Category Archives: Current Events

January 9, 2024 · 5:40 am

My (Terrible) Experience With COVID-19 (And A Reminder To Get Vaccinated)

Being sick sucks. I think we can all agree on that.

It doesn’t matter what you’re sick with. That doesn’t make the experience any less debilitating. Even something as simple as a headache can hinder your ability to do anything, major or minor. But when you’re sick with something serious, that compounds every aspect of why being sick sucks.

I know this because over the holidays, I got very sick. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say the 2023 holiday season was the sickest I’ve been in over five years. Being someone who works out regularly and makes a concerted effort to stay healthy, it was more than a little jarring. To make everything so much worse, I found out early on that I was sick with COVID-19.

While many believe the COVID-19 pandemic to be over, there’s no question that the disease is still raging. Granted, the strains going around today aren’t nearly as severe as the ones we saw at the start of the pandemic in 2020. On top of that, we have better treatments and multiple vaccines with which to combat it. But it is still a serious disease and one you do not want to deal with.

I can say that definitively, having dealt with it. And I freely admit, I was among those who thought I no longer had to worry about COVID-19. Since it began in 2020, I felt very fortunate to have never contracted it. I did test myself regularly and even on days when I didn’t feel 100 percent, they came back negative.

At times, that was surprising because a lot of people within my family and friends did contract the disease at some point. My parents got it. My siblings dealt with it. I even had multiple cousins and their friends deal with it. By 2023, I worked under the assumption that I had probably been exposed, but didn’t show any symptoms. And since I had also been vaccinated, I thought I didn’t have anything to worry about.

I was wrong.

I was painfully, frustratingly wrong.

I actually started feeling sick shortly after Christmas dinner. At the time, I thought it was just me having eaten too much or a general product of a stressful holiday season. But then, the symptoms compounded. My throat got sore. I started coughing a lot. And my face became hot, even in the middle of winter. At times, my face felt like I had just stuck my head in the oven. That’s when I started to get worried, but I thought it was something I could sleep off.

Again, I was wrong.

The day after Christmas was the day I felt really sick. I had plans to visit my uncle and siblings. I even had plans to go out to breakfast that day. I thought I could push through it. Then, one of my siblings demanded I take a COVID test before I drove over. I ended up taking two. And when both came back positive, pretty much all my holiday plans from that point forward were cancelled.

It was very upsetting. I vividly remember cursing more in that morning than I had at any point in 2023. But it gave me painful confirmation that I was very sick and this was not something I could tough out. It was also not something I could risk spreading to family members. My relatives include young children and cancer survivors. And there was no way I was ever going to put them at risk.

So, from December 26th until several days after New Year, I isolated in my home. And no, it was not a relaxing staycation. I didn’t just missed out on multiple holiday activities with friends and loved ones. I ended up experiencing a wide range of horrible symptoms that felt like my body was torturing me from the inside.

My sinuses were stuffed and clogged in ways I had not experienced, despite a long history of allergies.

My throat was sore and my voice was weak in a way that exceeded the worst cases of strep throat I ever had.

My lung capacity was severely diminished, so much so that just talking on the phone or walking up a flight of stairs would leave me winded. As someone who regularly runs three miles a day, this genuinely scared me.

But the fever was still probably the worst symptom and not just because of my temperature. My head kept getting physically hot as my fever fluctuated constantly, despite the cold weather outside. At one point, I had to go out on my deck at 2:00 a.m. in 24-degree weather to cool down because my head was so hot.

But the weirdest and most disturbing symptom I experienced during my entire bout with COVID-19 was the insomnia. That was probably the most frustrating and the most disturbing. Usually, when you get sick, you just want to sleep it off or sleep until it runs its course. But with this strain of COVID-19, I physically could not get tired.

For three solid nights, I would just lay in bed trying to sleep. But no matter what I did, I remained painfully alert, even when the rest of my symptoms were tempered with medications. I tried cutting out coffee. I tried avoiding sugar. But nothing seemed to work. I couldn’t make myself tired. I couldn’t even make myself drowsy. And I almost always get drowsy in the afternoon, so that was a strange experience.

By the fourth day, I took some over-the-counter sleeping pills that finally allowed me to sleep through the night. I still felt like crap the next day, but just getting some sleep did help. And after that night, the worst of my symptoms started to lesson.

