I’m losing my job in 10 days. It’s an unpleasant (but not disastrous, in my case) side effect of living in a dynamic market society: sometimes you’re on the destroyed side of creative destruction.
I’ll be fine (although I would appreciate any referrals, lovely audience). I am in the right place and have the right skills, and I should be able to make the transition to the next thing and the next thing and the next. It feels a bit ridiculous to be constantly jumping and hustling, like some kind of 8-bit video game character. It’s not forever, but 40 or 50 years is quite a long time to keep Mario in the air and out of a bottomless pit.
But given the Hobson’s choice of endless jumping or endless falling, well… better jump and try not to think about what happens if you don’t stick the landing. Tertium non datur. If you’re lucky, the music will keep going longer than you do.
If you’re still dancing when it stops, the dislocation can be profound. Between 1890 and 1950, the skilled craftspeople of Gloversville, NY made 90% of the gloves sold in America. It was a good run for anyone who lived there before the industry died. Notwithstanding that one guy doing couture mittens for $450 a pop, they don’t make much there these days.
Anyway, forgive me if my holiday spirit is dampened, but I’ve been humming along with the Pedro the Lion song Penetration, which may be one of the best ever written about personal, professional, artistic, and moral failure:
We’re so sorry sir but you did not quite make the cut this time
And we’d appreciate it if you cleared you stuff on out by five
Don’t take it personal
Everyone knows you did your best
If it makes it easier
You should look at it from our perspective
The whole album, in fact, is excellent (see Genius.com for annotated lyrics). Released in 2002, it may be one of the last concept albums made before streaming services made albums as a concept almost entirely irrelevant.
Ominous warnings
China is developing a nationwide credit scoring system with truly Orwellian implications: it measures not only creditworthiness but also patriotism, quality of social interactions, shopping habits, and social media usage.
So the system not only investigates behaviour – it shapes it. It “nudges” citizens away from purchases and behaviours the government does not like.
…
A person’s own score will also be affected by what their online friends say and do, beyond their own contact with them. If someone they are connected to online posts a negative comment, their own score will also be dragged down.
Oh, and we’re dangerously close to an ill-considered war with North Korea. Just throwing that out there.
Epistles
Brad Delong writes a stark warning to the plutocrats:
To be blunt: a social democratic middle-class society is much better society in which to have a large stock of entrepreneurial, inherited, or rent-derived wealth than is a communist society. But it is also a much friendlier society to the wealthy than is a fascist society. And social democracy and fascism—hard or, if you are lucky, soft—are the only options the future will allow: tertium non datur.
Vincent Bevins writes a stark warning to the productive and industrious:
LinkedIn is a death cult. Becoming a guy that posts on Linkedin is essentially like joining a religious extremist group, but for first-world people that went to Stanford. You’re lost, you don’t know what to do with yourself, so you latch onto the dominant ideology, and throw your life into its service.
Jeet Heer writes a stark warning to Third Way Democrats noting that, well, tertium non datur:
Suburban ex-Republicans are worth pursuing, but not at the risk of diluting liberal policy commitments. While opposition to Trump is helping to swell Democratic ranks, the truth remains that excessive centrism will dishearten core voters. Watering down the party’s identity only ensures more defeats further down the road, when Trump won’t be around to scare up an ad hoc Democratic coalition.
Cultivating joy
This year in animal achievements.
One of these dogs is not like the others.
TFW you’re not sure if you missed your stop.
First contact.
… Wait, instead of ornaments?
Secretly Ironic 