2:00PM Water Cooler 12/2/2022 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Chook Tune of the Day

Yellow-margined Flycatcher, Bolívar, Venezuela.

Politics

“However what’s authorities itself, however the biggest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“Right here’s meals for thought, had Ahab time to assume; however Ahab by no means thinks; he solely feels, feels, feels” –Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“So most of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in actual fact a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Biden Administration

Biden’s glad dance:

Thanks to these Congressional leaders and bipartisan members who voted to avert a rail shutdown.

Collectively, we pulled our economic system from the brink of a devastating shutdown that will’ve harm thousands and thousands of households and union employees.

I sit up for signing the invoice into legislation.

— President Biden (@POTUS) December 2, 2022

In fact, Biden doesn’t must signal the invoice. He might nonetheless jawbone the railroads. As if he would!

“Railroad Engineer on the Imposed Contract: “It Actually Fell Wanting Railroad Employees’ Wants” (interview) [Jacobin]. Jonah Furman interviews Russ Grooters: “I’d level to Sara Nelson and the Affiliation of Flight Attendants, which has discovered methods to work throughout the RLA to place strain on their employers to cut price. As a substitute of declaring a nationwide strike, the flight attendants have discovered that they even underneath the RLA they’ll have rolling strikes which are unpredictable. So say in the present day they strike in Atlanta, Georgia, and shut down that airport, and it causes disruptions throughout the system: flights are cancelled, et cetera. It’s a brief window, it could be a day, it could be eight hours. They do that over a sequence of dates, and it places strain on the airways to barter. One thing like that may very well be tried with the railroads. Whether or not it will have the identical impact stays to be seen. The railroads would possibly react very otherwise from the airline business. However it’s undoubtedly one thing that may very well be tried. I’d level to Sara Nelson and the Affiliation of Flight Attendants, which has discovered methods to place strain on their employers to cut price. That is the basis of the place we’re at in the present day. Quite a lot of this takes organizing membership. It takes having conversations and getting membership activated to be concerned within the course of. That’s the first step. It wasn’t even till this 12 months that these contract negotiations had been on railroad employees’ radar, actually. The final two years and not using a contract, issues had been quiet. And that’s as a result of there’s a disconnect between management and membership. Leveraging the facility of the rank and file to do issues like informational pickets, getting tales on the market — all that work that would put strain on the bosses wasn’t accomplished. For no matter purpose, rail labor has eliminated that from the method.” • Commentary:

What occurred in the present day was the tail finish of years of a union plan to hope the Democratic Celebration management would ship. Biden offered them out, they usually had no Plan B. Progressives scrambled to provide you with a Plan B. Union leaders acquired on board when the Biden path had closed, not earlier than

— Jonah Furman (@JonahFurman) December 1, 2022

And:

The precise political takeaway right here is that *we’d like higher union management* — to get there, we have to revitalize the unions from prime to backside. It’s why issues like the brand new Teamsters management, the probably new UAW management, and all of the strike exercise is so promising.

— Jonah Furman (@JonahFurman) December 1, 2022

And:

And admittedly this factor was cooked the second the unions blinked on their strike date and had no legislative technique. SMART, BLET, and BRS took a bogus TA as a result of they had been spooked on putting, and didn’t have a greater invoice useful. IAM & BMWE moved their strike dates and not using a TA.

— Jonah Furman (@JonahFurman) December 1, 2022

In fact, we’re assuming that “union management” and “Democratic operatives” usually are not synonomous.

“On the Improper Monitor: Why Biden Deserted Rail Employees” [The Nation]. “‘The factor that individuals want to know is: Rail bosses have been banking on this consequence the entire time,’ says Maximillian Alvarez, editor in chief of The Actual Information Community, host of the Working Individuals podcast, and creator of The Work of Dwelling. ‘It’s as a result of they all the time anticipated that any president and any Congress—Democrat or Republican—would bail them out ultimately and pressure a contract down employees’ throats reasonably than threat a rail shutdown that the carriers have seen no purpose to cut price in good religion for the previous three years or severely think about addressing any of the dire high quality of life and workplace-safety points employees have been screaming about.’”