By New Years Eve, I was able to sleep on my own and manage most of the symptoms. I was still coughing a lot and my sinuses were still stuffed up. But my fever had gone down, my appetite was normal, and I didn’t feel quite as weak. I still kept losing my breath when I went up a flight of stairs and people could tell I was sick whenever I talked to them on the phone. But I was on the road to recovery.

As I write this, I feel fine. My lung capacity is almost back to what it once was, my sinuses are normal, and my sleep schedule is back to normal. But make no mistake, this disease left an impression on me and, having gone through it, I have a few important messages to those who think COVID-19 is over.

For one, get vaccinated! Seriously people, stop making excuses and stop giving any attention to anti-vaxxers.

In this regard, I failed to take my own advice. This past fall, I did get my usual flu shot. The flu had surged in my area and I thought that was more pressing. But I did not get a COVID-19 booster because I foolishly thought it was no longer an issue. I had opportunities. I could’ve gotten one at pharmacy that’s less than three blocks from my home.

But I didn’t and, as a result, my holiday was ruined and I experienced the worst sickness I’ve had in years.

Even so, I still consider myself lucky. As bad as I felt, I never felt sick enough to go to a hospital. I also didn’t go to an ER or visit my doctor, although I probably should have after the shortness of breath got very bad. But I did manage to heal. I did manage to get through without any noticeable damage. That might be more a product of me being relatively healthy and having a rigorous gym routine. I understand not everyone else can make that claim.

But even if you are as health conscious as me, I still highly recommend that you get a COVID-19 vaccine or a booster as soon as possible. Do not leave something like this to chance. Do not assume that the worst is behind you and if you get exposed, you’ll be able to manage it.

Trust me, you do not want to experience what I did over the holidays. You’ll be doing yourself and your loved ones a favor by being proactive. My 2023 holiday plans might have been ruined by COVID-19, but it could’ve been so much worse. And I hope everyone will take this experience I’ve shared to heart.

The pandemic might be over, but COVID-19 is still a concern. Take it seriously. Otherwise, it might cost you more than your holiday plans.

Leave a comment

Filed under Current Events, health, Jack Fisher's Insights

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

January 1, 2024 · 9:27 am

Happy New Year 2024!

We did it!

We made it through another year!

That, alone, is something worth celebrating these days. Now, today is the first day of a new year. Nobody knows what 2024 will bring. Nobody knows what sort of upheavals, challenges, and triumphs lay ahead. But with every new year comes new opportunities. With new opportunities come new potential. Whatever form it takes, I look forward to pursuing and realizing it as best I can.

But for now, let’s just celebrate the year we had and enjoy the start of something new.

So, from the bottom of my heart and to everyone reading this, Happy New Year!

Leave a comment

Filed under Current Events

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

December 3, 2023 · 9:05 am

A Brief Note On (The Stupidity Of) Book Bans

We live in strange, tense, and frustrating times. I know you could say that about any point in any era. But it feels like we’ve been saying that a lot late. I know I have. Just look at some of the posts I’ve made on or near Election Day in the United States. But as someone who lives less than two hours from Washington DC, I tend to feel the politics of these times more than most. And I’ve been around long enough to see some strange and troubling trends.

Then, there are certain acts or phenomena that are just plain stupid on a level that defies parody.

I generally try to empathize and understand where other people are coming from, especially if they have a different background or ideology from my own. There are just some instances where that’s not possible. The breadth of the stupidity is just too great.

That’s exactly how I feel about book bans. For reasons that are too fucking idiotic for me to paraphrase, there are real people living in real places in the United States of America who are advocating for book bans. Some are going so far as to burn them.

Again, this is not 1933. This is happening in 2023. That point is worth belaboring.

Now, I don’t want to name names or organizations. But you don’t have to look far to see who are advocating for book bans. You also don’t have to dig too deep to uncover what sort of ideology they ascribe to.

Here’s a hint. It’s the same ideology the requires stormtroopers, secret police, and prison camps.

But all you really need to know is that these efforts are usually the ones the villains in every TV show, book, or movie get behind. They see people reading books with ideas they don’t like. They worry that those same people, which include children and young adults needed for factories and war zones, embracing or identifying with those ideas.

But rather than confront those ideas, the book banning advocates would just prefer that people never know about those ideas in the first place. The evil, sadistic logic is that if people never read about it, then they can never think about it. And if they can never think about it, then they’re easier to control and guide.

