I Think It Would Be Fun To Ruin A Newspaper

Elon Musk made headlines recently when he suggested a website that would allow the public to rate journalists on their truthfulness. According to a poll of his twitter followers, this is a really popular idea. Among others, however, it’s not so popular, and has attracted a lot of ridicule.

Why Musk is going to war with the media is a bit of a mystery. After all, he’s benefited greatly from media hype. Generally, he’s had positive coverage, up until the recent questions about Tesla’s factory safety. You also have to wonder why other super-rich, super-famous people haven’t had similar reactions. Just think of all the opportunities for Bill Gates to snap when facing critical press. You might be inclined to think that this is just another example of the central malady of our age: powerful men realizing just how much they can get away with. But there are also contemporary examples of tycoons handling media critique less childishly. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has faced similar scrutiny over his company’s work conditions. And Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has faced an even larger media barrage; while he hasn’t exactly faced it like a great titan of industry, he also hasn’t gone looking for cheap revenge.

I’ve seen comparisons between Musk and Donald Trump. That’s easy to understand: although quite different in other areas, they seem to share a surprisingly thin skin. So many are heralding the end of Elon Musk, as he melts down into a nerdier Trump. Or perhaps he just becomes a Bond villain. Personally though, I think a more accurate comparison for Musk is Charles Foster Kane. He has the same playful entrepreneurialism, the sense of being a self-appointed public hero, and an ego that is incompatible with being the people’s hero. At least Musk’s girlfriend is actually musically talented.

But back to the journalist site idea. Some people have pointed out that similar sites have been tried before. Others have made the should-be-obvious point that it would be easy to rig the site to give ratings that fit someone’s vested interests. Musk tried to assuage these fears by saying it would have to be able to resist mass input from bot armies. But even if you could do that (good luck) there’s still the threat of coordinated efforts of many people working together. After all, similar things have already happened.

But the biggest problem with this idea is that it’s trying to fix the problem with more of the problem. Let’s assume that this website would work as intended without being manipulated or hacked, and thus displays an accurate picture of the general public’s opinion of the accuracy of journalists. I have to ask how that would be any different from how our current society works. We already run society based on the assumption that popularity is more important than correctness. Musk’s website would just formalize that process. He even suggested calling it “Pravda,” in reference to the Soviet newspaper whose name ironically meant, “truth.” But a more appropriate name for Musk’s journalist-rating site would be, “truthiness,” the word Stephen Colbert coined to describe something that feels true, whether or not it is.

Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #40 & 41

#40:

Superhero movies are more popular than ever. That's right, Batman made people forget about Superman IV, and it's been all success from there. Except Batman and Robin, you'll want to skip that one.

Anyway, the point is that now it's not just the biggest names that are getting their own movie franchises, even the more niche characters get big budgets.

#41:

You know Bob Ross, the super laid-back artist with a show on PBS? Sadly, he dies in 1995. But he is still well remembered, and is as much a pop-cultural icon as ever.

Anyway, put those two facts together, and, by 2018, this happens and it doesn't even seem weird:

The Revolution Is About Basketball

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver gave an interesting interview where he talked about how the league uses modern media. For instance, the NBA encourages people to post highlights to YouTube, unlike some other sports organizations. First of all, they have an agreement with YouTube that they still get ad revenue from these clips, even if the NBA itself didn't post the videos, and secondly, they understand that clips on the internet aren't really competing with the game itself.

That's a refreshing attitude, not just in pro sports but in all of business. Most corporations have a knee-jerk reaction to stop any-and-all unauthorized usage of their product. While I can understand why a company would want to guard their intellectual property, there often seems to be no thought of a greater strategy that goes into the decision to send out cease-and-desist orders.

But what I found really interesting is that they've used their streaming service to learn about fans' preferences. They can tell how much of the game people are watching, and when they're turning off the game. I guess that can lead to privacy concerns, but in the modern world, the NBA knowing when you stop watching is pretty small potatoes.

What I find interesting is that this data contributed to their decision to reduce the number of time-outs this season. On the one hand, I could have told them to do that and saved them a lot of trouble. But it also makes me wonder what other insights the NBA and other leagues could learn about what excites and annoys fans.

It's also notable that Silver mentions that they find it easier to increase viewership by encouraging existing fans to watch more, rather than winning over new people. I'd like to see this approach applied to hockey, where there doesn't seem to be much focus about whether the sport should appeal to hard-core fans or appeal to new audiences, and discussion of how to appeal to each usually involves a lot of guesswork and stereotypes. It would be good to see some more certainty, even though I fear that it might push the sport in directions that I, personally, wouldn't like.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go subscribe to the NBA streaming service. Next year I'm going to use it to watch every game, but I'm going to stop watching every time there's a bad call against the Raptors.

Kanye, It Was Really Nothing

Recently, we've seen Kanye West, Shania Twain, and Morrissey surprise fans by jumping on board the right-hand side of the cultural divide.

Shania showed herself to be in over her head from the start, saying that she would have voted for Trump, then backtracking wildly once she discovered how unpopular that was. It might seem unfair that she's getting heavily criticized for something she apparently knows little of, but I have no sympathy: after all, we're all incompetent on most matters, but the rest of us know enough to sit up on things we don't understand. She's shown a kind of political Dunning-Kruger.

Kanye West has come out in support of Donald Trump. Should we really be surprised? Stats show that at least one African-American voted for him, it might be Kanye. It seems to me that they have a lot in common. For one thing, they have the world's two largest free-standing egos.

Another similarity is that when people are discussing Trump often come back to that Maya Angelou quote that when people show you who they are, believe them. Like Trump, Kanye keeps showing us who he is, and we keep not believing him. I've seen some people kinda defend Kanye by claiming that he's such an innovator and unconventional thinker that he doesn't fit into any preconceived notions of political sides. But a better explanation for West's ideas being incoherent and all over the map is that he's a lot like Trump: lacking in understanding and concentration.

Likely, Kanye's subsequent description of slavery as a "choice" will be the end of his support, at least from African-Americans.

Morrissey is another star who keeps trying to show us who he is; he's had a string of increasingly offensive statements and actions. Because he's the only one of these musicians who I've ever been a fan of, it's a bit more disappointing for me, even if his devolution has been in slow-motion. I'd like to think that he - like many in our current culture - has just become addicted to the joy of pissing people off, and has lost sight of the fact that sometimes pissing people off is the hint that you should re-evaluate your life.

But whatever the reason, I don't care anymore. I've given up, and I see that many others have too. But I'm sure that each of these suddenly hated musicians will have many more second-chances from other fans in the years to come.

These experiences have made me realize another unrealistic thing about Star Wars: when someone turns to the dark side, everyone else just accepts it. They're like, okay, he's on the dark side now. No one makes excuses for him, no one forgets it happened just because he hasn't force-choked anyone in the past week. No one looks the other way because of his other skills.

"I can't believe you hired Darth Farius to do your taxes."
"Well whatever you think of his politics, he's still a good accountant."