It's 2025, so there's a very good chance that during the next few minutes as you join me in catching up on the news, you'll pause, sigh (or possibly moan), and mumble to yourself, "Damn, I need a drink." But this need for a drink comes with a twist. At a moment in American history when one imagines we'd need to imbibe, swill, guzzle, pound, swig, sip, nip, swallow, quaff, booze, indulge, binge, chug, tank up, knock a few back, bend the elbow, and hit the bottle more than ever, we're actually hardly drinking at all. In short, life sucks, but we don't. "Fewer Americans are reporting that they drink alcohol amid a growing belief that even moderate alcohol consumption is a health risk, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday ... As concerns about health impacts rise, fewer Americans are reporting that they drink. The survey finds that 54% of U.S. adults say they drink alcoholic beverages such as liquor, wine or beer. That’s lower than at any other point in the past three decades." It always seemed a little hard to believe that drinking was good for us. But it can't be all that healthy consuming the news sober. Long story short, it looks like I picked the wrong era to stop sniffing glue. 2You Had Me at PrivetIn the NYT (Gift Article), M. Gessen does a great job of clearly explaining why sanctions, whether delivered by Biden or Trump, haven't deterred Putin (When sanctions have an effect, it is usually to immiserate ordinary people. The elites remain wealthy, and the gap between the rich and the poor only grows. Rather than foment resentment against the regime and the elites, this tends to rally society against the country that imposed the sanctions.), and why the Russian leader may have won the Alaskan summit before it even starts. Trump Is Giving Putin a Most Wonderful Gift. "Trump seems to be unaware that, by meeting with Putin, he is giving Putin exactly what the Russian leader wants — a demonstration of his power. Trump is giving Putin additional gifts by agreeing to meet with him without Zelensky and by sidelining the European Union. Trump is affirming for all of Russia to see what Putin has claimed all along: that the conflict is really between Russia and the United States. The moment Putin walks into the negotiating room, he has gotten everything he wants — plus an opportunity to make a quip about Alaska as historically Russian land (consider this a prediction). If the meeting does not produce an agreement, Putin loses nothing. Trump, on the other hand, would lose face if he walked out empty-handed. He may be motivated to accept something, anything." 3Mother's NatureThe ‘godfather of AI’ reveals the only way humanity can survive superintelligent AI. The key he explains, is to make AI more motherly. "In the future, Hinton warned, AI systems might be able to control humans just as easily as an adult can bribe 3-year-old with candy. This year has already seen examples of AI systems willing to deceive, cheat and steal to achieve their goals. For example, to avoid being replaced, one AI model tried to blackmail an engineer about an affair it learned about in an email. Instead of forcing AI to submit to humans, Hinton presented an intriguing solution: building 'maternal instincts' into AI models, so 'they really care about people' even once the technology becomes more powerful and smarter than humans." 4Board at Work"Born in Alhambra, California, in 1948, Webster began standup surfing in 1961 at the age of 13. In 1973, he moved to Bodega Bay, about 70 miles north of San Francisco. Two years later, a run of large swells known as the Monster from New Zealand sparked a personal challenge: surf every day for 100 consecutive days." That was just the beginning. Dale Webster, surfer who rode waves for 14,642 consecutive days, dies aged 77. 5Extra, ExtraThanks, But No Thanks: "Throughout Joe Biden’s presidency, there was a notion that a politician can win votes by delivering benefits to voters — also known as ‘deliverism.'" It turns out that delivering, even bigly, for communities often didn't make the slightest dent in voting patterns. Everything that you'd assume matters doesn't matter at all. NYT (Gift Article): Democrats Delivered Millions to Texarkana. It Didn’t Matter One Bit. 6Bottom of the NewsThink Americans get a little too comfortable when it comes to establishing a workspace in a cafe? Consider South Korea, where Starbucks has issued a new policy against things like customers bringing in desktop computers, printers, and even physical partitions. Starbucks Korea cracks down on people working, studying all day in cafes.
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Wednesday, August 13, 2025
A Drinking Problem
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