Frosted Echoes

Given the recent damning ProPublica piece that focuses on Facebook’s role in the January 6th attack on the US Capitol, there is a profound irony in a good Democratic Congressman using Facebook to host a discussion called “January 6th: Democracy Under Attack.”

Finished reading: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 📚

The Quick Reviews web app from @mattbirchler just dropped and it’s pretty sweet. Still a bit rough around the edges, but useful and pretty.

Andy Nicolaides over at the Dent urges us to take it easy on ourselves when it comes to social media. Look around the interwebs and you will find no shortage of people berating themselves up for their time spent on social media or trying to concoct ways to curb their use of those platforms.

A big one is the use of Twitter. A huge amount of people are using this service multiple times a day, for various reasons. I’ve started seeing quite a few posts, or comments just as an aside in a post however, with the authors both figuratively and literally apologising for using the service. They beat themselves up for using it too much, or for wasting time ‘just scrolling’. I’m starting to question why that is. I mean, don’t get me wrong, if you’re leaving a dog or child to starve to death because you’re too obsessed with Twitter to feed them you’re most definitely an animal and you should be ashamed. If, however, you’re a hardworking individual that likes to utilise (not waste) your time flicking around Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, or whatever your service of choice is then you go for it.

Social media can be addictive and you don’t have to be Jaron Lanier to understand the ways those companies use psychological tricks to keep you coming back. However, if you can manage the urge and make reasonable use of Twitter or similar platforms, then you should give yourself a break and recognize that it’s an enjoyable activity for you.

→ Give Yourself a Break | The Dent

Two days ago, I was literally sweating at the dinner table because it was so hot and today we got snow. ❄️

It would be difficult to come up with a more precise and succinct description of our modern political predicament than this one by former religion advisor to Barack Obama, Michael Wear, from his new Substack newsletter. Sure, things are not exactly this simple, and there are so many dynamics at play, but at a macro level, this feels like it nails the current climate.

In an earlier post this year, I reiterated a basic dynamic in our social life that I am not the first to identify, but that I think generally holds: that conservatives have significant political power but feel embattled and resentful due to progressives’ cultural power, and progressives have significant cultural power, but feel embattled and resentful due to conservatives’ political power. That basic assessment requires significant explanation and caveats, but there’s a core truth to it that is helpful as you look out and try to make sense of our politics and broader public life.

What I like about Wear is his consistent optimism. Despite the seeming enormity of the problems that plague us now, he is always looking at how we can mitigate them. He frames problem solving in terms of developing virtues in a way that I rarely see elsewhere.

→ Power and Sacrifice | Reclaiming Hope

Trailing clouds of glory do we come,

From God, who is our home.

~ William Wordsworth

Twitter is serious about suspending the accounts of those who spread disinformation about Covid-19 or the vaccines for the virus. They have just shown, yet again, that they are willing to remove individuals from the platform, regardless of their popularity or government status. In these cases, they are enforcing terms of service that have already been set down, not being arbitrary or capricious.

Twitter has long banned users from sharing misinformation that could lead to harm. In rare cases, the company has permanently banned high-profile accounts, including the account of former President Donald J. Trump, over a risk of “further incitement of violence” after a mob of Trump loyalists stormed the U.S. Capitol last Jan. 6.

What is interesting is to see those who would label themselves as “small government” conservatives wanting the government to step in and prevent private companies, like Twitter, or in the case of the Parler deplatforming, Apple, Google and Amazon, from upholding their own terms of service. As I’ve written in the past, I believe companies should be allowed to set and enforce their own terms.

OK, so we take the state assuming control of private businesses thing from socialism, but use it to force companies to act as message distributors for right-wing nationalist politicians. A "nationalist socialism" if you will. We can workshop the name later. pic.twitter.com/QYEk1ezVqf

— Nicholas Grossman (@NGrossman81) January 2, 2022

→ Twitter Permanently Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Account | The New York Times

The Book of Boba Fett and Star Wars LEGO.

My son just became a big boy.

There is absolutely no overlap in the Venn diagram of my favorite albums this year and those of the Bandcamp editors. Sometimes, with these lists from publications I wonder how much of this is treasured music and how much is performance.

Saw some vultures chowing down on roadkill like it was Boston Market on the way to my mom’s today. That’s a good omen on Christmas.

My wife loves it that we got each other the same Christmas card… again.

Christians love the part in A Charlie Brown Christmas where Linus gives his speech about the true meaning of Christmas, quoting from the book of Luke. I am not exempting myself from the devotion to that scene. A few years ago, I read this passage at a Christmas Eve service at our church, and, even though it wasn’t in the translation from which I was reading, I was tempted to use the phrase, “and they were sore afraid,” just to be like Linus.

