Imagine what would have happened had Martin Winterkorn not imploded, and if Volkswagen, under his watch, had not become a datakranken (data sea-monster, or octopus), spying on drivers and passengers—just like every other car company.

What would the world now be like if Volkswagen since 2014 had established itself as the only car maker not operating datakranken? Or, better yet, if Volkswagen became the one car company collecting data for the cars’ owners first—and for insurance companies and advertisers only by the grace of those owners?

Volkswagen would be for privacy what Volvo was (and maybe still is) for safety—or that Apple is (or wants to be) for privacy. It would have been a brilliant position for VW.

But no. Winterkorn went down, and now Volkswagen is just as bad as the rest of them. Maybe worse:

In October 2014 I posted How Radio Can Defend the Dashboard, sourcing Winterkorn’s speech, and saying “There is already one car company on the customer’s side in this fight: Volkswagen.” The post was written to advise Dash (“the connected car audiotainment conference”), which was about to happen in Detroit. The post created a stir. Everybody I talked to about it at the time was enthused about what I recommended: integrating broadcast signals with the Net, giving collected data to car owners first, switching to the European RDS standard (which would relieve drivers of needing to retune to other signals just to stay with one station), among other ideas.

None of that happened. The flywheels of surveillance capitalism were already too big. Apple and Google were about to turn the dashboard into a phone display with CarPlay and Android Auto. Broadcast radio is now a distressed asset, a walking anachronism. It is being eaten alive on the music side by streaming and on the talk side by podcasting.

But the bigger thing is that we lost the chance for one big car maker to stake a position on personal privacy. Volkswagen could have done it. But it didn’t. And the datakraken won.

For now.

 

 .

Here's a random memory: Back in the seventies, there was an underground comix series called Insect Fear which basically tried to outdo EC Horror comics. I was talking with then-Philadelphian friend Judith Weiss about the latest issue, which she had also read, and she amiably dismissed it by saying, "They should have called it Women Fear."

In an instant, I saw her point: Every story in the book had an assertive, large-breasted woman who received her violent comeuppance at the end. I had missed this not because I sympathized with the underlying misogyny but because the stories were all made up of narrative tropes that went way, way back to EC and long before. I was so used to them that I couldn't actually see them.

And a small observation: I was reading something about the old hippie days of the sixties and seventies which presented feminism of the time as being little more than a list of complaints. And God knows women had good reason to complain. But I was there and I can assure you that the feminists were rarely "strident." Mostly, they calmly explained things they knew that men didn't understand. They assumed that you'd mend your ways once you saw what they were.

Perhaps they were giving us more credit than we deserved. But we shouldn't portray them in a negative manner when all they were trying to do was make the world a kindlier and saner place.

End of sermon. Go thou and sin no more.

*

In the city of Poznań, Poland, a group of eight clams controls the local water supply through a clever bio-monitoring system:

These biological systems are comprised of eight mussels with sensors hot-glued to their shells. They work together with a network of computers and have been given control over the city’s water supply. If the waters are clean, these mussels stay open and happy. But when water quality drops too low, they close off and shut the water supply of millions of people with them.

According to The Economist (archive), more than 50 such systems are now deployed in Poland and Russia to help protect water supplies:

The system is nifty. When the molluscs encounter heavy metals, pesticides or other pollutants, they close their shells, explains Piotr Domek of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, who has worked on the project for three decades. To create a natural early-warning system, Mr Domek and his colleagues collect the clams from rivers or reservoirs, and attach a coil and a magnet to their shells. Computers register whether their shells are open or closed by detecting changes in the magnetic field.

“In the case of a terrorist attack, an ecological disaster or another contamination of the water supply, the clams will close,” says Mr Domek. This, in turn, will automatically cut off the water supply. The clams, he thinks, are life-savers. “If contaminated water goes straight to our taps, we will get poisoned,” he says in “Fat Kathy”, a short film that celebrates the invaluable bivalves.

You can watch that short film here:

Each clam serves a tour of duty of a few months:

Each worker mussel spends three months on duty — after that, they become too accustomed to their new surroundings and are no longer sensitive enough to properly monitor the water. For retirement, they are gently tossed back where they came from.

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Christmas morning dawned shockingly warm, so I loaded up Hazel and Jack in the truck and drove the 10 miles to town for a walk on the trail. 

The trailhead doubles as the parking lot of our county extension building. As I leashed up the dogs, two small older-model cars pulled in and parked beside one other at 9 a.m. sharp, and in palpable, polite silence, a young man and young woman exchanged a little dark-haired preschool girl, still in her pale pink princess pajamas, from the father’s backseat to the mother’s. 

