I was taken back to to memories of Skeleton Records in Birkenhead during the early 1990s due to a Taylor Swift album mispress. As a young record buyer I used frequent secondhand record shops to pick up promo copies of records. A rock orientated shop would often not realise what they had, this was before widespread internet access.
The gaunt middle-aged shop assistant was sat behind the counter looking at a picture disc of Fish – State of Mind on picture disc. Fish had recently left then popular rock band Marillion and State of Mind was a single from his first solo album Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors.
Apparently one of his customers worked as an assistant shop manager, realised what they had and ‘lost’ the record before the distributor came to collect all the copies of the mispress. The reason why the distributor would want to collect the records? Because they played Madonna’s Cherish instead. The shop assistant said to no one in particular, that will be worth something one day. He wasn’t wrong, I have seen prices quoted as high as 650 dollars paid – if the right Madonna or Marillion completist collector actually finds a copy for sale.
Taylor Swift Speak Now Concert at Heinz Field by Ronald Woan
A similar thing happened to Taylor Swift fans this week, who ordered her latest album and ended up with Taylor Swift artwork, but songs from the early 1990s electronica compilation Happy Lands volume 1 playing instead.
This mispress became know as the ‘cursed version’ presumably because of its dark electronic sounds featuring Cabaret Voltaire and others. They might be able to take heart when they realise the such mispresses have become collectors items in the past with an appreciating value.
Back when I was a child, the oil refinery was a cathedral to industry rather than a climate crime scene and working in the oil industry was a cut above working in other industries.
3D printing industry gripped by intrigue, litigation and churn | Financial Times – 3D printing or additive manufacturing is currently used for small batch manufacturing by the likes of GE, Rheinmetall, Airbus and Lockheed Martin. You had a similar set up with CNC milling (including multi-axis machines) and multitasking machines which were confined to manufacturing ‘cells’ until Apple went out and bought thousands of them and had them running in parallel on Foxconn lines manufacturing iPhone chassis’. Additive manufacturing needs its ‘iPhone moment’ to cross the chasm to mainstream use. That is reliant on an innovative client rather than supplier innovation and the current players like Stratasys aren’t in a position to drive this next stage of innovation, but their customers might be.
Letter Statement March2023 | DAIR – Tl;dr: The harms from so-called AI are real and present and follow from the acts of people and corporations deploying automated systems. Regulatory efforts should focus on transparency, accountability and preventing exploitative labor practices.
I was sat thinking about a client project the other day. I was using Miro as a way to articulate my thoughts into something that the creatives could work with. As I stared off at a Post-It note on my wall that made up part of the prototype the idea that the tools are changing sailed in and sat at the front of my thoughts. I became deeply uncomfortable.
At a conscious level I know that technology and the tools that I use based on it are changing all the time. But what made me more uncomfortable was a deeper shift in the model of how the tools interacted with me and where the control sat. Sometimes it feels as if we longer use them, instead they use us. To what end has never been clearly articulated.
This quote from my first agency boss describes the nascent online landscape of the late 1990s:
After 50 years of radio and TV pushing marketing messages at people, it took technology to turn it around so that people pull in the information they want. Today’s new consumer has a cultural comfort with interactivity that just keeps building on itself, and it’s all because the technology is finally where it needs to be to let them do it.
I just couldn’t imagine the same thing being said about the experience of most netizens in our social platform dominated world today. The tools are changing, they now use us more than we use them.
I was particularly struck by this statement quoted in a BBC article and attributed to Thomas Bangalter
“Daft Punk was a project that blurred the line between reality and fiction with these robot characters. It was a very important point for me and Guy-Man[uel] to not spoil the narrative while it was happening.
“Now the story has ended, it felt interesting to reveal part of the creative process that is very much human-based and not algorithmic of any sort.”
That was, he says, Daft Punk’s central thesis: That the line between humanity and technology should remain absolute.
“It was an exploration, I would say, starting with the machines and going away from them. I love technology as a tool [but] I’m somehow terrified of the nature of the relationship between the machines and ourselves.”
A couple of my friends had home computers that were used as glorified games consoles. There was little technological value in playing Daley Thompson’s Decathlon or Frogger using the rubbery keyboard of a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. My school had a computer lab with three seldom used BBC microcomputers and I had one lesson on using Excel during my time in school. This all meant that I really came to computing in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I was a self taught Mac user. From someone who was used to hand writing or typing documents, cut-and-paste was a radical new way of creating a document.
