The Trending of Trends

Posted on by under New Economy

For a few years now, Google has had an idiotic feature by which a user can see “trending searches.”

In case you have not been paying attention, “trending searches” are search terms or strings that are very popular with the masses. I don’t know how Google determines this (frame of time, country of origin, etc.) but I do know that Google records every search everyone ever makes in the search engine. So these trending searches somehow compile this for display, from all the billions of searches being executed every day.

Presumably, Google assumes that users will see these and think to themselves “Hey, everybody is searching for information on third round draw carabao cup, so maybe I should too.”

This is the twenty-first century equivalent of herd behavior, people madly rushing about (virtually, of course) trying to get to the next great thing, and beat others to it in the process. It is mindless behavior, mob mentality.

And it is of course an extension of Google’s autocomplete feature, where it suggests searches based on what you begin to type in the search box. These are searches that, according to Google, “have been typed previously by Google users or appear on the web.”

Evidently, Amazon now also thinks this is a great idea and is using it. Amazon, of course, logs every search everyone ever makes on their platform too.

I don’t know how successful this feature is, but with Google it cannot be turned off. (Apparently, you used to be able to turn it off but I don’t see that option now.)

Believe me, I would if I could.

Because I will never click on a trending search. Why? Because I just don’t care. I don’t care about what searches other people using, and I don’t care about that for which they are searching. Why should I? They are not me, and I am not them.

I am myself, and I’m reasonably self-aware. Other people’s trending searches will have miniscule relevance to my life. I would think the same is true for most other people.

And yet here we are.

Tucker Carlson is a Miserable Human Being

Posted on by under Career, Critical Thinking

It is widely known by now that one of this country’s most awful people, Tucker Carlson, was fired from Fox News.

My first thought was that it should have happened sooner. Why it didn’t says a lot about Fox News and the people who run it.

What I only just learned is that Carlson, born in 1969, is only a few years younger than me. In other words, he is a member of Generation X.

This I find shocking and sad.

Why? Because I generally think that Gen Xers are better than that. I look back on the events that brought me to where I am today and I feel that I was shaped by those events. These are what the Pew Research Center calls “period effects” and they are the social changes, economic circumstances, technological advances, or political movements of a period in time and how people react to them.

My response to those period effects made me turn out to be socially liberal, fiscally conservative, a critical thinker who feels that diversity and inclusion are good things, and that all people deserve to be treated with a certain amount of baseline dignity and respect as a result of our shared humanity.

Carlson ended up completely different. He ended up as an egocentric self-promoter who cares more about money than he does about other people. He apparently thinks that diversity in America is a weakness, not a strength. He is someone who feels no remorse over peddling abject falsehoods, under the disguise of “scholarship” and “journalism,” for his own personal gain.

He somehow missed the lesson on shared humanity and has instead arrived at middle age as miserable human being.

Carlson it appears, is the evil twin of Eric Garcetti. Garcetti may also have an outsized ego, since many politicians do. But he devoted twelve years of his professional life to steering Los Angeles, a large and diverse city–home to more people than the entire state of Wyoming–in a positive direction. One cannot do that by peddling division and discord.

I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Carlson. But wherever he pops up next, I can guarantee it will be bad for America.

Organized Begging

Posted on by under Compassion

I have seen this woman a dozen times or more. She begs for money on the Washington D.C. Metro trains.

She is young, maybe in her late twenties. The blue blanket that covers her is actually covering a baby, probably less than a year old.

She gets on a train with the baby strapped on. The baby usually is asleep or otherwise calm, but you can see it’s face as the woman approaches. She holds a piece of cardboard that has written on it something about needing money for diapers and food. She speaks in a soft, hesitant voice to get people’s attention. And it seems that she does not speak English very well.

I have given her a few dollars on several occasions. Often she takes me by surprise, quietly approaching until she is suddenly there. I feel caught, and would feel guilty saying no.

The fact that I have seen her several times tells me a few things. One is that her situation is not a temporary one. It’s not that she needs a few dollars to get by until circumstances improve. Two is that she has a system. She very carefully starts at one end of the train, moving through the car and collecting all that the riders are willing to give. Then the train stops at a station and she moves to the next car to start again. And she always has her baby.

But what’s very interesting is that I have been approached on the Metro train by a different woman using the very same technique. The baby, the moving from car to car, the cardboard sign, everything.

So now I’m wondering if this is organized. Perhaps there is someone like Fagin in Oliver Twist who is running a scheme with young mothers. The ones I have encountered seem to be of the same ethnicity, maybe Eastern European. Maybe they all live in a group home, go out and beg all day, then pool their money at night.

Is that kind of thing still done? It feels so 19th century but maybe it’s very effective, too effective to give up.