The divorced parents neutral parking lot exchange.

Parents and children of divorce will recognize this scene. As a stepchild three times over, I felt for these young parents. Christmas was always the worst holiday for shared custody agreements. Competition. Lack of money. Yelling and tears. Clock watching. Dread. A never-ending season fraught with tension from the minute stores brought out their sparkly decorations until after New Years. 

I was always waiting for Christmas to be over.

Our current political situation has the same vibe. I live in rural Kentucky – deep red Trump country – and this time around I had a strong feeling all year that Mr. Trump would easily win re-election. 

This election was over before President Biden’s disastrous June debate performance. 

This election was over before Vice President Harris consistently filled every big stadium in the alleged swing states with massive, exuberant crowds and top celebrity entertainers.

The election was over before the massive ad campaign targeting the trans community or the fake stories about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio or that time Mr. Trump appeared to fellate a microphone on stage.

This election was over before Mr. Trump raised his fist and yelled “Fight, fight, fight!” for the cameras, right after being shot at in rural Pennsylvania. Yes, even before this.

This election was over the instant Mr. Trump became the nominee.

This election was over the instant Mr. Trump became the nominee because we have a citizenry obsessed, first and foremost, with unobtainable wealth and celebrity.

For all of Mr. Trump’s flagrant ignorance, meanness, lawlessness, pettiness and continued inability to discuss policy at any level because he does not understand governing, he is what half of Americans crave most in today’s TikTok scroll, Facebook comment section, Twitter/X snark, Instagram perfection, lottery ticket dreams, internet porn, and Joe Rogan bro muscle culture. Americans want everything Mr. Trump has – the fame, the money, the mistresses and wives and sexual assault, the planes and limos, the proud depravity, the laziness, the I-don’t-give-a-shit-and-fuck-you attitude, and he’s gonna show ‘em how to get it all with zero consequences, you just watch.

Half the country handed him the keys to the White House again because what they really want are not lower gas prices, cheaper eggs, or even a regulated southern border. Like an addict jonesing for their drug of choice, Americans want their Donald. They recall fondly the 2016-2020 season of The White House Apprentice and have been praying for the Season Two launch, which promises to far outshine Season One.

Even as these same voters fear his policy decisions could destroy their lives.

If that’s not addict behavior, what is?

In a Dec. 26 Washington Post story titled “After backing Trump, low-income voters hope he doesn’t slash their benefits,” reporter Tim Craig writes, “Steve Tillia, 59, receives $1,600 a month in Social Security disability payments and $300 in food stamps to support himself and his son. Tillia, who said he is unable to work after suffering from mini strokes, still drives around New Castle with a Trump flag anchored on the bumper of his SUV. Tillia said he’s confident that Trump and GOP leaders will reduce spending by “cutting the fat” out of government — and not slashing benefits. “It’s not cutting government programs, it’s cutting the amount of people needed to run a program,” he said. “They are cutting staff, which could actually increase the amount of the programs that we get.”

Mr. Trump is going on 80 years old. He has been on the national political stage for a decade and dominates all platforms. The press, from whom we expect better, worships at his ratings-making, click-baiting altar. He has already been president, but I still can find no evidence that Mr. Trump understands how any government program works, including social security.

No matter. 

He promises, like a divorced daddy promising Disneyworld, to entertain us to death.

In chapter two of his 2021 book Our Own Worst Enemy (which I highly recommend, along his recently updated audiobook of The Death of Expertise) Tom Nichols describes what a 48 year-old Los Angeles, California male voter told the NY Times back in 2016, that “he would much prefer Mr. Trump to Mrs. Clinton. Though he said he disagreed with some of Mr. Trump’s policies, he added that he had watched The Apprentice and expected that a Trump presidency would be more exciting than a boring Clinton administration. ‘A dark side of me wants to see what happens if Trump is in [he said]. There is going to be some kind of change, and even if it’s like a Nazi-type change, people are so drama-filled. They want to see stuff like that happen. It’s like reality TV. You don’t want to just see everybody be happy with each other. You want to see someone fighting somebody.’”

I would like to know what new national Democratic strategy competes with this.

We are stuck with Mr. Trump and his voters the same way a divorced mother is stuck with a miserable human being of an ex-husband. So here is what we will do. We will focus on our own health and attitude; we will keep him out of our house; we will meet him in a neutral location when we have to; we will ignore his attention-craving antics; we will pick our battles while keeping the peace; we will spend our energy taking care of the most vulnerable. 

This is our shared custody arrangement with the country.

