Month: July 2021

Media consumption spiked in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak as Americans actively sought information and entertainment while at home. Whether this changed over the course of 2020 remains unclear, however.

To dive deeper into the issue, this infographic from the Knight Foundation explores each generation’s shifts in media consumption habits as the pandemic wore on.

Further below, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu examines which media sources Americans deemed to be the most trustworthy, and why consumption habits may have changed for good.

Changes in American Media Consumption, by Generation

The data in this infographic comes from two surveys conducted by Global Web Index (GWI). The first was completed in April 2020 (N=2,337) and asked participants a series of questions regarding media consumption during COVID-19.

To see how consumption had changed by the end of the year, the Knight Foundation commissioned GWI to complete a follow-up survey in December 2020 (N=2,014). The following tables provide a summary of the results.

Gen Z

Unsurprisingly, a significant percentage of Gen Z reported an increase in digital media consumption in April 2020 in comparison to pre-pandemic habits. This bump was driven by higher use of online videos, video games, and online TV/streaming films such as Netflix.

By December 2020, these media categories became even more popular with this cohort.

The popularity of traditional outlets like broadcast TV and radio declined from their April 2020 highs, though they are still up relative to pre-pandemic levels for Gen Z survey respondents.

Millennials

Results from the December 2020 survey show that Millennials trimmed their media consumption from earlier in the year. This was most apparent in news outlets (online and physical press), which saw double digit declines in popularity relative to April.

Books and podcasts were the only two categories to capture more interest from Millennials over the time period. It’s also worth noting that the percentage of respondents who said “none” for media consumption rose to 20.3%, up significantly from 9.1% in April.

Possible factors for the increase in “none” responses include easing government restrictions and a return to more normal work schedules.

Gen X

The media consumption habits of Gen X developed similarly to Millennials over the year.

Broadcast TV and online press saw the largest declines over the time period, while once again, podcasts and books were the only two categories to capture more interest relative to April. The percentage of respondents reporting “none” rose to 28.9%—a slightly higher share than that of Millennials.

Boomers

Media consumption trends among Baby Boomers were mixed, with some categories increasing and others decreasing since April. Broadcast TV saw the biggest decline in usage of all media types, but remained the most popular category for this cohort.

Boomers also had the largest share of “none” respondents in both studies (23.0% in April and 31.0% in December).

Where do Americans Go For Trustworthy News?

To learn more about American media consumption—particularly when it came to staying updated on the pandemic—survey respondents were asked to confirm which of the following sources they found trustworthy.

The deviations between each generation don’t appear to be too drastic, but there are some key takeaways from this data.

For starters, Gen Z appears to be more skeptical of mainstream news channels like CNN, with only 28.9% believing them to be trustworthy. This contrasts the most with Gen X, which saw 40.1% of its respondents give news channels the thumbs up.

This story is flipped when we turn to the World Health Organization (WHO). Gen Z demonstrated the highest levels of trust in information published by WHO, at 50.3% of respondents. Only 39.0% of Gen X could say the same.

By far the least trustworthy source was foreign governments’ websites. This category had the lowest average approval rating across the four generations, and scored especially poor with Boomers.

The Lasting Effects of the Pandemic

Habits that were picked up during 2020 are likely to linger, even as life finally returns to normal. To find out what’s changed, respondents were asked which categories of media they expected to continue consuming in elevated amounts.

The chart below shows each generation’s top three responses.

Note that the top three for both Gen Z and Millennials are all digital and online categories (video games can be played offline, but the majority of popular titles are online). This contrasts with the preferences of Gen X and Boomers, who appear to be sticking with more traditional outlets in broadcast TV and books.

With consumption habits of younger and older Americans moving in opposite directions, advertisers and media companies will likely need a clear understanding of their target audiences in order to be successful.

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Libertarian Institute & Mises.org,

It’s almost Independence Day, and for many Coloradans, that means a trip to Wyoming to buy illegal fireworks. That is, it’s time to buy fireworks that are illegal in Colorado, but legal in Wyoming.

In fact, this fact so well known to everyone that Wyoming officials don’t even try to hide the fact. This can be seen in the fact that fireworks stores selling these illegal fireworks are a mere two-minute drive from the border and among the first structures one will encounter driving north on I-25 from northern Colorado. There, in the middle of the prairie, between Cheyenne and the Colorado border, there is little to see other than an RV park and some enormous fireworks shops.

And what do Coloradans do with these fireworks after buying them?

The local Fox affiliate reports:

Much of what shoppers find at the Wyoming stores are illegal in Colorado, but that does not dissuade Coloradans from making the drive north to spend money.

Recently, across the Denver metro, there have been nightly illegal fireworks shows.

This is true every year, but the use of illegal fireworks may be even more widespread this year after last year’s experience…

On July 4 of 2020, every fireworks show in metro Denver—and probably also statewide—had been cancelled. The result of this was something that officials probably did not anticipate. With no official fireworks shows to attend, Coloradans apparently decided to hold their own private, illegal fireworks shows in droves. When the sun went down that day, the night sky across the city was lit up like never before by countless airborne—and therefore illegal—fireworks set off by locals who were going to have a fireworks show one way or another.

The police—who were already on the edge of being reviled thanks to their enforcement of stay-at-home orders and business closures earlier that year—appeared to be unenthusiastic about enforcing the fireworks ban.

Nor are the police in the business of prosecuting Coloradans who import illegal fireworks into Colorado. There aren’t any cops waiting on the Colorado side of the border to seize contraband. Possession of Wyoming-style illegal fireworks is generally legal in most jurisdictions.

Here’s where fireworks are and are not legal in Colorado https://t.co/RAZxqmp9AU

— 9NEWS Denver (@9NEWS) July 1, 2021

But this isn’t just a Colorado-Wyoming issue. Apparently, in spite of severe wildfire danger throughout the West, many Americans aren’t on board with fireworks bans.

Local officials aren’t unaware. As the AP reported this week,

Several Utah cities are banning people from setting off their own fireworks this year during the record drought, but many Republicans are against a statewide prohibition. GOP Salt Lake County Councilwoman Aimee Winder Newton supports restrictions but thinks this year is a bad time for a blanket ban.

