Attempts to Explain #3
Trying to Learn Again
You love it, we love it, it’s the Feynman Technique at work, #3. For those of you new to this whole thing, here’s what we’re doing:
Identify a subject you want to learn about
Attempt to explain it to someone who has no prior knowledge
Identify the gaps in your knowledge — the bits you struggle to explain
Research further, refine your explanation
For things that we’re constantly referencing and rate our explanations of, here’s the <$ Anti-Library. For literally everything else, subscribe for a premium experience.
We can’t boost our way to zero infections anytime soon
As the data comes in, policies and press releases are (frustratingly) revised. Here’s what we understand:
There’s a lot of confusion about booster shots right now. President Biden initially said all American adults would become eligible to get them starting the week of September 20. But on Friday, a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recommended against that, saying boosters should be limited to Americans over age 65 and those at higher risk of Covid-19 illness.
The idea with vaccination is to protect those most at-risk, so that we don’t overrun our healthcare system. Not to prevent infection entirely. This is why the recommendation for those over 65 makes the most sense: it both protects those who are most at-risk (vast majority of breakthrough cases are over 65 with co-morbidities) and gets us out of a booster doomloop, whereby vaccine mandates are set to a constantly moving goal, which would be a regulatory and economic groundhog day-inspired nightmare.
Also, J&J have announced that a booster shot of its single-dose Covid-19 vaccine is 94% effective in preventing moderate to severe symptomatic disease in America when administered two months after the initial dose. So, that’s nice.
Roe v Wade in Texas
A doctor in Texas provoked a first pair of lawsuits by breaking the state’s new abortion law. The law invited civil suits against any person who has “aided or abetted” an abortion, offering a $10,000 bounty. Both plaintiffs are from out-of-state and said they oppose the law and want it tested in court, which has got pro-life activists all in a tizzy which, tbh, they should have been prepared for. Because, you know, this law is so ridiculous that of course this was going to happen.
1/5 of Africa’s Children are Working.
87m, the number of working children in Africa. It is more than a fifth of the continent’s children. What’s not documented is the effect the pandemic has had on this this number - schools closing and narrowing supply chains are both likely to have increased this too. If you want to help, we’re about to push our latest work with World Vision here.
Facebook’s Big Tobacco Moment
Facebook continues to just totally fucking suck. Potentially the biggest problem? They totally know it.
Recently the Wall Street Journal launched a bombshell investigative journalism series called The Facebook Files. So far there have been 5 articles and 4 podcast episodes on a wide-range of topics from teen mental health, to algorithm-driven outrage, to human-trafficking, to vaccine misinformation.
SOME OF THE (MANY) REVELATIONS:
32% of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) made them feel worse
13% of British and 6% of American teens who reported suicidal thoughts traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram
5.8 million VIPs are protected or excluded from having their policy-violating content removed through a system called "XCheck"
Only 13% of moderator time taken to label or remove false or misleading information is spent on content from outside the US, yet 90% of users live outside the US and Canada
One political party's team shifted their content from 50% negative to 80% negative because 2018 algorithm changes rewarded outrage
Why this matters is that key revelation in the Big Tobacco reckoning was when it was proved that the CEOs of the world’s biggest tobacco conglomerates actually knew that their product was harmful, but were publicly saying and acting otherwise. This swayed public opinion enough for the US congress to pass some laws that Americans (in particular) would likely otherwise have found to be an impingement on their freedoms. It’s thought that maybe this will move the threshold for what the public finds acceptable/desirable again, and allow congress to step up. Doubt it.
Footnote: Facebook’s semi-independent Oversight Board wants the company to explain its controversial moderation policies. Let’s see if the single controlling shareholder agrees 🙄.
Amazon’s Attempts to Offset Skyrocketing Carbon Footprint
Jeff Bezos’s Earth Fund has pledged $1 billion to protect some of the world’s most vulnerable environments. Money will go first to initiatives for the Congo Basin, tropical Andes, and tropical Pacific Ocean. Amazon’s carbon footprint rose 19% last year and is immense: 60 million metric tonnes in 2020. That means the company is now responsible for more carbon emissions each year than Ireland.
It’s Basically Layaway, but for Gen Z.
In a troubling echo of the halcyon times just before the financial crisis, apps and banks are piling into the whole “buy now, pay later” craze. Australia’s own Afterpay was just bought by Jack Dorsey’s Square (SQ) for $29 Billion, launching them to 15 on the ASX, above Coles and Qantas. Investors are shovelling a lot of money to lenders, but like, it wasn’t a good idea before, why would it be a good idea now? Humans suck at discounting their future selves, which the financial industry knows all too well — cards and other unsecured consumer debt cause the biggest losses for banks during major downturn. So now, of course, there is a risk that all of these debts go bad at once, stinging banks, apps, investors and well-heeled schoolchildren alike. There are safeguards. But credit ratings aren’t among them. And while America’s “debtceiling” crisis is almost certainly a crisis of confidence, it certainly looks like a lot of people are about to learn a lesson we’ve already learned.
Vax Fax
About 43 percent of the global population is vaccinated (putting Australia embarrassingly at the median) but in some countries that number is 2 percent or less. New Zealand is trying to boost vaccination rates in all sorts of ways with vaccine buses being rolled out with hilarious names like “Shot Cuz”, and calls for vaccination centres to open up in KFC drive throughs.
Some tools to help you copy right.
In order to get good at output (you know, doing work) it’s critical you’re disciplined with your input. Of course, that’s really difficult if you’re a human. Focussing is an art, not a science. Anyway, here are some things that might help you stay on track, and get the info you need when you need it.
IA Writer is a super basic markdown-based writing tool that mitigates any distractions. Ulysses is similar, has more features. Less cool? Fewer cool.
Headline Analyser is handy for a data-backed review of your biggest words. And Power Thesaurus is a wiki-driven thesaurus with a really clean UI, which is a nice alternative to Thesaurus.com.
Merkel Malaise
Germany’s electing a new chancellor for the first time in 16 years. Angela Merkel has been both noted and criticised for her steady hand. On the plus side her unflapped demeanour and reliable (albeit conervative-ish) politics gave the world stability in the era of Trump; her, Trudeau and to a lesser extent Macron were seen as the leaders of the free world while the US unceremoniously abdicated this mantle in favour of protectionism, nationalism and just… well, whatever the fuck that whole thing was. The drawbacks, as The Economist notes, this steadiness has led to complacency and missed opportunities; fiscal conservatism has seen Germany under-invest in tech infrastructure, alternative/clean energy sources, and social welfare (which is an issue for a population that’s ageing out).
It also seems that nobody’s all that pumped about any of the incumbents either, with early exit polls suggesting the two biggest parties each secured about 25% of the vote. It’s looking like it might go centre left (Merkel’s Christian Conservative party is centre-right), but it could be anyone’s game.
So, that’s that. What do you reckon? Disagree? Got something for us to read?
We’re all ears, eyes and nose.
Attempts to Explain
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