The more we work together, the happier we'll be // What's Good: Oct. 6, 2023
Consequences, solidarity, and Bluey.
Hello, good evening, happy Friday. In (approximately) two weeks, I turn 30. Upsetting. Here’s a song about that. Here’s another.
Hero to zero
Sam Bankman-Fried is this season’s hottest (alleged) scammer. Here’s an article in case you haven’t been paying attention:
Three years ago, nobody knew who you were. And now you’re sitting on the cover of magazines. And you’re a gazillionaire. And your business is, like, one of the fastest-growing businesses in the history of the planet.”
Sam Bankman-Fried giggled and nodded nervously, shaking his messy crown of curly hair, as the writer Michael Lewis lavished him with praise. They were onstage at a resort in the Bahamas for a conference put on by the 30-year-old billionaire to celebrate the success of his crypto exchange, FTX. It was April 2022, and pretty much everyone who mattered in the world of virtual currencies had flown in for the occasion — plus Bill Clinton, Katy Perry, and Tom Brady for good measure.
Really though I think Matt Levine got this one exactly right:
I don’t know what actually happened at Jane Street that day. I assume that the anecdote in Going Infinite comes from Bankman-Fried. “People get so obsessed with free dollars when you frame it correctly,” he says; he is the one framing this story. What I take from this story, and from other anecdotes here about his early trading career, is that Bankman-Fried is good and facile and clever at calculating expected value, and at finding ways to inflict pain on counterparties, but he is … not even bad at trade sizing; he just doesn’t think about it at all. It is not a part of his life. He goes all in on everything. In his model of the world, if you are offered a bet with a 1% edge, you should put all of your money on it, over and over again, until you lose everything. How will that play out in the second half of the book?
Here’s the other weird thing about the anecdote: These bets obviously have negative expected value?
You should read the article, it’s exactly right. And Money Stuff is always good - you should subscribe for free - but really Matt has been on a roll lately.
Roleplaying hatred
Oops! All racism:
Michael Benz, a former Trump State Department official whose work has been cited in congressional hearings and promoted by Elon Musk, has become a go-to voice for Republican criticism of government and social media censorship in the past year.
But before his stints in government and as a pundit, Benz appears to have been a pseudonymous alt-right content creator who courted and interacted with white nationalists and posted videos espousing racist conspiracy theories, according to recordings, livestreams and blog posts reviewed by NBC News.
It’s not a joke or a game, it’s real life and this guy fucking sucks.
Solidarity forever
Folks, you love to see it:
In a major announcement for the future of the electric-vehicle transition, General Motors has agreed in writing to place workers at joint-venture battery plants under the national master agreement with the United Auto Workers, UAW President Shawn Fain said in a live broadcast on Friday.
The agreement would ensure that new hires building electric-vehicle parts are included in the union, an outcome the automaker had sought to avoid as it has built new facilities in harder-to-organize states in the South.
This is leverage. This is tremendous news.
Credit and bureaucracy
It matters who we choose to invest in:
In 2013—after enduring multiple professional setbacks, one denied grant after another, and a demotion at the institution to which she’d been devoted for decades—Katalin Karikó, Ph.D., walked out of her lab at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine for the last time.
For decades the Hungarian biochemist had been fixated on the possibilities of mRNA, the genetic messenger that delivers DNA instructions to the protein-making infrastructure in each of our cells. Karikó—with her collaborator, immunologist Drew Weissman, M.D., Ph.D.—believed in its potential to treat stubborn and fatal conditions like strokes and even cancer, hoping that mRNA could be used to program cells to produce their own cures. The two were evangelizers, but their work attracted few converts. Those who knew about it tended to be dismissive: fanciful, nice concept, dead end.
Penn gets no credit, in my opinion. Even if they claim otherwise.
Who’s that shadow figure? It’s Leo!
This is a podcast not an article, but still:
This is “We Don’t Talk About Leonard,” a podcast series with WNYC’s “On The Media” that explores the web of money, influence and power behind the conservative takeover of America’s courts — and the man at the center of it all: Leonard Leo.
Rotten to the core
Yeah this checks out:
A top ally of presidential hopeful Gov. Ron Desantis (R-FL) wants to explore an armistice between the establishment Republican Party and the “dissident right”: which is often used as a euphemism for right-wing radicals, including the racists and fascists who align with the conservative movement’s current trajectory.
If this kind of ceasefire sounds absurd, that’s because it is—and a less explicit version of this strategy is already assumed by diehard pro-Trump factions of the GOP, and is wreaking havoc against the Party in profound ways.
Good boy
Personally, I always trust the dog:
White House staffers have seen all the headlines about President JOE BIDEN’s 2-year-old German shepherd COMMANDER. They’re aware of the behavioral issues. It just doesn’t compute to them.
CNN reported last week that Commander recently bit yet another U.S. Secret Service agent, bringing the total number of known biting incidents to 11. Some of the attacks were bad enough that agents required medical attention, and at least one person had to go to the hospital.
At some point you have to imagine it’s the Secret Service that is provoking him. He’s a dog. He just reacts to stimuli.
Bluey forever and forever
Cute dogs have always been a popular choice for kids' entertainment, whether it be Puppy Dog Pals, Paw Patrol, or going back even further to Pound Puppies. Five years ago, the landscape for canine cartoons diverged from your average animated tale into something nobody expected. On October 1, 2018, Bluey debuted on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation with “Magic Xylophone,” introducing the six-year-old Blue Heeler and her family to audiences for the first time. Immediately, the show skyrocketed in popularity, catching the attention of Disney who imported it to the U.S.
Three seasons later, it’s not only one of the most streamed kids’ shows around the globe, but even outranks some beloved adult dramas on streaming platforms. Funny, heartwarming, and sometimes incredibly emotional, Bluey’s five-year journey to success was an unexpected one, but now it’s hard to think of a world without it. Here’s a brief history of how we got here, and why Bluey has utterly changed the game for kids’ shows in a relatively short period of time.
If you haven’t seen Bluey, go watch it. It’s worth your time. I promise.
You deserve some good animal content
https://twitter.com/GatorsDaily/status/1708973965928956363
https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1710460534842089927
https://twitter.com/twaniimals/status/1710456252222800238
https://twitter.com/RedPandaEveryHr/status/1710454705657147601
https://twitter.com/Contextmonkeys/status/1710436496824586265
https://twitter.com/twaniimals/status/1710424207861887244
https://twitter.com/twaniimals/status/1710422352788328781
https://twitter.com/SmithsonianSec/status/1709925169567863066
https://twitter.com/RedPandaEveryHr/status/1710364135345606840
https://twitter.com/raccoonhourly/status/1710331651178316110
Have a good weekend.
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