Having my own Mac and printer helped me get through my degree relatively stress free compared to my peers who largely relied on the University’s computer and printing services facilities.
Over the time I have used computing, I’ve noticed that technology tools are changing and not for the better. Computers were seen to be personally empowering and enabling. This age of computing is encapsulated by a phrase attributed to Steve Jobs about the Mac being ‘a bicycle for the mind‘. Steve Jobs also used the analogy of a computing appliance and used both Cuisinart and Sony product philosophies as exemplars for the Apple II and Mac.
In many respect, this was similar to the vision that Stewart Brand had for the ‘back to the land’ hippie movement bible The Whole Earth catalog. The subtitle of the catalog was ‘Access to Tools’. The tools in question were an assortment of recommendations including books, maps, garden implements, specialised clothing, woodworking tools, forestry gear, tents, welding equipment, professional journals, early synthesizers, and personal computers.
Mother of All Demos
Throughout his life Brand has had a knack of being at the right place and at the right time. Including help facilitate Doug Engelbart’s ‘Mother of All Demos‘ – a public demonstration of prototype technologies that mapped out our digital age. Being in the audience for the Mother of All Demos must have been mind-blowing at the time. For an audience that would have found computer terminals transformative, there would have been a realisation that their tools are changing right in front of their eyes.
Cuisinart
Mac Classic
The rounded edges and corners of the Apple II’s plastic case was inspired by Cuisinart, as was the Mac Classic’s ‘sit up and beg‘ stance. The idea that the the Mac was a ‘computing appliance’; something that just worked. For IT professionals of a certain age who had invested in Microsoft skills, this was mistaken for the Mac being a ‘toy’.
Before the web, this led to a religious type split. I have been a proud Mac user since 1989, which gives you an idea on where I sat. The IT professionals did not believe in personal user empowerment, but they would also struggle with the way tools are changing now as well. The thinking of these IT professionals can be seen in the clunky experience of using SAP enterprise software today.
The overlooked HyperCard
Some of the tools were brilliant ideas but didn’t get widespread adoption. My personal favourite of software in this category would be Apple’s HyperCard. HyperCard was a framework that allowed you to build processes from an address book or digital brochures to mind-blowing experiences and even running factories.
For example, Northwest Airlines managed their entire plane maintenance management programme using HyperCard. Nabisco ran at least one factory using HyperCard as an enterprise resource planning platform.
HyperCard was ‘No Code Tools‘ before the founders of AirTable or Zoho Creator were even born.
Danny Goodman who wrote a lot of the guides to HyperCard, went on to write some of the best books for programming assorted web and mobile technologies from JavaScript to iOS development.
This empowerment extended to many web technologies and web services. Email, forums and chat apps radically changed business and personal networks. It was now easier to access information and expertise. The late 1990s and email saw increased worker collaboration across offices and departments. You saw services like Yahoo! Pipes provided to ‘power-user’ consumer netizens during the Web 2.0 era. RSS newsreaders like Newsblur do a similar job, as do social bookmarking services like pinboard.in.
Modal interfaces and software buttons
When electronic products first moved into the home they had mechanical buttons. Buttons limited functionality, but allowed for the creation of highly intuitive products. Buttons have since been proven to be faster and safer to use automotive applications than touch screens. The use of touch screens being driven as by the car manufacturers marketing department. Logic controls were buttons connected to servos that provided a slimmer finish, a more sophisticated looking product.
Depending on the device they also allowed for the use of software.
But sophistication gave way to confusion as buttons often had to do multiple jobs and use a modal interface. I spent a good deal of my childhood programming my parents video recorders and setting the time on their digital watches and clocks in the home and the car.
Modal interfaces have their place. During my time as a student I worked for MBNA in customer service roles. The modal interface of the CardPac software allowed me to move around a customer record much faster than a point and click ‘windows type’ application. This was particularly important handling stressed customers who have been waiting to speak to a customer services rep in a phone queue.
I would switch into edit mode and quickly tab through fields of data faster than scrolling down and hunting and pecking with a mouse and cursor.
It’s not so much fun if you make one error programming a mid-1980s video cassette recorder and have to go cycle through the rest of the process to go back to the beginning and start again.