“We’re just coming out of this pandemic where people already felt like government was restricting them in so many ways,” she said. “When you issue bans arbitrarily, we could have a situation where people who weren’t going to light fireworks purposely go and buy fireworks to just send a message to government.”

There’s a similar mood in other states as well.

“It’s not just Colorado,” said Ben Laws, manager of Pyro City. “We see people from Nebraska, we see people from Montana, we see people from all over coming to buy.”

Clearly, the presence of Wyoming and its liberal fireworks laws is a bit of a fly in the ointment for neighboring officials looking to stamp out the use of private fireworks.

Thanks to America’s relatively decentralized legal and regulatory regime—in some cases such as fireworks—enforcing local bans becomes a whole lot more difficult. As is the case with marijuana—or abortions or, in the past, legal divorces—the legality of something in some states often effectively makes that something a bit less illegal in all the other states.

So why not ban the possession of fireworks and then arrest locals when they try to cross back over with their banned fireworks? After all, other states have taken this approach with marijuana and Colorado. Law enforcement officials in Nebraska, for instance, have long been on alert for “suspicious” vehicles that have recently crossed over from Colorado. It is illegal to even possess marijuana in most states surrounding Colorado.

Well, making the possession of fireworks illegal is apparently easier said than done. As Councilwoman Newton in Utah noted, her constituents don’t appear to be in the mood for more bans on activities that many Americans would have considered to be perfectly legal, normal, and moral a year or two ago. In some ways, covid has encouraged lawlessness, because many Americans figured out that the connection between law and morality is a tenuous connection indeed. The proliferation of illegal fireworks may be just another side effect of the covid panic.

Days ago we wrote about how a Tesla Model S Plaid in the suburbs of Philadelphia was witnessed to be rolling down a street, engulfed in flames, before exploding. At the time, the cause of the accident and the well-being of the driver were both unknown. 

Today, the owner of the vehicle’s lawyer is speaking out, claiming the vehicle “burst into flames while the owner was driving” it, according to a new report by Reuters. 

The driver of the vehicle has been identified as an “executive entrepreneur” who is being represented by Mark Geragos, of Geragos & Geragos.

Geragos said that the driver wasn’t initially able to get out of the vehicle because its “electronic door system failed”, requiring the driver to push and use force to open the door.

He said the car moved for 35 to 40 feet before “turning into a fireball”. He called it a “harrowing and horrifying experience”.

“This is a brand new model… We are doing an investigation. We are calling for the S Plaid to be grounded, not to be on the road until we get to the bottom of this,” Geragos said. 

A separate source reported that the Tesla belonged to a top executive at one of Tesla’s biggest investors. The driver was identified in that report as Bart Smith, also called the “Crypto King” by CNBC, who works as the head of the digital asset group at trading firm Susquehanna International.

Susquehanna owned about $1.1 billion worth of Tesla shares as of March 31, the report noted. 

Recall, last week we pointed out pro-Tesla blog electrek’s coverage of the incident, where they noted that the vehicle had caught fire under what it called “strange circumstances”. 

The incident took place in Haverford, Pennsylvania and the the Gladwyne fire department responded to the scene. They released the following statement during the middle of the week last week: 

“Gladwyne Firefighters responding to the 100 block of Rose Lane last night just before 9pm to assist Station 25 (Merion Fire Company of Ardmore) with a vehicle fire. While enroute to the call Chief 25 was advised that the reports were that a Tesla was on fire and it was well involved in fire. Engine 24 with a crew of 7 arrived on scene simultaneously with Engine 25. Due to prior training classes on Tesla Vehicle Fire emergencies, Engine 24 laid a 5 inch supply line into the scene so that we could keep a continual water stream on the fire to extinguish the fire and cool the batteries down to ensure complete extinguishment. Engine 24 and Engine 25 both deployed hand lines to extinguish the fire, each maintained a dedicated water source and continued to cool the vehicle down for almost 90 minutes.”

Photographs released by the fire department showed firefighters attempting to put out the blaze, and – as we have seen in many cases of Tesla fires – the charred remains of the vehicle that once was. 

Attempting to offer up some form of analysis, electrek noted at the time that the “exact circumstances of how the vehicle caught on fire are still unknown”.

But the post also claimed that a witness from Narberth Ambulance, who was working as an EMT in the area and who was on the scene, said that “the call came in from one of the residents of the neighborhood who saw it rolling down the road on fire before exploding in front of their house.”

The blog post then turned on the spin, theorizing a number of potential causes for the fire except for negligence on the behalf of Tesla.

“In this case, the most interesting thing is that the vehicle affected appears to be a brand new Model S Plaid, which is equipped with a new battery pack from Tesla,” electrek editor Fred Lambert wrote, possible unaware of the argument he’s tacitly making. 

He concluded by stating the blog would wait for more information before drawing conclusions, and then suggests that “even arson” may have played a role in the fire.

We’re sure Mr. Geragos will help you find the narrative going forward, Fred. Tesla has yet to comment further, according to Reuters. 

Authored by Scott Galloway via No Mercy / No Malice blog,

On Wednesday, trading app Robinhood agreed to pay $70 million in fines and customer reimbursements to settle a FINRA investigation. That followed a $60 million fine in December to the SEC for failing to properly disclose its order-flow revenue, and a separate $1.25 million fine to FINRA.

These are record fines … that amount to less than 0.5% of the firm’s valuation.

On Thursday, the firm responded to regulatory bodies deeming them “reckless” by filing an S-1, initiating the IPO process.

In sum, these aren’t fines but a validation of the company’s business model and evidence that, each day, there is (another) insurrection in D.C. However, this mob drives Teslas and is on Clubhouse.

The S-1 reveals Robinhood’s revenue quadrupled in 2020, to nearly $1 billion, and the firm registered over a half a billion in revenue in just the first quarter of 2021. After eking out a small profit in 2020, the company incurred $1.5 billion in losses when meme-stock mania overwhelmed it.

The prospectus also discloses that Robinhood anticipates paying another $15 million fine to New York’s trading regulator, and that it’s currently under investigation by an alphabet soup of federal agencies and authorities in California, New York, and Massachusetts. Here’s a sentence you typically don’t find in an S-1: “[O]ur Co-Founder and CEO, Vladimir Tenev, among others, have received requests for information, and in some cases, subpoenas and requests for testimony, related to investigations….” And in the “surprising nobody” category, Robinhood will have a two-tier stock structure, with insiders (including Tenev) holding shares with 10x the voting power of shares sold to the public so they can continue to pursue a strategy of regulatory overrun regardless of what shareholders think.

