Time in Wonderland
Or the Jeremy Bearimy way of life
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There’s a chance a few of you have no idea what my title or subtitles are referring to and might wonder if I’ve lost my mind. 😂 While that might be the case, let me explain myself.
I’ve been thinking a lot about time lately. The next 18 months. The last twenty years. The last two years. The next three months.
This forward and then backward, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, reminded me of how time was portrayed in Alice in Wonderland and the TV show The Good Place.
“Time in Wonderland is troubled and topsy-turvy. Characters rush around, a sense of haste predominates, and everything seems to happen ‘just in time’ or ‘suddenly.’ The arrival of the White Rabbit, running late, starts Alice’s adventures,” explains this piece from the British Library. “These adult-like features – anxiety about lateness, the watch – are indicators of a time-obsessed society.”
In The Good Place, according to Looper.com, “Jeremy Bearimy is not a name or a character but a physical representation of the path that time takes in The Good Place. Whereas people on Earth experience time as a linear phenomenon, moving in a straight line from one event to the next, time in the afterlife loops — but not in a simple circular shape. Time moves forwards and then heads backward. Time even goes up and down before it runs back to its starting point, and at times exists outside of itself, as represented by the dot above the letter "I" in Bearimy. As a result, any time frame on Earth is accessible from the passage of a Jeremy Bearimy.”
Increasingly, I think we live in a Jeremy Bearimy world versus a linear one, especially regarding tech, policy, and the media.
First, let’s take last week’s topic of the tech companies’ changing election policies. (Which, now that I think about it, also had a “time” theme.) People crave consistency. Just tell us what the rules are, they say. Enforce them the same for everyone. There’s an assumption that just because YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or any of the other platforms roll back or change their policies that it’s set in stone. If anything, we should be aware that they’ll likely change again. That’s because things change. Circumstances change. New situations come up that don’t fit neatly into the policies as they are built now - AI is a great example.
Tech policymaking is always going to be like building a plane while it's in the air, and we should adapt our thinking and procedures to accept that fact.
Second, I feel like we are living in an alternate 1985 universe. I’ve used this movie metaphor before in newsletters, but for those newcomers, this is a beloved eighties movie, Back to the Future Part II. Here the main character Marty McFly travels back in time, but when he returns to the “present” day, it’s not the 1985 he left. Rather there are similarities, but it is different.
I feel that way about the 2024 elections right now compared to 2020. We have a similar cast of characters - Trump, Biden, Modi (India), Jokowi (Indonesia), Andrés Manuel López Obrador or AMLO (Mexico), and many others. You even have many of the same cable companies, tech platforms, and media organizations. But … things are different.
Last newsletter, I forgot to mention that Trump’s return to Twitter could be imminent as his exclusivity agreement with Truth Social expires soon. But he’ll return to a very different Twitter than the one that kicked him off two years ago. Will the media still hang on to his every tweet? How will Elon feel about that? I still think the two of them will get into a scrap at some point. But even more importantly, how will Twitter handle any number of the problematic things the former President might say? Time will only tell.
Trump has also been indicted … twice, with a third on the way. We do not know how this and the trials will affect the race.
Campaigning is changing. Less money is spent on digital and more on cable, but AI tools are also being explored and used.
Speaking of cable Ben Smith of Semafor said something that’s been sticking with me, “But the cable news era is pretty new, and fragile. The format has held a central place in U.S. politics for about 20 years, give or take. CNN is a child of the 1980s, but Fox and MSNBC only launched in 1996, and took some time to find their footing.” Do you know what else started in 1996? The use of the Internet in campaigning. It’s easy for us to think that companies like CNN or even Facebook have been around forever, but they haven’t. These entities aren’t going away - but how people use them and newer platforms to get news is different.
In India, we have new social media laws that will be put to the test in their election. Indonesia has some as well. And, in Mexico, AMLO is attempting to change the powers of the election commission, INE drastically.