“Senators Assist Donors Derail Paid Sick Days” [Lever News]. “In August, a federal report ready by the Biden administration said that the railroads contend that their huge earnings don’t replicate “any contributions by labor.” The railroads, in the meantime, have waged a full-court press to have Congress implement an settlement negotiated by the Biden administration that solely contains sooner or later of paid sick depart, after refusing to conform to any paid sick days in three years of talks with unions. Buffett’s BNSF, a wholly-owned subsidiary of his practically $700 billion conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, raked in $1.4 billion within the final quarter… One other main rail operation, the Atlanta-based Norfolk Southern, reported $958 million in earnings within the quarter ending September 30…. Union Pacific, based mostly in Omaha, Nebraska, introduced in $1.9 billion in earnings within the quarter, up $200 million from the identical interval a 12 months in the past…. Jacksonville, Florida-headquartered CSX generated $1.1 billion in earnings within the quarter ending on September 30, up $143 million from the identical interval the 12 months earlier than…. Canadian Pacific introduced in $664 million in earnings within the quarter — double the haul from the identical interval final 12 months…. Lastly, Montreal-based Canadian Nationwide introduced in additional than $1 billion in earnings within the quarter, a 44 p.c enhance over the identical interval final 12 months…. Railroad employees will return to the bargaining desk once more in 2025. Railway union sources instructed The Intercept Thursday that their subsequent step can be to push for sick depart in an anticipated Biden government order mandating every week of paid sick days for federal contract employees.” • Commentary:

Right this moment with the backing of the president, the U.S. Senate successfully declared that the survival of the nationwide economic system depends on forcing employees to toil with out paid sick days.

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) December 2, 2022

2024

“AP sources: Biden tells Dems he needs SC as 1st major vote” [Associated Press]. “President Joe Biden has declared that Democrats ought to surrender ‘restrictive’ caucuses and prioritize variety in the beginning of their presidential major calendar — dealing a significant blow to Iowa’s decadeslong standing because the state that leads off the method. In a letter Thursday to the rule-making arm of the Democratic Nationwide Committee, Biden didn’t point out particular states he’d prefer to see go first. However he has instructed Democrats he needs South Carolina moved to the primary place, in response to three individuals acquainted with his suggestion who spoke on situation of anonymity to debate personal conversations. The president’s course got here because the DNC guidelines committee gathered in Washington on Friday to vote on shaking up the presidential major calendar beginning in 2024. Members now count on to approve new guidelines placing South Carolina first, adopted by New Hampshire and Nevada on the identical day every week later. Georgia and Michigan would transfer into the highest 5 as new early states, and every would maintain primaries in subsequent weeks, committee members say. The 2 battlegrounds had been vital to Biden’s 2020 victory over then-President Donald Trump, who had received each states in his 2016 White Home marketing campaign.” • So, a payoff for Clyburn, and a veto for the corrupt and reactionary Black Misleadership Class. And sadly, Iowa Democrats get nothing for having screwed over Sanders in 2020. No one likes a betrayer, I suppose.

Republican Funhouse

“Trump and the Combat Republicans Must Have” [Peggy Noonan]. “Within the coming 18 months of the massive argument, Trump supporters can pretty be requested to contemplate a thought experiment. What if it had been Barack Obama in 2012 who refused to just accept a democratic consequence to a presidential election? What if we later came upon he most likely knew he’d misplaced however didn’t need to settle for it so he incited the Obamaites with accusations and false claims and made speeches insisting the election was stolen? What if he’d made a giant out of doors speech and despatched his forces, together with some antifa chapters, to storm the Capitol in an try to thwart the Structure and cease the counting of electoral votes? What if he refused to cease them as soon as he noticed on TV what they had been doing? What if Democrats had accomplished that? Republicans would really feel righteous rage. They’d by no means forgive Mr. Obama, who’d have proven the worst of himself and his motion. He and his actions would make you’re feeling democracy itself was within the steadiness, and you’ll pledge to by no means let him enter the White Home as president once more. You’d really feel as Liz Cheney does now: This should finish.”

Democrats en Déshabillé

Affected person readers, it appears that evidently individuals are truly studying the back-dated put up! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are various updates. So I should do this. –lambert

I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Celebration (“the Democrat Celebration is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated put up, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “dwell” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Celebration is, in actual fact, a tough downside. I do assume the paragraph that follows is on level all the best way again to 2016, if not earlier than:

The Democrat Celebration is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Pay attention, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Celebration didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” after all.) Second, all of the working elements of the Celebration reinforce one another. Depart apart characterizing the relationships between components of the Celebration (ka-ching, however not totally) these components comprise a community — a Flex Web? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with property within the press and the intelligence neighborhood.

Notice, after all, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is proscribed by different courses; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial mannequin’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to thoughts. Suck up, kick down.