There are a lot of great things about Robinhood and online trading, including onboarding an entire generation into equity investing.

(Disclosure: I am an investor in rival investment firm Public, which does not sell order flow, but I was on record with my criticisms of Robinhood before I’d even heard of Public.)

My concern with Robinhood – i.e., I believe these guys are mendacious fucks – is more fundamental.

The company’s mission to “democratize finance for all,” is similar to Pablo Escobar saying his mission was to “democratize cocaine.”

Providing people access to the tools of finance is a worthwhile mission.

Just this week on the Prof G Pod, I interviewed Pierpaolo Barbieri, the CEO and founder of Ualá, an Argentine attempting to reach the 50%+ of Argentines who are unbanked.

Robinhood, on the other hand, is the Sith Lord of finance – monetizing the addictive nature of day trading. Day trading is gambling. And it doesn’t pay off. I wrote about this a year ago, when a 20-year-old Robinhood customer killed himself after the app mistakenly suggested he was down $730,000. We’re reprinting that post below because this leopard has not changed its spots, only becoming bigger, bolder, and more menacing.

In response to criticism, Robinhood removed the confetti animation “celebrating” each trade. And it claimed it was increasing educational support on the app and instituting more rigorous criteria for eligibility for options trading. The company now has 2,700 customer support staff, triple the number it had in March of 2020 … underwhelming, as the company has roughly the same number of reps per account it did last March. The Wall Street Journal didn’t mince words in a recent analysis: “Robinhood Has a Customer Service Problem.” (Speaking of tech addiction, Adam Alter, who wrote the bestselling Irresistible on that topic, is teaching Section4’s next Product Psychology & Strategy Sprint.)

Our analysis of the S-1 reveals that “addict” does not appear anywhere. The filing does mention the suicide, but only as a disclosure of litigation filed against the company. (Robinhood reached a settlement with the young man’s family.) “Protect” is used 37 times, compared to 87 times for consumer lender Affirm and 65 times for crypto exchange Coinbase. The phrase “compound interest” appears exactly zero times, while “trade” shows up 191 times. And then there are all those fines and investigations. “Fine” appears 47 times in Robinhood’s S-1, vs. 28 in Coinbase’s and 30 in Affirm’s.

Robinhood traders invest overwhelmingly  in highly speculative assets: Dogecoin accounted for 34% of Robinhood’s cryptocurrency transaction-based revenue in Q1 2021, and 6% of the trading firm’s overall revenue in the same period. Dogecoin shed 30% of its value when “dogefather” Elon Musk took the SNL stage. Trades in the private market(s) reflect a valuation of $55 billion. That feels right. Pablo Escobar was believed to have amassed wealth of $64 billion.

*  *  *

[The following was originally published June 19, 2020.]

Addiction is the inability to stop consuming a chemical or pursuing an activity even though it’s causing harm.

I engage with almost every substance or behavior associated with addiction: alcohol, drugs, coffee, porn, sex, gambling, work, spending, devices, and social media. I’ve abused all of them, but don’t think I’m addicted. On a balanced scorecard, these substances and behaviors, abuse and all, have been a net positive in my life, even @twitter.

Most disease and hardship for our species has been a function of scarcity — too little salt, sugar, fat, approval, safety, opportunities to mate. As a result, when we find these things, our brain produces the ultimate reward, the pleasure hormone dopamine. And it makes sense. Nature rewards behaviors that ensure the propagation of the species.

The assembly line, processing power, and Amazon Prime have not only met the minimum thresholds for survival but created a new threat to our species: superabundance. Diabetes, income inequality, and fake news — all are a function of our belief that more is better. Jeff Bezos capturing and hoarding the GDP of Norway doesn’t make sense for the species, but his instincts (fear of starvation, wielding power) reign supreme.

Survival, propagation, and consumption should result in a next generation that’s smarter, faster, and stronger. Where things have come off the rails is a function of our innovation economy moving faster than our instincts. Historically, humans have engaged in activities that have natural stopping cues — the end of a chapter, the end credits. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Netflix have systematically eradicated these cues. Just as casinos are deliberately laid out without hard angles: It’s all one continuous space and you keep moving through it, on to the next game.

Technological progress lapping the calibration of our instincts culminates in an endless scroll. We’re unable to find the off switch. Unlike our parents and grandparents, for us dopamine release no longer depends on sacrifice, engagement, or grit, but on sitting still, as in 15, 14, 13 seconds episode 5 of Killing Eve will begin. There are more filtered photos, more porn, more equities, more margin, more dopa — more time without the nuisance of needing to engage in … life.

The most recent crack dealers are online trading platforms (OTPs). What does endless scroll look like on a trading platform?

• Confetti falls to celebrate transactions.

• Candy Crush interface.

• Gamification: Users can tap up to 1000x per day to improve their position on the waitlist for Robinhood’s cash management feature (essentially a high-yield checking account on the app).

The Ratio

Our institutions (courts, Congress, the SEC) are supposed to slow our thinking so our reflexive instincts are checked and we can decide not to discriminate, not to pour mercury into the rivers, and not to let a bankrupt car rental firm (Hertz) issue shares bound to be worthless. You lose, they win.

Technological change is vastly outpacing our species’ ability to adapt to an endless barrage of stimuli. This discrepancy in modulation has exploded our levels of teen depression and social chaos. We’re in a Supermarine Spitfire, accelerating every day, hoping the fuselage holds together as we approach the sound barrier — streaming 31 seasons of The Simpsons, lifelike video games, ubiquitous porn of increasing extremes, high-def documentation in real time of the party your 15-year-old daughter wasn’t invited to, social media algorithms fueled on emotion vs. veracity, and immediate approval of margin for a “bull put spread.”

A Mess

I was a fu**ing mess yesterday after learning of the suicide of Alexander Kearns, a 20-year-old from Naperville, Illinois, who was interested in the markets and began trading stocks. Alex mistakenly believed he was down $730,000 after trading options on the Robinhood app and took his own life. We don’t know what other factors were at play here, and young men taking their own lives after losing money in the market is not a new phenomenon.

