From Bloomberg

** Isolation Changes Everything for Status Seekers

The desire for status and approval is one of the most powerful human motives. It induces us to work hard, dress well and engage in conspicuous consumption, such as Instagramming our fancy vacations. But with the rapid advent of Covid-19, most of those options have been whisked away from us.

The plunge in status-seeking behavior is yet another way in which the lockdown is a remarkable and scary social experiment. One possible consequence is that many people won’t work as much, simply because no one is watching very closely and it is harder to get that pat on the shoulder or kind word for extra effort.

Worse yet, for many people social approbation compensates for economic hardships, and that salve is now considerably weaker. Time was, even if you were unemployed, you could still walk down the street and command attention for that one stylish item in your wardrobe, or your cool haircut, or your witty repartee. Now there’s no one on the street to impress.

Americans are learning just how much we rely on our looks, our charisma and our eloquence for our social affect. As Sonia Gupta asked on Twitter: “Extremely attractive people, I have a genuine question for you, no snark: What’s it like to not be getting the regular daily social attention you might be accustomed to, now that you have to stay inside and isolate from others?”

Of course her question applies to more than just “extremely attractive people.” The social affirmation gained from, say, attending regular church meetings is now also much weaker.

The collapse in status relations runs deep. We might spend a lot of time in chats and Zoom meetings, but in that medium status is harder to express. The boss who “dominates the room” just can’t project the same charisma from a small boxed image on your laptop screen. Nor can the others tell that everyone is listening attentively to that person, or that the person is tall or witty or well-dressed. This is another way in which Covid-19 is “the great equalizer.”

In the short run, we can draw upon our status perceptions from the immediate pre-Covid-19 past. The boss is still the boss, and no one has forgotten who Taylor Swift is. As the lockdown continues, however, we may become increasingly confused in this new status-shorn universe, taking phone calls and meetings with previously unknown people.

Even the still-famous may lose some of their luster. LeBron James remains a top NBA star, but he is not out there proving it every week, and so his renown has diminished somewhat — as has that of the NBA.

To some extent this status erosion is liberating. It may cause a lot of people to reexamine perennial questions about “what really matters.” There are other positive effects: fewer peer-related reasons to go out and spend money, for instance (do you really need that new jacket, or to try all the hot new restaurants?). That will help make tighter budgets or even unemployment more bearable. Some socially anxious people may even feel they are better off.

Yet overall this is a dangerous state of affairs. One risk is that we will elevate the status of performers who remain on television frequently. The White House’s Covid-19 press briefings have boosted the profile of President Donald Trump in part because he is appearing in a relative status vacuum, making him seem more leader-like.

If you really are obsessed with continuing the status-seeking game, your best options are probably online. One of the few concrete consolations of this pandemic may be a new wave of creativity on YouTube and social media.

More generally and in the longer run, expect the technology sector and the nerds to rise in status. It is their products and services that are commanding our attention and filling our status vacuums. The “nerdy look” is even less of a social handicap than it used to be. To paraphrase that famous saying: On a Zoom call, nobody knows you’re wearing mismatched socks.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:
Tyler Cowen at tcowen2@bloomberg.net

Foot health

Universal basic income: the basic trade-offs Arnold Kling

Al Fin compilation.
Of note is the embedded youtube video (see below).

A few tldrs:

• Global warming is big business. Lot’s of money, jobs on the line.
• We don’t know enough to model the climate. Don’t trust models.
• There is no consensus amongst climate scientists. “When your job depends on you believing…”
• Gore’s correlation graph (temp/CO2) show an 800 year lag, with CO2 increase following temperature rise.

Jim Shows the hockey stick graph.

Greta Thunberg and #wedonthavetime

The Cathedral and the Bazaar
On the failures of the open source movement.