I moved into this mode back in October. I am rarely on social media, and God knows I avoid cable TV news, and even some regular TV news, like a woman holding out a crucifix to stave off Dracula.

And unlike how I spent the last 8 years openly talking with Trump voters and patiently listening to their conspiracies, reasons and rationalizations, this mother has moved on. 

Good luck with that, I say, as I leash up Hazel and Jack. Good luck.

--30--

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Cross-posted from Reporting from Dog Lake.

Charles Dickens wrote what has become one of the iconic stories of Christmas day and Christmas spirit in A Christmas Carol. But of course, the experiences of Ebenezer Scrooge are a story, not a piece of reporting. Here’s a piece by Dickens written for the weekly journal Household Words that he edited from 1850 to 1859. It’s from the issue of January 26, 1856, with his first-person reporting on “A Nightly Scene in London.” Poverty in high-income countries is no longer as ghastly as in Victorian England, but for those who take the time to see it in our own time and place, surely it is ghastly enough. Thus, I repeat this post each year on Christmas Day.

Economists might also wince just a bit at how Dickens describes the reaction of some economists to poverty, those who Dickens calls “the unreasonable disciples of a reasonable school.” In the following passage, Dickens writes: “I know that the unreasonable disciples of a reasonable school, demented disciples who push arithmetic and political economy beyond all bounds of sense (not to speak of such a weakness as humanity), and hold them to be all-sufficient for every case, can easily prove that such things ought to be, and that no man has any business to mind them. Without disparaging those indispensable sciences in their sanity, I utterly renounce and abominate them in their insanity …” 

Here’s a fuller passage from Dickens:

A NIGHTLY SCENE IN LONDON

On the fifth of last November, I, the Conductor of this journal, accompanied by a friend well-known to the public, accidentally strayed into Whitechapel. It was a miserable evening; very dark, very muddy, and raining hard.

There are many woful sights in that part of London, and it has been well-known to me in most of its aspects for many years. We had forgotten the mud and rain in slowly walking along and looking about us, when we found ourselves, at eight o’clock, before the Workhouse.

Crouched against the wall of the Workhouse, in the dark street, on the muddy pavement-stones, with the rain raining upon them, were five bundles of rags. They were motionless, and had no resemblance to the human form. Five great beehives, covered with rags— five dead bodies taken out of graves, tied neck and heels, and covered with rags— would have looked like those five bundles upon which the rain rained down in the public street.

“What is this! ” said my companion. “What is this!”

“Some miserable people shut out of the Casual Ward, I think,” said I.

We had stopped before the five ragged mounds, and were quite rooted to the spot by their horrible appearance. Five awful Sphinxes by the wayside, crying to every passer-by, ” Stop and guess! What is to be the end of a state of society that leaves us here!”

As we stood looking at them, a decent working-man, having the appearance of a stone-mason, touched me on the shoulder.

“This is an awful sight, sir,” said he, “in a Christian country!”

“GOD knows it is, my friend,” said I.

“I have often seen it much worse than this, as I have been going home from my work. I have counted fifteen, twenty, five-and-twenty, many a time. It’s a shocking thing to see.”

“A shocking thing, indeed,” said I and my companion together. The man lingered near
us a little while, wished us good-night, and went on.

We should have felt it brutal in us who had a better chance of being heard than the working-man, to leave the thing as it was, so we knocked at the Workhouse Gate. I undertook to be spokesman. The moment the gate was opened by an old pauper, I went in, followed close by my companion. I lost no
time in passing the old porter, for I saw in his watery eye a disposition to shut us out.

“Be so good as to give that card to the master of the Workhouse, and say I shall be glad to speak to him for a moment.”

We were in a kind of covered gateway, and the old porter went across it with the card. Before he had got to a door on our left, a man in a cloak and hat bounced out of it very sharply, as if he were in the nightly habit of being bullied and of returning the compliment.

“Now, gentlemen,” said he in a loud voice, “what do you want here?”

“First,” said I, ” will you do me the favor to look at that card in your hand. Perhaps you may know my name.”

“Yes,” says he, looking at it. ” I know this name.”

“Good. I only want to ask you a plain question in a civil manner, and there is not the least occasion for either of us to be angry. It would be very foolish in me to blame you, and I don’t blame you. I may find fault with the system you administer, but pray understand that I know you are here to do a duty pointed out to you, and that I have no doubt you do it. Now, I hope you won’t object to tell me what I want to know.”

“No,” said he, quite mollified, and very reasonable, ” not at all. What is it?”

“Do you know that there are five wretched creatures outside?”

“I haven’t seen them, but I dare say there are.”

“Do you doubt that there are?”

“No, not at all. There might be many more.”

