Afternoon Tea 2.14.24 - Obituary Spam

All the alliterative devices I allowed myself were too long, too silly, and clipped all of your inboxes. So, in celebration of turning on paid subscriptions, we’re going back to it. Speaking of, if your Valentine likes ad-free information, good music, and occasionally insightful commentary, you can gift them a subscription too! (Scroll to the bottom for some wonderful liquid funk)

Violent crime is dropping fast in the U.S. (NPR - 2024) & Crime in 2023: Murder Plummeted, Violent and Property Crime Likely Fell Nationally (Jeff Asher) When people clutch their pearls and whine about the homeless, or the refugees, this quote floods back in: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command….The obvious, the silly and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth’s centre…Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” ~George Orwell, 1984

Michigan’s Right-To-Work law repealed (WKZO) “Right-to-Work” is such an Orwellian term in and of itself. But its repeal, first in the nation, is a massive win, that should be celebrated on its own.

PAPERWALL: Chinese Websites Posing as Local News Outlets Target Global Audiences with Pro-Beijing Content (Citizen Lab) It’s not just Sinclair or Evil Media trying to stuff local news sites with trash. Chinese sites are now pretending to be local affiliates whole cloth. Which is cyberpunk as hell.

Senegal cuts internet again amid widening crackdown on dissent (Reuters) Internet blackouts are a signature move that autocratic regimes love to drop. 747 million people had their internet cut across the world last year, so expect that to go up.

How the Funeral Industry Got the FTC to Hide Bad Actors (WSJ via MSN) There was a carve-out where funeral homes who conned customers, didn’t have transparent pricing, or bad practices, weren’t required to disclose this to the public. If they completed a “virtual remedial program,” they would be let off the hook of telling the public. And of course, this program was run by the funeral home lobbying org. The only equivalent I can think of is if disclosures of HIPAA violations didn’t need to be made public if the offending hospital attended a program created by the Federation of American Hospitals, the #1 hospital lobbying group.

The unsettling scourge of obituary spam (The Verge) New words & phrases can be so interesting, as culture pivots around new reference points. This one, however, is as disgusting as you’re imagining. Not just fake info about people who actually died, obituaries have gone out about people who were still very much alive.

How AI is resurrecting dead Indian politicians as election looms (AJZ) & How Narendra Modi became India’s influencer-in-chief (RoW) The use of YouTube by BJP and Modi specifically, is going to be on the midterm our kids cram for in college international relations courses. Also I assume this is already a Sith Info Ops course you can buy somewhere on the internet.

Roblox rolls out real-time AI translation for all users (Tom’s Guide) Who bet that the first universal translator would be for a bunch of 11 year old game designers?

Disney to take $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games, work with Fortnite maker on new content (CNBC) Disney is going to make an extended universe Fortnite-style shooter, and it’s going to be dumb as hell. Disney has no new ideas, so they’re going to turn into the FB/Meta of content, just buying content & screwing it up.

Roman-era bone container holds potent, hallucinogenic medicine (Science) Black henbane, an ancient narcotic, was found in a hollowed out goat bone, plugged up to keep them from falling out. If this was the Roman equivalent of a pill bottle, makes you wonder what the world’s first drug stash looked like.

Quote of the week

In many ways nonsense is a more effective organizing tool than the truth. Anyone can believe in the truth. To believe in nonsense is an unforgeable demonstration of loyalty. It serves as a political uniform. And if you have a uniform, you have an army.~Mencius Moldbug

Poem of the week

Vibe of the week

Strife II remains quietly gorgeous, after all these years. Take time to listen, rest, and breathe.

Keep your head up,tn