What if?

 'What' and 'if' are two words as non-threatening as words can be, but put them together side by side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life. What if? What if? What if? -- (Letters to Juliet)

__________________

I'm not sure that there is anything more intoxicating to a journalist than speculation. By training and obligation, we work within the world of what can be proven -- the facts -- about any given situation, so "wishful thinking" or any such speculative endeavor is strictly out of bounds.

But of course we do speculate, endlessly, and that is ultimately how we end up getting some of our biggest stories. When that happens it starts with a hunch, then a theory, that slowly takes on the shape of reality as the evidence comes in.

There is no better feeling for a reporter than to have such a hunch come true, except for later when you can tell yourself that it actually made a difference in the world.

Naturally, this sort of experience is not confined to journalists; nothing of value is. Entrepreneurs pitch "what if" scenarios all the time, as in "what if we could disrupt this industry, it would be a multi-billion-dollar market!"

After that, go down the list. When scientists speculate, it's called a hypothesis, which like journalists they cannot publish until they've developed enough evidence to convince their peers that it is a plausible explanation for observable phenomena.

Political analysts dream up various scenarios whereby candidates can win close elections based on multiple factors, most of which boil down to voter turnout.

I'm sure you could add dozens of others to this list -- sportscasters, doctors, weather forecasters, grandparents, space explorers. And, of course, what novelists do is entirely speculation.

When it comes to me, I rarely indulge in this when considering the past, as in "what if I had taken that job offer, bought that house, listened to my heart with that relationship?" The reason is that it is all pointless now, and in many cases it would only lead to regret at opportunities missed.

The future, however, is another matter.

(I first published this essay in September 2021.)

HEADLINES:

• U.N. Court Orders Israel to Prevent Genocide, but Does Not Demand Stop to War (NYT)

• South Africa’s genocide case against Israel spotlights a global divide (WP)

• Trump Biographer Has Damning Theory About Why Trump Keeps Attacking E. Jean Carroll (HuffPost)

• Donald Trump ordered to pay E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in defamation damages trial (WP)

• Cruz, Graham defend Trump’s ‘mental stability’ as Haley, Pelosi attack it (Politico)

• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Just Took His War With the Feds to the Next Level (TNR)

• US border policy deal within reach despite efforts by Trump to derail it, senators say (Guardian)

• Trump Strengthens Grip on Capitol Hill as He Presses Toward Nomination (NYT)

• America’s Remarkably Resilient Economy (WSJ)

• Why the US economy is doing so much better than the rest of the world (CNN)

• Yemen Houthi rebels fire a missile at a US warship, escalating worst Mideast sea conflict in decades (AP)

• Consciousness Is a Continuum, and Scientists Are Starting to Measure It (Scientific American)

• How ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Presses Up Against the Limits of Empathy (NYT)

• Schools are using surveillance tech to catch students vaping (AP)

• Poisoned AI went rogue during training and couldn't be taught to behave again in 'legitimately scary' study (LiveScience)

• Etching AI Controls Into Silicon Could Keep Doomsday at Bay (Wired)

• Google’s New AI-Powered Browser Could Mark the End of the Human Internet (New York)

• Another search breakthrough? You.com debuts AI that can answer multi-step questions (Venture Beat)

• After AI beat them, professional Go players got better and more creative (Escaping Flatland)

• The Sleepy Copyright Office in the Middle of a High-Stakes Clash Over A.I. (NYT)

• AI deepfakes of Taylor Swift spread on X. (WP)

• Kamala Harris Reprimanded For Playing ‘The Sims 4’ On Work Computer (The Onion)

Friday News

HEADLINES:

• Gaza officials say Israeli fire strikes a crowd waiting for aid, killing at least 20 (AP)

• Nikki Haley Pushes Forward With Longshot Effort to Dethrone Trump in GOP Race (WSJ)

• Trump storms out of courtroom during closing arguments in E. Jean Carroll's defamation damages trial (NBC)