You also started to see software defined buttons. This appeared on machine tools and music instruments first. If there was ‘Mac like moment’ for software defined switches, it was the launch of the first commercially successful digital synthesiser: the Yamaha DX-7.
The Yamaha DX7 was so powerful, yet challenging to use – that a veritable cottage industry of books and tutorial videos like the one above. One of the most prominent manual writers was Lorenz Rychner, who wrote guides for various Yamaha electronic instruments as well as later Casio, Kawai, Korg and Roland instruments that was inspired by the Yamaha DX7. Eventually when personal computers became used in music production, Yamaha DX7 editing software appeared as well.
Getting these electronic instruments to work saw a new artist credit appear on albums and singles; that of MIDI programmer. In the 1980s, the audio tools are changing, but experts are required to get the most out of them due to software defined buttons. Apple took this to its natural extreme with a MacBook Pro model that replaced function keys with a touch screen that changes controls based on what software programme is being used at a given time.
Pictures under glass
Technology allowed the entire display surface to become software defined buttons, directly with your fingers. This robbed people of the tactic feedback of a button, knob or lever to create a phenomenon of ‘pictures under glass‘. This changes our relationship between our tools and how we interact with them. It also opened up new ways of interaction.
Swiping and gestures
Korean smartphone manufacturer managed to reduce the kind of gesture tracking that was previously in living rooms with Sony EyeToy series of devices controlling a Sony Playstation of Microsoft Kinect into a smartphone handset.
Pantech’s Vega LTE smartphone allowed control at a distance. This was based on technology from eyeSight to do gesture controls.
Within applications, dating app Tinder created gestures that became ‘common language‘ – to swipe left as in reject an option. But the very gesture of swiping left was part of gamification as the tools are changing from working for us, to us working for them. They are no longer tools of personal liberation in terms of ideas and thinking.
Digital drugs
Captology to captured users
To talk about how tools changed and became items of personal enslavement one has to back to the late 1990s. B.J. Fogg is a combination of media theorist and technologist with a doctorate in communications and heading a behavioural design lab at Stanford University.
The insight that B.J. Fogg had was that with the right design cues, computers could become ‘charismatic’ in nature. They could manipulate behaviour. Professor Fogg converted his doctorate paper into a new discipline that he called ‘captology‘ ( from computers as persuasive techologies). By 2003, Fogg had realised that some of the methods had negative impacts on users. He flagged ethical use to his own students and in his book Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do.
Unfortunately, a number of Fogg’s students and readers took these unethical tactics into Silicon Valley businesses and used them as ‘growth hacks’ for brands as diverse as Tinder (swipe right) and Robinhood the stock trading app that gamified transactions. This was the dark side of ‘move fast and break things’ mentality prevalent in Silicon Valley at the time.
Other’s like Fogg’s student Tristan Harris saw what was happening and were horrified. Harris went on to co-found The Center for Humane Technology – an organisation raising awareness of the problems and holding the organisations to account.
Addiction
What was then termed internet addiction or video gaming addiction was by recognised as an issue by both the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Chinese government. As far back as 2006, China estimated the number of addicts in its country as numbering 2 million children and young adults.
Psychoactive tools
Modern technology didn’t bring a distortion of reality on their own. Regulation and media owners have a lot to do with it. The origin of the modern ‘filter bubble’ was said to be syndicated talk radio host Rush Limbaugh as media regulations were relaxed. This allowed media eco-systems to be created that catered to left wing or right wing views. There was no longer a common view, which people could hold different opinions over, but ‘the truth’ and ‘alternative facts’
“You’re saying it’s a falsehood, and Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts,”
Kellyanne Conway quoted in The Atlantic magazine
A combination of societal isolation, reductive algorithmic models, bad actors and dark pattern designs leave users more vulnerable in the online world. Machine learning and internet content allow for the creation of an overwhelming amount of content.
Whole worlds can be created. This means that there is no social glue of common experiences. There is no consensus and technology enables the bar bell.
Being boring
So enough about digital drugs. Let’s back to something more boring. In the appropriately titled essay The Future is Boring by Eliane Glaser published by Monocle in its Monocle Companion Volume 2: 50 essays for a brighter future; the author discusses the pointless rituals of techno-capitalism. The reason for these pointless rituals is often that the tools are changing, providing useless digitally mediated services and access that is ultimately unfulfilling in both form and function.
