Fairweather Cynicism

Social media algorithms are a big part of our lives, and determine a lot of what we see. Often, they do a good job — my Facebook feed has long been dominated by Star Wars memes and baby animals. Though it occasionally makes inexplicable choices. Facebook has gone through phases of trying to get me interested in Polish history, the Miami Dolphins, and radical pan-Africanism. (Not jokes, actual examples.) In times like that, I wish I could just tell it that it’s got the wrong idea, and it would be best for it, me, and the company’s bottom line, if it just realized that I’m not interested in, say, Tennessee Williams quotes, so stop showing them to me. (Again, actual example.)

Lately, the thing I’d like to tell the algorithm is that yes, I’m a left-leaning person, but I don’t lean far enough to rejoice in the deaths of billionaires, however extravagant and symbolic their deaths may be. So no, I’d rather not see memes of gleeful schadenfreude at imminent and unpleasant death of wealthy people.

Here’s the thing I don’t get about this situation: If you’re the sort of person who won’t buy coffee without personally negotiating the fair-trade contract, then fine, I’m not surprised that your hatred of the economic order is so great that you would celebrate the death of the rich. But if your idea of supporting worker rights is hitting the 18% tip button on the debit machine at Subway, then I have a hard time reconciling that with your sudden bloodlust for the elites. 

I had a similar reaction last year when the Queen died. Again, I’m not a fan of the idea of royalty, but I wasn’t about to celebrate the death of someone because they occupy a position I don’t think should exist. But I was surprised at how many people suddenly developed deep passions about the crimes of the British Empire. I mean, the United Kingdom still plays a big part in the world’s culture, so you’d think that such a deep hatred would have come out by now. I’m not demanding a boycott of all things British, I’m just saying I would think you would occasionally mention such anger. Go ahead and love The Beatles, but sometimes mention that it’s too bad their success was enabled by national wealth built on the ashes of a world-spanning empire.

In both cases, pretending to have a radical stance on the issue is just a convenient excuse for behaviour. It’s easier to temporarily adopt a radical opinion than it is to show compassion. And it’s definitely easier than wrestling with the philosophical dilemmas brought on by the death of someone you have negative feelings towards. And there’s the bonus that your radical position will win you credibility with some people, as long as they don’t notice that your commitment to the cause just intermittent.

I covered something like this a few years ago, when I noticed the weirdness of people who thought McDonald’s steals from their Ronald McDonald House charity. These people still felt safe eating at McDonald’s, seemingly proving that they had far more confidence in the Golden Arches’ morality than they claimed. To be clear, I’m not saying that you aren’t allowed to criticize a system you participate in — a point of view ridiculed in a popular meme — just don’t pretend to be the nihilistic rebel that you clearly aren’t.

Subterranean Home: Sick, Alien

You know what would be a good idea: double basements.  That is, you have a basement that's twice as deep, so you have two floors underground.  I know it sounds crazy, but think of the benefits: you have more room in your house without compromising the space in your yard.  You have free insulation.  The ground moderates the temperature of the interior.  But best of all, it is the embodiment of the suburban dream: you live near your neighbours, yet you can also get far, far away from them.

I know, you don't like the idea of living below ground without windows.  Well, you don't really need windows: it's not like the view really changes in suburbia. Besides, in our modern world, you probably aren't looking up from your screens very often anyway, so who needs to look outside. And here in Canada, you'll only be missing out on the twelve days a year that the temperature is right for opening the windows.

And in addition to you not needing to look outside, people outside don't need to look at your house.  Most suburban houses are either small-and-simple, or big-and-ugly. Putting most of the girth underground saves you from having to come up with one decoration after another.  You have enough exposed house to express your sense of style, but you don't feel the need to add gratuitous arches and columns.

So I went googling the idea, but I found that my radical idea was a little too advanced for our timid development industry, saying that it's "too expensive," "probably illegal," and "you'll die from radon." But there was some precedent of it in Britain. It makes sense there, since space is at a premium, and rules often restrict your ability to add on to existing buildings. So if you want to have a big house, but you also want to live in London, building down might be your only choice.