Facebook and Twitter do what CNN and Fox have been doing for decades, but better. I’m afraid Robinhood might become an addictive platform — Instagram for trading. Robinhood users skew young (32% of visitors are between 25 and 34). The firm reported 3 million new accounts in Q1 2020. Half were first-time traders. In addition, with Vegas and sports wagering all but shut down, OTPs have become the place where an emerging gambling addiction can take root and/or a rehab facility where your sponsor is a dealer.

Learning to invest and understanding the markets are good things, as is connecting with friends online … to a point. Social media and gambling have the same addictive psychological mechanism: variable rewards — when you keep performing an action in hopes of getting a possible but unlikely reward. This is the type of behavior that’s the most addictive and hardest to stop. Robinhood’s management and investors have taken cues from Big Tech and made a conscious decision to disregard the well-being of our youth for personal enrichment.

Some additional data on the surge in online trading:

• Excessive trading may be triggered by an addictive process.

• 12% of all trading activity is from day traders, yet day traders are only 1.6% of all profitable traders.

• Men trade more than women, and unmarried men trade more than married men.

• Stock market crashes have been linked to upticks in suicide.

• Investors with a large differential between their existing economic conditions and their aspiration levels hold riskier stocks in their portfolios.

Most articles will focus on what we, Americans, view as the profound risk with the surge in rookie online traders … that the markets might go down. Most market tops coincide with retail investors entering. We haven’t, to my knowledge, seen the scale of a market crash driven by twentysomethings investing government rescue funds, levered up via preapproval on their smartphones.

Our elected officials and gross idolatry of money and innovators have overrun the institutions charged with slowing our thinking and keeping our kids safe. Joe Scarborough put it well: “Mark, Sheryl, and Jack, you have revealed yourselves to be vapid vulgarians who put at risk Americans’ health, racial justice, fair elections, and basic truths.”

Where do we turn? The bulk of the pressure to protect kids from device addiction falls on parents — limiting use (severely) and getting other parents at school to limit use as well, so kids don’t feel they’re an exception. It’s difficult, and it needs to be done. An “electronics fast,” perhaps for the whole family, can allow the nervous system to reset. Lowering your dopamine threshold allows a smaller amount of pleasure to be satisfying.

The threat of addiction has been slowing our household down. One of our sons demonstrates behavior consistent with device addiction. It’s terrifying. Everything he does, says, and works toward, is in pursuit of the dopa hit waiting on his iPad. His mom and I are doing what most parents would do — reading, seeking outside help, limiting use. But more than anything, we’re trying to slow things down. Time with him, especially outdoors or with books. Time in bed with him telling him stories about his grandfather becoming a frogman in the Royal Navy. Slowing everything down. It appears to be working.

I see Alex Kearns, and I see my oldest son. A nerd, with a big smile, fascinated by the markets and seeking dopa hits. I can’t imagine the pain of that family. I can’t imagine how we’ve lost the script, letting the meaningful, innovation and money, trump the profound, our kids. The youth suicide rate has increased 56% in a decade. Girls between 10 and 14 had a tripling of self-harm episodes between 2009 and 2015. Teens who are on social media for 5+ hrs a day are twice as likely to be depressed than those who are on for less than an hour.

Is it any wonder Tim Cook doesn’t want his nephew on social media? If he wasn’t Tim Cook, would he also say, I don’t want him to have an iPad either?

The weapons are our phones and tablets, and the bullets are social media firms headed by sociopathic oligarchs. And now, we may have a new menace preying on young men: online trading platforms.

We are a virus-ravaged nation where curfew alerts are sent to our phones. Innovation has become synonymous with exploitation. We find solace in the market being high. But the market is not a reflection of the economy or progress — it is increasingly driven by a few firms’ ability to arbitrage the gap between the pace of technology and regulation. It’s depressing. What to do? I’ll check my likes, mentions, and stocks.

Hezbollah-affiliated news publication Al-Mayadeen reports an Israeli cargo ship “was hit by an unknown weapon in the northern Indian Ocean.” 

Sources told Al-Mayadeen that “a fire erupted in an Israeli cargo ship in the northern Indian Ocean,” indicating that “an unknown weapon hit the Israeli merchant ship.” 

They also told the Lebanese news network that “the Israeli ship was anchored in the port of Jeddah, before moving towards the coast of the Emirates.” 

The report, which Western media could not independently confirm, cited a “reliable source.” Except for now Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) has confirmed: “Israeli media citing defense official confirms Israeli cargo ship was hit, cause unclear.” 

UPDATE: Israeli media citing defence official confirms Israeli cargo ship was hit, cause unclear

— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) July 3, 2021

According to The Jerusalem Post’s Anna Ahronheim, Al-Mayadeen reports indicate the Israeli owned cargo ship attack “is in retaliation for an attack on Iranian nuclear site that damaged centrifuge production.” 

There are still no reliable images of the incident that we can find at this moment. Several images that have been posted on Twitter appear to be fake. 

We should note a past bombshell report in The Wall Street Journal in March showed how Israel bombed dozens of Iranian oil tankers. 

It’s evident by now that Israeli and Iranian ships have both been bombed in regular attacks this year in a dangerous game of battleship. 

*This story is still developing… 

Elsa weakened to a tropical storm Saturday with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph after strengthening to a hurricane overnight. The storm may regain hurricane strength, which requires wind speeds of at least 74 mph, prompting Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to declare a local state of emergency as the weather disturbance threatens South Florida. 

Hurricane spaghetti models forecast Elsa may remain just west of South Florida, but some models show a direct strike. It’s still too early to gauge the long-term track of the storm. 

As of 1100 ET, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) published data showing the storm is headed west-northwest at a blazing speed of 29 mph, located 40 miles southeast of Isla Beata, Dominican Republic. 

Elsa’s intensity is expected to moderate later this weekend when it traverses Cuba. By early next week, the storm is expected to either pass to the west of South Florida and or a direct hit. 

The threat of impact prompted Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to sign a local state of emergency for the area. She announced the emergency order during an update Saturday morning on the Surfside, Florida condo tower collapse. 