That may not be the reason book banning advocates say out loud, but that is the effect. They’ll usually frame it as “protecting children” or “combating obscenity.” But don’t fall for that. At the end of the day, those who seek to ban books just want to eliminate ideas and stories they don’t like from the public consciousness.

That’s not conducive to protecting children and fostering a healthy society.

That’s a tactic for fascists, authoritarians, dictators, and general assholes.

Now, those tactics were certainly damaging in the past. Until very recently, books were the primary source of important information. If people didn’t have access to books, then they didn’t have access to knowledge, stories, and new ideas. Finding or preserving banned books used to take a concerted effort and many brave individuals put their lives at risk to further those efforts.

However, what makes modern book bans especially stupid is the simple fact that the internet exists. Libraries and book stores are no longer the lone repositories of knowledge and stories. Anyone with a smartphone can access more knowledge in five seconds than an entire university of academics could 50 years ago.

At this point, trying to ban books is akin to trying to censor telegrams. All they achieve now is raising the profile of these books they’re trying to ban. Hell, the book banning advocates might as well identify as free advertising because sales of banned books tend to spike whenever they bitch and moan about certain titles.

So, in addition to being a dick move, as well as tactics used primarily by fascists, it’s completely counterproductive. It wastes time, money, energy, and has the opposite effect of what’s intended. With that in mind, I have just one last message to those who still think banning books is a worthwhile endeavor.

Read a fucking book! Preferably a history book!

Leave a comment

Filed under Current Events, politics, technology, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 30, 2023 · 5:26 am

Jack’s Holiday PSA: Avoid Shopping With Temu

In general, I enjoy shopping. I know that’s an odd trait for a straight male, but it’s just how I am. It may or may not stem from how often my mother took me shopping when I was young. But regardless of the reason, I like to think my enjoyment of shopping has trained me to shop smarter and not harder.

Having established that context, let’s talk about Temu. And let’s try to talk seriously.

Because if you’ve been on the internet for any amount of time for the past year, you’ve probably seen ads for Temu. They’re usually very targeted and they stand out in particular ways. You’ll often see products you’ve never seen at a store and at prices that seem too low to be real. Some look like brand name products. Others look like something somebody assembled in their garage.

Whatever the product, the ads are so ubiquitous that they’re almost impossible to avoid. And during the holiday season, you probably saw even more of them. Hopefully, you didn’t just click, sign up, and buy without thinking. If you did, then you might already know why I’m making this.

For background, Temu is a relatively new ecommerce site that launched in late 2022. It’s similar to Amazon in that it sells a wide range of products, but unlike Amazon the site and the interface are a lot more gamified. It has all these widgets and gimmicks that resemble an online casino. And using these features earn you special tokens that you can use to buy products on Temu. But in general, you’ll be buying things the same way you buy them at other sites.

However, as low as the prices seem and as great as the deals appear to be, there are a lot of red flags surrounding this site and the Chinese company that runs it. If you need a comprehensive breakdown of all of them, Snopes did an in-depth investigation on the many issues surrounding it. I highly recommend reading and re-reading this piece before you even visit the site.

In general, Temu is a site that offers tons of cheap stuff, but a lot of that stuff is cheap because it’s a rip-off, a knock-off, or low in overall quality. And what you see on the site isn’t necessarily what you end up receiving. And what you receive is rarely a product that will last. That’s an important detail because Temu’s return and refund policies aren’t nearly as forgiving as most.

Basically, if the product breaks within 90 days of purchasing (and that counts how long it took to ship), you’re out of luck.

That, alone, should give you pause before shopping at Temu. Cheap or not, you won’t get much value out of anything there if it breaks within a few months of purchase. However, there’s one another important detail to consider. It has to do with the potential malware and spyware included with the app.

It’s not a conspiracy to suspect that an app from a Chinese company might contain software that undermines the privacy of its users. Even American companies have a not-so-great track record of respecting the privacy of their customers. But the company behind Temu has a well-documented history of using their apps to extract data from users’ devices.

That means that if you download the Temu app, you’re very likely giving the app and the company behind it access to every photo, contact, text message, and browsing history that’s on the device. Whether they use that data to extort you or just target you with more ads is entirely dependent on the whims of the company. But just be aware that there is a price to pay for lower prices.