”Are they men? Or women?”

“Women, I suppose. Very likely one or two of them were there last night, and the night before last.”

“There all night, do you mean?”

“Very likely.”

My companion and I looked at one another, and the master of the Workhouse added quickly, “Why, Lord bless my soul, what am I to do? What can I do ? The place is full. The place is always full—every night. I must give the preference to women with children, mustn’t I? You wouldn’t have me not do that?”

“Surely not,” said I. “It is a very humane principle, and quite right; and I am glad to hear of it. Don’t forget that I don’t blame you.”

“Well!” said he. And subdued himself again. …

“Just so. I wanted to know no more. You have answered my question civilly and readily, and I am much obliged to you. I have nothing to say against you, but quite the contrary. Good night!”

“Good night, gentlemen!” And out we came again.

We went to the ragged bundle nearest to the Workhouse-door, and I touched it. No movement replying, I gently shook it. The rags began to be slowly stirred within, and by little and little a head was unshrouded. The head of a young woman of three or four and twenty, as I should judge; gaunt with want, and foul with dirt; but not naturally ugly.

“Tell us,” said I, stooping down. “Why are you lying here?”

“Because I can’t get into the Workhouse.”

She spoke in a faint dull way, and had no curiosity or interest left. She looked dreamily at the black sky and the falling rain, but never looked at me or my companion.

“Were you here last night?”

“Yes, All last night. And the night afore too.”

“Do you know any of these others?”

“I know her next but one. She was here last night, and she told me she come out of Essex. I don’t know no more of her.”

“You were here all last night, but you have not been here all day?”

“No. Not all day.”

“Where have you been all day?”

“About the streets.”

”What have you had to eat?”

“Nothing.”

“Come!” said I. “Think a little. You are tired and have been asleep, and don’t quite consider what you are saying to us. You have had something to eat to-day. Come! Think of it!”

“No I haven’t. Nothing but such bits as I could pick up about the market. Why, look at me!”

She bared her neck, and I covered it up again.

“If you had a shilling to get some supper and a lodging, should you know where to get it?”

“Yes. I could do that.”

“For GOD’S sake get it then!”

I put the money into her hand, and she feebly rose up and went away. She never thanked me, never looked at me— melted away into the miserable night, in the strangest manner I ever saw. I have seen many strange things, but not one that has left a deeper impression on my memory than the dull impassive way in which that worn-out heap of misery took that piece of money, and was lost.

One by one I spoke to all the five. In every one, interest and curiosity were as extinct as in the first. They were all dull and languid. No one made any sort of profession or complaint; no one cared to look at me; no one thanked me. When I came to the third, I suppose she saw that my companion and I glanced, with a new horror upon us, at the two last, who had dropped against each other in their sleep, and were lying like broken images. She said, she believed they were young sisters. These were the only words that were originated among the five.

And now let me close this terrible account with a redeeming and beautiful trait of the poorest of the poor. When we came out of the Workhouse, we had gone across the road to a public house, finding ourselves without silver, to get change for a sovereign. I held the money in my hand while I was speaking to the five apparitions. Our being so engaged, attracted the attention of many people of the very poor sort usual to that place; as we leaned over the mounds of rags, they eagerly leaned over us to see and hear; what I had in my hand, and what I said, and what I did, must have been plain to nearly all the concourse. When the last of the five had got up and faded away, the spectators opened to let us pass; and not one of them, by word, or look, or gesture, begged of us.

Many of the observant faces were quick enough to know that it would have been a relief to us to have got rid of the rest of the money with any hope of doing good with it. But, there was a feeling among them all, that their necessities were not to be placed by the side of such a spectacle; and they opened a way for us in profound silence, and let us go.

My companion wrote to me, next day, that the five ragged bundles had been upon his bed all night. I debated how to add our testimony to that of many other persons who from time to time are impelled to write to the newspapers, by having come upon some shameful and shocking sight of this description. I resolved to write in these pages an exact account of what we had seen, but to wait until after Christmas, in order that there might be no heat or haste. I know that the unreasonable disciples of a reasonable school, demented disciples who push arithmetic and political economy beyond all bounds of sense (not to speak of such a weakness as humanity), and hold them to be all-sufficient for every case, can easily prove that such things ought to be, and that no man has any business to mind them. Without disparaging those indispensable sciences in their sanity, I utterly renounce and abominate them in their insanity; and I address people with a respect for the spirit of the New Testament, who do mind such things, and who think them infamous in our streets.

The post Charles Dickens on Seeing Poverty first appeared on Conversable Economist.

Everyone have a merry Bogart’s Birthday!