"May you live in interesting times."
RWL #404
Greetings from the LHH! This year is officially the year with the widest range of travel I have done to check on interns. I have driven as far north as Bar Harbor, and as of Monday, as far south as Summit, New Jersey - a range of 534 miles. I have one more visit today, then two more next week and I will be done with this summer’s internship visits. It will be interesting to see the total mileage when I file for my travel. Pic above is the Mario Cuomo Bridge. I despise driving in NYC even more than Boston, so I always avoid it.
So much happened over the weekend - the CrowdStrike crash, President Biden withdrawing from the presidential race - these are very big events. I write more about CrowdStrike below - I think it is underappreciated, even with all the press it is getting - it is representative of a bigger problem - the recent crash is just the tip of the potential iceberg. Biden’s withdrawal is also indicative of a bigger problem. The dominant parties are failing. They had (as of Sunday morning) produced two candidates unfit to govern. Happily one of them has been eliminated, and though I am not a fan of Harris, at least she is of an ordinary level of incompetence that our system is designed to absorb. Unfortunately, my guess is she only has about a 30% chance of winning given the electoral map. I am notoriously bad at these sorts of guesses, so take my prognostication with a barrel of salt. What I can tell you is we are living in interesting times. That’s actually not an ancient Chinese curse (“May you live in interesting times”), but it’s quite wise. Here’s another similar sentiment:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
JRR Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Really, nothing has happened yet that would inspire such a quote. Tolkien served in the trenches of WWI and his writing was influenced by what he saw. As we see the last veterans of WWII taking their final bows, I worry that our societies (globally) will have lost the institutional memory of violence that has played a part in staying the hand of history for my lifetime. As I arc toward elderhood, I fear for my children and their children even more. So much of what we rely on to hold chaos at bay is just based on a common understanding that builds our institutions. The politics since the turn of the century domestically seems to be a steady challenge to the institutions that hold us together as a country. More recently, the international order that has been the source of peace seems to be getting challenged ever more, and our country seems ever less willing to ensure it stays strong. The underpinnings that prevent mass violence are more fragile than I think most of us realize.
Sorry - despite a lovely visit with my sister and her family and having some great visits with students, I find this weekend’s news depressing. Interesting times, indeed.
On to the links! As usual, willing good for all of you!
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Read
What: WSJ, When Companies Speak Out on Hot Political Issues, They Often Get It Wrong
Why: Corporations have waded into the political mess of the last few years like never before. Some, however, have tried to play both sides. The article explains research that shows ambivalence (trying to placate both sides) results in contempt all the way around. I wish they had studied firms that just stuck to their knitting. I don’t really care what my toilet paper manufacturer thinks about any political issue - I just want to know it is soft. Not everything should be political. The fact that corporations have felt the need to make statements and take positions on everything is part of the crumbling of social capital I am talking about.
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Watch
What: It's Not About The Nail (2 min)
Why: Apparently this achieved viral status and I completely missed it. It’s 2 minutes and it’s perfect. Anyone who has been in long-term relationship (romantic or friendship) will be able to relate. Sometimes it is about the nail.
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Listen
What: The Journal, The Glitch That Crashed Millions of Computers (17 min)
Why: I have to admit, I was unaware of the rampant blue screen of death infecting everyone’s computer on Friday because I was driving down to Philly to return my niece to my sister - she had stayed on after the wedding with my father and we agreed to drive her back because I needed to go to NJ anyway, and Philly is just another 90 minutes or so south. So while the world was frozen, I was chugging down I-95.
I have to say, this is an example of the kind of fragility that Nassim Taleb talks about in his book Antifragile. When one company can take down millions of companies, cancel 10s of thousands of flights, cause the cancellation of medical appointments (my father was one - he was supposed to have an appointment Friday morning before we left, but it was canceled, as we found out later because of this mess), and generally cause huge inconvenience amounting to - what? Billions of dollars in lost productivity probably - we have a dysfunctional system. This mess was most likely caused by human error, but what is going to happen when someone or some country unleashes a malicious AI into the internet? Most of my wealth is basically ones and zeroes on the web some place. What happens if suddenly those ones and zeroes get corrupted? This is a bigger issue than just a day of lost productivity.
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What: Conversations with Bill Kristol, Doug Sosnik on Harris v. Trump: Why the Next Month Matters (64 min)
Why: Sosnik is a Democratic Party political strategist. He offers a sympathetic perspective on what Harris has to do to navigate the challenges of the next few months, assuming she secures the Democratic nomination. Can she beat Trump? I suspect not, but at least she has a chance if she is able to thread the needle the way Sosnik describes.
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What: WSJ Your Money Briefing, Why the Strong Labor Market Is Weak for Many 20-Somethings (7 min)
Why: The Great Resignation is over - now we have the Big Stay. According to the WSJ, the white collar labor market is beginning to tighten, and it is tightening from the top down, so the big losers are new college grads. This is consistent with what I am seeing this summer with the new grads I have been working with in the health care sector. After a rapid, ask for anything season following the pandemic, people seem to be hunkering down in their jobs. This is especially bad for new grads who rely on the normal churn to find opportunities. The ridiculously tight real estate market is not helping, I am sure, keeping people from selling and moving (and changing jobs).