The 200th Block: The invisible college

And why NYT still sucks

Mar 04, 2024

This week…

Your reading time is about 10 minutes. Let’s start.

No, not a circle jerk. (Made with Image Creator from Microsoft Designer.)

A few weeks ago, on my social media account, I shared, half-jokingly, a viral video of a group of friends who hosted a Powerpoint party where you explain what you do for work. Surprisingly, people were, half-jokingly, “totally game” for something like this. Think about it for a second; how well can you describe your friends’ jobs? Your parents? Your partner’s?

Over the next few days and weeks, I started thinking about the third places that are important for social engagement—and whether replacing them with virtual third spaces is sufficient to fulfil this role. I found that I wasn’t the only one thinking about it. Elena Cavender wrote a piece for Mashable that featured several TikTok users who used the app as a vehicle to create real-world third spaces. In Bridge Detroit, Bryce Huffman, Orlando Bailey, and Quinn Banks explained the importance of barbershops because there aren’t many third spaces where Black men feel safe enough to rest in public. For NPR, Fazelminallah Qazizai and Diaa Hadid described how the Taliban’s salon ban cuts off access to rare (semi-)public gathering space for women.

Third places are typically places of worship, libraries, gyms, open mic cafés, makerspaces, etc.—places you find people whose interests and joys closely align with yours. It doesn’t guarantee socialising, though. As a child, I spent a lot of time at the public library and the convent, but I was mainly in my own world, lost in my own made-up world.

I had my first real taste of participation in a third place at university. I joined the youth leadership organisation, AIESEC, which, among other things, hosted something called World Café. I was usually not vocal in these sessions but I was exposed to and absorbed keenly the ideas and perspectives of people with upbringings and lifestyles I never had.

At university, there were also always dinner groups. I brought the democratic and judgment-free approaches of the World Café to this setting and found easiness in building connections. I remember being at one of these dinner sessions and one of my friends, who flirted on the fringes of AIESEC but was never part of the organisation, was so scandalised to learn that our Iranian friend’s parents were a Muslim and a Christian, that they were raised to learn both religions, but they themselves were atheists. It took a few more dinner discussions before she wrapped her head around interfaith marriage, an act not permitted for Malaysian Muslims. I was nonchalant throughout. I felt very open-minded. I was also smug about it.

That organisation and the people I met through it (but also the liberal setting of the university) shaped my worldview and continued to do so years after I graduated. I learned some of the most important lessons in life through the organisation—an invisible college within a college. Before, I was, among other things, hot-headed, transphobic, and authoritarian. Now, thankfully, I am a lot more easygoing and forward-thinking (I think).

After graduation, I worked for the organisation at the national level, where I was in charge of managing the roll-outs of community-based projects and training. Through this role, I learned about organising events and conferences, both conventional ones and also the kind they call “unconference” (ugh!). The rules for an unconference were radical to me, at that time, who held order and routine in high regard. Yet, I facilitated un-conferences, even if the spirit of it was contradictory to my principles. Even the rules sound opposite to conventional rules (scoff!). They are, essentially, non-rules:

Whoever shows up are the right people
Whenever it starts is the right time
Whatever happens, happens
Whenever it ends, it ends

There’s also the “Law of Two Feet” that states that if you find yourself neither learning nor contributing, use your two feet and go somewhere you can. That was a lot a lot easier to grasp. In the end, I realised that everything is a lot easier to take in when you learn to let go (of control, mainly).

After I moved on from the organisation, the lessons I learned from project and conference management informed my approach to teamwork and collaboration at work. I made it a lot simpler: Speak with intention, listen with attention. Employ the Rule of More Than One, i.e. the team is ideal when it represents more than one gender, generation, role, ability, class, etc. The difference is that this mindset was self-imposed; it wasn’t something I made known to the group, nor was it something I expected the rest to agree to. At this point, I was not a control freak and a little bit more humble. I was in my final form, right?

Well, about a decade later, I found myself in a third place that closely resembled my university days. Maybe because I was, in fact, back at university, doing my press fellowship and regularly participating in an informal breakfast club. Every morning, anyone could join and leave the club as they wish—the college is one of the newer ones at this ancient university and prides itself in its egalitarian dining hall where there is no traditional “high table” for fellows to eat separately from the plebs. Make no mistake, the university is still a highly elitist space—but you get to speak to different stripes of elites, you know? The people from political dynasties or some “family business” are a different kind of pretentious to the dot-com millionaires.

Then, one evening, we had tea at an orchard where the Bloomsbury Group used to meet sometimes as the so-called Grantchester Group. Encouraged to feel honoured, instead, I got nauseated confronting the privilege I felt being there. I resolved to “one day” host a totally low-key salon that is low pressure, low expectation, and low cost to facilitate the exchange of ideas between actually unpretentious people. It would be irregular, not just in terms of the actual frequency of the session, but the people who would be there, and the things they might say. In the same spirit as my invisible college experiences, there would always be food, people would be sober, and thoughts would be aired freely. A Powerpoint party where you explain what you do for work sounds like a good start. Dinner and discussion, what could go wrong? And then, who knows? At some point, it could be filled with people and ideas I don’t like, the kind that reminds me of my old pre-university self—prideful, intolerant, out of touch with reality, lost in a made-up world. That’s the scary part, so why start?

