95: What is Real?
On My Mind: What is Real?
We have lots of problems in the country. An obvious statement when there’s a worldwide pandemic and nationwide protests.
For me, the main way I resolve conflict is to talk about them, and to talk about problems you have to first acknowledge them. One thing that scares me about today’s problems, both the pandemic and racism, is that we can’t even agree upon the problem. There’s an attack on what is real and the truth. It’s as if 2+2 doesn’t equal 4 anymore. Example: a headline from CNN 13 hours ago:
For Trump specifically, it seems as if the more inaccuracies in the news the better his chances of re-election. In my news feed, I really only hear the politicians at the extremes of each the Right and Left as most moderate arguments aren’t provocative enough to get amplified and spread.
Social media is definitely part of the problem as the content that gets the most exposure are the ones that are performative or entertaining, which often aren’t the most accurate.
For example, the current protests. They are protests over police violence and the issue that police violence impacts black people more than whites. The data appears to be real. But the news isn’t. I see cops attacking peaceful protesters. Peaceful protests are described as anarchy. News outlets are photoshopping images to falsely describe situations and make them seem more dangerous and different than they actually are. We are not getting the whole and real story.
There’s an attack on what’s real and I’m pretty disturbed by it as it’s taking our country in the wrong direction.
From George Orwell’s 1984:
Other Items
A Grandmaster on Twitch
(Wired Article) Hikaru Nakamura is a five-time U.S. champion and since the pro chess circuit has paused he has turned to full-time streaming on Twitch. He’s gone from zero to 400,000 followers as apparently chess is exploding on Twitch.
Nakamura's impressive, lightly trollish chess gimmicks — blindfolded matches, matches without queens or rooks, solving as many puzzles as he can in five minutes — have spurred Twitch's top personalities to try the game for themselves
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Honest advertising is what i’m looking for these days:
This thread is rich
Not the typical cop pullover:
Corona News
There was some interesting data about how the deaths from COVID are happening much more for minorities. This is more about their access to healthcare than anything biological, and the data is pretty staggering (see below).
The first wave is definitely not over. Cases on the rise all over the place and you can see, for the first time since early April that our case count is about to start increasing again.
Folks, if we all wear masks, we’d be in better shape:
New cases in Marin continue to be on the rise:
That’s all everyone. Have a great Thursday!
Only 64 more days to go