Here is some non-basketball content I read or listened to this week that I found interesting:
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The case for … making low-tech ‘dumb’ cities instead of ‘smart’ ones
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Digital Minimalism - Digital minimalism is a “philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.” The digital decluttering process is take a 30 day break from all optional technology and use that time to find meaningful activities. After the break is over, for each optional technology you reintroduce, determine what the value of it is in your life and how you will maximize that value. The book also stresses the importance of solitude: spending time alone with your own thoughts and free from input from other minds. The suggestions for how to increase solitude are leave your phone at home, take long walks and write letters or notes to yourself. It also discusses research on how human brains are wired to be social because they have adapted to automatically practice social thinking during cognitive downtime. With social media conversation is being replaced with connection. To combat this we should adopt more conversation-centric-communication. The suggestions given are to stop clicking like (replace lots of low value, online interactions with fewer high value, in-person interactions), consolidate texting (texting can “give off the approximate luster of true conversation”) and hold conversation office hours (this negates the concern that unsolicited calls may be bothersome). Digital technology should help set up and maintain your leisure activities, not be the primary leisure activity itself. Some practices that can help you do this are: fix or build something every week, scheduling low-quality leisure (web surfing, Netflix, …), joining something (club, recreational sports league, …) and strategizing your free time. The core digital minimalism practices are: delete social media from your phone, turn your devices into single-purpose computers (general purpose != more productivity), use social media like a professional (follow a small, narrow list of people specific to what you value highly), embrace slow media (focus only on the highest quality sources, avoid following breaking news) and dumbing down your smart phone.
- “the hot new technologies that emerged in the past decade or so are particularly well suited to foster behavioral addictions, leading people to use them much more than they think is useful or healthy. Indeed, as revealed by whistleblowers and researchers like Tristan Harris, Sean Parker, Leah Pearlman, and Adam Alter, these technologies are in many cases specifically designed to trigger this addictive behavior. Compulsive use, in this context, is not the result of a character flaw, but instead the realization of a massively profitable business plan. We didn’t sign up for the digital lives we now lead. They were instead, to a large extent, crafted in boardrooms to serve the interests of a select group of technology investors.”
- “How much of your time and attention, he would ask, must be sacrificed to earn the small profit of occasional connections and new ideas that is earned by cultivating a significant presence on Twitter. Assume, for example, that your Twitter habit effectively consumes ten hours per week. Thoreau would note that this cost is almost certainly way too high for the limited benefits it returns. If you value new connections and exposure to interesting ideas, he might argue, why not adopt a habit of attending an interesting talk or event every month, and forcing yourself to chat with at least three people while there?”
- “It’s easy to be seduced by the small amounts of profit offered by the latest app or service, but then forget its cost in terms of the most important resource we possess: the minutes of our life.”
- “Simply put, humans are not wired to be constantly wired.”
- “When you spend multiple hours a day compulsively clicking and swiping, there’s much less free time left for slower interactions. And because this compulsive use emits a patina of socialness, it can delude you into thinking that you’re already serving your relationships well, making further action unnecessary”
- “If you being decluttering the low-value digital distractions from your life before you’ve convincingly filled in the void they were helping you ignore, the experience will be unnecessarily unpleasant at best and a massive failure at worse.”
- “Leisure Lesson #1: Prioritize demanding activity over passive consumption.”
- “Leisure Lesson #2: Use skills to produce valuable things in the physical world.”
- “Leisure Lesson #3: Seek activities that require real-world, structured social interaction.”
- “A foundational theme in digital minimalism is that new technology, when used with care and intention, creates a better life than either Luddism or mindless adoption.”