Lastly, it is not very clear from the picture, but as she is sitting there, the woman is holding something up to her ear. It is a smart phone. She is making a phone call.

The Professional Network

Posted on by under Career, Family

By his own admission, my father had a great career.

He spent three decades, through the 70s, 80s and 90s, as president of a major commercial printing operation in San Francisco. Customers included many of the city’s important businesses as well as several of the new Silicon Valley companies such as Hewlett Packard and Apple.

He successfully steered the company in the face of rapid change throughout the industry brought on by computer typesetting and graphics.

My dad’s business card.

He retired at just the right time, before commercial printing in San Francisco became essentially a thing of the past.

Now in his 90s, he has maintained relationships with people he met throughout his career, and he remains almost universally well-liked.

I had hoped my own career would come close to emulating his. Unfortunately, I have fallen very short of the mark.

There are a number of reasons for that, which I have discussed before. One that I will discuss here is the cultivation and maintenance of business relationships.

My dad was from an era when those relationships were everything. There was no social media or internet. Relationships were maintained through time spent in person or on the phone.

We didn’t go on vacation with the families of his colleagues. But we did have dinner at their houses, and they came to dinner at ours. He had lunch almost every work day with a colleague. (In contrast, I usually eat alone.)

My dad also had connections with many people not in the printing business. He kept in touch with former classmates, with other business leaders, and was active in the local chapter of the Rotary Club. All of it was important to him.

He once told me that, if one of his friends or colleagues said to him “My son needs a job” he would find that person’s son a job at his company. And he expected the same consideration in return.

Whether that was common for the time or just something my dad did, I don’t know, but that sure as hell isn’t what’s happening today. I admit that I have not cultivated relationships the way my father did, but I know people and I have former classmates. And this has been my experience:

Over a decade ago I began to think about a career move. I had some ideas and I started talking to people. I went to lunch with a experienced lawyer and asked for help with a career change. The most he did was look over my resume and say “Washington is an information town. I’m sure you will find something.”

I sent my resume to a member of my church, asking for help with getting a job in her organization. All she did was suggest that my resume should be formatted properly.

I sent an email to the then-managing editor of the Atlantic, James Bennet, asking for help landing a position with the magazine. This was at my dad’s suggestion, since he somehow knew Bennet through his network of connections. Bennet emailed back to say that he forwarded my resume to his HR department. I heard nothing further after that. (At least he responded. Some don’t have the courtesy to do even that.)

When I got laid off in 2009, my search for a career change took on a new urgency.

A friend put me in touch with a friend of theirs at the EPA. I scheduled an appointment to meet and ask for help landing a job there. He looked at my resume, but all he would offer was to say “We are always looking for smart people here. ” I never heard from him again.

I tried contacting someone locally who went to the same law school as I did. I didn’t know him personally, but I recalled my dad’s words about all it should take is to say that I went to the same school to open doors. I sent this guy emails and regular mail. I never heard back, not even to acknowledge receipt of my mail. Literally no response.

The sister of an acquaintance worked at a firm that placed temps in law firms. I met her for an interview. I never heard from her again.

And so it has gone, time after time.

I’m not entirely sure where I veered off course. Maybe I should not have asked for help, been more bold, told people what I can do for them, all the things that career coaches say to do.

But help was what I needed, and I wasn’t too proud to ask.

Which raises questions about the culture of work in America today. Much has been said (too much in fact) about how “no one wants to work.” And yet when someone is literally begging for assistance getting a job, backs are turned.

Maybe I was seen as a bad risk. I will never know for sure. No one is talking to me.

*****

Epilogue: Once I told a friend that I felt as if I had been blacklisted. He said “How can you be sure that you’re not?”

 

 

And the Lies Go On

Posted on by under Critical Thinking

Lies are alive and well and circulating among us. In case anyone thought my recent posts about the seductiveness of lies were an abstract exercise, current events prove otherwise.

The Washington Post reported this month about a Ponzi scheme that allegedly swindled $500 million from unsuspecting investors. (A Ponzi scheme is a type of financial scam.)

A key point of this scam–similar to all Ponzi schemes–is that the investors believed the lies told to them by people they knew and viewed as having some authority on the investment. These lies were flattering and played to their desire to help others while getting rich.

One person who lost money is quoted as saying “We were a little nervous, but we trusted him. Because we were friends and belonged to the same church, the red flags were heart-shaped. I was like, ‘Wow. We are really lucky to be involved in this investment.’”

It was falsehood with just the right amount of truth to make it believable.

These lies, as lies often do, defrauded many for the personal benefit of the few. And such lies will continue for as long as there are people willing to fall for them.

Dust off and recycle some old lies. Serve them up again. People fall for them. They want to believe them.

What solutions are there? I can think of several. Comment below and I will share some of them with you.