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava says she has signed a local state of emergency for Hurricane Elsa and that preparations are being made “out of an abundance of caution” https://t.co/3yv7Gh4Zoo pic.twitter.com/AGRJR188pW

— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 3, 2021

We noted last week, “a lot of uncertainty surrounds Elsa’s path late weekend into next week. If the storm is headed for South Florida, this may further complicate search and rescue efforts at the Champlain Towers South building in Miami.” 

The question remains if the structural integrity of what’s left of Champlain South can survive a tropical storm or hurricane next week. Let’s hope the storm deviates west of South Florida for the sake of the rescue effort. 

We’ll have a better understanding of the storm’s path in the next 24 hours.  

Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

If you’re arguing against Bitcoin, then you’re in favour of serfdom

In the most recent edition The Crypto Capitalist Letter I cited Elizabeth Warren’s comments in a senate banking committee meeting where she said

“Digital currency from central banks has great promise. Legitimate digital public money could help drive out bogus digital private money, bogus crypto currencies”

My remarks were that as a creature of the state she has it exactly backwards. This is predictable. For years I’ve been saying that the most oft-used criticisms against Bitcoin (backed by nothing, ponzi and tulipmania) were more accurate descriptions of the US dollar, social security, and meme stonks, in that order.

In TCC we spend a lot of time thinking about the coming bifurcation in digital money: how Central Bank Digital Currencies will be the rails for things like UBI and welfare dependency while crypto currencies will be actual stores of wealth and capital formation. If there was one distinctive feature that would enable one to tell the difference between a “bogus” digital currency and a real one, it would be this:

If you can hold your private keys, it’s real. If you can’t, it’s bogus.

Precisely the opposite of how Warren is spinning it.

The exact phrase I used in this month’s issue was :

“The era of private, cryptographically secured money is here, and there’s not a damn thing any bureaucrat, any politician or any nation state can do about it.”

That particular phrase “private, cryptographically secured money” is important. If you do not fully understand the implications of that and you unwittingly accept establishment arguments against  Bitcoin, then you are tacitly ceding authority over your entire life, every transaction, every decision, every interaction with the world at large, to The State.

Warren also piled onto the energy argument, which seems to be the latest unified front against the upstart non-state currency:

“Cryptocurrency has created opportunities to scam investors, assist criminals and worsen the climate crisis”

The energy argument fails on two fronts

There are two distinct rebuttals to this issue. One is by putting Bitcoin energy usage into perspective and showing how the benefits justify the costs. (Even the World Economic Forum recently published a remarkably clueful paper saying that the arguments against Bitcoin were mainly FUD and that the energy usage was worth it given the benefits).

The total electrical usage of all Bitcoin mining is approximately 110 TWh (Terra Watt hours) per year. It is estimated that as much as 20% of all electrical energy produced is wasted. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) puts it even higher, at 34%.

The total electrical energy usage of the world in 2018 was around 22,000 TWh and 20% of that would have been 4,400 TWh (at the higher EIA figure it would be 7,480). Seen in that context, Bitcoin mining uses somewhere between 2.5% and 1.4% of all wasted electrical energy. It’s been written up by others how Bitcoin by its nature can be moved toward sources of energy waste and thus covert otherwise lost energy into real economic value. Great American Mining is already doing it (and one of the companies we hold in our Crypto Capitalist Portfolio is in a joint venture with them).

Another example of providing context is when people like Alex Gladstein document how the US military empire is really a support structure for the US dollar, and compared to that, Bitcoin has a smaller carbon footprint and causes a lot less damage. Bitcoin is not actively conducting drone assassinations in multiple foreign countries. The petrodollar is.

The other approach to the energy usage criticism by people like Nic Carter is the categorical rejection that any Bitcoiner is under any obligation to explain or justify their energy usage. If Bitcoin and cryptos have to rationalize their energy footprint, then that follows for everything. From “Keeping Up with The Kardashians” to NASA, can anybody truly rationalize their energy expenditure over the supposed conservational benefits of that activity not occurring?

Energy as Authority

It’s this attack on individual rights to use private, cryptographically secured money that I want to focus on in particular because to even accept  that Bitcoin energy argument as valid, you are tacitly accepting that some authority other than you has the ultimate verdict over all energy usage including your own.

Isn’t watching (or being) the Kardashians an exercise in self-absorption and triviality that glamorizes wealth inequality?

Should NASA really be concerning itself with space when we have so much social justice to undertake here on Earth? We only have one Earth. Don’t those rockets use a lot of fuel and deplete the ozone layer?

There are already serious academics suggesting that we should genetically engineer humans to be less harmful to the environment. Here is a bioethicist and NYU professor in a 2016 symposium making the case for genetically engineering humans so that they are born allergic to red meat and grow up to be on average 12 cubic centimeters smaller. For climate.

In 2015 the UN adopted 17 sustainable development goals for working toward Agenda 2030. On the surface, these goals appear laudable and uncontroversial. They include objectives such as No Poverty (#1), Zero Hunger (#2), Gender Equality and Clean Water for All (#5 & 6), who isn’t in favour of any of these things?

If you’re running the list you would almost gloss over SDG-12: Responsible Consumption and Production, because “By 2050, the equivalent of almost three planets could be required to sustain current lifestyles”

You see where this is going. I’ve said it before, all this talk about Great Resets, The New Normal and Building Back Better is about getting the masses to ratchet down their lifestyles so that the managerial elites and experts can keep running the show (and maintaining theirs).

Standards of living are all about energy inputs. As people and communities become more prosperous, their per-capita energy usage rises. The official canon of the national and supra-national elites is that this has to stop. Never mind that history is the story of humanity achieving exponentially higher productivity gains and energy efficiencies, never mind that the world was already on a trajectory to achieve many of the SDGs  already without overbearing government intervention (see Ana and Hans Roslings’ “Factfulness” or Matt Ridley’s “The Rational Optimist”)

All that matters is that the experts, the same technocratic class that brought you double masks, double vaccines and two years of lockdowns, have decided that this is the way things have to go. Incidentally, the COVID pandemic (which was arguably brought about by the very experts who were purportedly trying to prevent one) is the perfect opportunity to fast track new policies toward these Sustainable Development Goals.