• A Reality Check on the Fani Willis Scandal (Politico Mag)

• New Hampshire and Iowa Reveal Broader Weaknesses for Trump (NYT)

• Trump back in court for E. Jean Carroll defamation trial (MSNBC)

• Trump briefly testifies in E. Jean Carroll defamation trial (WP)

• Fox Corp. must face Smartmatic's $2.7 billion defamation suit (NBC)

• McConnell says immigration talks in ‘quandary’ as Trump lobbies Congress to kill deal (CNN)

• U.S. Secretly Alerted Iran Ahead of Islamic State Terrorist Attack (WSJ)

• What to know about Israel’s controversial ‘buffer zone’ in Gaza (WP)

• Darya Trepova: Russian woman jailed for 27 years for cafe bomb killing (BBC)

• Pro-war Putin critic Igor Girkin sentenced to four years in Russian prison on extremism charges (CNN)

• A Leaked Memo From Google CEO Sundar Pichai Comes Amid Employee Discontent. No CEO Wants This for Their Company (Inc.)

• The U.S. economy grew at blistering 3.3% pace in Q4 while inflation pulled back (CNBC)

• Mom of Michigan high school shooter, Jennifer Crumbley, goes on trial (Reuters)

• Ranked: The Most Popular AI Tools (Visual Capitalist)

• Google shows off Lumiere, a space-time diffusion model for realistic AI videos  (Venture Beat)

• AI-generated puffy pontiff image inspires new warning from Pope Francis (Ars Technica)

• What’s next for robotaxis in 2024 (Technology Review)

• Sam Altman and Satya Nadella on their vision for a world with superhuman intelligence (Economist)

• Biden Announces He’s Reheating Chili If Anyone’s Interested (The Onion)

 

Friends to the End

“We really did have everything, didn’t we?” — Dr. Randall Mindy (Don’t Look Up)

Increasingly, in conversations with friends and associates, as well as from reports by social scientists, I am coming to believe that the Covid pandemic has had a hidden but devastating impact on our collective mental health.

Whether we consider ourselves introverts or extroverts, humans are inherently social creatures. We may not want to admit it, but we need regular contact with each other. Without it, our hopes shrivel and our dreams die.

But during the pandemic too many of us became accustomed to being alone, isolated and living our lives by remote control.

With this in mind, today I’m republishing an edited version of an essay I wrote on this topic two years ago, when we were first emerging from the worst of the pandemic. It still feels relevant today.

***

According to Dutch sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst (2009), prior to the pandemic we were replacing half of our social network every seven years. Of course that was back in the times when there were many mores social opportunities.

So I wonder how that figure has fared over the past two years. Though many made efforts to reconnect with old friends through group zoom calls and other virtual tools including social media, Covid-19 created a vast social desert. It seems obvious that new relationships were hard to come by for most of us .

Meanwhile, one of the main points in an article in the Atlantic called, “It’s Your Friends Who Break Your Heart,” is that we need our friends now more than ever.

Friend love is often overlooked in our literature and films, but the love provided by friends plays at least as big a role as family in most people’s lives.

Furthermore, a large and growing number of Americans are single and living alone — for them friends may constitute their entire family.

I said I wouldn’t watch “Don’t Look Up” twice but I did anyways — the film with Jennifer Lawrence and Leonard DiCaprio about the impending end of the world.

The concluding scene where the main characters gather with a handful of friends for dinner as the killer asteroid closes in on earth is emblematic of everything I’ve said above about friendships, both new and old.

How would you choose to spend your final moments under such circumstances? Anyone who answers “alone” is probably lying.

The Solution? Connect. Keep making friends. Renew friendships that have atrophied. Rebuild your social network. Make new friends. Maybe it’s easy for you, maybe it’s hard, but keep at it. In the final analysis, that may be the only way that we as a species will avoid that catastrophic last scene from becoming reality.

