Favorites April 25th 2022

San Francisco, April 2022 (photo by Pardis)

No space for a photo today, too much crazy stuff to talk about, have you heard?

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

I think Elon Musk buying Twitter is like a normal billionaire buying a major-league sports franchise. The business may or may not make money, but the point is to be a famous patron in your favorite hobbyist community.

Megan McArdle @asymmetricinfo

The first thing to point out is that this deal makes no financial sense for Elon Musk. He's paying a premium for the stock, the total value of the acquisition is almost a fifth of his net worth, and there's no obvious way he's going to squeeze more money out of Twitter operations

Obviously everyone was talking about this today. Some are concerned it'll be good for Republicans, but like, are you worried he's going to promote his electric car, solar and rocket companies? The most reasonable worry I've seen is that he'll be more beholden than current Twitter leadership to China because of Tesla. If he allows Trump back on, it'll probably be bad for Republicans, remember how they hated whenever he'd start tweeting in office? They hated it because it was bad for them. Did you know that Tucker Carlson is banned from Twitter? Trump says he won't rejoin even if he's allowed, Kai thinks he can't help himself. He's not the only one.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Like as Derek points out — Twitter has a bunch of pretty obvious, banal flaws as a product. It’s extremely compelling to some of us despite a lot of solvable-seeming issues. https://t.co/LoFGKTyGPY

Derek Thompson @DKThomp

It’s troubling to think that, if Elon Musk dramatically changes the way the Trending box selects stories, I may never read another headline about Zendaya’s new red carpet look again.

They probably should figure out how to be less bad at advertising too.

Stephen Stapczynski @SStapczynski

The world’s addiction to coal, a fuel many thought would soon be dead, is now stronger than ever 📈 In 2021, the world generated the most power from coal than ever 📈 For 2022, total coal demand is seen rising ~2% to a record 8 billion tons and stay there through at least 2024

Everyone had probably hoped we'd seen peak coal, but it looks like it'll take at least one more year, associated article says it's probably Russia's invasion that did it. Definitely sounds like China won't be contributing to increasing energy demand any time soon though. Their demand for fuel is expected to drop 20%.

Emily Feng 冯哲芸 @EmilyZFeng

Beijing’s largest district (where I live) is undergoing mass “routine PCR testing” beginning tomorrow after 40 or so Covid cases in the last week. Most residents are interpreting this as sign of imminent, total lockdown. Long lines and empty shelves at supermarkets tonight. 😷

While we're talking about China, things are now getting bad in Beijing, some predict this may be the end of zero covid, although that’s out on a limb.

Jonathan Robinson @jon_m_rob

👀

Morning Consult @MorningConsult

Joe Manchin’s Approach to Biden’s Presidency Is Paying Off in West Virginia https://t.co/va81PbYYtk @eyokley

Riffing on this, Nate Silver said that Manchin's reelection would be very good for Democrats.

Meg Tirrell @megtirrell

.@WhipClyburn, chairman of select subcommittee on coronavirus crisis, writes letter to FDA commissioner @DrCaliff_FDA requesting a staff briefing by May 9 on status of #covid19 vaccines for young children:

Nice to see someone is finally asking questions about the under 5 vaccine. Although I'd like to see actual reform of course.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Ballot initiative in California to invest money in pandemic prevention and preparedness — seems like a good idea!

latimes.comTech titans want the richest Californians to pay for pandemic preparednessA measure likely to be on California’s November ballot would tax the wealthy to rebuild the state’s public health infrastructure ahead of another pandemic.

I think we've learned that pandemic prevention is absolutely worthwhile in a cost / benefit calculation, so this seems good. Although if CA is raising taxes, naturally I'd prefer a land value tax.

Tom Gara @tomgara

The Elon news is crowding out a significantly funnier story: Russia staged a fake bust of alleged Ukrainian Nazi assassins, and the guy tasked with assembling the paraphernalia for the photo bought three copies of The Sims instead of three SIM cards

nypost.comRussia appears to confuse ‘The Sims’ for SIM cards in possible staged assassination attemptPhotos released show a red t-shirt with a swastika on it, inexplicably laid out next to three copies of the video game “The Sims 3.”

That's not all! They also signed a book literally "signature unclear"

Threads

• Short thread about how unlike Italy and Germany, fascism in Japan during WWII didn't come from the top.

• Thread about how nostalgia for college is largely nostalgia for living in walkable communities and seeing friends every day.