I think that would be ideal: you're living in the city, but you can still have a quiet getaway deep in the earth. So that's what I'll do if I ever make billions.  That, or I'll build a mansion in the suburbs that will be disguised as a normal house.  There'll be a huge basement that takes up the entire property, but only a normal-sized house sticking up above ground, with no indication of anything unusual. The garage will have an elevator down to my car collection. And I'll make a deal with the developer to build my house before anyone else in the subdivision moves in, so no one will know there's anything unusual about it.

Photo The Money

I occasionally check a blog called "Rich Kids of Instagram," which, as the name implies, is a compendium of photos posted by rich teens and twentysomethings. Specifically, it's photos showing off their wealth. Well, I've noticed a few things about it:

• Expensive Stuff is Often Surprisingly Ugly

  You'd think that a rich person would be able to surround themselves with great beauty, since they can afford the best and latest designs. But more often, the expensive items in their surroundings work so hard to look expensive that they don't actually look good. Gold trimmed stuff looks nice when it's used with restraint, but when it's on everything it's just overpowering.
  
  If I was super-rich, I'd commission Frank Gehry to design my house, and the interior would look like it burst from an M.C. Escher drawing. But these houses are just marble-column overload. You're reminded that it's expensive, but it doesn't really look exceptional. It's only the quality of the marble, and the lack of price tags on everything, that tell you you're in a house and not a shopping mall.

• They Don't Look Like They're Having Much Fun

  Some of that is of course because whoever chooses the photos for the blog is picking the ones that emphasize their richness rather than fun. So a photo of teens awkwardly posing with a magnum of champaign wins out over kids genuinely enjoying playing with their gold-plated X-Box One. But still, you'd think that they'd occasionally be having fun doing something that shows off their wealth. I'm still waiting for a photo to come with the hashtag #CaviarFight.
  
  What it actually looks like is that these kids are having about as much fun as other teens. That is, they're going through the motions of what their peers have told them is fun, without actually having fun.

• They Don't Mind Looking Rich

  Again, this is a product of the blog selecting the most stereotypical photos. But still, I would have expected that rich kids would have tried hard to look like they aren't rich. You know, kids are so often driven to be something they aren't on the principle that the grass is always greener. Or at least, the need for independence would drive them to show that they aren't typical rich kids. But no, apparently there are lots of kids who don't mind looking like they just stepped out of a Ralph Lauren commercial.

• They Can Do Much Better With Their Cars

  This is an area where I have some interest and knowledge, and it's a little disappointing. Certainly, I'd like to have their collection of cars. But, well, first of all, they don't seem to be enjoying them so much as showing them off. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they aren't taking selfies while driving their Lamborghinis at the limit, but I can't help feel like it's a waste for these cars to sit on a driveway looking impressive.
  
  And it would be nice if they had a little more intriguing selection. For one thing, there's a lot of cars that are big on showing off wealth without showing technical ability, like Rolls Royces and Bentleys. And even the sexier cars are just the same few over and over. You'd think some rich kid who reads Car and Driver for the articles would spend his allowance on a classic car that he can lord over his friends. Or just go for an unusual modern car: why get yet another Bugatti when you can be the only one on your block with a Koenigsegg or a Spyker?

You Got A Fast Car

Recently, a car put up for auction got some notice. It's a Ferrari Enzo, and the latest price is $370,000. That's quite a steal for an expensive, rare car that's no longer being made.

Of course, there's a catch: it's been in an accident, and needs some work. By "some work," I mean one wheel is missing, both the front and rear suspension are badly damaged. The engine starts, but many parts need replacing. Many body panels are damaged, and since they're made out of composite materials they'll likely need replacing. And worst of all, the carbon fibre "tub" that makes up the the core of the car has cracked, and that will cost a lot to fix. The total repair bill is estimated at $870,000.

So why would anyone pay $300,000+ for a that will need close to a million in repairs? Because that's actually a good price compared to the cost of a mint-condition model.

It brings up an interesting aspect of limited-edition supercars like the Enzo or the McLaren F1: they're nearly impossible to destroy. That's not because they're any more durable than your average car: you can easily find schadenfreude reports of them getting badly damaged when someone tries driving them at their limits. But they are difficult to write-off.