That’s a lesson my mother often instilled in me when she took me shopping. It wasn’t just the old mantra of you get what you pay for. If you see cheap prices, there’s usually a reason they’re cheap. And that reason often comes at a price you can’t always put a dollar figure on.

Leave a comment

Filed under Current Events, technology

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 7, 2023 · 5:20 am

Happy Election Day 2023 (Now Vote)!

My fellow Americans, today is Election Day 2023.

Yes, it’s not a Presidential Election year. That’s not until 2024.

But it’s still Election Day. And in many jurisdictions throughout the United States, including my own, you can still vote. It may not be for President, but you can still vote for representatives of every level from the school board to the county to the state house.

And you should. For democracy to work and for liberty, as we know it, to remain, we must do our part. We must get out there and cast our votes to make our voices heard. If you don’t know where your polling place is, you can find it at this site.

https://www.vote.org/

The information is free. Voting is free. Getting out to vote still takes effort, but it’s worth doing. As an American, it’s one of the most important things you can do.

So please do your part. Get out there and vote. Your country and democracy will be better because of it.

1 Comment

Filed under Current Events, politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 2, 2023 · 6:33 am

A Brief Message On Voting (And Those Who Try To Restrict It)

When I was a teenager, it was not unusual to see these cheesy, poorly produced ads on TV that emphasized the importance of voting. Some even took it to cartoonish extremes, even for the era. I distinctly remember how sick I got of all those “Vote or Die” campaigns that seemed to air every 15 minuets.

Then, when I reached voting age, I finally got a chance to experience it. And, for the most part, I found it mundane and inconvenient. Just registering was a hassle. It couldn’t be done over the internet at the time. I had to go through my local post office, which was not a very memorable experience. And I had to find my polling place, which happened to be a local elementary school with dirty bathrooms and poor heating.

Even so, I voted because everyone told me it was important. I didn’t appreciate it at the time. And I still didn’t appreciate it, even as I kept voting throughout college. Granted, I did miss voting a few years, mostly because the mail-in ballots I had to use were a pain. And I had a lot of other crap going on both during and after college that kept me occupied.

But once my post-college life stabilized, I made it a point to keep voting in every election, even when it wasn’t for President. I still never put too much thought into it. Following local races can be difficult, especially when every campaign ad can be reduced to cheesy soundbites about how “evil” the opponent is.

All that being said, my perspective on voting has changed a lot in the past few years. It’s not that I’ve become politically awakened or radicalized in any meaningful sense. My politics today aren’t terribly different from what they were 10 years ago. It’s just that, over the past five years, I’ve watched American politics become increasingly ugly.

It used to be that people just disagreed on certain social and regulatory policies. Reasonable people can certainly disagree how much we ought to be taxed, how much we ought to be regulated, and how we allocate public resources. But politics since 2016 is not about reasonable disagreements.

Instead, it’s about opposing, resisting, or outright hurting your political opponents. It’s not that they disagree with you on certain issues anymore. It’s that they’re flat out evil. I have heard real, sober, straight-faced people call others devil-worshipping, baby-eating, child rapists over politics. There’s no discussing anymore. There’s not even an attempt at debate. It’s just yelling and hating against those you don’t agree with.

As a result, voting hasn’t just become more important. It’s also become hazardous. If you don’t believe me, just look up some of the harassment that poll workers have gotten in recent years. Just be warned, some of what they face is not for the faint of heart.

Now, I’m not bringing this up just to go on a political rant. I’m not even going to try and appeal to the humanity, patriotism, and civic responsibility of my fellow Americans. Having dealt with some of these people directly, I know that ship has sailed and sunk to the bottom of the ocean of tribalism.

We’ve officially crossed a line in American politics where voting is no longer a mundane civic duty.

It is one of the few remaining institutions that safeguard the public from demagogues, despots, and plutocrats.

So, with Election Day 2023 coming up soon for much of my fellow Americans, I certainly want to encourage everyone to vote. I also want to encourage everyone to register if they haven’t already. I can attest it’s much easier today than it was when I was a teenager. Just go to a website like Vote.org. No matter which state you live in, it offers all the resources you need to vote in local, state, and federal elections.

Again, it’s Vote.org.

Click the link. Follow the prompts. If you can read this website, you can register to vote.

But there’s one other important perspective I’d like to share on top of encouraging everyone to vote. And it has less to do with voting, itself, and more to do with those working very hard to make it difficult for more people.