In the movie A Charlie Brown Christmas, when a frustrated Charlie Brown asks, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?” Linus, with his security blanket in hand, steps center stage and quotes Luke 2:8–14. In the middle of his recitation, as he says, “Fear not,” he drops his blanket—the thing he clung to when afraid.

One thing I hadn’t noticed before was the part about Linus dropping his security blanket, which his sister Lucy tried in vain many times to wrest from him, when he recites the scripture. It wasn’t until I read this passage in Our Daily Bread that I recounted that crucial part of the scene. Linus always carries that blanket to feel safe. The action has a symbolically profound implication about how we try to let go and trust in the Lord to guide us, especially during this season.

→ Fear Not | Our Daily Bread

For those that read this blog post (which was one of my more controversial, for some reason), my bro is in the clear.

📺 Watched Steve Jobs last night. Fassbender was great as the titular character. The whole movie was a series of high-stakes conversations, which was fairly stressful and exhausting, but it was very well done. The format could be adapted to the stage.

It seems the Chinese government is starting to understand that a political system with no real values is not healthy for people. The citizens of the country are increasingly developing a sort of nihilistic tendency. “Among the online youth, for example, ‘sang culture’ (roughly the equivalent of “doomerism” in the West) has proliferated.”

To combat a lack of spirituality in their culture, the Communist party is turning to Marx to inspire. From People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Chinese Communist party:

Recalling the “warmth” he still feels after finishing this study of Marx, a “warmth [that] comes from spiritual excitement, spiritual joy,” the reviewer concludes with an account of the “deep sense of inner satisfaction and happiness” he has gained, before declaring himself, with the cry of a convert, “a Marxist believer!”

The piece notes that these pronouncements sound more like they come from mid-2000’s American Evangelical Christians than Chinese Communists. The party recognizes, though, that they need to combat the malaise that their culture has engendered.

This has kicked off a scramble, led by top Party political theorist Wang Huning, to “create core values” to fill this uncomfortably God-shaped societal hole with the comforts of a synthetic ideological alternative.

It remains to be seen if the Chinese can be spiritually fulfilled by Marxist theory, which is still purely materialist.

→ The CCP gets religious about Karl Marx | The Post

Via social.ayjay.org

My sister was talking to my wife about a comedian who sounds just like me, “except that he’s really funny.”

Anne-Laure Le Cunff of Ness Labs was just interviewed by Indie Hackers. I really like the balance that she is able to strike between a fascination for work that requires a computer, and being able to extract time where she is not using a device.

What I spend the majority of my time doing: Sitting in front of my computer. Whether it’s learning, creating, connecting with other curious minds… I sometimes think it’s too much screen time, but there is such joy coming through this window on the world!

On her reading habit becoming a ritual:

Another thing that’s helped me move from routine to ritual is that starting last year, I’ve followed a strict rule of no electronic devices in my bedroom. It’s probably one of the simplest and best lifestyle changes I’ve made. It sounds obvious but not having devices in my room makes me sleep earlier, and better. I wake up with more energy and I’m more productive and creative.

While most of what she does involves screen time, she also puts hard boundaries around those activities to make time for other enrichment. I would find the part about putting away electronic devices in my bedroom pretty difficult. I wouldn’t give up my Kobo, of course, but even when you have an iPad, that lean back device form factor makes it too easy to use when supine. The closest thing I’ve got to her resolve is to set downtime to 9:30pm, but even that is too easy to break by putting in my screen time code.

Matt Birchler writes in Photography Needs to be Fun about how the new Glass photography network feels a bit too stilted and more like Unsplash than Instagram.

Meanwhile, Twitter and instagram are teeming with pros, amateurs, and everyone else, and they’re just more rich photography experiences for me. Social networks have cultures that form around them, and my feeling is that the culture in Glass is way too buttoned up and monolithic. I want photography to be diverse and fun, and the monolithic feeds I see in Glass don’t check either of those boxes for me now.

I wrote a few months ago about how Micro.blog fits into the Glass equation. I’ve seen some amazing photographs on the M.b. platform and there are people I follow that have near-professional photography skills. There are also quite a few amateur shots. It feels like a really nice balance.

The new kitten is thriving on a diet of faux Christmas trees, shoe laces and Moleskine bands.

Just Finished reading: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman 📚. It seems the productivity craze from years past has inspired a sizable backlash.