OMM (On My Mind) – September 2023 -- #2
~ findings & research ~
::: The Open :::
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Gen Z Voices Lackluster Trust in Major U.S. Institutions (Gallup)
This is, uh, very bad, and it’s a reason why we need to teach Civics, and other essential knowledge about becoming an effective, functional citizen.
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::: The Natural World :::
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Florida Bear
Three-Legged Bear ‘Tripod’ Raids Florida Family Fridge, Steals White Claws (Today)
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::: The Arts & The Literary World:::
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“By paying attention to and learning more about the animals that might snag our attention, we can better understand what makes us human.” (LitHub)
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Here’s the longlist for the 2023 National Book Award for Poetry. (LitHub)
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‘A Notebook for the Future: NFTs’ (Becky Tuch’s Lit Mag News)
Katie Dozier & Timothy Green (Rattle) on the future of NFTs & NFT poetry.
Your first thought(s) about NFTs or NFT poetry might lean negative.
This is a great opportunity to play devil’s advocate and have an open mind.
Katie and Tim do an excellent job articulating their position on the potential of NFTs.
The world of NFTs, like crypto, is a fast-changing environment, so it’ll be exciting to see where all this leads, even if you’re simply watching from the sidelines.
“If Van Gogh had the ability to add his work to our shared notebook, future sales of his paintings would still benefit those he willed his wallet to instead of only his collectors. This is possible thanks to smart contracts that allow the original artist an adjustable percentage of any resales in the future. In this way, NFTs solve the used book problem. When we buy copies of a book used, the artist doesn’t see a penny of that sale and doesn’t even know it happened. The cheaper price of the used book not only cuts the author out of that sale—it reduces the number of people that buy the book new, where the writer would receive a return. But with an NFT, that object is forever tied to the artists’ wallet, and we can write into that smart contract a royalty on secondary sales that even outlive the author.”
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::: Small Explorations & Deep Dives :::
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Infuriating and gross.
‘She paid her husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money’ (NPR)
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In the following, life with disability is portrayed visually in a manner that is all too stark and real. Harrowing.
‘Thirty+ years after G.H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, four Americans with disabilities reflect on the struggle to secure a financial future.’ (Esquire)
“While life with a disability isn’t necessarily as removed from the normative experience as I think many able-bodied people tend to think it is, the barriers that plague our access to any semblance of economic stability are nearly impossible to overcome. I have not one dollar to put toward retirement, and no realistic path toward home ownership or meaningful savings or investment. I carry over inflated debts acquired from birth onward that are impossible to pay in a lifetime, regardless of any income I manage to bring in.”
“I am not alone in this. Contrarily my situation is entirely common.”
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Worried about AI… yet?
A look back at a Wired article from Valentine’s Day in 2019.
“We’re not sounding the alarm. What we’re saying is, if we have two or three more years of progress,” such concerns will be even more pressing, Clark says.”
‘The AI Text Generator That's Too Dangerous to Make Public: Researchers at OpenAI decided that a system that scores well at understanding language could too easily be manipulated for malicious intent.’ (Wired)
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Still a feel good story. A little mixed bag sure.
‘Good Samaritan stops bank robbery with a hug’ (GMA)
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Stuck in a loop of negative thoughts? (Psyche)
All the fancy pants docs think they have answers. Maybe you’ve developed your own clever disruptive strategy? If so, please do share.
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Turns out the so-called “ethics of human extinction” remain… extremely depressing. (Aeon)
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AI chatbots are chugging water.
“In a paper due to be published later this year, Ren’s team estimates ChatGPT gulps up 500 milliliters of water (close to what’s in a 16-ounce water bottle) every time you ask it a series of between 5 to 50 prompts or questions. The range varies depending on where its servers are located and the season. The estimate includes indirect water usage that the companies don’t measure — such as to cool power plants that supply the data centers with electricity.” (AP News)
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Americans Give Nursing Homes D+ Grade for Quality of Care (Gallup)
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Would it surprise you to learn that, in fact, “Coal is Still King”?
We have a ways to go before we can create a sustainable global power grid.
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Why we need “3rd places” to avoid loneliness. (Insider)
Drinking in public and, moreover, enough toilets per capita might play a role in making spaces thrive.
I also appreciated this remark:
"If your greasy spoon isn't there anymore and now it's a $5 or $6 cup of coffee, instead of a $1 or $2 cup with free refills all day, that's a big barrier."
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The struggle childless people deal with when all their friends start having children. (New York Magazine / The Cut)
An article that is clearly polarizing.
I appreciated many of the sentiments and so I’m sharing some pull quotes.
“More than marriage, more than a new job, more than moving across the country, I think there is nothing that represents more of a challenge or a threat to adult friendships than parenthood. It is the only thing that is permanent and time-bound. It has fundamentally shifted my relationships.”
“Babies, those little assholes, really do show up in our lives like a popular girl transferring into school in the middle of the semester.”