* * *

#COVID19

Lambert right here: I can’t name a winter surge, however I’m definitely not uncalling it both, after what we see post-Thanksgiving. Excessive transmission (CDC), the elevation and continued enhance in positivity (Walgreens), and the regular takeover of BQ.1* (CDC; Walgreens), together with elevated hospitalization in BQ.1* hotbed New York, plus a wastewater surge in Boston are all greater than just a little unsettling (as is the obvious proliferation of variants). As one would possibly count on initially of a vacation surge, wastewater in Queens County, NY (JFK/LGA), Cook dinner County, IL (ORD), and Los Angeles County (LAX) continues to be elevated. If you’re planning to journey on Xmas, do think about your plans fastidiously. Keep secure on the market!

• Michael Hudson sends this:

That’s lots. I might think about in two or three weeks, New York Metropolis will take a look at their neighborhood ranges begin to consider indoor masking. Including, New York and Los Angeles appear to be they’re in bother. Do we now have any Chicago readers who can weigh in?

“COVID-19 Forecasts: Hospitalizations” [CDC]. “This week’s nationwide ensemble predicts that the variety of new every day confirmed COVID-19 hospital admissions will seemingly enhance, with 1,600 to 11,000 new confirmed COVID-19 hospital admissions seemingly reported on December 23, 2022.” Notice the qualification: “Ensemble forecasts mix various unbiased group forecasts into one forecast. Whereas they’ve been among the many most dependable forecasts in efficiency over time, even the ensemble forecasts haven’t reliably predicted fast modifications within the traits of reported instances, hospitalizations, and deaths. They shouldn’t be relied upon for making choices in regards to the chance or timing of fast modifications in traits.” • Helpful chart:

The CDC forecasting web page is a tragic mess of information they nonetheless observe — hospitalizations, above, and deaths — however not instances. (The implication, as common with CDC, is that transmission shouldn’t be vital, nor are vascular and neurological harm from even delicate instances, nor Lengthy Covid.)

• “How the Black Demise modified our immune programs” [Science]. “[B]y analyzing DNA from these outdated bones and others from London and Denmark, Klunk and her colleagues have discovered a solution: The survivors had been more likely to hold gene variants that boosted their immune response to Yersinia pestis, the flea-borne bacterium that causes the plague. One variant alone seems to have elevated the prospect of surviving the plague by 40%, they reported in the present day in Nature. ‘We had been blown away. … It’s not a small impact,’ says Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist at McMaster and co–lead creator of the examine (and Klunk’s Ph.D. adviser). The findings additionally point out the Black Demise brought about a dramatic soar within the proportion of individuals carrying the protecting variant; it’s the strongest surge of pure choice on the human genome documented thus far. However the improved immunity got here at a value: Right this moment, the variant can also be related to larger threat of autoimmune illnesses. ‘This can be a really spectacular paper,’ says inhabitants geneticist David Enard on the College of Arizona, who shouldn’t be a part of the examine. ‘The implications of the potential velocity and energy of pure choice in immune genes are wild.’”

• “Covid evolution wipes out one other antibody remedy, threatening the nation’s medication cupboard” [STAT]. “The Meals and Drug Administration on Wednesday ended its emergency authorization for the one remaining Covid-19 antibody remedy cleared to be used, saying variants that render it ineffective at the moment are dominant in the US. The information about bebtelovimab makes official what has been anticipated for a number of weeks, because the Omicron sublineages BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 have been rising in prevalence. Nonetheless, it comes as a blow to each suppliers and sufferers who’re in danger for extra extreme outcomes. The fast evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus had already knocked out a number of different monoclonal antibodies for the remedy of Covid.” • I suppose transmission issues in spite of everything?

• Maskstravaganza: “Common Masking Insurance policies in Faculties and Mitigating the Inequitable Prices of Covid-19” (editorial) [NEJM]. “ Common masking lowers the quantity of virus exhaled into shared air, lowering the whole variety of instances of Covid-19 and making indoor areas safer for populations which are susceptible to its issues. Particular person masking lowers the quantity of virus {that a} masked particular person inhales from shared air, however solely in environments with a comparatively excessive quantity of circulating virus and when others are unmasked. Moreover, particular person masking has little impact on population-level transmission. Public colleges are an vital context wherein to know the ramifications of shifting from common to particular person masking. Though quasi-experimental research indicated that common masking was related to diminished Covid-19 transmission earlier than the supply of vaccines,6,7 we beforehand had little causal-inference proof relating to the impact of common masking in colleges or as a part of a layered risk-mitigation technique with vaccination, testing, and air flow. A examine by Cowger and colleagues, the outcomes of that are now reported within the Journal, gives new proof that the removing of common faculty masking insurance policies in Massachusetts was related to an elevated incidence of Covid-19.”