Because make no mistake. There are powerful, well-connected individuals who are doing everything they can to make it harder to vote. This is not a conspiracy theory. There’s no effort to hide it, either. These anti-American, anti-freedom, objectively deplorable assholes (and no, I am not being hyperbolic) are outright targeting people they know won’t vote for them to gain, retain, or expand power.

Seriously, fuck these people.

Fuck them, their doners, and everyone on their staff who helps them undermine democracy.

They are an insult to American values. Take it from someone who consumes more superhero media than 85 percent of the population. Those who make concerted efforts to suppress, limit, or undermine peoples’ right to vote are either outright villains or they freely support such villains.

How else would you describe people who got upset when Taylor Swift encouraged her passionate legion of fans to register to vote? She didn’t even tell them to vote for a particular party or candidate. She just told them to register to vote. And still, one particular wing of the American political spectrum whined about it. It’s almost as though they know that if more people vote, they’re likely to lose because they know the general public thinks they’re assholes.

Again, fuck these people with the fury of a billion venomous spiders. I cannot belabor that enough.

We may not have superheroes in this world, but we the people can still oppose these villains. And the best way to do that for now is to vote. We can still disagree on any number of issues. But in general, if the choice is between a candidate or party that protects your right to vote and a candidate or party that would prefer to restrict it, then the choice should be clear.

If it’s not, then I don’t know what else to tell you other than to just make sure you’re registered to vote. Do not take this freedom for granted. Just take a brief look at the history of any country that has failed or declined. Once the people lose their rights, it’s very difficult to get them back.

Leave a comment

Filed under Current Events, politics, rants

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 24, 2023 · 5:25 am

A (Frustrating) Note On Trends In Child Labor Laws

Throughout high school and college, I took multiple history classes. Those classes included world history, American history, and even a few courses in ancient history. I won’t say history was ever my best class, but I’ve always had a certain affinity for it. I often find it enlightening and profound to see how our world came to be and how we got to where we are now.

Over the course of those studies, I often found hope and solace in knowing that certain issues within some societies had been resolved for the most part. History is often messy with mishaps and setbacks, but there’s a general trend towards progress and I found that encouraging.

Now, having followed the news for these past few years, I’m not nearly as encouraged anymore. Because lately, it seems like there’s a growing trend towards undoing some of the progress we made, even if it means making vulnerable, desperate people suffer. It’s bad enough that countries like America have taken a step backwards with respect to abortion rights, but now the same country that I love is taking it even further.

This time, it has to do with child labor laws. And believe me, I wish I was joking. I wish this were an elaborate story from The Onion. But sadly, it’s all too real.

In multiple states, mostly in the mid-west and south, lawmakers have effectively rolled back decades-old child labor laws to make it easier for companies to hire workers as young as 14-years-old. And in some industries, namely those involving farm work, kids as young as 12-years-old can legally work.

Now, if you have even a shred of compassion, empathy, and perspective, take a step back and think about this. Decades ago, we collectively decided that making children work in mines and factories was generally a bad thing. You don’t have to look far to find old, grainy photos of sad, broken children working in coal mines.

You don’t have to make bold assumptions about how these kids ended up having to work in such terrible conditions or why a company or business would employ them. They were desperate. They needed to do something to feed themselves or the rest of their families.

It wasn’t enough for kids to just help out around the house. They actually had to go out into dirty, dangerous mines or factories to earn what was likely piss-poor wages. And since they were kids, they weren’t as inclined to strike or organize. The only ones who benefitted from this were the employers, who were never going to pass up an opportunity to exploit cheap labor.

That’s why laws were necessary in the first place. History, as well as a basic understanding of power dynamics, has proven time and again that no organization gives up a profitable endeavor willingly. It took a serious movement of people who were appalled and disgusted by such practices to make these companies stop. And even when the laws were passed, some still tried to employ children illegally. Many still do, some of which include well-known American brands.

But now we’ve somehow found ourselves at a point where rolling back those laws is somehow viable? And those elected into public office are willingly going through with it?

Again, just take a moment to imagine this from the perspective of a kid. I remember being 12. I wasn’t even allowed to rent R-rated movies. And the most laborious task I could imagine involved doing yardwork with my parents over the course of a single afternoon. The idea of actually having to go to work while still going to school sounds like a goddamn nightmare.