HEADLINES:

• Trump issues ominous threats of ‘investigations’ against Haley if she stays in GOP race (Independent)

• Trump leans into voter fraud playbook, preparing to cry foul if he loses expected Biden rematch (AP)

• Trump’s Win Adds to Air of Inevitability as Haley Sharpens Edge (NYT)

• Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) slammed Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for her ongoing efforts to downplay the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. “One day she will have to explain how and why she morphed into a total crackpot,” Cheney said. [HuffPost]

• The 2024 Republican Primary Was Over Before It Began (New Yorker)

• The reason behind massive layoffs in the tech sector in 2024 (Yahoo)

• Russia accuses Ukraine of shooting down military plane carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs (NBC)

• The Middle East Crisis Is Starting to Weigh on the Economy (WSJ)

• Iraq condemns 'irresponsible' US air strikes on Iran-backed groups (BBC)

• America Is Planning to Withdraw From Syria—and Create a Disaster (Foreign Policy)

• Motaz Azaiza, a young Palestinian journalist who gained a massive following for documenting Israel’s war in Gaza, has evacuated out of the territory as conditions there further deteriorate. [HuffPost]

• Israel and Hamas probe for a pause that both sides need (WP)

• Hidden camera footage appearing to show South Korea's First Lady accepting a Dior bag as a gift has plunged President Yoon Suk Yeol into a controversy that may threaten his bid to reclaim a parliamentary majority in April's election. Yoon won a close election in 2022 but his PPP is a minority in the parliament. (Reuters)

• A Dangerous New Home for Online Extremism — Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, or DAOs, offer independently-minded internet users a safe haven—but it’s also a boon to those with a darker purpose. (Wired)

• A scientific breakthrough could save the northern white rhino from extinction. Scientists have successfully transferred a rhinoceros embryo for the first time. (WP)

• The Los Angeles Times said it would lay off about 115 journalists, cutting its newsroom staff by more than 20 percent, after a tumultuous few weeks in which top editors left the newspaper. (Cal Today)

• Wayfair Layoffs Focused on Remote Workers (WSJ)

• Jon Stewart will return to 'The Daily Show' as host — but just on Mondays (AP)

• Mark Zuckerberg AI Terrifies Experts (Giant Freakin Robot)

• Why LLMs are vulnerable to the ‘butterfly effect’ (Venture Beat)

• AI will make scam emails look genuine, UK cybersecurity agency warns (Guardian)

• AI's next fight is over whose values it should hold (Axios)

• Why does AI being good at math matter? (Technology Review)

• North Korea is developing AI for everything from how to respond to COVID and safeguard nuclear reactors to wargaming simulations and government surveillance, according to a new study. (Reuters)

• Gen Z Announces Julie Andrews Is Problematic But Refuses To Explain Why (The Onion)

 

When Hope Flickers, Who Stands Up?

Late Monday, as the clock approached midnight, a crowd of reporters gathered in the tiny hamlet of Dixville Notch in northern New Hampshire to witness the first primary votes cast in this year’s presidential election. 

A few moments after midnight, the town’s registered voters, of whom there are six, filled in their Republican ballots and dropped them into the ballot box. 

The results were quickly tabulated. The totals were six votes for Nikki Haley and zero for Donald J. Trump.

As I watched this time-honored ritual play out on CNN, I felt tears forming in my eyes. Six ordinary Americans had chosen to stand up, if only for a moment, to the awful darkness engulfing this nation by rejecting the man who is running to be a dictator.

Six regular people who no doubt knew they were on the losing side.

Their votes would mean little, of course, as Tuesday wore on and the outcome of the state’s primary contest became clear, but that did not diminish the significance of what they did in my eyes.

Rather, it intensified the pride and gratitude I feel for people like them everywhere, the people who keep the flickering lights of hope and reason alive in this deeply tortured country of ours.

The vote in Dixville Notch was an aberration at the start of what was a very bad day for American democracy and only the first of what I fear are very many bad days to come. All across the land, the dark forces of hate and fear are rising to overwhelm what remains of our better angels of hope and love for one another.

The truth, my friends, is that America is on the verge of destroying itself.

