Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dust in the Light

stratechery.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 137 posts

Re: Dust in the Light

#21

Post by scarface74 »

samirillian wrote: post #13

> Both peaceful protests and wanton destruction and looting were likely organized on social media. Interesting that in his mind the looting is the dark side of this uprising. How about the drones the riot cops use to watch the protesters' every move? Wasn't it Microsoft and AWS fighting over the facial recognition AI contract that Google finally dropped?

The peaceful protest with Kaepernick kneeling and “can we all just get along” was part I. People should have listened then instead of excusing the President for calling him a “son of a bitch”.

This is part II.

Re: Dust in the Light

#22

Post by satyrnein »

WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #19
clairity wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, i've read a few of these analyses, and while they're mildly interesting, they're not nearly as earth-shatteringly insightful and counter-intuitive as many seem to think they are. it's mostly bog-standard strategic analysis you learn during MBA school, but to ben's credit, well laid out, organized, and appropriately cited. this particular post seems to marvel at how big tech provides otherwise-sheltered people a…

I think you nailed with your comment, I'm even more critical however. His writing doesn't deliver in a chain of reasoning that you would expect in undergraduate argument papers. Despite their organization and polish the meat of argument is just not there. As "internet/media analyst" he genuinely seems unaffected by the events of the last 8 years. It's disturing that there are people still out there with this bovine o…

Your link is Benedict Evans. The OP is Ben Thompson.

Re: Dust in the Light

#23

Post by gilbetron »

samirillian wrote: post #13

> Both peaceful protests and wanton destruction and looting were likely organized on social media. Interesting that in his mind the looting is the dark side of this uprising. How about the drones the riot cops use to watch the protesters' every move? Wasn't it Microsoft and AWS fighting over the facial recognition AI contract that Google finally dropped?

Were the cops organizing by social media? He's making the point that social media can be used for good or bad, what the cops use is a rather orthogonal point.

(To be clear: the things you mention are bad)

Re: Dust in the Light

#24

Post by dmode »

WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #19
clairity wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, i've read a few of these analyses, and while they're mildly interesting, they're not nearly as earth-shatteringly insightful and counter-intuitive as many seem to think they are. it's mostly bog-standard strategic analysis you learn during MBA school, but to ben's credit, well laid out, organized, and appropriately cited. this particular post seems to marvel at how big tech provides otherwise-sheltered people a…

I think you nailed with your comment, I'm even more critical however. His writing doesn't deliver in a chain of reasoning that you would expect in undergraduate argument papers. Despite their organization and polish the meat of argument is just not there. As "internet/media analyst" he genuinely seems unaffected by the events of the last 8 years. It's disturing that there are people still out there with this bovine o…

I am not sure I follow you. The lead essay is written by Ben Thompson and your article refers Ben Evans. Different folks

Re: Dust in the Light

#25

Post by Kiro »

samirillian wrote: post #13

> Both peaceful protests and wanton destruction and looting were likely organized on social media. Interesting that in his mind the looting is the dark side of this uprising. How about the drones the riot cops use to watch the protesters' every move? Wasn't it Microsoft and AWS fighting over the facial recognition AI contract that Google finally dropped?

Interesting that in your mind drones are the dark side of the uprising. Really says something about the tech bubble and priorities. I can assure you that drones are the least of protestors' problems right now.

Re: Dust in the Light

#26

Post by WhatIsDukkha »

satyrnein wrote: post #22
WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you nailed with your comment, I'm even more critical however. His writing doesn't deliver in a chain of reasoning that you would expect in undergraduate argument papers. Despite their organization and polish the meat of argument is just not there. As "internet/media analyst" he genuinely seems unaffected by the events of the last 8 years. It's disturing that there are people still out there with this bovine o…

Your link is Benedict Evans. The OP is Ben Thompson.

Yeah my bad... triggered on the internet.

Re: Dust in the Light

#27

Post by somethoughts »

clairity wrote: post #14
WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #4

As usual, overlong and is another apologia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apologia for large tech monopolies. These essays are fueled by throwing some facts and nuance around so that we appear to be a thoughtful person but then roughly sums it up with "isn't it great we have cellphones and facebook?"

yeah, i've read a few of these analyses, and while they're mildly interesting, they're not nearly as earth-shatteringly insightful and counter-intuitive as many seem to think they are. it's mostly bog-standard strategic analysis you learn during MBA school, but to ben's credit, well laid out, organized, and appropriately cited. this particular post seems to marvel at how big tech provides otherwise-sheltered people a…

It seems more of a complement to the existing visuals and more story telling oriented approaches being provided via other forms of media and news.

The income disparity graphs personally provided more understanding as to why the issue appears to happen in certain locations.

If it makes it approachable to undergraduate MBA types who feel more comfortable in seeing spreadsheets and data science analysis and understandable to a wider, different audience that doesn't seem like such a bad thing.

That said, I'd be really interested in being pointed to better sources for data science approaches to understanding the issue(s) - in addition to the more narrative based suggestions provided.

Re: Dust in the Light

#28

Post by mcguire »

Terretta wrote: post #11

"The crescent" is another way of saying "land SE of a big lake". An alternative plausible explanation is it's a half circle because the town center is on the southern end of the lake. Way too much being made of multiple sets of data points and pins on a map around a lake, without mentioning density, with a lake.

"While red-lining helped shape segregation in many cities, Minneapolis was pre-emptive about its discrimination; beginning in the 1910s Minneapolis real estate deeds started to include “Covenants” that explicitly excluded African Americans. A team from the University of Minnesota has been researching real estate deeds to uncover these covenants, and created this striking time-lapse of their spread:...

"Racial covenants were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1948, but the effect remains; compare the racial covenant map to the racial dot map Blank referenced above — the blue (which is white people) adheres to the blue of racial covenants:...

"A map of racial covenants closely matches a map of Minneapolis' population

"That red cross, meanwhile, is the location of the homicide of George Floyd, in the decidedly non-blue portion of the map."

I have downvoted your comment, not because there's anything specifically wrong in it, but because I cannot believe focusing on the word "crescent" and disregarding any context could be anything other than an attempt to diminish the discussion.

Re: Dust in the Light

#29

Post by dmode »

I love Ben Thompson's writing and I like how he accurately connects the history of institutional racism to the events of today. I have seen a few articles of this kind, and it seems like in today's America vast majority of people (except a few Trump holdouts) have acknowledged that the historical arc of slavery to segregation to white flight to real estate discrimination has led to where we are.

However, what I don't hear is radical solution to this problem. Even in Obama's medium essay, the solution is deep police and criminal justice reform. Which, while important, is incremental. What we need here is a step change to course correct 400 years of history. And incremental changes do not cut it. Here are some step change suggestions

1)Trillions of dollars of reparations 2) A generous UBI 3) Free healthcare 4) Trillions of investment in schools in poorer neighborhoods 5) A dramatic rise in minimum wage

In pre-COVID world, I would accept a reasonable pushback against this suggestion was "deficit" "debt" etc. But COVID has exposed these pushbacks was hypocritical (puts a stark spotlight on the hypocritical Tea Party movement). We printed trillions of dollars overnight to save small and big businesses, and employees. Why can't we move at that scale ? If we can suddenly print that much money, what is stopping us from massive investments in our most disadvantaged communities to undo 400 years of history ?

Re: Dust in the Light

#30

Post by nogenerix »

When someone presents all these negative outcomes for minority groups (education, poverty, incarceration, etc.) it's difficult to not see that in a racial light.

"Madison is one of the greatest places to live, just stay out of the black neighborhoods." - how are the people living in the white neighborhoods to be blamed for that?

Post reply on HN