We use the terms "write-off" or "totalled" as a generic way of saying "destroyed," but what it technically means is that something is too expensive to repair. For instance, say your 1997 Taurus sustains damage that will cost $4,000 to fix. But a replacement car of similar vintage would likely cost less than a thousand. Thus, it doesn't make sense for you (or your insurance company) to pay for the repair; it would be cheaper to buy a replacement car.

But these famous-but-rare supercars are so expensive, it's nearly impossible to damage them so badly that repairs will be too expensive to undertake.  Just about any repair will cost less than the fixed car will be worth.

With that in mind, I've decided that I will put my Ferrari Enzo up for auction. Like the one in this story, it needs some work. You will have to replace the body, suspension, wheels, engine, transmission, interior and chassis. See, my Ferrari Enzo is, technically, a twisted piece of metal I found in the street the other day. But I'm sure you could rebuild it for less than the current asking price for an Enzo. Jay Leno, I await your call.

Dog And Big Pony Show

In one of my High School English classes we had a unit on media literacy.  It was a pretty forward-thinking move for the time, but now I realize it was just a mangled summary of Marshal McLuhan's theories.  And of course the media has grown more complex, ubiquitous, and devious since then.  Teaching kids to consider the message of advertising seems quaint now.

Certainly, I've found that I have to reach far beyond that unit to make sense of today's advertising. And even then a lot of it makes no sense.  We were taught that commercials portray an unrealistic ideal of the customer.  That is, you sell beer by showing a good-looking successful person drinking the beer.  But now, most beer ads show losers you wouldn't want to associate with.  The only one with an idealized drinker is the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man In The World" campaign, and they use the ploy in an ironically obvious way.

And there's this Ralph Lauren ad:

I'm still trying to understand who this is aimed at. It's apparently appealing to a man who likes the following:

• The sport of polo
• Tiny vintage sports cars
• Bright colours
• The music of OneRepublic
• The professional sports being shown when this ad runs
• Yachting
• Skydiving
• Football
• Hanging out with black people
• Women
• Dressing as a comically stereotypical rich person
• Shopping at mainstream department stores.

I'm not sure these people exist.

Supercar Sanity

Yes, it's another post questioning how rich people spend their money.  I'm hoping any rich readers won't be too offended.  I know you're a bit touchy about criticism, but at least I'm only complaining about your spending choices, rather than starting a revolution.  So hopefully you'll find this a bit refreshing:

Currently, McLaren sells two cars. The MP4-12C costs in the $300,000 range, putting it in line with similar cars like the Ferrari 458 and Lamborghini Aventador. And the P1 costs well over a million dollars, similar to other most-expensive-cars-on-earth like the Bugatti Veyron.

But now they're planning new models. The P13 would cost about $150,000, and the P15 would cost about $500,000.

First of all, they need to hire someone to come up with names for them. They don't make any sense, and even the German manufacturers would find those boring. I can make exciting alphanumeric names: T-17, GF6, 538c. Call me, I've got dozens of these.

But also, I’m wondering at these prices. I figure there are three levels of sports car prices:

• you're upper-middle-class, and you can afford a fairly expensive car, so you buy a Corvette or a cheap Porsche.
• You're rich, money's no object, so you pay a quarter mil' for the best car available.
• You're rich, money's no object, and you're slightly unhinged, so you buy a race car for the street for a million dollars.

So why would they need those cars at other levels? Who is out there that can afford a $150,000 car, but not a $250,000 car? You can spend over a hundred thousand dollars on a car that has little practical value, but no, not two hundred thousand, that’s ridiculous? And who spends half-a-million dollars on a car, but not a million. If you’re spending that much, you want something that’s better than everything on the street, so why cheap out to get second-best?

Baku: The Future

I wrote a few weeks ago about that ultra luxury condo in Miami with the car elevator. I'm disappointed with things like that because they're so unnecessary. I don't have a problem with rich people buying luxuries; I don't expect them to live in squalor and give everything to the poor. But you can only really spend a few million dollars on yourself. Beyond that, you're just spending money for the sake of spending money, buying things like this Bugatti belt buckle.