Make no mistake, the same climate technocrats who are saying Bitcoin’s energy footprint isn’t justified are already thinking in terms of a totalitarian system of energy and carbon rationing based on purported benefits of any given activity.

If you think I’m exaggerating the extent to which the coming “resource based economy” model will subordinate your day-to-day activities and life choices to some greater good narrative, take a look at this recent research paper from  multi disciplinary Sustainability institute about the cognitive dissonance and anxiety “PEBEXs” (Pro-environmental Behaviour Experts”) have to struggle with because their aspirational climate ideology clashes with the demands of everyday life.

These are the people who’s job it is to advance policy and advocate for everybody else ratcheting down their consumption patterns (SDG-12, basically).

“A practical behavior applied by participants to feel better about their consumption is to minimize it. These PEBEXs question their private and job-related consumption to acknowledge that they (and others) are better off with less. These narratives also contain social criticisms of materialism, perceived as a social norm of the Western world” (emphasis added)

One of the tensions PEBEXs experience is the seeming futility of “engag[ing] in individual sustainable practices, to avoid a suboptimal allocation of their resources”, because at the individual level, change is insignificant

“I don’t believe that much in individuals deciding to do things different. I want more the structures to be changed. I don’t know if I want to change people’s behavior, I want to change the society. So that we consume less energy. That is two different things for me.” (Emphasis added)

For a fairly short quote, there’s a lot in there, including:

• the mindset that society should be restructured to accommodate these people’s feelings. The idea that the entire climate alarmist narrative is not settled science (see Steven E. Koonin’s “Unsettled”, or Michael Shellenbergers’s “Apocalypse Never” for example) is not even imaginable to them.

• the compartmentalization between working for a radical structural change to society is different than ordering people’s lives on an individual level. Very similar to the progressive mindset of cost-free entitlements. Second-order effects are ignored, all policy objectives can be achieved by wishing for them to be true.

• that change at an individual level is meaningless or insignificant. Again, telling. Because the overall policy is collectivist and for many of these people, individualism is a mental disorder.  Suffice it to quote Samuel Konkin’s “Liberty cannot be achieved en masse. It can only happen individual by individual”)

As if to drive the entire point home for me, no sooner had I posted this when I came across  a “think piece” from Time Magazine lecturing us on  air conditioning:

The upshot is that air conditioning is bad for the environment and problematic, thus, it must me ‘re-imagined’ I guess…:

The troubled history of air-conditioning suggests not that we chuck it entirely but that we focus on public cooling, on public comfort, rather than individual cooling, on individual comfort. Ensuring that the most vulnerable among the planet’s human inhabitants can keep cool through better access to public cooling centers, shade-giving trees, safe green spaces, water infrastructure to cool, and smart design will not only enrich our cities overall, it will lower the temperature for everyone. It’s far more efficient this way.

To do so, we’ll have to re-orient ourselves to the meaning of air-conditioning. And to comfort. Privatized air-conditioning survived the ozone crisis, but its power to separate—by class, by race, by nation, by ability—has survived, too. Comfort for some comes at the expense of the life on this planet.

It’s time we become more comfortable with discomfort. Our survival may depend on it.“

Ok. That’s not hyperbolic at all.

And yet again we see that same diminution of individual agency and autonomy in favour of the collective. Private is bad. Public is good. I’m sure the offices at Time have the a/c switched off as do the staff remote working from home. If they don’t, then whoever wrote this may be experiencing the same anxiety as the aforementioned PEBEXs.

This kind of sanctimonious shrieking doesn’t take into account that pretty well everything being made in industrial society today is becoming more energy efficient over time. It doesn’t take into account that four times as much energy is spent on heat than on air conditioning.  Or that without widespread private air conditioning, a lot of people would actually die, especially among the elderly and medically at-risk.

The idea to redesign public spaces to afford more cooling areas aren’t bad ideas, but the real solution to addressing the disparities in underdeveloped communities is to increase economic prosperity for the citizens who inhabit them. One way to do that could happen if they had access to some kind of private cryptographically secured money, whose purchasing power increases over time… or something.

Just a thought. But that would be better than  marshalling them into communal herds of dependency (which is basically what the ultimate aspiration is for everyone except the billionaires and elites zipping around the world on private jets to climate conferences).

Bitcoin today. Cars tomorrow.  Then hamburgers. Heated bathroom floors Air conditioning after that. Second homes. Cottages. Excessive wardrobes. Rationing shoes. Vacations.

If you accept that anybody has the moral authority to tell you what you can and can’t do with your own wealth and how you consume energy, then you are submitting to their judgement on every aspect of your energy consumption, and thus, your entire life.

What people don’t realize is that there is an overarching framework that already mediates energy usage and consumption, one that allocates resources toward optimal outcomes. This already exists (or at least it used to), it’s called free markets that are driven by economic tradeoffs.

*  *  *

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It’s becoming quite evident that Biden really doesn’t like challenging questions particularly over foreign policy related issues. On Friday he again snapped at a reporter’s question, this time about Afghanistan and the US exit currently said to be in final stages. 

After showing growing frustration over the topic, he cut off one journalist’s question by tersely invoking July 4th weekend: “Look, it’s 4th of July… I’m concerned that you guys are asking me questions that I’ll answer next week.  But I’m — this is a holiday weekend.  I’m going to celebrate it.  There is great things happening.” He again lambasted the press for “negative” questions…

Biden bristles when he’s asked follow-up questions about Afghanistan, says he wants to celebrate the holiday weekend.

“I’m not gonna answer any more questions on Afghanistan. Look, it’s Fourth of July” pic.twitter.com/nl2eQakEYn

— Dave Brown (@dave_brown24) July 2, 2021

“I want to talk about happy things, man,” he said in response to being pressed further on the Afghan withdrawal after already declaring “I’m not going to answer any more quick question on Afghanistan.”

The particular issue Biden was being pressed on before essentially deeming the topic “off limits” because he wants ‘happy thoughts’ is whether the US military would leave the capacity to bomb Taliban offensives from nearby countries. 

The only answer Biden gave is the following: “We have worked out an over-the-horizon capacity that we can be value added, but the Afghans are going to have to be able to do it themselves with the Air Force they have, which we’re helping them maintain,” he said.

