You know the scene in The Big Lebowski, when the goons are in the Dude’s apartment, and the one guy is dunking his head in the toilet yelling “Where’s the money Lebowski?” And then when he lets the Dude up briefly for air, the Dude says, “It’s down there somewhere, let me take another look.”
We are the Dude right now, asking to have our head dunked in the toilet again.
I usually agree with John Gruber. Usually. Not always.
Like many, I was outraged this week when word got out that Jeff Bezos killed the Washington Post’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris.
I am not and have never been a Washington Post subscriber, so I couldn’t cancel my subscription in protest. I was, however, an Amazon Prime subscriber. So I canceled that instead. (Even before that action was suggested by The Atlantic.)
Gruber says that canceling your Prime subscription over this is “like pissing in the ocean.” Which, eww. But also, yeah, so?
Perhaps I should clarify.
I know canceling my Amazon Prime subscription isn’t really going to hurt Amazon. And it’s even less going to hurt Jeff Bezos, even though I would point out that while he’s no longer the CEO of the company, he’s still the chairman of the board and largest shareholder. But let’s be real. There is absolutely nothing I am personally capable of that would have the slightest impact on Jeff Bezos.
Gruber does go on to say:
If you feel better personally cancelling your Prime membership, do it. But don’t think for a second it will matter one iota to Amazon’s bottom line.
Yes, exactly. I didn’t do it because I thought it would affect Amazon’s bottom line. I did it because this was the final straw for my willingness to participate in the retail world Amazon has created. I’ve been conflicted over using Amazon for years, but I still did because it was so convenient. Not having Amazon Prime makes it less convenient, so I’ll spend less (hopefully nothing) with them in the future. That’s not going to hurt Amazon. But it’s going to help me, to know that I’m opting out of participation in a system with which I fundamentally disagree.
As it happens, I also owned a bit of Amazon stock. A very small bit. Three shares, to be precise. I sold those this week as well. (Some portion of my retirement is tied up in mutual funds which I also know for certain are partially invested in Amazon. There’s only so much a person can do.)
I’m generally not one to engage in boycotts or other forms of protest, because I don’t think they do much good. They rarely get the message across to the intended target, and only cause disruption for innocent people caught in the middle. In some ways that may be the case here. But I doubt any Amazon delivery drivers or warehouse workers are going to need to be laid off just because I’ve stopped shopping there. I mean, I bought a lot of stuff from Amazon over the years, but not that much.
Ultimately, your individual actions are more about your own life than anyone or anything else. Do the things that matter to you, and try to avoid participating in things you disagree with. That’s all you can really do… unless you’re a megalomaniac.
After all… if you gotta go, you gotta go.
From the perspective of someone who supports LGBTQ+ rights, I am not exactly a fan of this recent SCOTUS decision. Simultaneously, as a web designer/developer, I think it is extremely important to recognize the difference between this type of work and a more commodity-oriented business.
Web design and development is creative work, requiring a personal input of time and energy, thought and consideration. It’s not a public storefront, selling premade goods. It’s not even a construction or contractor type job, where you may have disagreements with the client’s worldview, but the work itself is (generally) philosophically and politically neutral.
As a web designer/developer, I absolutely choose which types of projects I do or don’t want to work on, and I insist on maintaining the right to refuse to take on a project whose mission or purpose does not align with my values.
To put a finer point on it: I think it’s worth distinguishing between a web designer who is actively collaborating with their client to build something custom for them, vs. a DIY-type system where the client is provided with tools to build a site for themselves. In other words, for the type of work I do in client services, I should have the right to refuse to participate in a project whose purpose I disagree with. But if I were, for instance, Squarespace, selling access to a service I built, which lets users create their own sites, then I should not have the right to decide who can or can’t use the service. (As long as what they’re doing with it is legal.)
I can get even more specific to my own situation here. In addition to my client services, I also sell a product: a WordPress plugin for integrating calendars (e.g. Google Calendar, Office 365, etc.) into your website. I do not, and I strongly believe should not, decide which types of sites are allowed to use my plugin. I know there are customers of the plugin whose businesses/organizations do things I do not particularly agree with. But there I am selling a finished product — a commodity. Anyone who wants to buy it (again, as long as they’re not doing something illegal — although I won’t even know that, unless I specifically take the time to investigate them, post-sale) is welcome to do so. But if those same people approached me in my client services role to help them build their website itself, I would/should have the right to turn down the project if I didn’t want to do it.
Of course, there’s another layer to this: Why did this even become a court case? As I understand it, the designer here is the plaintiff, and doesn’t actually run a wedding website business yet. She is clearly doing this to make a political statement. I’m not sure how much the Colorado law was really pushed on her, or if it even technically applies to her (hypothetical) business. For me, and I think a lot of other people in my shoes, it’s a simple enough practical matter to turn down projects you don’t want to work on — regardless of why you don’t want to work on them. As a creative worker, you are essentially selling your time, not a commodity, and you have a limited supply. It’s a simple matter of being “too busy” to take on the project. There may be laws saying a business can’t discriminate, but surely there cannot be any laws that say a business has to work more hours than humanly possible.
So, what’s the upshot here? Well, it kind of seems like this case isn’t really about the First Amendment rights of business owners like me at all, because I’m skeptical that those were ever really under any threat. But it definitely opens the floodgates for business of all types — including those that truly are “open to the public” and selling commodity goods — to discriminate against potential LGBTQ+ customers. And that’s why I’m opposed to the current SCOTUS super-majority: their aggressive efforts at rolling back civil rights. That’s what this case is really about.
Last night our son graduated from Minneapolis South High School. We are incredibly proud of him, and also greatly appreciate the experience he was able to have going to a racially and socio-economically diverse school. Here’s the amazing commencement speech delivered via pre-recorded video last night (most of the speaking was pre-recorded, because it wasn’t clear until fairly recently that an in-person ceremony was going to be possible), given by 1999 South High alumna Junauda Petrus-Nasah.
South is a place with great academic and arts opportunities, and the faculty and staff are deeply committed to empowering students to make their voices heard in the world. It’s also a place where one can’t look away from the stark divides in opportunity between students of different races and economic backgrounds, and where there is still a long way to go towards equity.
South is less than a mile from where George Floyd was murdered last year, and just a couple of blocks from the police precinct that burned in the days after. It’s a majority non-white school, and I feel like it’s a place where real change can be fostered, where we don’t shy away from the challenges our society faces.
Anyway, don’t listen to me. Watch the video. It’s excellent.
I originally posted this on Facebook, but for what should be obvious reasons, I think it’s worth reposting here.
John Gruber, today: Bing Censors Image Search for ‘Tank Man’, Even in U.S.
Interesting that Gruber mentions 1984‘s “memory holes” here. I think I’ve been affected by 1984 more than any other book I’ve read, and I re-read it at least once a decade.
Something I didn’t grasp when I read it back in high school: the long-term effects of the memory hole. I distinctly remember Tiananmen Square in 1989. I remember where I was when the news came on — my maternal grandparents’ house. You can “memory hole” something like that without ever erasing it from my memory, or countless others of us who experienced it first-hand.
But what of later generations? What do my kids know of events like this? And if actions are being taken to restrict access to information about events that people don’t remember first-hand, eventually it might as well have never happened. It’s been successfully memory-holed.
Please place this in your mind beside the link I shared yesterday, about bills being considered in many states (including Wisconsin) that will make it illegal to teach critical race theory. When I read that yesterday I thought about another element of 1984: Newspeak. The government was systematically re-engineering the English language to remove words it deemed problematic. As in, the kinds that could undermine its absolute authority.
The only thing Orwell got wrong was the year.