Even when I was 15, it sounds downright soul-crushing. I was already navigating the rigors of high school. I was also going through the psychological and bodily horror that was puberty. The idea of having to work a job at the same time sounds downright cruel.

I understand that my childhood and circumstances are different than most. I imagine that kids from desperately poor families with limited opportunities might find such work unavoidable. But that’s exactly what makes these efforts by lawmakers so disturbing.

They’re essentially sending the message to employers, and society as a whole, that it’s perfectly fine to exploit desperate people and their children. It doesn’t matter if it means robbing a child of an opportunity to be a child and not get seriously hurt in a typical work environment. Their labor means more profits for the company and that’s all the justification we needed?

I’m no radical anti-capitalist, but even I call bullshit. If a company or business can only be profitable by exploiting the labor of children and desperate workers, then their business model sucks. And at the very least, our laws should not go out of their way to accommodate such models.

If all this weren’t bad enough (and it’s still very bad on so many levels), what makes it even worse is that those in favor of passing these laws are often conservative republicans. Remember, these are the same people who go all Helen Lovejoy and demand that we think of the children every time a drag queen dares to read them story. They’re also the same political wing who thinks a 10-year-old should be forced to give birth to a child that resulted from rape.

Again, I wish I was making this up. These policies, and the hypocrisy surrounding them, read like plots by supervillains. The only difference is that there are no costumed superheroes in this world who will stand to oppose them.

These despicable ghouls wearing human flesh have to know on some levels that what they’re doing will result in kids suffering, toiling, and being exploited by organizations whose only interest involves raising profits. They simply don’t care, mostly because they know their kids will likely never have to work jobs like that.

There’s a lot more I can say about the people pushing for and advocating these laws. But there’s only so much profanity and vulgarity I’m comfortable including in this rant. Maybe in a different time and under different circumstances, this wouldn’t bother me as much. I may not have kids of my own yet, but I have multiple nieces and nephews now. The idea of them growing up in a world where they could be employed and exploited at a young age makes me sick to my stomach.

Going back to my points about history, I’ll just remind everyone that we’ve been down this road before. We decided over 100 years ago that child labor is generally a bad thing for kids, families, and civilized society. We fought that battle for years and eventually won. Let’s not fight it again. Kids already have it hard enough. Let’s not make it worse for them.

Given the current state of the world, it’s literally the least we can do for them.

Leave a comment

Filed under Current Events, politics, rants

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 1, 2023 · 7:40 am

The End Of The WGA Writer’s Strike: Important Lessons And (Distressing) Insights

When an underdog succeeds, it’s worth celebrating. It’s a big reason why sports movies and superhero movies have so much appeal. Most audiences just love it when an underdog triumphs over daunting odds. And they love cheering with them when they ultimately succeed.

In that spirit, we should cheer the recent news surrounding the WGA strike that has been going on since mid-July 2023. According to the Associated Press, a tentative deal between the WGA and the major studios has been reached. While that doesn’t mean the strike is completely over, it marks a critical step in getting people back to work in an industry that was already reeling from the aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

AP: Writers’ union reaches tentative deal with Hollywood studios to end historic strike

As someone who loves movies, TV, and mindless entertainment as much as the next consumer, this is great news. This strike was bound to do more and more damage the longer it went on. We probably won’t know the full extent of that damage until a few years from now when we can look back at the impacts with the benefit of hindsight.

There’s also a personal element to this strike. I have multiple family members who work in the entertainment industry, mostly in the film and production side of things. They, more than most, felt the impact of this strike. Early on, a few even told me that this strike had the potential to last a long time. One even said they didn’t expect a resolution until late November. There was even a possibility it could continue well into 2024.

Thankfully, that no longer appears to be the case. This tentative deal, assuming it gets ratified, will provide some overdue benefits to the writers who play a big part in making the shows and movies we love so much. They deserve a deal that allows them to reap the fruits of their creative labor. You don’t have to look hard to find out just how much they were getting screwed over by a changing entertainment industry that studio executives and CEOs were exploiting to the utmost.

And therein lies an important lesson that’s worth highlighting, even as the strike comes to an end. This whole issue happened because the entertainment industry was changing. The old system that relied on residual income from broadcast TV and DVD sales just wasn’t going to cut it in an era of streaming media. The writers and actors behind some of these successful shows just weren’t getting the same share of the profits. And the studios were very much aware of this.

They could’ve adapted to ensure that those involved in the production could continue to be compensated fairly, even as consumers switched from traditional outlets to streaming.

