Twitteretter

I’m giving away my age, at least with some of these dichotomies, but I’m interested in what these choices say about me. I am, or have been, at least, I confess, more on the first camp than the second. In these historical duels, I tended to align with the group representing hard work, dedication and determination over talent and panache . Only lately, as I mature, I’ve understood that the apparent ease in the performance of the second group is of course the result of work as hard as that of the former, and my preferences have in some cases changed, in others, disappeared altogether, making both equal in my estimation. Top performance, however effortless it looks, is always the result of excruciatingly meticulous preparation. But, if you are interviewing and looking for those who believe hard work to be the key to their and your business’ success, the choices in the title may hold the key to finding them and separating them from those who think talent may just come to them, without effor...

Monopoly. When you are a child, this is a board game, in which you greedily strive to become a property tycoon, accumulate land and build houses and hotels on it, to crash your opponents by taking all their money, ultimately winning the game. When nobody secures dominance, the game goes on forever, as monies you take when others land on your property, you return when you land on theirs, so nobody’s wealth runs out. This is a very apt analogy for how monopolies work. Once you establish one, as Peter Thiel, the mega successful Silicon Valley investor tells us, you guarantee maximum profits by negating the possibility of competition. One winner and every one else losing is fun in a board game but, when the game is real life and the board is society, this is a problem, from many perspectives. We are seeing this with the tech giants today, Google, Amazon and Facebook, behemoths which own their markets, increasing inequality and stifling entrepreneurship. Time to change the rules of the game...

I read an interesting article about the warnings preceding series and films prior to broadcasting or streaming to our screen. Bridgerton, yet another costume drama, available in Netflix, warns viewers that it contains scenes of sex, nudity and sexual violence. This post is not about the value of having yet another inconsequential costume drama on our screen, nor about formulaic writing and filming, although both of these would be interesting themes for later. What this post is about is wondering what may be wrong with a society where nudity, which has nothing wrong with it, can make it into the same warning as sexual violence, both accompanied by sex which should be a more positive than negative experience when practised consensually. It seems that, to some people, a female breast and a rape are equally upsetting, or at least, Netflix thinks so. This is nonsensical, and I think it is high time we tackle real societal problems (sexual exploitation) and leave alone invented ones (nudity)...

I just read on the financial papers that the inflation resulting from economic stimulus post pandemic is good for stocks, which was presented as a positive. This may well be the case but, even if some individuals, with significant stock investments, may regard it as positive, society certainly cannot. Inflation reduces the acquisitive power of all families, many of which are already just managing, to quote Theresa May. Growth in stocks value would be a positive only for a few, for those whose stocks yields represent a larger proportion of their income than the proceeds of their work and that, sadly, is not the case for most. Thus, this inflation, welcomed with the words Good News by the relevant paper, will be another of the many mechanisms by which the pandemic would have increased inequality. And this is the key challenge of capitalism. Unabated and without restraints, that is just what it does. Most events, framed in it, increase inequality, accumulation being intrinsic to its natur...

I’ve started paying attention to the Screen Time functionality on my smart phone. In case you don’t know, this feature tells you how much you are using it, and what doing. It is enlightening and I highly recommend you start reviewing it to understand your own usage. For me, currently 2h31m per day, 225 notifications and 122 pickups. Disappointingly for the tech industry, I don’t use social media very much. 12m on Twitter, under a minute on Facebook, Instagram and any others. A lot of my time is spent reading news. The one weakness is WhatsApp, responsible for nearly 4 hours and 350 pickups per week, most of which, I guess, a complete waste of time. Time, you see, is becoming for many of us, at least for those lucky enough to be doing well financially, our most scarce resource. Our smart devices are aggressively focused on stealing it, outsmarting us, not a hard thing to do as we are not aware and conscious a lot of the time. I’m going to war against my pickups. You should do the same L...

I am watching Jeff Orlowski’s brilliant documentary about how the tech industry is using behavioural psychology and a deep understanding of our biochemistry to develop an addiction to their tools in our young people, driven by their aim to grow advertising revenue and improve behaviour predicting models and akin to pushing drugs at the school gate. I highly recommend it. An all out assault on the mental stability of our young is taking place in the face of indifference from our governments, and it can’t be permitted. It may seem difficult to solve, but it isn’t, if the political will is there. Solutions could be articulated around making the industry responsible for the welfare of their underage users. For example, a significant fine, shared between social media companies, every time someone under 20’s screen time on social media exceeds 1 and a half hours per day would soon put pay to this antisocial corporate behaviour. One thing is clear. This is a problem we must solve. And quickly...

I am resorting to Kafka far too much lately, as I did on Twitteretter 346 a few days ago. And here we go again. Let me tell the story. My Spanish company bought new premises five years ago, refurbished them for our activity and applied for an opening license from the local council. Five years later, in which, by the letter of the law, we should have refrained from using our premises, we got the inspection needed to issue the license. And, lo and behold, we failed it, as our disabled toilet was missing a handlebar. Fair enough. We were served notice to fix this within ten days, which we did, providing photographic evidence of our new, shiny handlebar, but failed again, as, from the photo, the council has deduced the bar won’t support the legally required weight, even though it does. We are now searching for an extremely heavy person to photograph standing on it, so we get our license, although that stunt may land us in trouble with Health and Safety. Good job we have nothing else to do ...