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White Fragility - One of the major obstacles for getting white people to understand racism is the binary good/bad view that only bad people can be racist. People are taught that racism is bad and think this means only bad people can be racist. They think racism is limited to intentional acts by bad people. They get defensive when being called out for something they did that someone else may view as racist because to them they are being called a bad person. This defensiveness prevents them from taking some time for self-reflection and they lose out on an opportunity to learn. White people are insulated from race-based stress. Being taught to treat everyone the same and not see color just lets white people ignore the racial dynamics that exist everywhere. It also can make white people unable to see themselves in racial terms which can result in them thinking they are being treated unfairly when they are pressed to see themselves in racial terms. All of this results in it being so difficult to confront white people about racism that many don’t even bother trying. Advice for combatting white fragility is to educate yourself on racism, acknowledging ourselves are racial beings with a limited perspective on race, develop authentic relationships with non-white people and stop being silent about race and racism when around other white people. It is important to take feedback as an opportunity to learn and be appreciative of it rather than getting defensive.
- “White progressives can be the most difficult for people of color because, to the degree that we think we have arrived, we will put our energy into making sure that others see us having arrived. None of our energy will go into what we need to be doing for the rest of our lives; engaging in ongoing self-awareness, continuing education, relationship building, and actual antiracist practice.”
- “I can be seen as qualified to lead a major or minor organization in this country with no understanding whatsoever of the perspectives or experiences of people of color, and virtually no ability to engage critically with the topic of race.”
- “Individualism claims that there are no intrinsic barriers to individual success and that failure is not a consequence of social structures but comes from individual character. According to the ideology of individualism, race is irrelevant.”
- “If poor whites were focused on feeling superior to those below them in status, they were less focused on those above. The poor working class, if united across race, could be a powerful force. But racial divisions have served to keep them from organizing against the owning class who profits from their labor.”
- “Whites hold the social and institutional positions in society to infuse their racial prejudice into the laws, policies, practices, and norms of society in a way that people of color do not.”
- “Color-blind ideology makes it difficult for us to address these unconscious beliefs. While the idea of color blindness may have started out as a well-intentioned strategy for interrupting racism, it practice it has served to deny the reality of racism and thus hold it in place.”
- “Whites rarely consider how sheltered and safe their spaces may be from the perspective of people of color(e.g., Trayvon Martin’s experience in a gated white community). Because it reverses the actual direction of the racial danger, this narrative may be one of the most pernicious.”
- “This freedom from responsibility [not having to worry about how people perceive me because I’m white] gives me a level of racial relaxation and emotional and intellectual space that people of color are not afforded as they move through their day.”
- [On speaking up about a racist comment when among a group of white people] “We might be accused of being politically correct or might be perceived as angry, humorless, combative, and not suited to go far in an organization. … Conversely, when I kept quiet about racism, I was rewarded with social capital such as being seen as fun, cooperative, and a team player.”
- “white fragility enabled the white elite to direct the white working class’s resentment toward people of color. The resentment is clearly misdirected, given that the people who control the economy and who have managed to concentrate more wealth into fewer (white) hands than ever before in human history are the white elite.”
- “The expectation that people of color should teach white people about racism is another aspect of the white racial innocence that reinforces several problematic racial assumptions. First, it implies that racism is something that happens to people of color and has nothing to do with us and that we consequently cannot be expected to have any knowledge of it. … Second, this request requires nothing of us and reinforces unequal power relations by asking people of color to do our work. … Third, the request ignores the historical dimensions of race relations. It disregards how often people of color have indeed tried to tell us what racism is like for them and how often they have been dismissed.”
- “I was raised in a society that taught me that there was no loss in the absence of people of color - that their absence was a good and desirable thing to be sought and maintained - while simultaneously denying the fact [by making an effort to attend a better (whiter) school].”
- “The simplistic idea that racism is limited to individual intentional acts committed by unkind people is at the root of virtually all white defensiveness on the topic. To move beyond defensiveness, we have to let go of this common belief.”
- [On teachers calling a student’s complaint about an offensive remark made by a teacher an overreaction.] “These white teachers’ responses illustrate several dynamics of white fragility. First, the teachers never considered that in not understanding the student’s reaction, they might be lacking some knowledge or context. They demonstrated no curiosity about the student’s perspective or why she might have taken offense. Nor did they show concern about the student’s feelings. They were unable to separate intentions from impact.”