You may disagree, but in my deeply considered opinion, the only reasons for anyone to vote for Trump is fear of the Unknown and hate of the Other. He promises revenge, violence and chaos in response to perceived injustices that never occurred — the supposedly rigged 2020 election, which did not happen and is a blatant lie; and the series of court cases he faces, all of which he brought upon himself by his own criminality, which he now hopes to escape punishment for.

He is, in point of fact, evil incarnate, a narcissist, a bully and a coward. He is utterly unfit for office. 

Despite these indisputable facts, Trump is certain to be the Republican nominee for president.

Every responsible person in this country now needs to find some way, large or small, to organize to help the resistance to defeat Donald J. Trump. 

As you find your own way to get involved, please remember those six people in that small New Hampshire hamlet who stayed up late to make their voices heard. They had to know their votes for a better future would be quickly overwhelmed by the tsunami of fear and hate fueled by Trump and his Nazi-like propaganda machine.

But they stood up anyway. By doing so, they lit a path through the darkness for the rest of us.

HEADLINES:

• Nikki Haley sweeps Dixville Notch's primary, winning all 6 votes (AP)

• Donald Trump Is Losing It. Will the Media Make It a Story? (TNR)

• GOP’s anti-Trump constituency confronts what could amount to a last stand (WP)

• The New Hampshire attorney general’s office is investigating an apparent mass robocall that used a fake Joe Biden voice to urge the state’s Democrats not to vote for the president in the state’s primary. Biden allies denounced the call as “outright election interference.” [HuffPost]

• Emergency declared in San Diego as wettest January day on record brings widespread flooding (NBC)

• This recent weather phenomenon on Lake Michigan stunned meteorologists (WP)

• What '$7' fries reveal about the economy (CNN

• Americans Feel Better About the Economy. Will That Help Biden? (NYT)

• Just 1 in 10 workers in the U.S. belonged to labor unions in 2023, a record low (NPR)

• How the Rich Keep Their Riches Out of Reach (Mother Jones)

• After Auschwitz, Elon Musk Goes Full Crazy With New Claim About Holocaust (TNR)

• The Pentagon has no more money for Ukraine (AP)

• New CIA video appeals to Russians disillusioned with Moscow elite (NBC)

• Remnants of Sprawling Ancient Cities Are Found in the Amazon (NYT)

• Malaria kills nearly half a million children under the age of five each year in Africa. Will a new routine vaccination program help stem the tide? (Reuters)

• This Chinese Startup Is Winning the Open Source AI Race (Wired)

• How Artificial Intelligence Actually Makes Video Games Less Woke (Federalist)

• Containment for AI (Foreign Affairs)

• GOP’s anti-Trump constituency confronts what could amount to a last stand (The Onion)

 

Industrial Clock

Since humans ran out of new new kinds of animals and foods to domesticate thousands of years ago, we can study almost any edible plant or farm animal as a microcosm of human history.

This occurred to me when a couple of readers responded to a phrase I used the other day — “industrial clock.” I was talking about how ingrained our work schedules become so we cannot escape the rhythms of the 40-hour week even after we stop going into the office.

What I was referring to with that term was the origin of the coffee break, which was developed by industrialist tycoons as a way to squeeze more productivity out of workers. I first encountered that historical curiosity when I was reviewing a book on the history of sugar many years ago.

Like many other crops, sugar started out as a luxury for the rich and powerful but has gradually filtered down to be one of the many excessive burdens of the poor and powerless.

Over 100,000 people have died of diabetes in the U.S. each of the past two years — disproportionately from minority and poor communities.

Taking sugar with coffee or tea became habitual for the poorer classes during the industry revolution. But by now, virtually everyone goes through at least some phase of sugar addiction. It’s endemic.

And of course there are other risk factors for diabetes — smoking and obesity among them — so my analysis should only be taken with a grain of (pick your substance).

But wars have been fought and empires built on control of sugar or tea or coffee or bananas and every other foodstuff; that much is indisputable.