And, lest we forget, in Europe, we’ll have the continuing implementation of the Digital Services Act and Digital Marketing Act. In the UK, we might actually see the passage of the Online Safety Bill and subsequent enforcement of it.
Finally, the area where I think we most live a non-linear life? Our careers and lives. This weekend’s pool read for me was. “All the Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive” by Rainesford Stauffer. If you don’t want to get the book, this is a good interview with her.
The basic premise is that we live in a linear time growing up. Each year most of us move up a grade. We’re pushed for perfect attendance, to succeed, and to keep striving. We need good grades to get into college, and then once in college, we need to be focused on getting that perfect job. Once you have that job, you need to get married by a certain time, buy a home, have babies, and then worry about helping them start this cycle all over again - all the time while having a successful career. Exactly what Alice in Wonderland was getting to with adults anxiety around time.
That is a disservice to us because the real world is not linear … at all. I see so many amazing tech workers right now who once had some of the most stable jobs - rethinking their careers after layoffs. Men and women like myself who are living and loving the single life. Some people have kids; some don’t. Some move to another country or spend their summers recharging in a new environment.
I feel really bad for college students and those just out of college these days. Next month is my twenty-year anniversary of moving to Washington, DC. July 2003. You know what didn’t exist then? Facebook. It was created seven months later - and I spent ten years working there. Twenty-two couldn’t fathom the life forty-two me has. And I have a feeling, forty-two me can’t fathom what the next twenty years, 18 months, or three months will bring.
Bonus Content
For those following along on my eastern shore fishing adventures - I finally caught one! I think it’s a white perch, but it’s a start. I’m doing better at crabbing. 🦀 We had three in the pots yesterday, and I haven’t checked today yet … but here’s hoping.
What I’m Reading
Reuters: Google Meta using bullying tactics against Canada's news bill, says PM Trudeau
Lex Fridman Podcast: Mark Zuckerberg: Future of AI at Meta, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp
Tech Policy Press: Platform Accountability and Transparency Act reintroduced in Senate
Washington Post: Jacinda Ardern: Here's the model for governing AI
The New York Times: Bolsonaro on Trial, Brazil in Chaos: What Comes Next?
Rest of World: The Internet's Most Used Languages
Semafor: DeSantis Campaign Shares Fake Trump/Fauci Images, Prompting New AI Fears
Puck.news: Is YouTube the Future of Streaming TV?
Axios: 1 big thing: Tech's money isn't buying candidates' 2024 love
The Information: This is How Sam Altman Works the Press and Congress, I Know from Experience
The New York Times: Sam Altman Calls for AI Regulations
Integrity Institute: Unleashing the Potential of Generative AI in Integrity, Trust & Safety Work: Opportunities, Challenges, and Solutions
McKinsey & Company: Jony Ive, “The creative process is fabulously unpredictable. A great idea cannot be predicted.”
ETH Zurich: Spillover of Antisocial Behavior from Fringe Platforms: The Unintended Consequences of Community Banning
T. E. Cunningham: The Effect of AI on Communication
Calendar
🚨NEW 🚨
June 22 - Bolsonaro trial starts
Topics to keep an eye on:
TV shows about Facebook - Doomsday Machine and second season of Super Pumped
June 4, 2023 – Guinea Bissau election
June 5-9 - RightsCon
June 6, 2023 - Democracy Alive: The Brussels Summit
June 5 - 9 - WWDC - Apple developer event
June 5, 2023 - The European Commission, European parliament and EU member states are due to agree a final definition for political advertising
June 11, 2023 – Montenegro election
June 19, 2023 - Meta response due on COVID misinfo
June 21, 2023 - Trump 18-month exclusivity term with Truth Social ends assuming he gives notice
June 24 - June 30 - Aspen Ideas Festival
June 24, 2023 – Sierra Leone election
June 25, 2023 – Guatemala election
July 10, 2023 - Trust and Safety Hackathon
July 11-13, 2023 - TrustCon
Mid-July - Code of practice on disinformation platform reports due
July 2023 – Sudan election (likely to have further changes due clashes erupted mid-April, despite temporary humanitarian ceasefire,)
July 23, 2023 – Cambodia election
July 23, 2023 - Spain Election
August 10 - 13, 2023 - Defcon
August 23, 2023 - Zimbabwe Election
August-2023 – Eswatini election
August 23, 2023 - First GOP Presidential Primary Debate
August - End of UK parliamentary session. Must pass Online Safety Bill by then.
