Afternoon Tea 12.7.21 - Not Even Wrong

The Chilean presidential election could be decided in Alabama, predictive policing is as effective as your most cynical imaginings, the CIA hid sex crimes with children, Instagram attempts to use “nudges,” how TikTok & Snapchat became linchpins of the educational panopticon and the Rohingya are suing Facebook for assisting the Myanmar government in attempting to murder them all. It’s Tuesday, December 7th 2021, and this is your Tea. Today’s vibe is a hushed communique, whispered in future garage filled tones under dystopian surveillance, “meet me at the East bridge.”

Rohingya refugees sue Facebook for $150 billion over Myanmar violence (Reuters) & How Facebook and Google fund global misinformation (MIT Technology Review) They make money incidentally, passively, and in the case of the gov’t the Rohingya fled from, actively. If the number is a bit eye-watering, pop open Excel, then try to tabulate the costs of almost totally obliterating an entire race. Then add legal fees.

Why Chile’s presidential election could be decided in… Alabama (RestOfWorld) We truly live in one of the darkest timelines imaginable.

Crime Prediction Software Promised to Be Free of Biases. New Data Shows It Perpetuates Them (Gizmodo) & Police solve just 2% of all crimes (Chicago Reporter) Everyone needs to learn what a “Clearance Rate” is. Once that lesson is complete, take a look for a good summary about what “Garbage in, Garbage Out” means when it comes to data analysis & PreCrime.

Secret CIA Files Say Staffers Committed Sex Crimes Involving Children (BuzzFeed.News) We say again, one of the darkest timelines. Especially given that this is wholeheartedly ignored by the QAnon lunatics, in favor of 100% fabricated child sex crime conspiracies.

How TikTok & Snapchat Became the Surveillance State in the Classroom (Mel Magazine) & How TikTok Reads Your Mind (New York Times) A pair of withering stories, reminding us that if we’re not paying for the service, we’re the product. If interested, there’s a non-paywalled version for those of us who can’t pay for the Times anymore. This unpacking is exactly why the Social Network Tycoons are sweating.

Instagram to Nudge People to ‘Take a Break’ From Scrolling (Bloomberg) & Instagram impacts teen mental health in the West. What about everywhere else? (RestOfWorld) & Teen dramas from the early 2000s help Gen Z imagine a life without social media anxiety (Mashable) How problematic is Instagram for teens? Gen Z is obsessed with teen dramas from before the smart phone era, as they don’t have social media anxiety as plot points at all. Semi-amazing that One Tree Hill is now a symbol, a throwback to a simpler time.

Pop psychology has killed the villain (UnHerd) We used to have villains, now all we have are the misunderstood. Sometimes the anti-hero or antagonist has a deeply important back story, sometimes they’re “Oh Cruella had a bad experience once.”

Why most psychological research findings are not even wrong (PsArXiv Preprints) While we usually shy away from posting “preprints” as they still have a ton of peer review to survive, this is quite an interesting paper. It’s not just that the replication crisis in psychology research is industry redefining, it’s that we aren’t even replicating the right studies or testing the right hypotheses.

The escalating costs of being single in America (Vox) This is the best write-up we’ve seen of why your single friends haven’t been bubbling with enthusiasm about surviving the pandemic, or America, alone.

Poem of the Tea: There’s more to it, but Lucile Clifton doesn’t need it to make her point known.

When the universe ignites your rage, tossing a match towards your psychic pile of oily rags and dry tinder, how do you treat the plasma before use in your Passion Engine?

Yours,