Five Things: Surveillance, Colbert, Fire!, Resistance, Reels
It's Sunday. Read this now.
Hello and welcome back to Five Things!
This Thursday marked the end of our son’s school career and as we went to his prom with him, I had to think back about the time when I finished school some 33 years ago. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but I had one year of army service to think about it. Some of my son’s friends know exactly what they want to do, others have a concept of a plan. I didn’t even have that and then decided to study history and political science, not knowing what I would do with that later on in my life. Spoiler: not much. My son doesn’t know yet what he wants to do and while I have lots of sympathy for that, the father in me wants him to know exactly what he wants real soon now. It will be interesting to see how he will develop a sense of what he could be interested in for a longer period in his life. I am so proud of my son for all he achieved during his time in school!
One of my professors said in one of the first lectures I attended: “when you feel a fire burning inside, that’s what you have to do. If you don’t feel the fire, you won’t be any good at it.” - I tried to stick to that advice. I also try not to pester my son with too much fatherly advice. Let’s see how well this will work out…
Have a great Sunday and read these Five Things now!
The Astronomer CEO's Coldplay Concert Fiasco Is Emblematic of Our Social Media Surveillance Dystopia
This example is emblematic of the problem specifically because it’s easy to laugh at these people and because they’re doing something distasteful, but not illegal. The same technologies used to dox and research this CEO are routinely deployed against the partners of random people who have had messy breakups, attractive security guards, people who look “suspicious” and are caught on Ring cameras by people on Nextdoor, people who dance funny in public, and so on. There has been endless debate about the ethics of doxing cops and ICE agents and Nazis, and there are many times where it makes sense to research people doing harm on behalf of the state or who are doing violent, scary things in to innocent people. It is another to deploy these technologies against random people you saw on an airplane or who had a messy breakup with an influencer. And of course, these same technologies are regularly deployed by police and the feds against undocumented immigrants, regular people, and people wanting to visit the United States on tourist visas.
Actually, I find it surprising that this is not happening more often. And no, I don’t think this is a good development, but this is what happens when there are cameras everywhere and access to advanced image-recognition technology is widespread.
Is Colbert’s Ouster Really Just a ‘Financial Decision’?
Yet CBS’s current ownership seems determined to demolish this legacy. This evening, the network announced plans to end The Late Show With Stephen Colbert when the host’s contract ends next May. Late-night personalities come and go, but usually that happens when their ratings sag. Colbert, however, has consistently led competitors in his time slot. CBS said this was “purely a financial decision,” made as traditional linear television fades.
Perhaps this is true, but the network that once made Cronkite the most trusted man in America no longer gets the benefit of the doubt. CBS’s owners have made a series of decisions capitulating to President Donald Trump, and the surprise choice to allow Colbert—a consistent, prominent Trump critic—to walk seems like part of that pattern.
This is not a smart move by CBS, even though I think the influence of late night tv hosts is not as big as it used to be.
Please Shout Fire. This Theater Is Burning.
This country is a political system, a government, a system of laws that are being broken and corrupted and degraded daily. It's an economy that's maybe heading toward a crash. It is also its people, and more and more of us are enduring one or another or several varieties of direct harm or facing the looming threat of it. This country is also its land and nature, and they too are under attack, from the national parks and forests to environmental regulations and climate programs.
Democracy is under threat, not just in the United States. This is not normal and we have to defend our liberal Western societies.
Inside the Grassroots Fight Against Trump’s Deportation Machine
IT CAN BE TRICKY TO MEASURE THE efficacy of these immigrant-defense operations. There aren’t statistics tallying detentions and deportations that don’t happen, or any real way to count the number of immigrants who feel safe enough to go to work, the supermarket, or their child’s parent-teacher conference because of these programs. But certainly the messages these organizations have repeated over the past six months — about constitutional rights, about community defense — have resonated widely.
It’s good to see that people fight back, but they need more support from other parts of the country as well.
Little videos are cooking our brains
Researchers studying this phenomenon argue that this amounts to a dark pattern, a design that manipulates you to make certain choices. You’ve encountered dark patterns on websites that trick you into signing up for a newsletter or an ad you can’t click out of. Torrents of short-form videos like you see on TikTok are especially pernicious because the feeds are designed to keep you fully engaged and foraging for good content.
I try to only watch reels when I’m in the bathroom, and it is also mostly cooking content from around the world.
That’s it. Have a great Sunday! If you missed last Sunday’s edition of Five Things, have a look here:
— Nico
We were at a community festival yesterday with Bridget's kids, who were enthralled with a demonstration by a troupe of Latin dancers. I found myself thinking what would I do if ICE came swooping in and was then just so fucking pissed I even had that thought. Love you.