Issue 44 - What Surprise Does October Hold?

Welcome to issue 44, another exercise in avoiding algorithms even though such ideals are no longer possible. Even phone calls are screened (albeit with inconsistent results). You’d thinking speaking face to face would be without an algo intermediary, yet getting to that person will involve algos as all transportation modes involve some algorithmic activity.

Of course we don’t discount the algos that operate inside of you, like the heuristics you employ to decide if you’ll read further. Here’s a list to help you make up your mind:

Table of Contents

• An October Surprise?

• US Will Ban Chinese Made EVs

• Zuck’s New Glasses

• Diddy, Music, and Narratives

• Understanding Online Diasporas

• Venezuelan Gangs in Aurora Colorado?

• The Lethality of Cryptocurrency

• Ronces Is Gaining Fame

An October Surprise?

When will the other shoe drop? The current US election is arguable the most significant and contentious in decades. As a result, the anticipation of an October Surprise is as high as it could be.

The phrase arose out of the 1980 election and the release of American hostages held in Iran. However the phenomena goes back to the 19th century, as media came to play a growing role in helping to inform (and distract) the electorate.

Given the narratives we’ve been cultivating in past issues of our gazette, one potential October surprise would be a stock market crash fueled by the bursting of the AI bubble. Nvidia and the rest are not worth what they’re currently traded or valued at. Hence the prices must come down.

Others point to increased military conflicts around the world, their escalation, and potential to spill over and spread. We see this happening anyway, and it is arguably not a surprise.

What do you think the surprise could be?

US Will Ban Chinese Made EVs

Last week, when Israel first staged their pager based attack on Hezbollah, we sent out an issue because we knew the implications of that act were significant, even if we collectively were still wrapping our heads around it.

One of our favourite cybersecurity thinkers Bruce Schneier argued as much this past weekend in the NYT:

After the pagers, Israel also executed similar attacks via two-way radios and solar inverters. Faith in supply chains has since been shattered. The first potential casualty? North American consumers who might want an affordable EV from China:

This is not a direct ban, but an indirect ban that has the same consequences. Instead of banning the vehicles themselves, the US will target the software that operates them. On a national security level, this makes a lot of sense. If pagers can become IEDs, an EV can wreak far more damage and chaos.

Not only is supply chain scrutiny forever changed as a result of this attack, but globalization as we know it may also be about to end.

While this policy on banning Chinese software is still in the draft and discussion stage, we’re gonna make a solid prediction in this issue that it will go forward, regardless of who wins in November.

Zuck’s New Glasses

Are Zuck’s new glasses the emperor’s new clothes? Meta had their big press event this week, featuring a range of announcements, with the biggest being their focus on eyewear.

Are glasses the future of digital interfaces? Those of us who currently wear glasses might find this appealing, but what are the social and psychological consequences? Does AR inherently amplify individuality? Will it fuel our ongoing pandemic of narcissism? These are valid questions, that are not surprisingly part of the questions being asked about this emerging tech.

Original cyborg Steve Mann always offers a sober warning about the adoption of AR, VR, and XR: it is a one way path. Once your brain starts to adapt to the senses and reality that these devices afford, it is painful and potentially impossible to revert to what existed before. Again, those of us who wear corrective eyewear already know this, as your eyes adapt to new prescription(s).

Diddy, Music, and Narratives

The arrest of Sean Combs, a/k/a Diddy has been a massive moment in the music industry and pop culture as a whole. Similar to the #MeToo phenomenon, the gates of trauma and memory have been opened, and a torrent of painful stories is starting to flow.

The Music Industry has always been understood to be a seedy mix of predators and lawyers, where the price of fame was steep, and often sexual. In hindsight it can be difficult to understand why it was allowed to operate in this manner, with the obvious answer being power. A lot of it.

Diddy’s arrest has changed the narrative, even though the seeds of that narrative were always there. The evidence of sexual predation and assault were always in the open, the response was consistently complacency and inaction. Yet now the retrospective has been slightly reconfigured and the new narrative has only just begun.

We’re largely seeing this via TikTok, however we can assume it is playing out across fan sites and music industry spaces across all platforms. Yet the TikTok algorithm stitches these narratives together in a manner that is far more coherent than elsewhere.

The downfall of Diddy will be spectacular and salacious. The larger question is who else will fall as a result? Jay-Z? J-Lo? Beyonce? The list of names and celebrities implicated in this growing scandal is large and growing. Stay tuned. 🍿

Understanding Online Diasporas

Fellow Eco Punk Greg Walton sent us a note about this study that seeks to analyze representative claims in a diaspora, specifically the Tibetan diaspora network.

We genuinely believe that the future of humanity is a society of diasporas. Whether war or climate change we are currently witnessing the largest migration of humans in history, and it will increase radically. The issue of who is part of and has influence in a diaspora is essential to the future of democracy, assuming it has a future.

From the abstract:

Venezuelan Gangs in Aurora Colorado?

Speaking of diasporas, we’ve recently seen a lot of mentions online about a conspiracy in Aurora Colorado in which a supposed Venezuelan gang took over apartment buildings. The GOP have been all over this, but it turns out it’s a classic Scooby Doo tale in which the landlord was the villain:

The Lethality of Cryptocurrency

A nice little bit from the October 2024 issue of Harper’s:

Ronces Is Gaining Fame

One of our beloved barn dogs Roncesvalles is gaining a modest amount of fame on TikTok for her love of goats:

@jessehirsh

Ronces likes to begin her day by checking in with her BFFs from the Ella goat clan.