Welcome back to the Stove Top weekly newsletter. As usual, each edition has a few brief stories and finishes with a mix of interesting links, hot takes, and good reads.

Quick one this week cause I was traveling.

Enjoy.

Tech

Social Media Is Hurting The Kids

Social media isn’t that fun anymore, but most of us are in too deep to quit at this point. So, we soldier on posting useless post after useless post. But, even though us over-20 boomers are getting sick of social media, the future of our nation definitely isn’t. Social media has got the youngins on the hook, with 95% of teens from 13-17 regularly using it.

As Jonathan Haidt covers amazingly on his blog, that demographic also happens to be more depressed than The Weeknd on Trilogy. Since 2010, there’s been:

• A 145% increase in major depression among girls and 160% among boys.

• A 48% increase in teens admitted to the hospital for nonfatal self-harm among girls and 37% among boys.

• A 34% increase in suicide for boys and 82% for girls.

Of course, 2010 is right around the time that social media really started taking off.

It’s really easy to see why social media is bad for kids. Instead of hanging out with their friends, they are clout-chasing on the gram. Or mindlessly scrolling on TikTok. Or, if they are truly in the trenches, posting threads on Twitter.

It isolates kids, turns them into dopamine addicts, and literally changes their brains.

Thankfully, it appears that people are starting to realize that having kids stare at a screen in a dark room for 8 hours a day isn’t good for them:

• Texas, Louisiana, and Utah now require kids under 18 to have parental consent before signing up.

• The Surgeon General issued a warning about social media’s mental health consequences.

• More than 2,000 families are suing social media companies over kids’ mental health.

I generally err on the side of less regulation, but it’s different when it comes to kids. We don’t let them drink, smoke, or vote because they aren’t ready yet. Why should it be different with social media?

Politics

A History Obsession

The other day, I was listening to a Coleman Hughes podcast with Professor Keyu Jin. The topic was China, and more specifically, US-China relations from a Chinese perspective.

One of the things Professor Jin talked about was the “Century of Humiliation”. Basically, the Century of Humiliation was the 100 years that China was carved up by the West and Japan. It was a brutal century that still shapes how China acts today.

To put it as briefly as possible, China isn’t going to take any shit anymore. Which explains pretty well why it feels like Xi thinks he’s in a never-ending dick-measuring contest.

But, to me, the more interesting thing is that many authoritarian leaders are absolutely obsessed with history.

• Xi with the Century of Humiliation.

• Putin with restoring the motherland.

• Hitler the Treaty of Versailles and perceived slights from the Jews.

• Kim Jong Un and the cult of personality.

I’m not entirely sure why this is the case, but it probably has something to do with how authoritarian leaders are egotistical maniacs who obsess over any perceived disrespect.

Regardless of the cause, it does help inform on how to deal with these people. Many of them are fighting to correct what they believe are deep deep wrongs. It’s why Xi and Putin would entertain extremely stupid ideas like invading Ukraine and Taiwan.

As we’re seeing with Putin now, if you’re going to step in the ring with one of these psychopaths, you better be ready to go the distance.

Culture

The Ends Don’t Justify The Means

Suppose that I told you that we had the opportunity to:

• End child hunger

• End crime

• End racism

• Create a utopian society where nobody has to work

Sounds great. But, in the process, you had to:

• Deal with people like SBF

• Be under constant surveillance

• Live under the rules of an anti-racist department with absolute power

• Take the risk of losing your job and/or your life to AI

You probably wouldn’t do it. I know I wouldn’t. But this is exactly what we are constantly pitched, either explicitly or implicitly.

• SBF was the poster-boy of effective altruism, which is basically the idea of making as much money as you can so you can donate it. He went about making this money by defrauding investors and customers.

• Law enforcement constantly tells us that surveillance is necessary to keep us safe, which is total bullshit.

• 2020 legend Ibram X Kendi has literally pitched the idea of an un-elected anti-racist government agency that has absolute power to tell public officials and private citizens what they are allowed to think, say, and do. I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want an American Ministry of Propaganda.

• Sam Altman claims he loses sleep over AI (definitely a lie), AI experts say the technology is as dangerous as pandemics and nuclear war, and could send hundreds of millions of jobs to Valhalla. They are still building it in the name of its (admittedly, very enticing) positive potential.

I’m all for helping as many people as possible. But there are ways to do it without having to hurt people or doing some sketch shit in the process.

Extras

• Rich people now buy their kids onto research papers.

• Gen Z is much less likely to play games in dating, which makes sense, cause playing games is stupid.

• ChatGPT gives sermons now. lol.

• You’re gonna have pay to drive in downtown NYC.

• Generative AI is racist as shit.

• Walgreens now has a store with only 2 aisles and most products kept out of sight. But according to Walgreens this hasn’t nothing to do with theft.

• Microsoft is moving its AI experts out of China. This tech war just keeps escalating.

• Florida now has a Digital Bill of Rights to protect people’s data from big tech. Unironically, a good idea.

• The FBI is fighting tooth and nail to keep Section 702, which is the law that lets them spy on you.

• The Supreme Court is the greatest mass-murderer of the 21st century.

• No password is safe in the AI era, or the quantum computing era for that matter.

• There’s a movement to open school an hour later so teens can get more sleep. I definitely support teens getting more sleep, but pushing school back an hour just means that they will go to bed an hour later.

• This was a great article on privacy.

• The Dutch aren’t fucking around with hackers or the Chinese. Neither is the EU, btw.

• Just because you’re locked up doesn’t mean you should live like it’s 1984.

• Hong Kong is just a sad situation. 

• Your data is the Fed’s data.

• Anti-porn apps are good. Anti-porn snitch apps are not good.

• WTF is happening?

• Bard is getting the boot in the EU over privacy concerns.

• Hong Kong is gonna steal crypto from the US. All-time fumble by us.

• Miami Bitcoin Mayor Francis Suarez is running for President. He’s not going to win.

Until next time, ✌️

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