Afternoon Tea 10.4.21 - Planet Squid Game

Pandora Papers, Post Office Profits, Punic Wars.

The Pandora Papers make the Panama Papers look like Peanuts, the Plurality of FB Products are down, Oath Keepers are NYPD, the Post Office pilots banking, we live on Planet Squid Game, and the Punic Wars have finally come to an end. It’s Monday, October 4th 2021, and this is your Tea. Your vibe comes from a master of guitar air tapping. We’d describe it, but that would take away from the majesty.

Offshore havens and hidden riches of world leaders and billionaires exposed in unprecedented leak (ICIJ) & Massive Leak Exposes the Hidden Fortunes of World’s Elite and Crooks (OCCRP) & ‘Most Americans Today Believe the Stock Market Is Rigged, and They’re Right’ (Businessweek) The Pandora Papers are the significant big brother of the Panama Papers. We expect a round of car bombings to greet the authors of this ground-breaking work, as the Panama Paper journalist experienced in Malta. This last story isn’t related per se, but astute readers will see the connection.

Hack Of Oath Keepers Militia Group Includes Names Of Active NYPD Officers, De Blasio Launches Investigation (Gothamist) Oh right, the Oath Keepers got hacked last week, and a bunch of cop names showed up on the list. Gotta love when active NYPD are also in insurrectionist militia groups, serving and protecting.

Whistleblower: Facebook is Misleading the Public on Progress Against Hate Speech, Violence, Misinformation (60 Minutes - CBS News) & Facebook group admins in small towns say misinformation is fracturing country communities (AU News) Facebook responded to a massive whistleblower, investigation, and calls for question answering from Congress by…being down for all of Monday. And we don’t just mean “the Blue” as ZuckBots call it. Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram Messenger, and the FB ad marketplaces were all still down at the time we went to print. Given that TikTok just notched 1billion active monthly users, this outage can’t have been on purpose, as it comes at the absolute worst possible time for them.

Wave of US labor unrest could see tens of thousands on strike within weeks (Guardian) & Can a union fix this? Minor leaguers say poverty-level pay, poor housing are driving a 'mental health crisis' (ESPN) If anyone asks “could a union solve this” if the question doesn’t involve police, the answer is yes. We find out of the IATSE authorized the strike soon. Hold on to your media watching butts.

USPS Begins Postal Banking Pilot Program (Prospect) Postal Banking! A thing that should have existed for the last 100 years. If these things existed for more than 4 minutes, the payday loan industry would be a fraction of its current size.

A ninja with a sword assailed a U.S. Army special operations unit in California (NPR) We looked for more info on this story, and it looks like the military is just as clueless as we are on it. You gotta wonder what this situation report read like after the fact.

The Internet of Grift (Ed Zitron) NFTs are a digital hot potato. Make money on them if you wish, but know that they are speculation, not investment.

Planet Squid Game (Vulture) Firstly, if you’re thinking of doing some brand-adjacent Squid Game memes, don’t. But more importantly, Netflix is quickly becoming a pipeline of international TV to a global audience. And we are all better for it.

An Inconvenient Truth About AI (IEEE Spectrum) Every 10 years, AI is about to destroy all of human calculations and computing. This write-up by by Rodney Brooks (Professor emeritus at MIT) reminds us why that is not the case this time around, with an unpacking of this fantastic reminder:

Just about every successful deployment of AI has either one of two expedients: It has a person somewhere in the loop, or the cost of failure, should the system blunder, is very low.

Rome and Carthage Sign Peace Treaty Ending Punic Wars After 2,131 Years (AP) The war is over! Carthage & Rome will be allies again one day! We have to hope this will result in a soil cleaning operation, paid for by Italy, to help restore the land that was salted all those years ago.

Spooky season is upon us. Let’s see what’s on the slab.

Poem of the Tea: Sometimes it is just about knowing your worth.

Vanish into the gray, dissolve into the mist.

Yours,