Is nepotism really that bad? | LinkedIn – Jed Hallam wrote an essay on nepotism and the effects that he perceives it as having on inequality. Jed tries to steer a line on nepotism somewhere between recognising that the people may have an interest and talent, whilst pointing out inequality related issues derived from nepotism. Nepotism itself is widespread, whether its impact is small or large.
Jed is concerned that nepotism can actively remove opportunities for less conventional candidates that may do better if assessed solely in merit.
Social, cultural and economic barriers
Even if nepotism disappeared, our unconscious desire to hire people more like us, can mean that candidates face challenges in social, cultural and economic realms. I don’t drink, don’t have an interest in rugby union or football. I knew no one down here and sold my car to pay my first month’s rent when I moved to London. The analogy of a viking burning his boat behind him would be apt. I didn’t, and couldn’t if I wanted to, move to London earlier than my late 20s. I had to put myself through university and build up a modest amount of money to back myself as my parents didn’t have any.
One aspect of Jed’s essay on nepotism particularly surprised me:
“the proportion of people from working-class backgrounds operating in the creative industries has more than halved since the 1970s–falling from 16.4 percent to just 7.9 percent”
The problem with nepotism is that its hard to define and work out the difference between good and bad nepotism. For instance:
I line managed some one who had gone to Harrow and had found it harder to get into a creative agency because he was considered to be too posh by interviewees. He since went on to work successfully for other agencies, inhouse at a well loved brand and now runs his own shop
Would someone following on into the family profession be a case of nepotism? A classic example from the creative industry would be Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk, whose father is disco producer ‘Daniel Vangarde’ aka Daniel Bangalter. One could imagine how being exposed to music and a studio environment from an early age made Thomas the kind of producer he was.
Or the Arnault children taking roles in LVMH? European business often rely on intergenerational family ownership and management
Nepotism is more obvious when you have events like the recent US college scandal. The problem with debate about any hot subject like nepotism is the lack of room for nuance and good judgement. A second aspect to it is making people feel like victims of nepotism and inequality, rather than encouraging striving. Admittedly that is even made harder to do when inequality that underpins nepotism has become much more extreme.
People look for easy solves and clear lines for issues like nepotism, when what we really need are better decision making and good judgement.
Nepotism unresolved
There will always be people who feel hard done by, it wasn’t them it was X external factor. Sometimes it isn’t your time, or you didn’t make clear how good you were. Equal opportunity doesn’t equate to equal outcomes, the case in point that nepotism can learn from is currently going through the US Supreme Court. In an age of algorithmically filtered CVs I can see nepotism become attenuated rather than resolved.
V Shanshan, “Why are you Forcing me to Embrace Solidarity?” – Reading the China Dream – Weibo post from someone whose uncle had died from complications from covid the previous day, writing to express his anger and bitterness at the hectoring calls in China’s official media to “come together” and “look to the future” as China decides to live—and die—with covid. That such calls ring hollow for many Chinese makes perfect sense, since China’s mighty messaging machine seems to have turned on a dime, suddenly arguing that Omicron is no big deal and that “everyone is responsible for their own health” after insisting for years that the virus is deadly and that collective behavior was the only way to control it
A Place for Fire – The Paris Review – the primal draw of fire in the home. This reminded me of the central role of the turf and wood fuelled range in the Irish farmhouse where I spent a good deal of my childhood
Project MUSE – The Surge of Nationalist Sentiment among Chinese Youth during the COVID-19 Pandemic – Since 2012, Beijing has been promoting a strain of populist nationalism which underscores both the institutional superiority of the ruling party and the cultural superiority of being Chinese. At the international level, however, the image of both the regime and the Chinese has been marred due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in Wuhan (December 2019–January 2020). This study examines the extent and the form that the surge in nationalist sentiment of Chinese young people has taken during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a questionnaire survey of 1,200 students from a sample of 20 colleges/universities in China (June–July 2020), this study shows that the respondents express high satisfaction with the state’s performance in tackling the pandemic, and that there is a substantial surge of nationalist sentiment with a high level of hostility towards other nations (e.g. the United States). Such nationalist sentiment, however, is found to express a bifurcated pattern in that young Chinese also tend to embrace the opportunity to work and study in the Western societies they ostensibly dislike – yeah, is it smart to let them in though, given Chinese laws obligating them to cooperate with the MSS if requested?
