Euphemized

I was listening to an episode of The New York Times "The Opinions" podcast recently, and the topic was theft as a form of political action. The podcast coined the term "microlooting" for this activity, which I suspect is known to most people simply as "shoplifting." The New York Times being part of the "mainstream media," the term has quickly become a front in the United State's culture wars, with Conservative outlets being quick to jump on the practice as yet more proof of Liberal moral turpitude (not to mention un-Americanism). But for me, the real problem with shoplifting as a form of "direct action" is that it does nothing to solve the problem, and framing it as some sort of political protest obscures that point.

In 1978, when Jimmy Carter was President of the United States, the highest marginal income tax rate was 70%, payable on income over $108,300. In 2024, the rate was 37%, payable on income over $609,350. This represents about a 50% cut in the rate, given that $108,300 in 1978 was about $531,400 in 2024 dollars. Sneaking lemons out of Whole Foods does nothing to address this simple fact.

Politicians have been offering up tax cuts as a means of purchasing political support for my entire adult life by this point, and people have gone along with it, because a lowering of taxes feels like some sort of relief of their own feelings of poverty; until wealthy people, whose taxes also went down, started pulling away from them. There would be much more money for public services if tax rates went back to where they had been in 1978, but no-one wants that; the general feeling that "someone else" should be paying for it is fairly deeply ingrained in American culture by now.

The problem with large-scale direct action and political protest in the United States is not the collective action problem that it's made out to be. It's a social trust problem. The Right and Left of American politics have very different idea of what an ideal society should look like, and their mutual animosity tends to lead each to want to place the costs on the other. Both are effectively faith-based approaches to issue of governance that regard the other as heretical. And both of them are beholden to large segments of the American public that are basically looking out for themselves.

Because when Amazon was offering better prices than brick-and-mortar retailers due to not collecting sales taxes for whichever state the buyer was in, or Uber and Lyft were undercutting taxi companies by simply not following the rules those companies had to follow, the public's silence on this was taken as approval. And now that people are saying to wealthy executive and investors "Okay, now share some of the take with the rest of us," they come across as surprised that the answer is mostly "No."

High levels of income and wealth inequality are solved in the same way that housing shortages (and resulting high prices) are solved: one doesn't let the situation get to that point in the first place. Because there are now a lot of people whose material comforts explicitly rely on the current status quo, and many of them aren't in "the 1%." And they're going to turn out to protect their interests. This is just how loss aversion works.

Many people in the United States feel that political apathy is something that they're entitled to, and therefore, shouldn't have to pay a price for. But everything has a price, and deferring payments rarely make them go away.

Unsolicited

Now that it's graduation season again, I've pulled together some of the things that I've learned about life from having lived it for the past few decades. I don't know that anyone will find them useful, but here they are, anyway.

• Enjoying what you do is important, because you're going to need to put in a lot of hours to be exceptional at it. It's hard to excel at something you hate doing. Drudgery and chores are rarely paths to greatness.
• The fact that something doesn't feel like work when you're doing it doesn't make it valueless or trivial.
• "Do what you love" isn't advice, it's a sound bite. Cultivate your interests as broadly as you can manage; that will make it easier to find something within them that other people need doing. That intersection is important.
• The best way to learn a skill is to tackle a problem that's 1) important to you to solve and 2) requires the skill in question. 
• Be careful about fighting with people (physically or otherwise), because the costs can be high even when you "win."
• Whenever someone is doing something that doesn't make any sense to you, set out to learn what they're being graded on, and who is doing the grading.
• At Some Point, Everybody's New (ASPEN). Don't be afraid to be the new person and don't make others afraid of it, either.
• You will never be perfect. You can play whack-a-mole with your weaknesses for the rest of life, and still not fix them all. Unless you literally have no other choice, always play to your strong suit(s).
• Partner with other people, so that they help make up for your shortcomings, and you help make up for theirs.
• Learn from the mistakes of others; you'll never live long enough to make them all yourself.
• When conversing with someone, you're speaking from your assumptions, experiences and outlook. But they're listening from theirs, and everything you tell them will be filtered through that. And, just as importantly, vice versa.
• When you see a chance to connect with someone over something, make time to take it, especially if you've had a difficult relationship with them in the past.
• Understand what's important to you; what you are willing to make time for, and what you have to make time from.
• The job of an influencer is to sell a lifestyle; not the work it takes to attain it.
• Common sense requires common experience.
• Don't look for reasons to take things personally.
• People will line up around the block to tell you how terrible you are; they need neither your help nor your competition.
• When people are confident in you, trust that they have good reason to be, and then work to prove them right.

Shortfall

Many of the negative consequences of consumer AI usage are caused by loneliness, isolation and gullibility.

Seth Godin. "AI together."