Mid-September: All Tech Is Human - Responsible Tech Summit NYC
September 19, 2023 - UN General Assembly high-level debate begins
September 27-29, 2023: Athens Democracy Forum
September 28-29, 2023 - Trust & Safety Research Conference
TBD September: Atlantic Festival
TBD September: Unfinished Live
September 2023 – Bhutan election
September 2023 – Tuvalu election
September 9, 2023 – Maldives election
September 28-29, 2023 - The Atlantic Festival
September 30, 2023 – Slovakia election
September 2023 – Rwanda election
October 2023 – Oman election
October 2023 Poland election
October 8, 2023 – Pakistan election
October 10, 2023 – Liberia election
October 14, 2023 – New Zealand election
October 22, 2023 – Switzerland election
October 29, 2023 – Argentina election
October 2023 – Gabon election
October 2023 – Ukraine election
November 15, 2023 - Aspen Cyber Summit
November 20, 2023 – Marshall Islands election
November 29, 2023 – Argentina election
December 1-3, 2023: Build Peace 2023 Conference
December 20, 2023 – Democratic Republic of the Congo election
December 2023 –Togo election
2023 or 2024 – Peru election
TBD – Dominica election
TBD – Luxembourg election
TBD – Myanmar election
TBD – Spain election
TBD – Gabon election
TBD – Madagascar election
TBD – Haiti election
TBD – Libya election
TBD – Singapore election
2024
January 2024 – Bangladesh election
January 2024 – Finland election
January 13, 2024 – Taiwan election
February 4, 2024 – El Salvador election
February 4, 2024 – Mali election
February 14, 2024 – Indonesia election
February 25, 2024 – Senegal election
February 25, 2024 – Belarus election
March 17, 2024 – Russia election
March 31, 2024 – Ukraine election
April 10, 2024 – South Korea election
April 2024 – Solomon Islands election
April 2024 – Maldives election
May 5, 2024 – Panama election
May 19, 2024 – Dominican Republic election
June 2024 – Mongolia election
June 6-9, 2024 - EU Parliament Elections
July 7, 2024 – Mexico election
July 15 - 18, 2024 - Republican National Convention
August 19 - 22, 2024 - Democratic Convention, Chicago
October 27, 2024 – Uruguay election
October 2024 – Mozambique election
October 2024 – Chad election
November 2024 – Guinea Bissau election
November 2024 – Moldova election
November 2024 – Romania election
November 5, 2024 – United States of America election
November 12, 2024 – Palau election
December 2024 – Croatia election
TBD – Algeria election
TBD – Austria election
TBD – Belgium election
TBD – Botswana election
TBD – Burkina Faso election
TBD – Chad election
TBD – Comoros election
TBD – Croatia election
TBD – Dominica election
TBD – Egypt election
TBD – Ethiopia election
TBD – Georgia election
TBD – Ghana election
TBD – Iceland election
TBD – India election
TBD – Iran election
TBD – Jordan election
TBD – Kiribati election
TBD – Kuwait election
TBD – Lithuania election
TBD – Madagascar election
TBD – Mauritania election
TBD – Mauritius election
TBD – Montenegro election
TBD – North Korea election
TBD – North Macedonia election
TBD – Romania election
TBD – Rwanda election
TBD – San Marino election
TBD – Slovakia election
TBD – South Africa election
TBD – South Sudan election
TBD – Syria election
TBD – Tunisia election
TBD – United States of America election
TBD – Uzbekistan election
TBD – Venezuela election