We All Compete For What We All Think We Want
June 24, 2019
“Some things are not forgiveable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgiveable. It is the most unforgiveable thing in my opinion, and the one thing in which I have never, ever been guilty.”
“Success and failure are equally disastrous.”
– Tennessee Williams
A Classic He-Bombs She-Bombs Scenario
Last week’s tumultuous posturing between the US and Iran has the former top military aide to both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama worried that escalating tensions “could spin out of control.” As retired Adm. Mike Mullen said “The last thing in the world we need right now is a war with Iran.”
The US blames Iran for recent attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. On Thursday Iran shot down an American surveillance drone over what it said was Iranian air space, a claim the US disputes. In response to the attacks, US Cyber Command launched a cyberstrike against an Iranian spy group with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The strike targeted the spy group’s computer software used to control rocket and missile launches.
Also on Thursday President Trump authorized a retaliatory missile strike against Iran; two days later Trump said he had called off the strike at the last minute over concerns about potential casualties. He later claimed the strike had only been in the planning stages, prompting Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker to criticize even the consideration of a military response. Booker said Trump cannot take military action against Iran without congressional approval.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency order early Friday prohibiting all American flights from entering Tehran-controlled airspace above the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman due to “heightened military activities and increased political tensions.” Other countries’ international airlines also diverted flights over Iranian air space.
- Attacking Iran Is Congress’s Call: The Trump administration’s campaign of maximum pressure and minimal diplomacy is bringing the two countries ever closer to blows. Lawmakers must weigh in. (NYT, $)
- They Each Backed Off Strikes: Trump in ’19, Obama in ’13, Clinton in ’98 (NYT, $)
- Trump’s Slouching Toward War With Iran Is a Disgrace: The last-minute calling-off of military action is the first wise decision on Iran the president has taken. (NYT, $)
- Trump’s Iran Reversal Raises Allies’ Doubts Over His Tactics, and U.S. Power (NYT, $)
- Bolton Defends Trump’s Canceled Iran Strike: Don’t Mistake Prudence For Weakness (NPR)
This Is Your Brain On Information. Any Questions?
- A neuroeconomist and a graduate student at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business have found that information acts on the brain’s dopamine-producing reward system in the same way as money, food or drugs.
- Their new paper, “Common neural code for reward and information value” was published this month by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In it the researchers demonstrate that the brain converts information into the same common scale as it does for money. It also lays the groundwork for unraveling the neuroscience behind how we consume information—and perhaps even digital addiction.
- Associate Professor Ming Hsu explains: “…just as our brains like empty calories from junk food, they can overvalue information that makes us feel good but may not be useful—what some may call idle curiosity.” In other words: “To the brain, information is its own reward….” (Berkeley Haas Newsroom)
Protect The Protestors
- Protests continued Friday in Hong Kong even after the city’s chief executive Carrie Lam suspended her contentious extradition bill over a week ago. The protestors want Lam to completely withdraw the law, which would allow extraditions to mainland China.
- They also want police to release the demonstrators who were arrested last week. Leaders said protesters must keep up pressure on the government until their demands are met. (NYT, $)
- Hong Kong protests: How tensions have spread to US (BBC)
They Want Him Erdogone
- Opponents of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan say that nearly twenty years of his authoritarian management style and cronyism has caused confidence and performance across the country’s public sector — economy, education, and labor — to fall as low as it’s ever been.
