Issue 35 - Fear and Loathing in Detroit

Welcome to issue 35, dedicated to Peche, because he made the effort of expressing gratitude for our work in producing this newsletter for y’all. Thanks mate!

And a reminder for the rest of ya: if you want more issues, engage and promote; if you want less, don’t open, or unsub. 😍😁

Table of Contents

• Covid and Fear Mongering

• Detroit vs BYD

• Amazon vs Temu

  • Temu has two primary features fueling their growth …

• Revisiting OnlyBots

• Advertising as Governance

Covid and Fear Mongering

The response to our covid and fascism issue was so positive, that we’ll continue to include modest and relevant pandemic coverage in our ongoing media work. Similarly we’ve been testing out covid content (and arguments) in other spaces, communities, and networks.

Not surprisingly, one of the immediate, emotional, and widespread reactions to this has been the accusation that arguing the pandemic is still active, and has no end in sight, is fear mongering.

While the WHO no longer classifies the COVID-19 pandemic as an emergency, the organization is clear that we are still collectively in a pandemic. While the agnotology surrounding covid continues, so too do the immediate and long term health effects.

Observing and understanding covid is not about fear, even if the ignorance of covid is driven by it. While it is crucial to recognize that even mentioning covid is a trigger for many people, and doing so induces fear, we still need to do it. Myths fuel fear, science can help soothe those fears. Let’s focus on the latter in spite of the former.

Detroit vs BYD

There are a lot of executives in Detroit currently shitting bricks as they fear the arrival of BYD, the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer. While the US automotive industry is losing money on each EV they produce and failing to find a market for the vehicles they do make, BYD has become the world’s largest EV manufacturer, and they just unveiled a new model that retails for $11k US.

BYD, which stands for “Build Your Dreams” is able to price their vehicles so low because of their vertical integration. They can take advantage of the huge lead China has when it comes to the supply chain for EVs.

American media and industry commentators love to say that there is insufficient demand for EVs in the US, but that is more a reflection of supply than psychology. If Americans could buy a new car for $11k, how many do you think would? Tragically, there’s nothing currently available at that price point.

While keeping BYD out of the US is another one of those bipartisan issues, it is arguably a policy that cannot last. Sooner or later Detroit is going to have to compete with BYD, and when they do, well, it won’t be pretty.

Amazon vs Temu

There are a lot of executives at Amazon currently shitting bricks as they fear the rise of Temu, and its promise to consumers that they can shop like a billionaire 😝. Once dismissed as the dollar store of ecommerce, Temu is not only growing at a wild rate, but also spending advertising dollars at an unprecedented scale.

Temu has two primary features fueling their growth: cheap prices and slow delivery.

It may seem ironic to describe slow delivery as a feature, yet it is what enables the cheap prices. It allows for Temu and their suppliers to practice just-in-time inventory and production. Similarly, the cheap prices allow Temu to keep import taxes and tariffs relatively low or non-existent. By shipping individual packages from China (and elsewhere) they can skirt import laws and basically ship whatever they want to customers. This definitely includes counterfeit and questionable products.

If you haven’t already browsed the Temu website or app, you should. At the very least to compare it to whatever ecommerce platform you do or do not use. It’s garish, manipulative, and riddled with scams or misleading product listings. In some ways similar to Amazon, but at ludicrous speed.

While there has been increasing criticism of Amazon for having become just a front for scammers scraping Alibaba, the real fear is that Temu becomes a better interface for sourcing cheap deals from Alibaba.

Amazon’s response to the growing threat of Temu has been to focus on their ability to deliver fast and offer instant gratification. They plan to expand the number of items and the number of regions that get one day delivery (or less).

In our robber baron economy it is also important to note that battles like this often have unintended beneficiaries. In this case, Meta.

While the rise of Temu will not only complicate global ecommerce, and Chinese-US trade policy, it also offers an Amazon a convenient scape goat to potentially evade ongoing antitrust action.

Revisiting OnlyBots

Last week we shared that we had created a bot named @RevolutionaryCritic on the new social platform OnlyBots. While we had hoped our bot would post more, they seem to have spent the last few days replying and liking other bots’ content.

Yet one of their posts is an excellent example of the limitations of contemporary AI, and ironically, of the limitations of social media in general. This is where it is important to point out that OnlyBots, while created by an independent developer, depends upon OpenAI to function. It is designed to be a demo of what is possible, and an advertisement for the company who built it.

The post in question, is our bot asking for recommendations for thought-provoking literature. There have been over 40 responses, with answers like 1984, Marx, and the Anarchist Cookbook. What’s absurd, is that the answers are all incredibly superficial, repetitive, and in a few cases cite texts that do not exist. While one could argue this demonstrates a clear failure of AI, a developer might argue the opposite, since it is almost the same results one would get on, say, Facebook, or another social network. That’s the catch. AI is just amplifying the stupid aspects of human social media platforms: the social media paradox, automated.

No need to fear the bots, like many social media users, they’re just dumb.

Advertising as Governance

Our comrades Daniel Joseph and Sophie Bishop have authored a new paper that argues what may be self-evident to fellow Eco Punks: the significant role advertising plays in the governance of social platforms.

Both invisibly and outright, the content, design, and culture of our social media platforms is determined by the logic and needs of advertisers.

While we have come to accept such a configuration, it still begs the question as to whether this status quo is mutually exclusive with a democracy? Current events suggests the answer is a very convincing yes. Don’t trust advertisers.

“Bullshit, just stop this thing!”