• Maskstravaganza: “The science behind masks and their use” [Bill Comeau, Chasing Normal]. A link-heavy abstract with a lot of diagrams and movies. “Why do N95 masks work when viral particles are so small? One of many greatest hurdles in public acceptance is getting previous disinformation and myths that high quality masks don’t work, eg viral particles are too small. In truth, the viral particles don’t journey solo, they hitchhike on mucosal or different bigger airborne particles. N95 masks filters embrace multilayered expertise that each attracts particles whereas additionally exploiting the physics of their brownian movement.”

• Maskstravaganza:

The masque goes on….

• Maskstravaganza: Musical interlude:

• Maskstravaganza: Extra on bullying:

“Let’s schedule a time….” I adore it!

• “COVID-19 disruptions in HIV testing and prevention spotlight want for innovation and funding earlier than the subsequent public well being emergency” (press launch) [CDC]. For World AIDS Day (yesterday). “HIV testing and prescriptions for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) dropped considerably in the course of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. HIV assessments declined about 32% between the primary and second quarters of the 12 months, and PrEP prescriptions fell about 6%. Testing and PrEP prescriptions began to rebound within the second half of 2020, however they didn’t attain pre-pandemic ranges till early 2021. …

Transmission

Right here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to neighborhood transmission (the “purple map”). (That is the map CDC needs solely hospitals to take a look at, not you.)

Lambert right here: The powers-that-be don’t even see transmission as an issue, clearly. However you would possibly!

Positivity

From the Walgreen’s check positivity tracker, printed December 1:

4.1%. Yesterday was 4.3% (3.8%). A slight slackening. May very well be a Thanksgiving journey artifact, after all, wherein case it ought to gradual within the subsequent week. But when not….

Wastewater

Wastewater knowledge (CDC), November 28:

JFK/LGA, Queens County is purple; ORD, Cook dinner County is orange; LAX, Los Angeles County is orange. Keep secure when travelling.

November 27:

And MWRA knowledge, November 28:

Lambert right here: Nothing particular, however notice the date. I hesitate to say “going vertical.” Let’s see what occurs after the approaching weekend when all the faculty children go clubbing.

Variants

Lambert right here: It’s past irritating how gradual the variant knowledge is. Does no one within the public well being institution get a promotion for monitoring variants? Are there no grants? Is there a single lab that does this work, and all people will get the outcomes from them? [grinds teeth, bangs head on desk]. UPDATE Sure. See NC right here on Pango. Each Friday, a stately, educational tempo totally incompatible with defending your self in opposition to a variant exhibiting doubling conduct.

NOT UPDATED Variant knowledge, nationwide (Walgreens), November 13:

Lambert right here: BQ.1* shifting alongside fairly briskly, although decrease than CDC. XBB arising on the charts.

UPDATED Variant knowledge, nationwide (CDC), November 12 (Nowcast off):

BQ.1* shifting alongside fairly briskly. Notice the looks of XBB, and see the highlighted notice: Like BQ.1*, XBB seems instantly when CDC decides to disaggregate the info. Precisely as with CDC’s notorious “inexperienced map,” a lag is launched, this time by CDC’s decision-making course of; Walgreens had XBB final week, however CDC has it solely this week. I don’t see what objective the aggregation serves. If the problem is a jillion low-circulation variants would make the desk impossibly lengthy and complicated for customers, that’s a UI/UX situation; deal with it with software program. Have a slider/filter that aggregates variants underneath 1%, say. Permit scrolling the outcomes. No matter. However cease concealing knowledge!

New York/New Jersey (Area 2) numbers are larger. BQ.1.* is dominating:

• As a examine, since New York is a BQ.1* hotbed, New York hospitalization, up to date December 1:

Lambert right here: Seems like acceleration. That’s worrisome. Not like positivity, this knowledge shouldn’t be smoothed, so we actually can’t make certain if there’s a prepare rolling or not. However, we now haven’t solely a rise, however a rise within the price of enhance.

Deaths

Demise price (Our World in Knowledge):

Whole: 1,106,378 – 1,105,546 = 832 (832 * 365 = 303,680 deaths per 12 months, in the present day’s YouGenicist™ quantity for “residing with” Covid (fairly a bit larger than the minimizers would love, although they’ll discuss themselves into something. If the YouGenicist™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I may must resolve that is what the powers-that-be think about “mission achieved” for this explicit tranche of loss of life and illness).