NOW – Biden on Afghanistan: “I want to talk about happy things, man!”pic.twitter.com/PuZyebqAFv

— Disclose.tv 🚨 (@disclosetv) July 2, 2021

As Politico pointed out:

At one point Biden said he’d answer journalists’ “negative questions” at a later point, before quickly catching himself and amending his characterization to “your legitimate questions.”

U.S. forces pulling out of a 20-year war and President Biden doesn’t want to answer questions about Afghanistan because it’s the #FourthOfJulyWeekend https://t.co/RJvGrTBJ2l

— James LaPorta (@JimLaPorta) July 2, 2021

He did the same thing – though with more fireworks in terms of the out of control emotions displayed – at the mid-June Putin summit, where he also lectured the press pool on their ‘negativity’, which appears his classification for anything that’s actually challenging and not soft ball.

Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News,

Just under three years ago, Infowars anchor Alex Jones was tossed off Facebook, Apple, YouTube, and Spotify, marking the unofficial launch of the “content moderation” era. The censorship envelope has since widened dramatically via a series of high-profile incidents: Facebook and Twitter suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, Donald Trump’s social media suspension, Apple and Amazon’s kneecapping of Parler, the removal of real raw footage from the January 6th riots, and others.

This week’s decision by YouTube to demonetize podcaster Bret Weinstein belongs on that list, and has a case to be to be put at or near the top, representing a different and perhaps more unnerving speech conundrum than those other episodes.

Profiled in this space two weeks ago, Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying — both biologists — host the podcast DarkHorse, which by any measure is among the more successful independent media operations in the country. They have two YouTube channels, a main channel featuring whole episodes and livestreams, and a “clips” channel featuring excerpts from those shows.

Between the two channels, they’ve been flagged 11 times in the last month or so. Specifically, YouTube has honed in on two areas of discussion it believes promote “medical misinformation.” The first is the potential efficacy of the repurposed drug ivermectin as a Covid-19 treatment. The second is the third rail of third rails, i.e. the possible shortcomings of the mRNA vaccines produced by companies like Moderna and Pfizer.

Weinstein, who was also criticized for arguing the lab-leak theory before conventional wisdom shifted on that topic, says YouTube’s decision will result in the loss of “half” of his and Heying’s income. However, he says, YouTube told him he can reapply after a month.

YouTube’s notice put it as follows: “Edit your channel and reapply for monetization… Make changes to your channel based on our feedback. Changes can include editing or deleting videos and updating video details.”

“They want me to self-censor,” he says. “Unless I stop broadcasting information that runs afoul of their CDC-approved talking points, I’ll remain demonetized.”

Weinstein’s travails with YouTube sound like something out of a Star Trek episode, in which the Enterprise crew tries and fails to communicate with a malevolent AI attacking the ship. In the last two weeks, he emailed back and forth with the firm, at one point receiving an email from someone who identified himself only as “Christopher,” indicating a desire to set up a discussion between Weinstein and various parties at YouTube.

Over the course of these communications, Weinstein asked if he could nail down the name and contact number of the person with whom he was interacting. “I said, ‘Look, I need to know who you are first, whether you’re real, what your real first and last names are, what your phone number is, and so on,” Weinstein recounts. “But on asking what ‘Christopher’s’ real name and email was, they wouldn’t even go that far.” After this demand of his, instead of giving him an actual contact, YouTube sent him a pair of less personalized demonetization notices.

As has been noted in this space multiple times, this is a common theme in nearly all of these stories, but Weinstein’s tale is at once weirder and more involved, as most people in these dilemmas never get past the form-letter response stage. YouTube has responded throughout to media queries about Weinstein’s case, suggesting they take it seriously.

YouTube’s decision with regard to Weinstein and Heying seems part of an overall butterfly effect, as numerous other figures either connected to the topic or to DarkHorse have been censured by various platforms. Weinstein guest Dr. Robert Malone, a former Salk Institute researcher often credited with helping develop mRNA vaccine technology, has been suspended from LinkedIn, and Weinstein guest Dr. Pierre Kory of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) has had his appearances removed by YouTube. Even Satoshi Ōmura, who won the Nobel Prize in 2015 for his work on ivermectin, reportedly had a video removed by YouTube this week.

There are several factors that make the DarkHorse incident different from other major Silicon Valley moderation decisions, including the fact that the content in question doesn’t involve electoral politics, foreign intervention, or incitement. The main issue is the possible blurring of lines between public and private censorship.

When I contacted YouTube about Weinstein two weeks ago, I was told, “In general, we rely on guidance from local and global health authorities (FDA, CDC, WHO, NHS, etc) in developing our COVID-19 misinformation policies.”

The question is, how active is that “guidance”? Is YouTube acting in consultation with those bodies in developing those moderation policies? As Weinstein notes, an answer in the affirmative would likely make theirs a true First Amendment problem, with an agency like the CDC not only setting public health policy but also effectively setting guidelines for private discussion about those policies. “If it is in consultation with the government,” he says, “it’s an entirely different issue.”

Asked specifically after Weinstein’s demonetization if the “guidance” included consultation with authorities, YouTube essentially said yes, pointing to previous announcements that they consult other authorities, and adding, “When we develop our policies we consult outside experts and YouTube creators. In the case of our COVID-19 misinformation policies, it would be guidance from local and global health authorities.”

Weinstein and Heying might be the most prominent non-conservative media operation to fall this far afoul of a platform like YouTube. Unlike the case of, say, Alex Jones, the moves against the show’s content have not been roundly cheered. In fact, they’ve inspired blowback from across the media spectrum, with everyone from Bill Maher to Joe Rogan to Tucker Carlson taking notice.

“They threw Bret Weinstein off YouTube, or almost,” Maher said on Real Time last week. “YouTube should not be telling me what I can see about ivermectin. Ivermectin isn’t a registered Republican. It’s a drug!”

From YouTube’s perspective, the argument for “medical misinformation” in the DarkHorse videos probably comes down to a few themes in Weinstein’s shows. Take, for example, an exchange between Weinstein and Malone in a video about the mRNA vaccines produced by companies like Moderna and Pfizer:

Weinstein: The other problem is that what these vaccines do is they encode spike protein… but the spike protein itself we now know is very dangerous, it’s cytotoxic, is that a fair description?