Project MUSE – Living with the State-Led Order: Practical Acceptance and Unawareness of the Chinese Middle Class – China’s expanding middle class is often found to support the regime and lack democratic aspirations. We find that one section of the middle class depends upon the state for jobs and other material benefits, and the other works for the private and foreign sectors of the country’s economy. Once separated as such, we found that the non-state middle class clearly shows lower support for the regime. Furthermore, unlike the state middle class, which registers lower democratic support, the non-state middle class shows a similar level of democratic support as other social classes. In general, however, while only pragmatically accepting the current order, both middle class groups nonetheless appear lacking practical knowledge and understanding of liberal democratic institutions such as free media and multiparty elections. The unforthcoming attitudes toward democracy might also derive from a general sense of fearing the loss of order and the other related uncertainties
Economics
The true priorities of the global elite – by Judd Legum – The New York Times’ Peter Goodman, author of “Davos Man” — a blistering criticism of the WEF and its neoliberal ideology — recently offered this brief description: The World Economic Forum is not a secret government or organized conspiracy. It is a giant business meeting, a chance for the heads of multinational oil giants to sit opposite Persian Gulf potentates — fronted by the performance art of earnest panel discussions aimed at solving the problems of the day. More than anything, Davos is a prophylactic against change, an elaborate reinforcement of the status quo served up as the pursuit of human progress. Tuesday’s WEF program included a panel with Senators Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV). The pair shared an on-stage high-five in celebration of the filibuster, which has been used to block increases in the minimum wage, protections for voting rights, and efforts to maintain access to reproductive health care.
German tank manufacturer’s warning puts pressure on Ukraine’s allies | Ukraine | The Guardian – Battle tanks from German industrial reserves wanted by Ukraine will not be ready to be delivered until 2024, the arms manufacturer Rheinmetall has warned, increasing pressure on Nato allies to support Ukraine with armoured vehicles in active service instead, ahead of a key meeting this week.“Even if the decision to send our Leopard tanks to Kyiv came tomorrow, the delivery would take until the start of next year,” Rheinmetall’s chief executive, Armin Papperger, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. Rheinmetall, which manufactures the battle vehicle’s gun, has 22 Leopard 2 and 88 older Leopard 1 tanks in its stocks. Getting the Leopard tanks ready for battle, however, would take several months and cost hundreds of millions of euros the company could not put up until the order was confirmed
Macau gaming: Chau’s jail term warns punters and investors alike | Financial Times – It is worthwhile considering this in part of the wider picture of how China is trying deal with capital flight. It also chimes with efforts to move Hong Kong from being about ‘wealth management’ i.e. schemes to allow capital flight out of the mainland to the west to trying to pull in western money to invest in Chinese businesses. Macau was part of that process too.
Expect a clampdown on insurance policy sales people. At the moment a lot of them sell these things via WeChat with a view to providing financial services to mainlanders in a similar way to what daigou do with luxury goods from abroad. I know work at home mums that do this for Prudential as a side hustle
Auction houses have expanded like crazy in Hong Kong during the pandemic and I would expect the authorities to look at how they can shut this off or use to only import items into China rather than having them leave again. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are strongly encouraged to shutdown in Hong Kong and up up in Sanya on Hainan island instead so they stay inside the yuan firewall
Expect pressure on foreign banks on wealth management / capital flight vehicles. There maybe some latitude through mainland banks where the government can monitor the flow through back-end access into their systems
Ultimately, Singapore will be the new Hong Kong – which is happening already due to ‘run culture’ and a plethora of wealth management and family office services being provided.
