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<p>Glen -</p>
<p>Great thoughtful and thought-provoking post (as usual). (at the
risk of verging on bro-etry?)<br>
</p>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:289e6c79-0f38-2927-06ee-1c511ca35537@gmail.com">Sanas,
the buzzy Bay Area startup that wants to make the world sound
whiter
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/sanas-startup-creates-american-voice-17382771.php">https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/sanas-startup-creates-american-voice-17382771.php</a>
<br>
<br>
And a voice modifier from a different company here:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://koe.ai/recast/">https://koe.ai/recast/</a>
<br>
</blockquote>
I was *expecting* this to be something that people might choose to
use in their ears, not in their mics... to "whiten" the world for
their listening serenity. I remember my otherwise open and
not-particularly-intolerant father evolve when he would answer the
phone and get a phone solicitor who might be from another
demographic than his own familiar one. "Axe me a question? NO,
you can't AXE me a question! I don't even know what that means..."
and then he would hang up. It was the earliest period of his
impending/growing dementia and maybe nothing more than that (he had
not yet started binging on Rush Limbaugh). I had a *much more*
progressive/thoughtful/kind co-worker who surprised me one day when
she confided to me that she "didn't understand why people couldn't
be bothered to learn to speak proper English, especially Chinese".
It didn't hit me right away that she had recently begun working
closely with a Chinese-American woman who was, in fact, hard to
understand sometime. I always took it to be my "diversity tax" that
I had to listen more carefully, engage more thoughtfully, etc. But
this coworker had been tricked into a style of
intolerance/impatience I never expected from her. They continued
to work together effectively, as far as I could tell, but it was a
schock to me.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:289e6c79-0f38-2927-06ee-1c511ca35537@gmail.com">
<br>
This post brings home the implications of such:
<br>
<br>
Does the rise of the Metaverse mean the decline of cities?
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/agora/2022/08/rise-metaverse-mark-zuckerberg-decline-cities">https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/agora/2022/08/rise-metaverse-mark-zuckerberg-decline-cities</a>
<br>
<br>
Do we want our "public spaces" (e.g. cities) to be owned by
singular corporations? </blockquote>
I certainly think that "the commons" are an important feature to
treasure/maintain as private property of any style rises up. In my
fascination with tiny home communities and no-drive neighborhoods,
I heard someone make the point that before the automobile, that
roadways were *much* more public spaces. I didn't grow up in a
neighborhood, but peers from my own generation down (at least)
through GenX seems to remember when the neighborhood streets (esp.
cul-de-sacs) were a playground for kids anytime between
go-to/come-from work by their parents. Open air markets are one
of the more familiar examples outside of the first world, and Malls
(until a decade or less ago in the first world*). The <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://celdf.org/the-enclosure-movement/#:~:text=The%20Enclosure%20Movement%20was%20a,fences%20or%20hedges%20around%20it.">Enclosure
Movement</a> is probably a useful study.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:289e6c79-0f38-2927-06ee-1c511ca35537@gmail.com">Olympia
(where I live) is already bad enough, mostly renters, most of the
downtown rental properties owned by a single family. We're inching
ever so slowly to Plato's Philosopher King, except any benevolence
of the King is a mere (and sporadic) side-effect of the primary
motive: profit. This seems, to me, strongly analogous to the
grifters who call pretending to be "Agent Bob Jones" or whatever
from the IRS trying to steal money from me in the form of Walmart
gift cards. I know several of my similarly aged peers who talk
loudly and often about their rental houses, usually, since I'm
surrounded by liberals now, bragging about how they keep the rent
low and try to provide a good place for the renters to live. This
altruism-washing of their rent-seeking behavior is way too similar
to disguising an East Indian voice to sound more white. Is it
really any less dystopian if you're the one on top?
