Afternoon Tea - Mental Privacy

A DEA informant is implicated in the Haitian Assassination, mind reading tech needs regulation, Amazon wants to monitor your dreams, Apple’s weather app refuses to display 69, and spooky productivity at a distance is confirmed by Goldman Sachs & Vanity Fair. It's Tuesday, July 13th 2021, and this is your Tea.

Several tied to Haiti assassination plot were previously US law enforcement informants (CNN) “At least” one of the men arrested for a literal assassination was a DEA informant. I would say the DEA has a lot of explaining to do, but I won’t hold my breath.

Goldman Says Pandemic Is Shaping a More Productive U.S. Economy (Bloomberg) & “I Don’t Think I’ll Ever Go Back” Return-to-Office Agita Is Sweeping Silicon Valley (Vanity Fair) That thing about needing to get back to the office because productivity? It’s trash. Brought to you by the acid-drenched hippies at Goldman Sachs, brought to you by the commies at Bloomberg. For a more centrist, conversational view, Vanity Fair talked to a ton of tech workers that will probably jump companies before they go back to the office. Those ball pits, scooters, and on-site dry cleaners? Significantly less attractive post-pandemic.

We need to regulate mind-reading tech before it exists (RestOfWorld) & Amazon Wants to Monitor You in Your Sleep, for Your Benefit (Bloomberg) The dystopian word of the week is “mental privacy.” Also, Amazon, let’s not even pretend anything you do with my personal data is for my benefit ok? You can’t even figure out people don’t like to collect toilets after they buy one.

Jordan’s government used secretly recorded Clubhouse audio to spread disinformation (RestOfWorld) Well, that took about 46 seconds. I guess the story is, once your platform reaches critical mass, governments will use it for information operations.

How the Heck Is Peloton the Best-Paying Music Streaming Service? (Slate) Legitimately shocking. So, the secret for you up and coming artists & DJs is…to go viral on Peloton?

Apple’s weather app won’t say it’s 69 degrees (The Verge) This is the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen. My phone can’t tell me the correct temperature because internet people go “Nice” whenever they see it? I don’t care that our race is eternally 12 years old and giggles at sex words, I need accurate data from my apps please.

Video Games Are a Labor Disaster (New Republic) When an industry relies on “crunch” or hell week tier hours, as a cost of doing business, it always exploits the snot out of its workers. Working in “Video Games” exist in this luminous tier like being an in-character Disney person, Hollywood actor, or animating in Japan, where people will essentially self-exploit for the privilege of working there. This, as one can imagine, is bad for quality control processes, as anyone who played Cyberpunk 2077 reminds us.

An Investing Truth: Roughly 80% of Stocks Are “Duds” (Risk Hedge) This is a sobering, but critical read. Most stocks, forever throughout time, have sucked. And we do need to stress sucked as in, total loss of investment, major damages etc.

Roblox, explained (Verge) Have you been enjoying yourself at one of your first new social gatherings, and someone wouldn’t shut up about post-Minecraft, kids making their own video games, or kids selling “in-game items” for real money? They were probably talking about Roblox, which is commanding a surprising share of mental space in the heads of our youth. Verge has you covered with the clutch FAQ.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of Luck When It Comes to Success in Business (Harvard Business Review) Some people were born on third, get bunted in, and think they hit a home run. Others know they had good timing, were lucky, did the right things, and still could have failed for 10,000 reasons. #StayHumble

Song of the Tea: The week remains gray, so we’ll keep going with the shimmering arpeggios. Irish trance legend John O’Callaghan takes an extended walk under the Big Sky with fellow Hopey Trancey producer Andrew Rayel, lifted by Audrey Gallagher’s Andean Condor-tier soaring (Editor’s Note: Of course we looked it up) vocals. If trance and serotonin is your thing, 6 minutes coming at you.

Find the glittering light where you can. Stay safe from the coming storms.

Yours,

P.S. There is something weird about an extended trance remix being six minutes long but…(Editor’s Note: Writer was dragged off by management before Pitchfork’ing any further.)