Hong Kong’s financial hub is at a crossroads | Financial Times – Look for a senior job in Hong Kong these days on LinkedIn and you’re unlikely to find any openings unless you’re a speaker of Cantonese or Mandarin, or both. “That’s a big change,” confides a longtime British expat in the territory. “It’s understandable. But it’s a big change.” The evolving jobs market is just one of the visible signs of the tilt to mainland China that promises to redefine Hong Kong’s role as a global financial centre. Beijing’s growing influence on the former British colony — evident in four years of security crackdowns and tough Covid lockdowns — has raised existential questions about the sustainability of the territory’s role as Asia’s unparalleled bridgehead to global finance – yeah soon even the finance bros will go
Japan was the future but it’s stuck in the past – BBC News – Japan had emerged from the destruction of World War Two and conquered global manufacturing. The money poured back into the country, driving a property boom where people bought anything they could get their hands on, even chunks of forest. By the mid-1980s, the joke was that the grounds of the imperial palace in Tokyo were worth the same as all of California. The Japanese call it the “Baburu Jidai” or the bubble era. Then in 1991 the bubble burst. The Tokyo stock market collapsed. Property prices fell off a cliff. They are yet to recover. A friend was recently negotiating to buy several hectares of forest. The owner wanted $20 per square metre. “I told him forest land is only worth $2 a square metre,” my friend said. “But he insisted he needed $20 a square metre, because that’s what he’d paid for it in the 1970s.” Think of Japan’s sleek bullet trains, or Toyota’s “just-in-time” marvel of assembly-line manufacturing – and you could be forgiven for thinking Japan is a poster child for efficiency. It is not. Rather the bureaucracy can be terrifying, while huge amounts of public money are spent on activities of dubious utility – this says more about the persons values than about Japan. Also coming from Britain’s public broadcast service, it is ironic that Japan is at the centre of many critical global supply chains and Britain is being stripped out of them. A bit of introspection is required
Luxury Brands Beware: Angered Chinese Tourists Are Avoiding Japan And South Korea | Jing Daily – South Korea issued yellow tags for China’s inbound travelers to wear at its airports, and Japan followed suit, giving red tags to passengers coming from the country. The initiative has elicited outrage online. On Weibo, the hashtag “Japan issues red tags to mark Chinese travelers” has gathered 200 million views, becoming the fourth most trending topic at one point. Many Chinese travelers complained that they not only had to pay for COVID tests and potential quarantines in subpar conditions upon entering South Korea but also had to wear a yellow tag on their necks to identify themselves as coming from China for special inspection at airports. The tags, along with South Korean reporters snapping photos at them, made them feel like they were criminals being transferred
Good to see that we’re finally beyond the 3D printing hype bubble and its true benefits can be appreciated. This article is a good run down of the pros and cons of 3D printing in an industrial setting. In some ways it reminds me of the ‘manufacturing cells’ concept were a computer controlled machine tool with switchable tool faces would do multiple jobs and process multiple types of products in small batches.
Not all manufacturing is true Fordian production lines. Just in the same way that digital printing has been good for small run books and catalogues or printing on demand; yet ‘traditional printing’ is still used for bigger print runs – additive manufacturing will be alongside traditional manufacturing processes.
Chinese Celebrities’ Political Signalling on Sina Weibo | The China Quarterly | Cambridge Core – Recent studies have revealed how the state disciplines and co-opts celebrities to promote patriotism, foster traditional values and spread political propaganda. However, how do celebrities adapt to the changing political environment? Focusing on political signalling on the social media platform Sina Weibo, we analyse a novel dataset and find that the vast majority of top celebrities repost from official accounts of government agencies and state media outlets, though there are variations. Younger celebrities with more followers tend to repost from official accounts more often. Celebrities from Taiwan tend to repost less than those from the mainland and Hong Kong, despite being subject to the same rules. However, the frequent political signalling by the most influential celebrities among younger generations suggests that the state has co-opted celebrity influence on social media to broadly promote its political objectives
Macs In the Enterprise: A Cisco Case Study – Creative Strategies – Despite extremely high desire from employees to use Macs (66% according to a study we did last year), most IT organizations keep the Mac users in their organization at arm’s length. Offering true platform of choice matters when it comes to employee experience and employee satisfaction with their workplace, tools, and IT departments. This is exactly what Cisco found when they studied internal employees. A Cisco report on IT satisfaction of employees found satisfaction to be significantly lower when employees were not offered their platform of choice in a laptop – this bullshit has been going on my entire career, HR departments are a major issue as well
Bongbong Marcos aka Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr is the son of former Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos. The Asia Society did a really good talk on the election which explains what got Bongbong Marcos elected as president of the Philippines. Yes there was a lot of misinformation and sketchy tactics by the Bongbong Marcos campaign, but there is more going on.
Much of the issue seems to be that Marcos is viewed as standing against local Filipino dynasties that have most of the economic power in the country. I found this particularly interesting as Bongbong Marcos and his running mate Sara Duterte are both from dynasty families.