<br>
</blockquote>
<p>I'm not sure I disagree with the tone of your regular revisiting
of the phrase "rent seeking" in a perjorative tone, but I have to
admit that I don't understand what the alternatives are in our
culture. My parents were very adamant about not "borrowing money"
and chose to "rent" our homes until I was in middle-school when
they had finally saved enough $$ to buy a lot on the edge of the
small city we had moved to and then bought a modest mobile home
(12'x65' single) to live in. !0 years later after my sister and
I were long gone, and they themselves had moved on to my father's
final posting, they had to sell the mobile home to a used dealer
and the lot to someone who aspired to put up a stick-built in it's
place. There was no significant market for "the only thing they
could afford" at the time. I haven't done the arithmetic but I'm
guessing their "investment" in the property and ultimate loss of
"value" roughly equalled what they might have spent on rent during
that time. They invested a lot of their own blood, sweat, and
tears in that time and that was a *good thing*, but it felt a
shame that they felt unable to avoid the rock (debt) on one hand
and being a renter (the hard place) on the other. I know a lot
of people who do *not* want the responsibility of home-ownership
yet feel burdened by not being able to ride the expansion of
various real-estate bubbles. This is probably it's own thread to
study/investigate the multi-variate landscape of "home making" and
"home ownership" with the vagaries of "private property" and
"capital accumulation", etc.</p>
<p>I have been both a "renter" and a "landlord" and have no
significant interest in being the latter. I was thankful when I
was the former for "righteous" landlords. They seemed to fall
into two categories: 1) private owners who were trying to augment
their income through A) e.g. the other half of a duplex/Casita,
etc or B) a "starter home" which they moved up/out of as their
family grew; 2) Large private or public organization whose goal
was to provide housing as a service (for non/profit purposes)
mainly because they were more professional and consistent/clear
about their expectations/intentions/outcomes. The problem I found
with being a Landlord is captured in the phrase "my house, your
home, your home, my house". I had a guest-house on a property
that I rented to two different long-term renters before dropping
into a short-term/furnished rental arrangement and I rented my
home (furnished) for one year to a young family while I spent a
year in Berkeley. Both of those experiences were fraught with
the fine line between being an abuser and being abused. I
considered the latter context as hiring the family as
house-sitters with their pay being a significant discount on the
rent they would have had to pay otherwise. Had I considered it a
straight rental relationship, I might have found myself resentful
of some things and greedy about others.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:289e6c79-0f38-2927-06ee-1c511ca35537@gmail.com">It's
interesting that I don't mind the loss of possible
contact/engagement with some people because they rely solely on
Facebook (Instagram, Zoom, or whatever) for their networking. Most
breweries and music venues up here use Instagram as their primary
announcement forum. The result? I don't know about them. So I'm
much less likely to engage. That's fine. More time to think
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35901414/"><https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35901414/></a>. I'm "this
close" to quitting LinkedIn, too:
<br>
</blockquote>
I agree with you on this... I have a few friends/colleagues who
regularly chide me (trivially) for not knowing about something that
happened in their life or some important event because I wasn't
"following" them on their social media of choice. I recently saw a
video clip about "endorphin fasting" which was a better take (IMO)
on how to think about one's relationship with "screens". This
person suggested taking 1 day per quarter (or as needed) with
absolutely no endorphin-stimulating experiences... in particular,
consuming only water, meditating, writing, walking. Notably no
food, no socializing, no media including reading, no hard exercise,
etc. This person claimed that in his own life (been doing it for
roughly 10 years?) that virtually every time he does this he has at
least a mild "epiphany" sometime soon after the fast. The point of
the endorphin fast is simply to reset one's sensitivity to the
myriad endorphin stimulating experiences/behaviours modern life
offers consistently. It is likely that this is what "the Sabbath"
provided those so inclined in another time/place... <br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:289e6c79-0f38-2927-06ee-1c511ca35537@gmail.com">
People Are Flooding LinkedIn With Strange Stories. We’re Calling
Them Broetry.
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/why-are-these-posts-taking-over-your-linkedin-feed-because">https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/why-are-these-posts-taking-over-your-linkedin-feed-because</a>
<br>
</blockquote>
I have found LinkedIn problematic from the start. I have a few
situations where it seems to be "the only game in town" but many
which are just awkward and irritating. Whatever "good intentions"
were planned never worked out well for me.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:289e6c79-0f38-2927-06ee-1c511ca35537@gmail.com">
We really do need honest *public* spaces, even if you hate
"socialism". The internet is a public utility and should be
treated that way. And governments should devote some of our tax
monies to corporation-independent social network platforms.
Mastodon would be perfect for that.
<br>
</blockquote>
I don't know that I can agree with you on the assertion (about gov't
funded), but I can't honestly disagree either. Perhaps PBS/NPR are
the closest things I can think to of a "public funded/managed"
public space... but of course, it is very much "push" media, so it
may well not be a good point of departure for such a consideration.
The distributed nature of UseNet fora and the BBS Whole Earth
'Lectronic Link (WELL) are maybe better digital proto-communities to
study/consider for templates/examples?<br>
<br>
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