Welcome to 5 Quick Things that I saw since last month that I thought were interesting enough to share with you. None of them are particularly timely so feel free to just enjoy 🙂

>Number One<

Life, Other

I’ve spent my life by accident and then on purpose around communities of disabled people but it’s been especially illuminating since the start of the COVID pandemic to see how disability affects people and changes lives. I hope that I don’t end up in a place where I need this zine that offers comfort and advice to the newly disabled, and I hope you don’t too but I am glad that there are people still making zines and reaching out for others.

>Number Two<

Domino Effects

I think one of the things that shocks me the most is sometimes I bookmark something in the middle of the month and by the time two weeks has passed it’s no longer relevant in the way I thought it would be so I just throw that link out and move on. However, I think this article has become, unfortunately, more relevant in the proceeding weeks.

Off the back of the scam that is crypto and right into the digitally tinged AI chat bot and art producing menaces, it’s like we’ve literally learned nothing about our idea of great men making the future from Facebook, Twitter, Uber, or the entity of the last 10 years of monopolizing and gig worker-ifying the economy.

I might eat these words letter on but it feels pretty certain that we’re going to see more bank failures in the coming months and a full on recession and some of that will mirror, inanely, the dot com bubble where companies which promised things that could not be delivered somehow shocked people by failing to delivery them. There is only so much hype and so much over blown valuation before the house of cards falls down. I don’t think SVB is the end of the house falling over and it sucks how many of us will be caught in the fallout of these completely nude emperors.

>Number Three<

I’m Not Buying It Anymore

This is such a fantastic video from Brows Held High which is about Network, the 1976 movie, but also about the current media landscapes…but also the past media landscape. Sometimes Network gets a kind of folk lore about predicting the future but the truth is that the future is kind of ever present in these things and it wasn’t so far off reality in the 70s as TV news turned even more towards sensationalism. The thing is that has always existed and will always exist but we need to do more than have anger, we need to use it to improve things.

Anyway I know this video is a bit long but I think it’s worth it.

>Number Four<

Maybe You Need a Hand

I’m not a fan of the new strange of ADHD CONTENT that has been popping up over the last two or so years that attempts to sell you on some super wild ideas about what it is to have ADHD a la: do you sit like this then you may have ADHD claims Twitter user who just found out they have ADHD 15 minutes ago from TikTok. However instead I would love to see more things like this “analog brain” which is just an external tool that might be useful if you have some executive dysfunction. I don’t have ADHD but sometimes just being able to look at a list that tells you how to break down cleaning the kitchen or directs you to a learning resource when you’re bored. I don’t know how helpful this is for other people but I appreciate the effort.

>Number Five<

Don’t Buy A Fraction of a House

John Oliver had a recent episode that was about how timeshares are scams and I can tell you, if you thought those are exploitive and bad, wait until you learn that people are now trying to sell you a fraction of a house. One of the biggest tricks that economics pulled was to convince people that their house was an investment and not, in fact, a place to live so you don’t die from elements.

Buying a fraction of a house is something that you might not have come across yet but not only are they not houses that you can ever live in or actually own outright but also you’re paying for a part of the house so that it can be rented out….to someone else! That’s right, you are paying to be a part landlord of a house you won’t ever own to make a money for exploiting other people while you yourself are also exploited.

This system is designed to make a few people a lot of money and for everyone else, to raise rent and raise the cost of owning a home, which is bad because as I previous said, houses aren’t investments but places that you live so you don’t die from the elements.

I hate to end on such a downer but that’s all she wrote, so I’ll see you next month!