Dana Blankenhorn

The Big Tech Conspiracy That Wasn’t

Once you show you like something, I offer you more of it.

Is this a conspiracy?

Not unless I’m a scaled Web site. Because this is at the heart of the charge against “Big Tech,” the companies I call Cloud Czars.

• Show a preference for certain videos on YouTube and YouTube offers you more videos like them.
• “Like” things on Facebook or Instagram, and you will get more things like them.
• Follow certain celebrities on Twitter, you’re offered more like them.
• The same with Amazon Kindle books. When you buy something from Amazon, you’ll be followed for days by ads offering the same thing.

The algorithms follow human nature. Chances are that if you like a book about 12^th century monks who solve murders, you might like another one. If you like Henry Winkler, you’ll probably like Ron Howard.

The problem is that if you like crazy conspiracy theories on Instagram, or videos describing the terrors of the Illuminati on YouTube, you’ll get more of them. Like those, you’ll get more. And more and more.

The Hidden Cost of Long Life

When I started this blog, I was looking for history to turn.

I thought the Iraq War would be a turning point. I thought the election of Barack Obama would be a turning point. I thought Hillary Clinton would be a turning point. I thought January 6 would be a turning point.

None of that happened. The reason is that we live so long. Maybe we live too long.

Look at President Johnson addressing Congress on voting rights in 1965. Notice the weak old man in the upper right-hand corner of the picture. He was John H. McCormack. He was the Speaker of the House. On that day he was 74 years old.

Today Joe Biden is 79. Nancy Pelosi is 81. Even vice president Kamala Harris, at 57, is older than then-vice president Hubert Humphrey, who was 54.

We live longer than ever today, but our beliefs don’t change. They harden as we age. Only the grave takes those beliefs out of the system.

For too many Americans today, politics remains stuck in the 1960s. We remain stuck in Vietnam, in the lessons and the assumptions of that time. To be liberal is to be for disorder. To be conservative is to be for order.

That’s not true anymore. Quite the opposite.

But January 6 didn’t change anyone’s views on that. Joe Biden’s speech today didn’t change that.

What will change it is the continual cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. What changes it are new lessons learned by new generations.

The COVID pandemic is what will change our future history. It will remove over 1 million Americans before it’s over. Most will be older Americans. Most will be people who refused vaccinations. Most will be Trump supporters.

Meanwhile, a new generation is coming to power. It’s a generation that has been denied the full blessings of our economy for their lifetimes. Millennials are not as rich as their parents. Millions still don’t have careers, only gigs. I have two living in my house right now. Those born after the millennials have it even rougher, and they’re angrier about it. I don’t blame them.

We know how these people are voting, and we know what they’re thinking. The status quo won’t answer for them. They demand action, as they should, to save mankind from its destruction by the oil powers.

Every day, a few old boomers die. Every day another member of Generation Z comes of age.

That’s how change will happen. It’s time for my generation to get out of the way and let the kids take over. The kids are all right.

2021: Intensive Care

Elon Musk is Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. He has a fortune estimated at $245 billion. But it’s clear he’s not happy.

America is the world’s wealthiest country. The cloud, its applications, the clients, and the services connecting to it, have made America more economically dominant than ever before. But none of that has trickled down. Even tech executives who would benefit most from the creativity of minds freed from want, have made it clear they won’t let it trickle down.

In a world where the 10^th richest country, Canada, has a GDP this year of $1.6 trillion, four American Cloud Czars – Microsoft, Apple Amazon, and Google -- are worth more. In a country worth $63,000 per citizen, there are children going hungry and 9 centi-billionaires. Our wealth is tied up in assets. It’s not doing any work.

One weird trick is keeping this Second Gilded Age gilded. Punching down. When Elizabeth Warren proposed taxing billionaires, they promised to avoid it, and said go after the millionaires. The millionaires then said they were also adept at tax evasion, so go after the upper middle class. The upper middle class armed itself against the middle class, the middle class against the lower middle class, and the lower middle class against the poor, whose only hope is to reproduce.

We’re all so afraid of losing what we have that we reject anything that would let us create more. In West Virginia one-quarter of the population is missing its teeth, while their Senator rejects dental care under Medicaid.

BNPL Will End in Tears

The hottest trend in payments today is Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL).

The idea is simple. The consumer agrees to pay a bill over a few months rather than immediately. The merchant gets their money upfront. There’s no interest charge, just a bigger discount (up to 8%) to the merchant, plus more big orders. Everyone is happy, right?

What it means is that the BNPL provider, whether it’s Afterpay or Affirm, Klarna or Sezzle, is stepping in for the credit card bank, where interest rates can be 20% or more. If you’re buying stock in Affirm right now, you’re buying a consumer finance company.

There are protections for the BNPL guys, but they’re limited. They could hammer the credit ratings of consumers who don’t pay. They could raise discounts on merchants. Since the field is new both sides need to read their contracts closely.  They won’t.

Atlanta Density Done Right

If you want housing density, make neighborhoods more attractive.

That means adding small parks and amenities people can enjoy within an easy walk before you add housing. If the area doesn’t have them, build commercial-office structures with apartments on top. If you do this backwards, you’re building a slum.