- The state of Turkey’s justice system is in such crisis that millions of citizens are tied up in tortuous legal procedures. Purges and a persistent brain drain have decimated the judiciary, and judges still in their jobs are paralyzed by a climate of fear. (NYT, $)
- Turkey’s opposition strikes blow to Erdogan with Istanbul mayoral win (Reuters)
Technopolies: Unhinged, Unchecked, and Unregulated
- Amazon Explores Having Its Drones Provide ‘Home Surveillance’ For Customers (NPR)
- What Happens After Amazon’s Domination Is Complete? Its Bookstore Offers Clues (NYT, $)
- The ‘Platform’ Excuse Is Dying: For years, tech companies have relied on a rhetorical sleight of hand. It’s not working anymore. (Atlantic)
- Facebook usage falling after privacy scandals, data suggests: Actions such as shares and likes down nearly 20%, though user numbers still growing (Guardian)
- The hired guns of Instagram: Companies can’t advertise on social media — so they have female influencers do it for them. (Vox)
- F.T.C. Said to Be Investigating YouTube Over Child Privacy Claims (NYT, $)
- Bodies in Seats: At Facebook’s worst-performing content moderation site in North America, one contractor has died, and others say they fear for their lives (The Verge)
- ‘If You’ve Built a Chaos Factory, You Can’t Dodge Responsibility for the Chaos’: Amazon says it’s not responsible if its creations are abused. (NYT, $)
- To Take Down Big Tech, They First Need to Reinvent the Law (NYT, $)
Concentration Camps On U.S. Soil…Again
- Attorneys have been reporting the Trump administration’s neglect and mistreatment of immigrant children being kept at border facilities. Overcrowding is rampant, and five immigrant children have died since late last year after being detained by Customs and Border Protection.
- A teenage mother with a premature baby was found last week in a Texas processing center after being held nine days by the government.
- On Thursday a legal team interviewed 60 children at a facility near El Paso, Texas. The lawyers found kids taking care of kids, and inadequate food, water and sanitation for the 250 infants, children and teens at the Border Patrol station.
- The detainees had not been given soap or toothpaste. Many of the children interviewed had arrived at the US-Mexico border alone, but some had been separated from their parents or other adult caregivers including aunts and uncles.
- The co-director of the University of California, Davis Immigration Law Clinic said “In my 22 years of doing visits with children in detention, I have never heard of this level of inhumanity.” (AP)
- ‘There Is a Stench’: No Soap and Overcrowding in Detention Centers for Migrant Children (NYT $)
- I’m a Journalist But I Didn’t Fully Realize the Terrible Power of U.S. Border Officials Until They Violated My Rights and Privacy (Intercept)
- ‘Some Suburb of Hell’: America’s New Concentration Camp System (The New York Review of Books)
- Trump Delays Immigration Raids, Giving Democrats ‘Two Weeks’ To Change Asylum Laws (NPR)
- AOC’s Generation Doesn’t Presume America’s Innocence: Ocasio-Cortez’s “concentration camps” comment questions an old orthodoxy: that only other countries—and not the U.S.—are capable of evil. (Atlantic)
- How politics explains Trump’s U-turns on Iran and immigration (CNN)
You Like, I Like, We All Like. So We All Compete.
- Most of what we know about the world we learned by testimony — what someone else told us. If we relied only on our own senses, our knowledge would be very limited. So if most of our own beliefs are based on other people’s beliefs, what are our desires based on? Turns out those are based, at least partly, on others’ desires as well. This might be called ‘desire infection,’ meaning we get infected by the desires of others around us.
- We know empirically that others’ emotions can influence us. If people around us start yawning, we often start yawning. A film can seem much funnier if everyone in the audience is laughing out loud. Clearly our emotions are influenced by the emotions of others. But our desires are also influenced by the desires of others. The difference is that emotions are fleeting, but desires formed on the basis of other people’s desires can remain, and have a major impact on how life turns out. (Aeon)
- “Stories thrive on conflict between characters. By reading the great writers against the grain of conventional wisdom, Girard realized that people don’t fight over their differences. They fight because they are the same, and they want the same things. Not because they need the same things (food, sex, scarce material goods), but because they want what will earn others’ envy. Humans, with a planning intelligence that sets them apart from all other animals, are free to choose. With freedom comes risk and uncertainty: humans don’t know in advance what to choose, so they look to others for cues. People can desire anything, as long as other people seem to desire it, too: that is the meaning of Girard’s concept of “mimetic desire.” Since people tend toward the same objects of desire, jealousy and rivalry are inevitable sources of social tension — and perfect themes for the great novelists.” (René Girard and Mimetic Theory)