- “White fragility functions as a form of bullying; I am going to make it so miserable for you to confront me - no matter how diplomatically you try to do so - that you will simply back off, and never raise the issue of race again.”
- “White fragility is much more than mere defensiveness or whining. It may be conceptualized as the sociology of dominance: an outcome of white people’s socialization into white supremacy and a means to protect, maintain, and reproduce white supremacy.”
- “When a white woman cries, a black man gets hurt.”
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White Fragility - One of the major obstacles for getting white people to understand racism is the binary good/bad view that only bad people can be racist. People are taught that racism is bad and think this means only bad people can be racist. They think racism is limited to intentional acts by bad people. They get defensive when being called out for something they did that someone else may view as racist because to them they are being called a bad person. This defensiveness prevents them from taking some time for self-reflection and they lose out on an opportunity to learn. White people are insulated from race-based stress. Being taught to treat everyone the same and not see color just lets white people ignore the racial dynamics that exist everywhere. It also can make white people unable to see themselves in racial terms which can result in them thinking they are being treated unfairly when they are pressed to see themselves in racial terms. All of this results in it being so difficult to confront white people about racism that many don’t even bother trying. Advice for combatting white fragility is to educate yourself on racism, acknowledging ourselves are racial beings with a limited perspective on race, develop authentic relationships with non-white people and stop being silent about race and racism when around other white people. It is important to take feedback as an opportunity to learn and be appreciative of it rather than getting defensive.
- “White progressives can be the most difficult for people of color because, to the degree that we think we have arrived, we will put our energy into making sure that others see us having arrived. None of our energy will go into what we need to be doing for the rest of our lives; engaging in ongoing self-awareness, continuing education, relationship building, and actual antiracist practice.”
- “I can be seen as qualified to lead a major or minor organization in this country with no understanding whatsoever of the perspectives or experiences of people of color, and virtually no ability to engage critically with the topic of race.”
- “Individualism claims that there are no intrinsic barriers to individual success and that failure is not a consequence of social structures but comes from individual character. According to the ideology of individualism, race is irrelevant.”
- “If poor whites were focused on feeling superior to those below them in status, they were less focused on those above. The poor working class, if united across race, could be a powerful force. But racial divisions have served to keep them from organizing against the owning class who profits from their labor.”
- “Whites hold the social and institutional positions in society to infuse their racial prejudice into the laws, policies, practices, and norms of society in a way that people of color do not.”
- “Color-blind ideology makes it difficult for us to address these unconscious beliefs. While the idea of color blindness may have started out as a well-intentioned strategy for interrupting racism, it practice it has served to deny the reality of racism and thus hold it in place.”
- “Whites rarely consider how sheltered and safe their spaces may be from the perspective of people of color(e.g., Trayvon Martin’s experience in a gated white community). Because it reverses the actual direction of the racial danger, this narrative may be one of the most pernicious.”
- “This freedom from responsibility [not having to worry about how people perceive me because I’m white] gives me a level of racial relaxation and emotional and intellectual space that people of color are not afforded as they move through their day.”
- [On speaking up about a racist comment when among a group of white people] “We might be accused of being politically correct or might be perceived as angry, humorless, combative, and not suited to go far in an organization. … Conversely, when I kept quiet about racism, I was rewarded with social capital such as being seen as fun, cooperative, and a team player.”
- “white fragility enabled the white elite to direct the white working class’s resentment toward people of color. The resentment is clearly misdirected, given that the people who control the economy and who have managed to concentrate more wealth into fewer (white) hands than ever before in human history are the white elite.”
- “The expectation that people of color should teach white people about racism is another aspect of the white racial innocence that reinforces several problematic racial assumptions. First, it implies that racism is something that happens to people of color and has nothing to do with us and that we consequently cannot be expected to have any knowledge of it. … Second, this request requires nothing of us and reinforces unequal power relations by asking people of color to do our work. … Third, the request ignores the historical dimensions of race relations. It disregards how often people of color have indeed tried to tell us what racism is like for them and how often they have been dismissed.”