So that is the story behind my use of the term “industrial clock.” 

(I first published this essay in early 2022.)

HEADLINES:

• Israel-Gaza war: IDF says 24 soldiers killed in Gaza in one day (BBC)

• How Israel has repeatedly rejected Hamas truce offers (Al Jazeera)

• Trump’s defamation trial is postponed until Wednesday, delaying Trump’s possible testimony (Politico)

• Judge orders the unsealing of divorce case of Trump special prosecutor in Georgia accused of affair (AP)

• Supreme Court allows Biden administration to remove razor wire on US-Mexico border in 5-4 vote (CNN)

• Millions of Americans lose Medicaid coverage as pandemic-era policies end (PBS)

• Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) believes that President Joe Biden would benefit from speaking more bluntly about abortion rights. “I think people want to know that this is a president that is fighting,” she said. The Biden campaign is set to unleash an abortion rights blitz campaign against Trump this week. [HuffPost]

• Biden expands abortion and contraception protections on Roe anniversary (WP)

• San Diego Storm Floods Roads and Closes Schools (NYT)

• Taliban is enforcing restrictions on single and unaccompanied Afghan women, UN says (AP)

• Is Kim Jong-un Really Planning an Attack This Time? (NYT)

• Mark Zuckerberg Spent $187 Million Secretly Buying 1,600 Acres of Hawaii Land, And Now He Is Reportedly Building A Massive Self-Sustaining Apocalypse Bunker (Yahoo)

• Dream On, Mark Zuckerberg. Your New AI Bet Is a Real Long Shot (Cnet)

• We may not lose our jobs to robots so quickly, MIT study finds (CNN)

• Energy breakthrough needed to build AGI, says OpenAI boss Altman (The Register)

• Is OpenAI’s ‘moonshot’ to integrate democracy into AI tech more than PR? (Venture Beat)

• AI is outrageous — and wonderful. It’s also prompting a new art form. (WP)

• ‘Fox NFL Sunday’ Producers Worried Broadcast Doesn’t Feature Enough 50-To-90-Year-Old Men Standing Awkwardly (The Onion)

 

Why Not Here

Sunday was a bad day for those (including me) who were hoping Trump would not be the Republican nominee for president in 2024.

One of his two remaining opponents, DeSantis, dropped out of the race and endorsed him.

Also, the latest poll shows Trump leading the other remaining candidate, Haley, by double digits in New Hampshire. That state’s primary is tomorrow night. It appears to only be a matter of days until Trump’s coronation.

Of course, this is bad news for democracy as well. Trump has promised to replace democracy with autocracy if elected. And in modern times, this is how dictators come to power — through the electoral process.

Then, once they win office, they consolidate power, legally or illegally. It has happened over and over again all over the rest of the world.

Why not here?

It is going to require an all-out effort by those who comprehend the danger to prevent this fate.

Are we up to it?

HEADLINES:

• Ron DeSantis ends presidential campaign, endorses Trump (WP)

• Sununu on Trump mixing up Pelosi, Haley: ‘This guy has lost the fastball’ (The Hill)

• Loyalty, long lines, ‘civil war’ talk: A raging movement propels Trump (WP)

• Haley backers aim to upend Trump in New Hampshire (Reuters)

• Trump Gets New Hampshire Boost as Poll Spells Bad News for Nikki Haley (Newsweek)

• For the Anti-Trump Wing of the G.O.P., It All Comes Down to Tuesday (NYT)

• New Hampshire primary: Haley and the anti-Trump movement’s last best hope (Al Jazeera)

• ‘America Is Under Attack’: Inside the Anti-D.E.I. Crusade (NYT)

• Big tech boom or bust? Experts see signs of strength after wave of layoffs (Guardian)

• 4 worrying trends in tech that are fueling Google and Amazon layoffs (Fortune)

• n Strategic Bind, Israel Weighs Freeing Hostages Against Destroying Hamas (NYT)

• Palestinian death toll in Gaza surpasses 25,000 while Israel announces the death of another hostage (AP)

• How Houthi Attacks Have Upended Global Shipping (NYT)

• China's declining population and its economic impacts (CNN)

• Arctic zombie viruses in Siberia could spark terrifying new pandemic, scientists warn (Guardian)

• Innovation and AI center stage at World Economic Forum (AP)

• Film Character Moves Into Beautiful Brooklyn Brownstone After Getting Dream Publishing Job (The Onion)

 

Is Truth Doomed?

