l’Auto

Following the Route Napoleon on our drive northwards through the Rhone Alps a couple of weeks ago, we stopped for coffee in the village of Corps and came on this quaint vehicle. It was small but perfectly formed, as they say. Intrigued, we wondered about its ancestry. The only clue was an enigmatic badge:

An early Renault, perhaps? More knowledgeable petrolheads will doubtless know.

Quote of the Day

”I really am a pessimist. I’ve always felt that fascism is a more natural governmental condition than democracy. Democracy is a grace. It’s something essentially splendid because it’s not at all routine or automatic. Fascism goes back to our infancy and childhood, where we were always told how to live. We were told, Yes, you may do this; no, you may not do that. So the secret of fascism is that it has this appeal to people whose later lives are not satisfactory.

• Norman Mailer

Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news

Buffalo Springfield | For What It’s Worth

Link

Long Read of the Day

Both Sides

Thoughtful essay by historian Timothy Snyder on a pernicious delusion of mainstream media.

Why does American television and press “both-sides” our politics? Why are such different presidential candidates presented as equally flawed? Why do the outrages of Trump, for example at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, lead to the humiliation of Biden?

Both-Sidesism is the habit of reducing the world into two perspectives, treating the two as fundamentally alike, and then ignoring or adjusting the data. One cause of this odd behavior is the ownership of media companies. Another is fear.

But Both-Sidesism is not just a practice. It passes in the United States for a principle of journalism. Indeed, the dualism is almost unquestionable. Americans tends to take it for granted.

But it makes no sense. No data from the world around us indicates that two is the correct number of perspectives, nor that any two perspectives, once chosen, would be equal…

Great essay. I’m reminded of a conversation the economist Paul Krugman had with a group of Harvard undergraduates during the presidency of George W. Bush when Dick Cheney was his adult supervisor (and also Vice-President). At one stage Krugman used the phrase “balance as bias” and some of the students looked puzzled.

So he gave them an illustration of how it works:

Dick Cheney says the Earth is flat. Here’s how the New York Times reports it:
“VP says Earth flat; Others Disagree.”

My commonplace booklet

Shortly after the Trump shooting, Charlie Warzel, a well-known American journalist, went onto Twitter/X and was appalled by what he found there. So he wrote a column about it in The Atlantic which includes this passage:

Some may wish to see the conspiracy peddling, cynical politicking, and information warfare as a kind of gross aberration or the unintended consequences and outputs of a system that’s gone awry. This is wrong. What we are witnessing is an information system working as designed. It is a machine that rewards speed, bravado, and provocation. It is a machine that goads people into participating as the worst version of themselves. It is a machine that is hyperefficient, ravenous, even insatiable—a machine that can devour any news cycle, no matter how large, and pick it apart until it is an old, tired carcass.

If you’re interested in cybernetics, this is an interesting epiphany. Why? Because, for a cybernetician, the purpose of a system is not what people who own or run it say it is. The purpose is what the system actually does.

By the same token, the fact that neoliberalism produces inequality is a feature, not a bug, as programmers say. It’s what the system is designed to do.

Linkblog

Something I noticed, while drinking from the Internet firehose.

• tinyPod — if this makes sense to anyone, they will most likely be denizens of the Apple ecosystem. Basically, you put your Apple Watch into a neat little plastic case that evokes memories of the original iPod and away you go. Effectively turns your wristwatch into a pocket watch! And really only makes sense if your iWatch has a mobile connection. Charming, in a way, but maybe just another example of leading-edge uselessness.

Thanks to Charles Arthur, who first spotted it.

This Blog is also available as an email three days a week. If you think that might suit you better, why not subscribe? One email on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays delivered to your inbox at 6am UK time. It’s free, and you can always unsubscribe if you conclude your inbox is full enough already!