Marcos’ mother Imelda had a dad who as a lawyer, an uncle who was a supreme court judge, a cousin who was in the lower house of parliament and her brother was a provincial governor. On his father’s side, Bongbong’s grandfather was a lawyer and politician, and the mother was a school teacher. While both of Bongbong’s parents had known poverty, they could rely on a strong powerful network of family ties to help get them good jobs. Ferdinand Marcos even managed to get away with murder in 1939.
Bongbong Marcos is supposed to be stuffing people he can trust through blood ties into key government and political positions such as speaker of the house and ministerial roles.
Opposition party strategy
The Marcos campaign managed to play on nostalgia for older voters and addressed young voters through TikTok. The opposition party strategy failed in online marketing. Misinformation was an aggravating factor.
Corrosion of liberal democracy
The average Filipino voter doesn’t feel invested in democracy in the same way that the middle class would be. 7 out of 10 surveyed by Pew wouldn’t mind an authoritarian leader like Bongbong Marcos – so Marcos was pushing against an open door. The middle classes are looking for ‘order and discipline’ rather than dysfunction. They think that economic success and freedom are mutually exclusive. They look to the United Arab Emirates and Singapore as exemplars. There are similarities with middle income countries like Modi in India, Erdoğan in Turkey, Urban in Hungary and Bolsonaro in Brazil.
From an economic perspective what does Bongbong Marcos mean? Noah Smith made their most optimistic take on the economics of the Philippines Can the Philippines sustain its growth? – by Noah Smith. An authoritarian Bongbong Marcos government might see the departure of foreign companies who have been responsible for powering the past two decades of economic growth in the Philippines. The only reason why you might not see a foreign multi-national company exit would be ‘de-Chinaisation’ of global supply chains.
Siemens to discontinue business in Russia – eeNews Europe – Siemens stopped all new business with and international deliveries to Russia and Belarus. The comprehensive international sanctions and the current and potential countermeasures are affecting the company’s business activities in Russia – especially its railway service and maintenance business. For companies that are mainly active in B2B business, the decision to completely exit a region is more difficult to make than for companies that sell consumer goods. The reason: contracts for the maintenance of industrial plants and trains are concluded for many years, sometimes decades – this is an opportunity for Chinese railway businesses
Firms as Revenue Safety Nets: Political Connections and Returns to the Chinese State | The China Quarterly | Cambridge Core – restructured state-owned enterprises (SOEs) with political connections pay more tax than their assessed amount, independent of profits, in exchange for more preferential access to key inputs and policy opportunities controlled by the state. Examining taxes rather than profits also offers a new interpretation for why China continues to favour its remaining SOEs even when they are less profitable – it also explains why apparently inefficient SOEs get so many bank loans from state owned banks
California’s demography is at odds with the old California Dream | The Economist – The population fell to 39.2m in the year to January 2022, 400,000 lower than in 2020 (see chart). In 1990, the number of Californians had been rising by a robust 2.5% a year. The biggest contribution to the decline came from migration. In 2021, the net change (people moving out of state minus those moving in) was twice as large as the number of covid deaths and four times the population’s natural change (the excess of deaths over births). Big cities have been hit hardest; the population of Los Angeles County has fallen for the past four years. Even if these declines were no worse than average—and national demographic trends are slowing, too—they might seem worse in a state where, as its governor once said, “the future happens here first”. In fact California’s demography is worse than average. The state’s total fertility rate (tfr, an estimate of the number of children women will bear over their lifetimes) fell from 2.2 in 2006 to 1.5 in 2020, more than in America as a whole, where the fall was from 2.1 to 1.6.