- “I was raised in a society that taught me that there was no loss in the absence of people of color - that their absence was a good and desirable thing to be sought and maintained - while simultaneously denying the fact [by making an effort to attend a better (whiter) school].”
- “The simplistic idea that racism is limited to individual intentional acts committed by unkind people is at the root of virtually all white defensiveness on the topic. To move beyond defensiveness, we have to let go of this common belief.”
- [On teachers calling a student’s complaint about an offensive remark made by a teacher an overreaction.] “These white teachers’ responses illustrate several dynamics of white fragility. First, the teachers never considered that in not understanding the student’s reaction, they might be lacking some knowledge or context. They demonstrated no curiosity about the student’s perspective or why she might have taken offense. Nor did they show concern about the student’s feelings. They were unable to separate intentions from impact.”
- “White fragility functions as a form of bullying; I am going to make it so miserable for you to confront me - no matter how diplomatically you try to do so - that you will simply back off, and never raise the issue of race again.”
- “White fragility is much more than mere defensiveness or whining. It may be conceptualized as the sociology of dominance: an outcome of white people’s socialization into white supremacy and a means to protect, maintain, and reproduce white supremacy.”
- “When a white woman cries, a black man gets hurt.”
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- “Amazon is going underwater with the world’s largest oxygen tank, forcing other retailers to follow it, match its prices, and deal with changed customer delivery expectations. The difference is other retailers have just the air in their lungs and are drowning. Amazon will surface and have the ocean of retail largely to itself.”
- “Amazon has access to capital with lower return expectations than peers.”
- “Amazon business thinking: If we can borrow money at historically low rates, why don’t we invest that money in extraordinarily expensive control delivery systems. That way we secure an impregnable position in retail and asphyxiate our competitors. Then we can get really big fast.”
- “In the first quarter of 2015, the iPhone accounted for only 18.3 percent of the smartphones shipped globally, but 92 percent of the industry’s profits. That’s luxury marketing. How do you elegantly communicate to friends and strangers that your skills, DNA, and background put you in the 1 percent, no matter where you are? Easy, cary an iPhone.”
- “Steve Jobs’s transition from a tech to a luxury brand is one of the most consequential - and value-creating - insights in business history. Technology firms can scale, but they are rarely timeless.”
- “Old-economy barriers that are expensive and take a long time to dredge (and for competitors to cross). Apple has done this superbly, continually investing in the world’s best brand, and in stores.”
- “Facebook benefits from the ultimate jujitsu move: it will likely become the largest media company on earth, and it gets its content, similar to Google, from its users. In other words, more than a billion customers labor for Facebook without compensation.”
- “Marketing to moderates is like fracking for gas. You only do it if the easier alternatives aren’t available. Thus, we are exposed to less and less calm, reasonable content.”
- “Another reason they [Facebook and Google] don’t want to be positioned as media companies is more perverse. Respectable companies in the news business recognize their responsibility to the public and try to come to grips with their role in shaping the worldview of their customers. You know: editorial objectivity, fact-checking, journalistic ethics, civil-discourse - all that kind of stuff. That’s a lot of work, and it dents profit.”
- “Given the polarization of our political climate and the backfire effect - where if you present someone with evidence against their beliefs, they double down on their convictions - a ‘disputed’ label won’t persuade a lot of people. It’s easier to fool people than to convince they they’ve been fooled.”
- “To involved humans would supposedly being on implicit and explicit biases. But AI has biases as well. It’s programmed, by humans, to select the most clickable content.”
- “Google also was learning - better than the Times itself - exactly what the paper’s readers wanted and were likely to want in the future. And that meant Google could target those Times readers with the far greater precision and make more money from each ad.”
- “Google’s control of knowledge is now so complete, and the barriers to entry by competitors so great (look at the marginal success of Microsoft’s Bing), that the firm might maintain control for years.”
- “Among the Four, these eight factors are prevalent: product differentiation, visionary capital, global reach, likability, vertical integration, AI, accelerant, and geography.”
- “We used to admire firms that created hundreds of thousands of middle- and upper-class jobs; now our heroes are firms that produce a dozens lords and hundreds of thousands of serfs.”