They could’ve been open, honest, and transparent with the new economics of producing successful TV shows and movies in the post-COVID world.

They could’ve even explained why it was considerably difficult to pay generous residuals in a world of streaming media wherein profit margins were just too thin, if there even were profits to begin with.

But they didn’t. The executives, the CEOs, and those with the real power within these entertainment companies chose not to be proactive. Instead, they prioritized the price of their company stock and the investors who owned that stock. This is to be expected, as that tends to be the default reflex of publicly traded companies.

Call it callous in that it blatantly disregards the real work and toil of those producing the content.

Call it greed in the shallowest possible sense.

But at the moment, that’s simply how the incentives align in the entertainment industry, if not most industries in the global economy. There’s just too much money to be made by the rich and well-connected to do anything else. They are not going to do right by their workers unless they’re forced to, if not by law than by organized labor.

That may come off as cynical, but it’s also an important insight and one that every worker in every industry would be wise to remember. Because over the course of this strike, it quickly became clear how out of touch and callous these billionaire CEOs and executives were. They kept demanding that writers be reasonable with their requests. But at the same time, they were making hundreds of millions of dollars in salary and millions more in stock options.

These are not people capable of identifying with the life and struggles of working people.

These are people who might as well live on a different planet with respect to wealth, privlidge, and access.

Men Like David Zazlav and Bob Iger will never have to worry about paying a mortgage on time, falling behind on their bills, or ending up homeless because they cannot afford the outrageous rents in cities like Los Angeles and New York. So, how can we possibly expect them to empathize, let alone understand, the struggles of the writers and workers who help make their companies successful.

Most of these executives never set foot on a production stage, nor do they write or edit a single script. They just sit in offices, make demands/decisions, allocate money, and deal directly with investors whose primary focus is seeing a return on their investment.

And even if the company were to fail completely, these people would still end up with millions upon millions of dollars in their bank accounts. If they wanted to, they could never work a day for the rest of their lives. But those who actually work for them would be completely screwed.

It’s an unequal, unfair situation full of misaligned incentives. The executive and CEO class holds the power, the cards, and the money. They will not do the right things as a first recourse. They will only ever do what investors and their own self-interests incentive, by default. No matter how much money they have, they’ll keep trying to make more. And if that means screwing over their workers in any possible way, they’ll do it.

Remember that the next time labor issues come up. This doesn’t just apply to the entertainment industry, either. Any industry with a similar incentive structure will have the same issues. If there are rich, well-connected CEOs with shareholders to please, don’t expect them to prioritize workers beyond what they can legally and logistically get away with.

The only true counter to this uneven dynamic is that, despite all the power and money executives weird, they still need workers. They still need consumers. They still need to be credible in the eyes of the public to some extent. That kind of leverage is critical to maintain and appreciate.

Because the world will continue to change.

Every industry, from entertainment to making widgets, will continue to change with society and technology.

Those doing the work need to change with it because those with the money and power sure as hell won’t do right by anyone but themselves, unless they have to. And only those doing the work can make that happen.

1 Comment

Filed under AI Art, Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT, Current Events, writing

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 26, 2023 · 5:05 am

Celebrating & Honoring Stanislav Petrov: The Man Who Saved My Life (And MANY Others)

This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.

This video is my way of celebrating and honoring Stanislav Petrov, a man who I know for a fact saved my life, as well as the lives of many others. Few know his story or what happened during the events of September 26, 1983. On this day, the world as we knew it almost ended. The Soviet Union and the United States almost went to nuclear war.

But it was because of one man’s decision that this did not happen. Stanislav Petrov is the man who made that decision and for that, I am grateful. After watching this video, I hope others share in this sentiment. Enjoy!

Leave a comment

Filed under Current Events, Jack's World, politics, YouTube

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 21, 2023 · 5:25 am

CAN Humanity Effectively Govern Itself Video?

This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.

This video explores the question of whether humanity can actually govern itself beyond a certain point. For most of human history, the stakes were local. But now, the stakes are global in a very literal sense. Between climate change and nuclear weapons, humanity has the ability to end itself and all life on Earth.

That makes the question of whether or not we can effectively govern ourselves incredibly relevant. And I try to explore that concept as best I can while leaving some room for speculation on both sides.

Leave a comment

Filed under Current Events, Jack's World, politics, YouTube

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,