“The dilemma facing friends with kids and friends without them isn’t so much if they’ll ever have the time to meet up at a bar for happy hour; it’s whether all those years of being busy and disconnected have messed up their friendships so much that nobody will want to go.”
“There are so many big events besides having children that make you less available to friends: serious relationships, career changes, getting sober, moving cities, caring for aging parents, finances. We talk through those moments because we’re aware enough of how important friendships are and how hard they are to keep.”
“That study from the Netherlands found that while friendships of parents are at their most fragile when their children are around 3, by the time those children are 5, parents start engaging with their friends again. That’s a cause for hope, if only you can make it through those first three years.”
“Ben has found his own lower-key solution: inviting his friends over to help with bedtime and then to hang out after the kid goes to sleep. “It’s inviting people into a certain kind of vulnerable chaos that New Yorkers don’t often invite each other into,” he says. “I have friends, not super-close friends, who have never set foot in my apartment. Telling someone, ‘Come to my house while I clean up or do bedtime’ is real intimacy.” Yes, you risk exposing them to the pure hell of child-rearing, and they might not have the most fun, but it’s a bet on that friendship. “It’s a great joy of my life when my 3-and-a-half-year-old is goofing around with my best friend who doesn’t have kids,” says Ben.”
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Goes to show that if you’re extremely dedicated one person can make a difference.
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August 2024
“California Just Became the First State to Declare a Transgender History Month” (them)
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Got flying struggles?
‘The Best Seats on a Plane, According to Experts’ (CN Traveler)
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New proof that poverty is a policy choice (Robert Reich’s substack)
“This is not rocket science. The expanded Child Tax Credit cut child poverty nearly in half. Sinema, Manchin, and the GOP let it expire, and child poverty spiked.”
“This is not only a bad policy choice. It is an indefensible moral choice. In the richest country in the world, it is inexcusable that millions of our children are living in poverty. They don’t have to be.”
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Meet the Carpet Cleaner Who Speaks 24 Languages — And Had MIT Study His Brain (Nice News)
A story both interesting and tragic. Not just a polyglot but a hyperpolyglot, it seems Vaughn Smith was under the impression his life was “worthless” up until MIT validated him for his unique ability with languages. It’s a sad reminder the way we, people, pigeonhole themselves, how our mindset under contemporary Western Capitalism has us finding, creating, establishing, and hardening our identities based on our paid vocation(s).
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If you knew then what you know now, would you have made the same decision? (Seth Godin’s blog)
This is my kind of blog post right here.
There’s a clever frontloading method that helps put the gas stove issue into perspective. Notably, I had no idea gas stoves were considered a status symbol. Go figure.
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MDMA continues to look promising for treatment of PTSD.
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Views of divorce and open marriages (Pew Research)
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What makes for a fulfilling life? (Pew Research)
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The cost of raising a child is almost $240,000 — and that's before college (CBS News)
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Why we should have hobbies (LA Times)
“You doing it is making you a better worker, parent, person — fill in the blank with whatever you want,” he said. “And so this is actually contributing not just to your own personal mental health, but whatever task you’re trying to get done. ... One of the biggest benefits is getting outside of your head, getting away from the stress that we carry around in our minds. That’s what leisure can do. That’s what its biggest power is.”
“If you feel a void in your life, hobbies can help you find fulfillment, said Selin Malkoc, a marketing professor at Ohio State University. If you feel unproductive, she said, you can choose a hobby in which you produce something, such as painting or ceramics. Picking a hobby with a concrete output can give you a sense of purpose by leaving you with a physical product to show for your work.”
“If you feel a void in your life, hobbies can help you find fulfillment, said Selin Malkoc, a marketing professor at Ohio State University. If you feel unproductive, she said, you can choose a hobby in which you produce something, such as painting or ceramics. Picking a hobby with a concrete output can give you a sense of purpose by leaving you with a physical product to show for your work.”
“Finding a hobby starts with adjusting what you think a hobby is.”
Suggested websites:
Discoverahobby.com
Meetup.com
Facebook groups
Alltrails.com
Jigsawexplorer.com
Board Game Arena / Happy Meeple (can play games with people around the globe)
Making time for hobbies:
“Avoid such empty declarations as “I should draw more” and find a way to hold yourself accountable, Vanderkam said. “If you decide to join that flute trio, you’re gonna have to rehearse together,” she said, which means committing to a schedule. “That’s a very different mind-set than, like, ‘I’m gonna take more bubble baths.’” It also helps ensure that your hobby time “doesn’t just go away whenever anyone else wants something from me,” she said.”
People lose interests in their hobbies. It happens. Find another one.
“If you land on the right hobby, it can become a fundamental part of your life, a lifelong passion.”
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I always think I’m done with lit theory and then it comes back and, often enough, with good reason.
“Semiotics is the science of signs and symbols. A stop sign isn’t a stop sign unless it looks like a stop sign, and that song they sing on your birthday means something really different if people whisper it quietly.” (Seth Godin’s blog)
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