Arrest of Cardinal Zen send chills through Hong Kong’s Catholic church | Financial Times – a diocesan administrator tendered their resignation over a posting on the “Catholic Way” Facebook page on April 27. The post, which was quickly deleted, summarised a television interview in which a local priest accused China of attempting to control religion in Hong Kong. The diocese said the administrator had resigned of their own accord. The police investigation of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, of which Zen was a trustee and which supported pro-democracy protesters, could also have implications for Hong Kong’s legal system. Police said on Thursday that they had complained to the Bar Association and Law Society about alleged misconduct by unnamed lawyers who took on the fund’s cases
Talking about white privilege online can backfire – Futurity – The relationship between question language and the content of the responses was mediated by their support or opposition to renaming buildings. This suggests that, rather than causing people to think differently about the world, the term white privilege causes an emotional reaction which then affects their response, Quarles says. Inclusive ways of speaking about race online, such as the term “racial inequality,” are more likely to create a sense of shared purpose, he says. Policymakers who want to promote racial equity should consider how their language can either unite people or alienate potential allies, he says. – but this doesn’t understand that white privilege as a term comes from left-wing thinking and isn’t designed for dialogue. The emotional reaction is elicited by design as part of the narrative of ideological struggle. Either the party is worn down to the ideology or they are part of the enemy, which is then followed to its conclusion in Stalinism
Recovery for Bosch as it warns of slowdown – eeNews Europe – It’s worth taking a closer look at how the war affects climate action. My assessment is nuanced: in the short term, the acute conflict will slow progress in reducing carbon emissions, but in the long term, it will accelerate the technological transformation in Europe – Bosch also particularly keen on green hydrogen
Lex in depth: why the luxury market needs to hedge against China | Financial Times – Customers at the exclusive Shinsegae department store in the Gangnam district of Seoul prefer to display their wealth discreetly. But their high spending was exposed to the wider world when it revealed annual sales had topped $2bn in 2021 — the highest turnover for a single store in the world. It outpaced even Harrods in London, which before the coronavirus pandemic had long held the world’s top spot
EU plans to require backdoor to encrypted messages for child protection | AppleInsider – “When executing the detection order, providers should take all available safeguard measures to ensure that the technologies employed by them cannot be used by them or their employees for purposes other than compliance with this Regulation,” says the proposal, “nor by third parties, and thus to avoid undermining the security and confidentiality of the communications of users.” – congratulations EU you’ve just empowered authoritarian regimes and risked the lives of millions elsewhere
Japan has had a small but vibrant Chicano culture scene for years. The Japanese have had a community on the west coast of the US for over a century and a love of the detailed sub-cultures of the US. Japan also influences cultures and consumers in Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong and even China. Add to that, the fact that Chicano culture is portrayed in shows that are streaming internationally like Mayans MC.
In the west, this would be called cultural appropriation; but I don’t think that really captures what’s going on here.
It is interesting that it is happening now, while Thailand is ruled by a military government; there is a sub-culture flourishing that probably looks rebellious and anti-authoritarian is very interesting.
Korea
Vice News did an episode on the families behind chaebols – Korean business empires called South Korea’s Untouchable Families. None of the content will be of any surprise to anyone who has read this blog or has an appreciation of modern Korean culture. The tale of how the chaebols where largely creations of the Korean government and in time managed to capture the country after the 1997 financial crisis is largely a matter of public record. The extra-legal nature of chaebols are the stuff of Korean dramas.
The ‘chaebol negotiation rule’ of a three year sentence commuted to five years probation is also well known.
What I found curious is how much emphasis they have put on Samsung, who have the most international reach and advertising spend. The Samsung semiconductor experience with workers suffering from cancer mirrors the experience of workers in fabrication facilities when they were based in Silicon Valley. So the risks involved in the chemicals and the need for protection would have been well known.
Asianometry has also recently published a video on the Chaebols that takes a slightly different take on the rise of the companies, linking their rise with weak and financially challenged political parties.
Japan – Tokyo Girl’s Collection
I have written about Tokyo Girl’s Collection in the past. It is interesting to see that it was extended into the metaverse this year. The formula is still largely the same:
A large live event with entertainment
Models and dokusha-models. (These are chosen among actual readers of the magazines as “representatives”. They are more attractive than average readers but not pretty enough to be actual models).
Online shopping and m-commerce of looks that the audience wouldn’t be able to buy locally if they live outside Tokyo
Hong Kong deindustrialisation
By the time I got to Hong Kong, the city’s industrial base had migrated north to the mainland. But I did get to see the massive packaging and printing factory that had been converted to the home furnishing shopping centre now called Horizon Plaza in Ap Lei Chau. As a child many of my clothes and toys had ‘Made in Hong Kong’ written on them.
I got to see the massive buildings that used to have clothing factories in Fo Tan and the Sui Fai Factory Estate – a multi-storey building full of light industrial units. De-manufacturing encouraged the rent-seeking oligarchs that dominate Hong Kong today, for instance Li Ka shing started off manufacturing plastic flowers and other light industrial processes, but pivoted to rent seeking businesses property, telecoms and retailing.