It’s good that for deaths I’ve a easy, every day chart that simply retains chugging alongside, not like every little thing else CDC and the White Home are screwing up or letting go darkish, good job.

Stats Watch

Employment Scenario: “United States Unemployment Price” [Trading Economics]. “The unemployment price within the US was unchanged at 3.7 p.c in November 2022, matching market expectations and remaining near September’s 29-month low of three.5 p.c. The jobless price has been in a slender vary of three.5 p.c to three.7 p.c since March, suggesting that the tight labor market will seemingly proceed to contribute to inflationary strain on the earth’s largest economic system for a while to come back.”

The Bezzle: “‘The extra you submit, the extra we receives a commission’: How fintech fueled covid assist fraud” [WaPo]. “‘The sooner the higher,’ the employees had been instructed on the top of the coronavirus pandemic, because the little-known monetary expertise firm Blueacorn raced to evaluate small companies that sought federal loans. Dashing by way of functions, Blueacorn staff and contractors allegedly started to miss potential indicators of fraud, in response to interviews and communications later amassed by investigators on Capitol Hill. The corporate weighed whether or not to prioritize ‘monster loans that may get everybody paid,’ because the agency’s co-founder as soon as mentioned. And investigators discovered that Blueacorn collected about $1 billion in processing charges — whereas its operators might have secured fraudulent loans of their very own. The allegations in opposition to Blueacorn and several other different corporations are specified by a sprawling, roughly 120-page report launched Thursday by the Home Choose Committee on the Coronavirus Disaster, a congressional watchdog tasked to supervise roughly $5 trillion in federal pandemic assist.” • Price-fees. All the time in regards to the fee-fees. As far as I do know, the Home Choose Committee* hasn’t known as, say, Fauci or Walensky. Am I lacking one thing right here? NOTE * OMG, guess who the chair is? Clyburn.

Capital: “Money-Hungry Corporations Get Inventive Elevating Capital” [Wall Street Journal]. “The tip of the period of straightforward cash is forcing firms that want money to get artistic. Dozens of firms have just lately raised cash by way of so-called structured personal funding rounds, and bankers and legal professionals say there are various extra within the works. Numerous firms with depressed shares and restricted entry to conventional financing are doing so, usually including sweeteners like additional dividends or preferred-note standing to reduce the chance and make the offers extra enticing for traders. … Inventive deal-making amongst personal firms has helped push U.S. venture-capital funding exercise to $195 billion this 12 months by way of Sept. 30, larger than all different prior full years besides 2021, in response to PitchBook Knowledge Inc. Some offers involving personal firms aren’t publicized and certain received’t be revealed till they file regulatory paperwork to go public.”

Capital: “Why Silicon Valley is so sizzling on nuclear power and what it means for the business” [CNBC]. That they had been was definitely by no means a part of the narrative. “From 2015 to 2021, the tempo at which enterprise capitalists put cash into personal nuclear firms eclipsed your entire VC area and even the fast-growing local weather tech area…. In any business, there is usually a ‘groupthink’ or ‘narrowness’ in the best way issues are accomplished over time, [John Parsons, an economist and lecturer at MIT] mentioned. With personal funding within the area, ‘there will likely be out-of-the-box pondering,’ he mentioned. ‘Perhaps that out-of-the-box pondering doesn’t produce something helpful. Perhaps it seems that the outdated designs are one of the best. However I feel it’s actually great to have the number of takes.’” • Or out-of-the-containment-structure, eh Jack? Heh heh heh kidding.

The Bezzle: “Senators eye funding breakthrough for wildlife invoice” [E&E News]. “For months, the bipartisan “Recovering America’s Wildlife Act” — H.R. 2773 and S. 2372 — has been stalled over how it will be paid for. However individuals near negotiations instructed E&E Information on Wednesday that they had been contemplating closing a tax loophole on cryptocurrency because the funding mechanism. Particularly, the pay-for would contain clarifying cryptocurrency property, in response to three individuals acquainted with negotiations who got anonymity to talk candidly about delicate conversations. That change would make it clear that the wash sale guidelines apply to cryptocurrency property, as they do to securities in the present day.” • So superior. The identical week as SBF mounts his “silly and confused” protection, the Senate units out to legitimize crypto.