Cities are changing. So is transportation. If I can get most of what I need within a mile, I can use an electric bike unless I need Costco. Maybe I won’t even need Costco. Then rent a van for vacations, use something like Uber for nights out, and we’re good.

Lots of urban people already live this way. The idea of maintaining a car when you’re only using it an hour per day (or less) is wasteful.

But this only works if your area is walkable. This only works if you can get coffee and essentials around the corner, if your lawyer or accountant is nearby, if you can walk your dog and find a park in 10 minutes, with trees and benches to sit on.

Atlanta knows this.

Impunity

Impunity is the essence of fascism.

Impunity is the idea that you can do anything, and never face consequences, because you’re the victim.

With impunity, all things are possible. War is possible. Lynching is possible. The Holocaust is possible.

It’s impunity that Republicans are deploying now in their fight to take back the country.

Impunity is displayed in many ways. It’s displayed individually, in groups, by mobs. When it’s deployed by cops it’s especially dangerous. Police impunity gives others the confidence they need to act out in the same way.

Impunity cares nothing about danger. It’s different from courage. Courage is conquering your own fear. Impunity is believing fear is a weapon that only you can be allowed to wield.  

The Cold War in Cyberspace

Computing is a binary process. (Image from an album cover by Trippie Red.)

I knew this when I first came online in 1985. Back then all the modems made noise, all the screens were glass, and all the networks were owned by the phone monopolies.

It was obvious, when I was reporting on the Electronic Networking Association in the late 1980s. Computing made freedom binary. Either you were free, or you weren’t. Netiquette was never more than a suggestion. That’s why the Internet didn’t open to general traffic until 1993. The military had to give up control over its tool.

Since then, we’ve done a lot to model the analog world in the digital one. But the binary nature of networking remains. We’re either free or we’re not free.

Law has acted against this like calculus against a curve, or codecs against sound. Greater or lesser effort is applied against different levels of violation. But computing remains binary. Those who are committed to ignoring the law still have the advantage.

In the analog world, it’s true that the good guys must protect every door and window while the bad guys only need to jimmy open one. But in the digital world, jimmying open one means all the doors and windows are open to anyone who has the tool.  Software now costs nothing to distribute, and networks can’t tell the difference between software that’s stealing your money and software that’s helping you buy an iPad.

Law & Order Takes Time

Lefty Twitter has its undies in a bunch (as always).

It’s all about Trump and his henchmen. (Law & Order: SVU has now been on the air longer than the original show.)

The complaint is that justice has not yet been visited on any of them. In its way, a valid complaint. The fantasy that Biden might order Trump’s immediate arrest upon taking the oath was always just that.

What’s happening now is precisely what needs to happen. It’s far more delicious than the liberal fantasy.

After January 6, the FBI immediately began its investigations. As requisite prosecutors have had nominations approved, the Department of Justice followed.

Hundreds of insurrectionists have been arrested. More are being sought. Several have begun to squeal. A few have been sentenced. Others are awaiting trial.

Latinizing America’s Cities

One of the great fears I have for this decade is that our cities are about to be Latinized.

Blame the lack of gun control. Blame inequality. Blame whoever you like. Rich people, and the upper middle class, are scared to death, with good reason.

There’s also an historic opportunity opening the real estate market. The downsizing of office space looks permanent. Managers will complain, but it’s hard to see them foregoing the savings from renting less space. It’s hard to see knowledge workers forgoing the savings they get working from home. It’s not just the productivity. It’s being available 24-7, working until the job is done, rather than thinking of it from 9-5. It’s the clothes, the time wasted in driving to-and-from the job, the bad lunches. Uh, why?

What then happens to all that office space? It goes condo. It gets broken into apartments, with some co-working space and shops on the lower floors. I see a lot of security at the entrances. The steel construction, living above everyone, will make wealthy people feel safe. That’s Sao Paulo, skyscrapers and security surrounded by favelas, locks and armed guards, necessities for anyone with money.

SPACs Deliver Fortunes Without Results

I’ve been noodling on the SPAC problem for months now, wondering what’s wrong with them. Only recently has the answer come to me.

Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) are designed to take private companies public before they’re ready for the public market. That is, the SPAC buys what’s basically a venture company, then sells stock in the venture to the public.

SPACs don’t have profits or even sales to justify their valuations. What they have is the sponsor’s word, and the CEO’s presentation. These are carefully stage-managed, as though public investors were buying into a venture fund. Of course, small investors can’t buy into venture funds. We’re not accredited. We can’t guarantee that if the venture goes bust, we won’t be hurt. That’s what being accredited means. 

The Demand of 2020: Law and Order

Regulations are the guardrails of corporate law.

They kick in before people are hurt. They’re usually aimed at corporations, not individuals. Everyone is punished by the paperwork. The penalties come in the form of fines.

Regulation is the best protection business can have.

When regulation isn’t imposed by government, it comes in other forms. It comes in insurance requirements. It comes from the plaintiff’s bar. Fines come in the form of differing rates to protect truck fleets, different prices for handling transactions, and in jury awards.