Malone: More than fair, and I alerted the FDA about this risk months and months and months ago.

In another moment, entrepreneur and funder of fluvoxamine studies Steve Kirsch mentioned that his carpet cleaner had a heart attack minutes after taking the Pfizer vaccine, and cited Canadian viral immunologist Byram Bridle in saying that that the COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t stay localized at point of injection, but “goes throughout your entire body, it goes to your brain to your heart.” 

Politifact rated the claim that spike protein is cytotoxic “false,” citing the CDC to describe the spike protein as “harmless.” As to the idea that the protein does damage to other parts of the body, including the heart, they quoted an FDA spokesperson who said there’s no evidence the spike protein “lingers at any toxic level in the body.”

Would many doctors argue that the 226 identified cases of myocarditis so far is tiny in the context of 130 million vaccine doses administered, and overall the danger of myocarditis associated with vaccine is far lower than the dangers of myocarditis in Covid-19 patients?

Absolutely. It’s also true that the CDC itself had a meeting on June 18th to discuss cases of heart inflammation reported among people who’d received the vaccine. The CDC, in other words, is simultaneously telling news outlets like Politifact that spike protein is “harmless,” and also having ad-hoc meetings to discuss the possibility, however remote from their point of view, that it is not harmless. Are only CDC officials allowed to discuss these matters?

The larger problem with YouTube’s action is that it relies upon those government guidelines, which in turn are significantly dependent upon information provided to them by pharmaceutical companies, which have long track records of being less than forthright with the public.

In the last decade, for instance, the U.S. government spent over $1.5 billion to stockpile Tamiflu, a drug produced by the Swiss pharma firm Roche. It later came out — thanks to the efforts of a Japanese pediatrician who left a comment on an online forum — that Roche had withheld crucial testing information from British and American buyers, leading to a massive fraud suit. Similar controversies involving the arthritis drug Vioxx and the diabetes drug Avandia were prompted by investigations by independent doctors and academics.

As with financial services, military contracting, environmental protection, and other fields, the phenomenon of regulatory capture is demonstrably real in the pharmaceutical world. This makes basing any moderation policy on official guidelines problematic. If the proper vaccine policy is X, but the actual policy ends up being X plus unknown commercial consideration Y, a policy like YouTube’s more or less automatically preempts discussion of Y.

Some of Weinstein’s broadcasts involve exactly such questions about whether or not it’s necessary to give Covid-19 vaccines to children, to pregnant women, and to people who’ve already had Covid-19, and whether or not the official stance on those matters is colored by profit considerations. Other issues, like whether or not boosters are going to be necessary, need a hard look in light of the commercial incentives.

These are legitimate discussions, as the WHOs own behavior shows. On April 8th, the WHO website said flatly: “Children should not be vaccinated for the moment.” A month and a half later, the WHO issued a new guidance, saying the Pfizer vaccine was “suitable for use by people aged 12 years and above.”

The WHO was clear that its early recommendation was based on a lack of data, and on uncertainty about whether or not children with a low likelihood of infection should be a “priority,” and not on any definite conviction that the vaccine was unsafe. And, again, a Politifact check on the notion that the WHO “reversed its stance” on children rated the claim false, saying that the WHO merely “updated” its guidance on children. Still, the whole drama over the WHO recommendation suggested it should at least be an allowable topic of discussion.

Certainly there are critics of Weinstein’s who blanch at the use of sci-fi terms like “red pill” (derived from worldview-altering truth pill in The Matrix), employing language like “very dangerous” to describe the mRNA vaccines, and descriptions of ivermectin as a drug that would “almost certainly make you better.”

Even to those critics, however, the larger issue Weinstein’s case highlights should be clear. If platforms like YouTube are basing speech regulation policies on government guidelines, and government agencies demonstrably can be captured by industry, the potential exists for a new brand of capture — intellectual capture, where corporate money can theoretically buy not just regulatory relief but the broader preemption of public criticism. It’s vaccines today, and that issue is important enough, but what if in the future the questions involve the performance of an expensive weapons program, or a finance company contracted to administer bailout funds, or health risks posed by a private polluter?

Weinstein believes capture plays a role in his case at some level. “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” he says. He hopes the pressure from the public and from the media will push platforms like YouTube to reveal exactly how, and with whom, they settle upon their speech guidelines. “There’s something industrial strength about the censorship,” he says, adding. “There needs to be a public campaign to reject it.”

A group of heavily armed men, known as “Rise of the Moors,” in full combat gear, have prompted police Saturday morning north of Boston to shut down a stretch of Interstate 95. 

The standoff began around 0200 ET when police pulled over two cars on I-95 between Lynnfield and Stoneham. About eight to 10 men were dressed in combat gear armed to the teeth with long guns and pistols, Massachusetts State Police Col. Christopher Mason said.

Mason said when the men refused to put their weapons down or comply with authorities’ orders, they said the group “does not recognize our laws.” The men then sprinted into a wooded area, where two men have been arrested.

Two suspects have been arrested by members of @NEMLEC on North Ave, Wakefield. MSP has taken custody of and transported them to one of our barracks. The situation is ongoing w/remaining members of the group. We continue to work to resolve the situation peacefully. https://t.co/1bZWM1vYKS

— Mass State Police (@MassStatePolice) July 3, 2021

“No threats were made, but these men should be considered armed and dangerous,” Wakefield police said. “We are asking residents in these areas to lock their doors and remain inside their homes. A heavy police presence will be in this area as well.”

Here’s a view of the incident scene along the stretch of highway. 

Police are using negotiators to speak with the remaining suspects. “Time is our ally in this and we will certainly utilize this,” Mason said.

The men claim to be part of a group called “The Rise of The Moors” and American nationals but not US citizens. They published several videos of the standoff on their YouTube channel “Rise of the Moors” early Saturday morning about their take on the standoff. In full combat gear, one individual cites specific US federal government laws that underline they’re not breaking any rules.  

In another video, the individual, who appears to be the leader, provides another update on how the incident began around 0200 ET.

The man says, “we are abiding by the peaceful journey laws of the United States of Federal Courts.” He also cites a supreme court case decision that specifies “merely carrying an arm” or “carrying a gun constitutes no offense.”