I'd like to think that if I were super duper rich, then I'd use my fortune to do positive things for humanity, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Or maybe investing in technologies that are too risky for others, like Elon Musk has.

But if I wasn't that charitable, a reasonable second best use of wealth might be going on in Azerbaijan. Business tycoon Ibrahim Ibrahimov is building a new city on the artificial Khazar islands in the Caspian Sea down the coast from the capital Baku.

If that sounds like something Dubai and the United Arab Emirates would do, there are some similarities. Like the U.A.E., Azerbaijan was a poor, not particularly advanced country off the beaten track, with no reason for the rest of the world to take notice. And then they found oil. And money. And an ego.

Building a city isn't the most altruistic thing you could do with your fortune. But at least it's something that could end up benefiting others. Even if it is just encouraging everyone to learn to spell Azerbaijan (remember, the "i" goes before the "j".)  I've always been intrigued by planned cities, but the fact is they often don't work that well.  Still, it's an interesting idea, and our timid world perhaps needs people to just try something adventurous.

So I think it would be nice if more of the super-rich did stuff like this. But given the number of super-rich in the world, vs. the number of crazy-audacious construction projects, it looks like there are way more Porsche elevators than island cities. So how do such boring people make so much money?

Lifestyles Of The Rich And Inconvenienced

Someone is building a condo tower on Miami aimed at the super rich. And when I say super rich, I don't mean someone who can afford a condo in Miami. They are trying to target billionaires. It's called the Porsche Design Tower, because it is being designed by Porsche Design (the cash-in-on-the-name division of Porsche, the car company.)

It's appropriate that the building is associated with a car company: The big draw is that it actually has a car elevator in it, so you can park your car (actually, "cars") in a garage adjoining your condo, with a glass wall so you can enjoy a view of your automotive collection in your condo. And your cars can be terrified by the view from the sky they were never meant to experience.

This brings up something I've thought odd about rich people: their desire for expensive versions of inherently cheap things. The best example is in plane seating. Airlines keep coming up with more luxurious first or business class seats, with mini desks, seats that recline into something approximating a bed, etc.

Emirates first class, which you can see in Google Streetview

If you look at the first class cabin in the context of an airline cabin, it looks luxurious. But in any other context it looks torturous. Imagine walking into the office of your new employer and seeing that all the desks look like that; you'd either leave, or form a union. Or to put it another way, the occupants of these seats will be paying tens of thousands of dollars to spend seven hours in an environment that's less comfortable than a modest basement apartment.

And this condo tower is much the same. It's still prone to all the problems of apartment/condo living. You still might get caught with a neighbour that plays loud music, or someone who smokes on the balcony. And worse, in this tower it will be a smelly cigar, and music played by the actual band.

It's Safer And More Hygenic Than A Carnival Cruise

So former "space tourist" Dennis Tito wants to launch a privately-funded trip to Mars.  It's not as crazy as it sounds: because the plan doesn't involve landing there - or even slowing down - you could make the whole trip without much more technology or fuel than a simple launch into orbit.  Of course, there's never been a private manned trip into orbit either, so it is still hardly easy.

The news coverage of this proposal has had some fun with the concept that it should be a middle-aged married couple, since they'll have to live for a year-and-a-half in a capsule the size of a bathroom (but note: no shower.)  That's just wonderful.  Out of nowhere, an opportunity comes along that fits with my advancing age, and I'm ruled out for being single.

I have to wonder if this Mars project is really worth it though.  Yes, I realize that this is pretty obviously a symbolic thing, convincing ourselves that we can still do the unprecedented.  But I'm not sure that a fly-by will do the trick.  As an example, they've pointed out that the prospective Mars mission will be on the anniversary of Apollo 8, the first mission to flyby the moon.  Quick, name anybody on that mission.  Did you even know there were non-landing moon missions before Neil Armstrong on Apollo 11?

But whether it's crazy or not, the proposal is a welcome comeuppance for the Australian billionaire who plans to rebuild the Titanic.  He announced his plans yesterday, but now he looks like a backwards opportunist next to Tito.  If only he'd been juxtaposed against one of those guys trying to set a ballooning record.