Anyway, here’s a selection of top stories on my radar, a few personal recommendations, and the chart of the week.

ICYMI: The Previous Block was on media regulation, search engine quality, and hyperrealism. CORRECTION NOTICE: None notified.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

China court says AI broke copyright law in apparent world first

Diego Mendoza for Semafor, with insights from Beijing Lawyer Zhao Duidui, AFP, and Forbes:

A Chinese court found that images generated by an artificial intelligence service infringed the copyright of a popular Japanese superhero character, a Chinese newspaper reported, in what appears to be the first ruling of its kind.
An unnamed plaintiff in the suit who held partial copyright to Ultraman, a science fiction character created by Japanese studio Tsuburaya Productions, sued an AI company after its software created images that closely resembled the character, according to the 21st Century Business Herald. The name of the AI company involved was not disclosed.

Ultraman wins yet again. Loosely linked:

Vending machines had eyes all over this Ontario campus — until the students wised up by Paula Duhatschek for CBC.
With elections looming worldwide, here’s how to identify and investigate AI audio deepfakes by Rowan Philp for Nieman Lab.
The future is dupe by Rex Woodbury for Digital Native.
Tech activists write code to save migrants in the Mediterranean by Beatrice Tridimas for Context.
Here lies the internet, murdered by generative AI by Erik Hoel for The Intrinsic Perspective.

MEDIA INDEPENDENCE AND ETHICS

The New York Times has an ugly anti-Palestinian bias

Ben Burgis for Jacobin:

More recently, the controversy over Times freelancer Anat Schwartz has revealed the ugly depths of that bias. Despite having no real journalistic experience, she was one of a tiny team of reporters assigned to cover one of the most sensitive and important stories the Times has taken on since Israel’s war on Gaza began: the allegations that Hamas systematically used sexual assault as a weapon of war during the October 7 attack. Key details of that story have been shown to be questionable since, and Schwartz has been shown to be about the furthest thing imaginable from a neutral journalist.
Before becoming a filmmaker — and, very suddenly last year, a freelance journalist for the New York Times — Schwartz served in the intelligence division of the Israeli Air Force. And her own views on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, which are a matter of public record, veer into the genocidally racist.

Even if a media outlet is not “state-owned,” it doesn’t mean it’s independent. Loosely linked:

There’s no murder in media wars by Darryl Accone for The Mail & Guardian.
Mexican president's dox of journalist shows perils of reporting in country by Marina E. Franco for Axios.
The killing spree that transformed Taiwanese media by Ryan Ho Kilpatrick for Lingua Sinica.
My Malaysia ordeal shows how religion can fuse with populist nationalism to silence dissent by Ahmet T. Kuru of San Diego State University for The Conversation.
A tech billionaire is quietly buying up land in Hawaii. No one knows why by Dara Kerr for NPR.
Uncovering the higher truth of Jay Shetty by John McDermott for The Guardian.

LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION

Meet the Portuguese-speaking African creators making it big in Brazil

Matheus Andrade and Daniela Dib for Rest of World:

As a child, Baptista Miranda marveled at Brazil, learning about it through lavish soap operas that made the faraway country’s colorful metropolises come alive on screen. From his hometown of Lobito, an Angolan city of about half a million people, he dreamed of visiting Brazil one day.
In 2017, Miranda started a YouTube channel dedicated to showing how Brazil was perceived in Angola — both countries were once colonized by Portugal, and continue to share an official language. His initial videos — most of which he recorded on his friends’ devices since he didn’t own a phone — slowly gained popularity.
Five years later, when Miranda’s channel reached about 600,000 followers, his dream came true. A major Brazilian YouTube creator group called Flow Studios invited him to visit the country, all expenses paid. Miranda was elated. “We think of Brazil as the country where things happen. I’ve always said it’s Hollywood for Angolan people,” he told Rest of World.

Loosely linked:

The AI project pushing local languages to replace French in Mali’s schools by Annie Risemberg and Damilare Dosunmu for Rest of World.
Argentina’s Milei bans gender-inclusive language in official documents by Tara John, Sahar Akbarzai, and Veronica Calderon for CNN.
The word ‘populism’ is a gift to the far right – four reasons why we should stop using it by Aurelien Mondon and Alex Yates of the University of Bath for The Conversation.
Climate change is altering this Arctic language by Erika Benke for BBC.
Consumers will ultimately pay the price for Quebec’s new language rules, experts say by Isaac Olson for CBC.

What I read, listen, and watch…

I’m reading Except For Palestine (2021) by Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick. Needed a palate cleanser after this one.
I’m listening to WNYC’s On The Media on the allegations of US bias in Israel-Palestine coverage. Host Micah Loewinger spoke with William Youmans and Mona Chalabi about what the data reveals.
I’m watching Camille François and Meredith Whittaker discuss AI and surveillance capitalism on Al Jazeera’s Studio B: Unscripted.
I’m also watching why the decline of the neighborhood barbershop led to the rise of conspiracy theories—or the importance of third spaces to counter threat responses from loneliness—by Simon Owens.

Chart of the week

Richard Wike and the Pew Research team presented a survey showing that many said their country would be better off if more women, people from poor backgrounds, and young adults held elective office. Too bad ballot options are mostly by stale, male whale candidates.