I would disagree with this, somewhat. Or maybe I would simply re-frame it. What I think are at work in cases of "AI Psychosis" and similar technologically-driven maladies are simple unmet needs. And part of what generative automation strike so many people as "sycophantic" is that it's designed to meet user needs. And like a lot of consumer products, it's not designed to care precisely how it does that.

People are always sensitive to their unmet needs; although perhaps "driven by" would be a better way to put it. And one of the aspects of American culture that people are constantly pointing out is its tendency towards individuality. And this means that people are less likely than one might want them to be sensitive, and responsive, to the needs of people around them.

And into that deficit steps generative automation. And people who can't find enough connection, community or validation from the people around them now have a ready source; and one that never becomes tired, impatient or needy itself. Why would anyone expect that people wouldn't cling to that? If they'd met a person with those traits, they'd be considered foolish to not hold on to them for dear life.

So I'm not sure that trying to steer generative automation in a direction where it doesn't meet those people's needs either is really the best way to go. Even if it is much easier than changing our society, and it's response to people. 

Reasons

With average gasoline prices in the United States having climbed from a little below $3.00 a gallon back in late February to just north of $4.50 a gallon as of this week, I'm curious as to what the broad message from the Trump Administration is going to be; and to whom it will be directed.

Generally speaking, the Trump Administration care about reliable Republican voters, who, for the most part, don't need much in the way of reassurance from the White House or Capitol Hill, because they tend to be willing to give the Administration the benefit of the doubt. This is one of the more tangible benefits of negative partisanship. But it seems unlikely that, even with aggressive gerrymandering, that a reliance only on high-propensity Republican voters will allow Republicans to carry the House of Representatives. The recent Supreme Court decision allowing for the breakup of "majority minority" districts might help, but not if enough Republican voters stay home, and low-propensity voters, are, more or less by definition, the most likely to skip this upcoming election cycle.

Which may mean that the Administration will have no choice but to defend itself as November comes closer. The President may have enough sway with Republican primary voters to punish Republican defector from his gerrymandering plan in places like Indiana, but that's not the same as being able to drive general election turnout. And there have been indications that people who voted for President Trump because they believed his campaign promises about creating economic boom times and not having the United States involved in foreign entanglements don't think that his tariff regime and strongarming NATO line up with what they thought they were going to get. And they're not part of the activist class that believes that the Republican Party is entitles to leadership by virtue of being right about all things at all times.

On the other hand, the Democrats may be of the opinion that their job is too easy at this point. Despite more than a decade of President Trump and the Republican party being able to do more or less what they want without a significant erosion in their core base of support, it seems difficult for Democrats to come up with any message more cogent than "Trump bad." Which may be true, but it's a very limited message for a political party that's supposed to be the standard-bearer for the idea that government can, and does, solve people's problems. Simply changing the occupant of the Oval Office is not the same as actually making changes that impact people's lives for the better.

So I'm somewhat looking forward to what the parties' messages are going to be, as November comes closer. Being in a reliably Blue state my own House and Senate races are highly unlikely to bear any resemblance to "competitive" so the local media market is likely to be quiet. Which will likely mean seeking out the various party talking points; which is perhaps what more people should be doing anyway. 

Bounced

While we're on the topic of job searches, I was scrolling through LinkedIn today, and came across a post from someone who said that they were "85% to 90% qualified for." They'd tailored their résumé for the position, and "had a decent feeling that [they] would be called back for an interview."

They weren't. Instead "Not even 24 hours later, [they] received an email that basically said that [their] qualifications were impressive, but [the company] decided to go with a different candidate." The poster claimed to be "baffled" by this, and concluded: "The ATS screening likely didn’t see direct industry language and automatically rejected me, even though I do the job they described, just in a different industry."

Or, someone (or more likely, multiple someones) who was (were) 90%+ qualified and had same industry experience applied, and interview queue was filled before anyone got to their résumé. While I'm not a betting man, if I had to put money on it, one way or the other, I suspect I know which one I would go for. Because the unemployment rate in the industries that are most represented on LinkedIn is fairly high. It's not rocket science; if companies can receive 200+ résumés in 24 hours for an open position, their chances of finding someone who's more or less a 100% match is fairly good, unless they've been thoughtless about their qualifications or job descriptions. (Companies looking for 5+ years of experience on technologies that are not yet 5 years old still abound.)

Applicant Tracking Systems, especially those that have generative automation baked into them, are common bogeymen in today's employment market. It's easy to point to examples of people receiving rejection letters on very short turnaround and complain that no actual human beings ever look at most résumés. But in an environment where a company can be flooded with applications in short order, of course most résumés will never be reviewed by a human being... no-one's in the business of hiring armies of people just to read résumés.