 On the occasion of its 15th anniversary, Politico published the opinions of various experts on the question, “Is Media Doomed?”

As far as I could tell, none of them came up with a definitive answer but perhaps that’s because they were asked the wrong question. For one thing, which forms of media are we talking about anyway?

It’s a fair assumption that human societies will always have some sort of media because we almost certainly have always had them. The original forms probably involved cave drawings and fireside gossip sessions.

The ways news travels in a pre-literate society — by word of mouth — persists even in the most highly techno-societies. Think about it — when you hear some news from a friend it can have more impact than from an official news source, right?

And in today’s environment, “media” encompasses a far broader swath of sources than the ones (including Politico) that I aggregate daily, because these are primarily traditional journalism outlets that normally adhere to the professional standards people like me believe in.

Information circulating via Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, SnapChat and other social media reaches at least as many people as these traditional outlets. Disinformation spread by Fox, QAnon, Trump and other extremist sources carve out their own sizable audience as well.

Governments, the academy, scientific groups, industry groups, public opinion pollsters, specialty publications, newsletters and individual authors affect the flow of stories, some reaching far more people than any traditional media could dream of.

Inside this cacophony, what exactly is “the media”?

The most common query I get from readers and friends is whether they can trust this or that source of information any longer. Skepticism even with the likes of the New York Times seems to be at an all-time high, and not just on the right.

Maybe it is our ability to trust that we need to be most worried about. With so many competing points of view, optimists profess that the truth will win out. But whose truth exactly are we talking about?

Whether a story is strictly true or not is of major interest to us journalists, but I’m not so sure that is the case for the general public. A good story — as long as it seems plausible — may be more satisfying to many than one that can strictly be proven to be fully accurate. Speculative pieces often prove to be exceptionally popular.

Maybe the question Politico should have posed is not so much whether media is doomed but a much larger issue.

Is truth doomed?

(I first published this two years ago in January 2022. It feels even more relevant now.)

HEADLINES:

• For the Anti-Trump Wing of the G.O.P., It All Comes Down to Tuesday (NYT)

• Haley questions Trump’s mental fitness after he confuses her with Nancy Pelosi (CNN)

• This week, Republican fantasies about Trump and the Democrats came crashing down (Independent)

• Trump steps up attacks on Haley (Reuters)

• Science is revealing why American politics are so intensely polarized (WP)

• Disinformation poses an unprecedented threat in 2024 — and the U.S. is less ready than ever (NBC)

• Biden signs short-term funding extension, averting government shutdown (CNN)

• Billionaires Wanted to Save the News Industry. They’re Losing a Fortune. (NYT)

• Growing number of Senate Democrats question Biden’s Israel strategy (WP)

• Netanyahu inflames tensions with Democrats over Palestinian statehood (Axios)

• Divisions Emerging in Israel Over Gaza War (NYT)

• Netanyahu told Biden in private phone call he was not foreclosing the possibility of a Palestinian state in any form (CNN)

• The hands behind the Houthi attacks (Reuters)

• China's population declines for second straight year (CNN)

• Greed Killed Sports Illustrated (New York)

• Don't worry — the machines won't be as smart as humans for a long time, because they've still got a lot to learn (Business Insider)

• AI bots are everywhere now. These telltale words give them away. (WP)

• Artificial Intelligence Will Affect Almost 40% of Jobs, IMF Says (Bloomberg)

• Mom Wants To Know If You’ll Be Free If She Visits 14 Months From Now (The Onion)