Apps Topped Rivals in the App Store It Controls (NYT, $)
Additional World News
- Underpopulated Italian region offers visitors €25,000 to move in: Molise president finds novel way to breathe life into area as resident numbers dwindle (Guardian)
- Outcry as Bolsonaro’s son questions value of democracy in Brazil (Guardian)
- Hong Kong makes $37 billion bid for the London Stock Exchange (CNN)
- Australia’s Shame (NY Review of Books)
- The CIA’s Secret Quest For Mind Control: Torture, LSD And A ‘Poisoner In Chief’ (NPR)
Left A Good Job In The City
- After the Great Recession last decade it was thought an urban renaissance was sweeping America’s large metropolitan areas. New York City, Chicago and LA were all experiencing a mini-population boom.
- But in 2018, NYC lost more than 100,000 people to other cities and suburbs. That’s 277 people leaving every day.
- Also each day 201 people exited LA, and 161 residents saw Chicago in their rear-view mirrors. What’s going on and where is everybody going?
- Turns out all those high-income firms and highly educated people who moved in and revitalized many downtown areas made it too expensive for non-rich couples to stay and raise their families. That forced new parents to move to the metro’s fringes or leave entirely.
- Immigration and birth rates were also falling. So lots of people headed places that were more affordable, and sunnier. The major Texas metros — Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin — have collectively grown by more than 3 million since 2010. The most popular destinations for movers now are Phoenix, Dallas and Las Vegas, which each see more than 100,000 new people every year. (Atlantic)
Mend The Gap
- According to a report released this month by the global consultancy firm McKinsey & Company, failure to begin closing the longstanding black-white racial wealth gap will cost the US economy as much as $1 trillion between now and 2028.
- The report identifies four components that perpetuate this gap — family wealth, family income, family savings, and community context (a community’s collective public and private assets). Black families have not been able to build wealth due to “unmet needs and obstacles” across these four dimensions. Closing the racial wealth gap could increase America’s GDP 4 to 6 percent by 2028. (CityLab)
Additional USA News
- ‘Someone’s Gotta Tell the Freakin’ Truth’: Jerry Falwell’s Aides Break Their Silence: More than two dozen current and former Liberty University officials describe a culture of fear and self-dealing at the largest Christian college in the world. (Politico)
- Amazon Has 30,000 Open Jobs. Yes, You Read That Right. (NYT, $) and Amazon Employees Will Walk Out Over the Company’s Climate Change Inaction: The planned event will mark the first time in Amazon’s 25-year history that workers at the company’s Seattle headquarters have participated in a strike. (Wired, $)
- A shocking CNN scoop confirms: Officials are defending our country from Trump (WaPo, $)
- The Heir: Ivanka was always Trump’s favorite. But Don Jr. is emerging as his natural successor. (The Atlantic, $)
- Bernie Sanders Went to Canada, and a Dream of ‘Medicare for All’ Flourished: The Vermont senator has staked his presidential campaign, and much of his political legacy, on transforming health care in America. His mother’s illness, and a trip he made to study the Canadian system, help explain why. (NYT, $) And ‘UVA has ruined us’: Health system sues thousands of patients, seizing paychecks and putting liens on homes (WaPo, $)
This Little Piggy Painted A Cloud
- Tamar Makin, a neuroscientist at University College London, led a study of two members of the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists collective, both of whom were affected in the womb by the drug Thalidomide, and were born without arms.
- Makin and her team performed brain scans on the men and found that their brains, unlike those of typically-abled persons, distinctly map sensory input from their toes.
- “These guys have spent their lives gaining expertise with using their feet,” Makin said. “If they can change the way the brain is organized then that would mean that we have the opportunity to change that in others.” (NYT)
- My Left Foot (fan made) Trailer and “Christy Brown (5 June 1932 – 7 September 1981) was an Irish writer and painter who had cerebral palsy and was able to write or type only with the toes of one foot.” (Wikipedia)