The Bezzle:

The Bezzle:

Tech: “Zuckerberg slams Apple’s ‘problematic’ app retailer dominance” [The Hill]. “Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg slammed Apple over its dominance over the app retailer market Wednesday, ramping up his criticism of the tech large on the heels of comparable feedback made by new Twitter CEO Elon Musk. Zuckerberg known as Apple’s management within the app retailer market ‘problematic’ at The New York Instances’ DealBook Summit. ‘It’s the just one the place one firm can management what apps get on the system. I don’t assume it’s sustainable or good,’ Zuckerberg mentioned. … Congress can also be contemplating a proposal that goals to rein within the energy of Apple and Google’s app retailer dominance. The Open App Markets Act would add rules, together with proscribing firms from requiring customers of their gadgets to solely use their app market and blocking them from gathering fee charges as much as 30 p.c.” • 3% would appear greater than cheap.

Pharma: “Federal claims courtroom guidelines in favor of Gilead in CDC Truvada patent case” [EndPoints News]. “The US Courtroom of Federal Claims dominated on Nov. 21 that the federal government breached sure agreements with Gilead by failing to promptly notify the corporate of its patent functions for Truvada for PrEP, in response to paperwork unsealed on Wednesday…. The e-mail notification in 2016 got here a 12 months after the primary patent was granted.”

Right this moment’s Concern & Greed Index: 63 Greed (earlier shut: 69 Greed) [CNN]. One week in the past: 63 (Greed). (0 is Excessive Concern; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Dec 2 at 2:01 PM EST.

Division of Feline Felicity

Nicely, they tried:

The Gallery

Wow!

One the place I’d actually, actually prefer to see the precise paint. (I imply, I all the time do, however this one particularly as a result of I’m wondering how Whistler dealt with the sky.)

Zeitgeist Watch

“New York Metropolis Needs to Pay a ‘Rat Czar’ $170,000 to Remedy Its Rodent Downside” [Wall Street Journal]. • Make up your individual jokes!

Class Warfare

Bear in mind “important employees”?

“Why some tech CEOs are rooting for Elon Musk” [The Verge]. “[Facebook crypto guy David Marcus] has loads of firm in being aggravated on the entitlement of some tech staff; numerous rank-and-file tech employees have instructed us tales about one outrageous request or one other that considered one of of their friends made at an all-company assembly. Some executives are positively giddy as they think about a world wherein all of those points will be dismissed out of hand. However it’s price pausing on why employees have felt free to ask questions like this over the previous decade. On the former Fb, the place Marcus labored and this incident passed off, the corporate was producing an estimated $1.6 million in income per worker final 12 months. Gifted engineers had their decide of firms to work for. That gave them energy — to demand higher bathroom paper, sure, but additionally to protest payouts to executives accused of sexual misconduct, or compliance with China’s censorship regime, or funding transphobic comedy. Watching Musk remake Twitter in his picture, some executives are positively giddy as they think about a world wherein all of those points will be dismissed out of hand — and the workers accountable will be dismissed together with them.”

Information of the Wired

“The ‘enigma’ of Richard Schultes, Amazonian hallucinogenic crops, and the bounds of ethnobotany” [Social Studies of Science]. “Ethnobotanists should study crops by way of individuals, and usually are not in a position to conceal their interactions with indigenous informants and different ethnobotanists. I deal with an ‘enigma’ that Schultes offered, in regards to the peculiar capability of indigenous Amazonians to tell apart between native sorts of vine that he was unable to inform aside, notably these used to organize the hallucinogenic beverage ayahuasca. The enigma describes a sophisticated and irresolvable query thrown up on the uneasy intersection between other ways of figuring out in regards to the world, and reveals how fashionable scientific travellers would possibly navigate – or fail to navigate – the unsure passage between them. Along with Schultes’s accounts of his personal non-ordinary states of consciousness elicited by ayahuasca, and his writings on the Victorian botanist Richard Spruce, I chart an epistemological gulf between Schultes’s fashionable scientific cosmology and that of his Amazonian informants. In describing his incapability to study in regards to the ayahuasca varieties from Amazonians, Schultes’s enigma traces the very limits of the ethnobotanical self-discipline and divulges the fragility of the processes by which scientific naturalists would possibly impose classes reminiscent of ‘nature’ and ‘tradition’.”

Contact info for crops: Readers, be happy to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn the way to ship me a examine in case you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn the way to ship me photographs of crops. Greens are high quality! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary crops! If you need your deal with to seem as a credit score, please place it in the beginning of your mail in parentheses: (thus). In any other case, I’ll anonymize by utilizing your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) right here. From TD:

TD writes: “Early Fall the crops are nonetheless blooming.” Lots of shade! Completely to my style.

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