AfTea - Hurricane Debby Does Cocaine, and a Very Demure Niu York is Conquered
Afternoon Tea | 8.21.24 | TNaj
So many good things for you this week. RFK Jr. touched bear brain, TikTok shapes language, disinfo hits where you think it hits, and $1.6 million in cocaine washed ashore during Hurricane Debby. And if you heard about but couldn’t acquire the Olympic muffin, the entrepreneurial Gen Z who made it happened tells her story here.
RFK Jr. Put Hand in Dead Bear’s Mouth Filled with Brain (Business Insider) Every time I read a headline associated with RFK Jr., I smell toast. Am I the only one who can never predict the next word in reporting associated with this lunatic?
‘Very demure’ demonstrates TikTok’s ability to shape modern language (Mashable) Verbing weirds language.
Disinformation About US Elections Targets Communities of Color (Human Rights Watch) The next three months are going to be absolutely insane. An update of the Infotainment Firehose primer is incoming as well.
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More than $1.6 million worth of cocaine washed up on Florida beaches during Hurricane Debby (CNN) I have no comment other than, let’s get Cocaine Manatee made!
Public Ownership of Public Goods (Hamilton Nolan) This. A thousand times this. Nationalize Boeing. Nationalize Kroger. Fuck, it nationalize Ticketmaster and Live Nation. These companies get billions in subsidies and grift Americans by the thousand. Take them and re-make them with the express purpose of serving citizens, not generating profits.
A lot of developmental psychology isn’t worth doing (Paul Bloom) Incredibly important read for parents & those soon-to-be. So much of developmental psych is just comparing groups of kids on weird behavior spectra. The whole space needs a ton of work, here’s to a generation of researchers that push the discipline forward.
How I Use AI (Nicolas Carlini) A compelling retort to the mudslide of anti-AI pieces I’ve loaded your inbox with. This guy, a giant in tech in his own right, unpacks exactly how he uses AI to scaffold-teach himself adjacent skills, how he uses automation in his day to day, and the like. Much more useful for people who work with computers, but it’s important to always provide good arguments from the other side on topics like this.
Russia claims control over strategic Ukranian town of ‘Niu-York’ (NBC News) Welp, there it is folks, Russia has occupied Niu-York. I wonder if there will be more or less soldiers with long guns on the subway.
The crystal cube of agony (Garbage Day) The whole article and newsletter is great, but I wanted to include it for this reason specifically:
Disentangling what is “cool” from “what gets likes/hearts/shares” is critical if poetry, art, music, film, writing, comedy, and every single type of human expression is to keep moving forward. There’s a reason why Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t going to sweep the Oscars, but LOTR did. If you’re not sure about the difference between popular and cool, ask a Gen X on a message board. They’ll explain it in florid detail.
Ryan also delivered this, which oddly slaps:
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