Local Commentary

Apr 28, 2019
DON CANNEY
Nashua Telegraph Columnist

Long before today’s global economy, with its technology and service industry employment base, many Nashuans got up every morning, drank their coffee, got ready and headed to work. Some travelled by car, many on foot, to our city’s thriving manufacturing plants. Sadly, most of these facilities are a thing of the past, so let’s take a few minutes to recall some of them:

Sanders Associates was at once the largest employer in the city and one of the largest in NH. The company started with just 11 employees, led by founder Royden C. Sanders. The iconic block of tan concrete on Canal Street has transformed from Sanders, to Lockheed-Martin to what is now BAE Systems, one of the world’s largest defense contractors and still one of Nashua’s largest employers. Sanders was a life saver for the city of Nashua when in 1952, the woolen mills occupying that building migrated south and Nashua was left with a huge void. My sister once worked for Sanders, starting as a “typist” straight out of high school. Back then, long before equal opportunity employment, many female employees started in what was known as the “typing pool,” a group of typists which serviced several groups simultaneously. Yup, quite sexist. In the 1960’s, if you worked at Sanders, you were considered having a “good” job, which meant you were also a good credit risk. You could purchase almost anything on credit, or as we said back then, on “time,” long before FICO credit scores.

IMPCO once employed 1,350 people in Nashua at its plant on Burke Street, manufacturing pulp and paper mill machines and parts. Beginning as Improved Paper Machinery in 1901, it was sold in 1930 to a group of businessmen, again in 1964 to Ingersoll-Rand, where it reached its peak, then to Beloit Group in 1996 and finally to GL&V Pulp Group in 2000, eventually ceasing operations in 2002.

Doehla Greetings Cards was another major employer in the city of Nashua during the 1950’s through the 1970’s. Their Factory Christmas Sale was an annual event. Founded by Harry Doehla, who was disabled as a boy due to rheumatic fever, Doehla’s was known as another good place to work. I personally worked there for several years while in high school in the 1960’s as a Cutter’s Helper, alongside skilled paper cutters who operated very large guillotine machines where, let’s just say a slip of the hand might just cost you that hand itself! It was physical work but paid well with excellent benefits. We were on “piece work.” The more we produced, the more money we earned. According to a July 1951 Nashua Telegraph article announcing Doehla’s establishment of a manufacturing facility here: “There’s year-round employment at Doehla’s. The business is not a seasonal one. Consequently, there are no work stoppages, lay-offs and the like due to lack of orders.” I don’t think we would ever see an employer make that commitment today.

Originally known as the Nashua Card Gummed and Coated Paper Company in 1904, and affectionately known to Nashuans as the “Card Shop,” Nashua Corporation was another premier employer providing steady, well-paying jobs. The company manufactured paper products, from candy and food wrappers to wax-coated and sticky paper. They operated plants on Franklin Street in Nashua and on DW Highway in Merrimack, NH. The Merrimack plant has since been sold and the old Franklin Street facility has been converted to luxury apartments. Today, Nashua Corporation makes specialty paper products, deli labels and paper used in printing movie theater tickets. It is located at Trafalgar Square.

J.F. McElwain operated a mammoth facility on Spring and Temple Streets as one of the largest shoe manufacturers in the country, while some smaller shoe shops (Jamie Shoe and ACME Cut Sole) had operations in the old mill yard behind One Chestnut Street, the former Doehla Greeting Cards.

Irwin Products (“Oh, boy, it’s an Irwin toy!”) manufactured plastic toys in what is now Clocktower Place. As a resident of the tree streets back then, I still remember the plastic odor that permeated the air on a hot summer day. Greg and Son, a cabinet manufacturer on Crown street, was owned and operated by a former sitting governor. How controversial would that be today?

Remember Edgecomb Steel, Horton and Hubbard, Johns Manville, Royal Business Forms, Hampshire Manufacturing and Beebe Rubber?

Amazingly, they all seemed to manage without email, teleconferences, Skype, telemarketing, ISO, TQM or LEAN manufacturing methods. But they must have been doing something right, as they thrived for decades. Employees were able to pay mortgages and rent, put food on the table, clothes on their backs and support their families. Granted, it was a much simpler time.

Don Canney is a freelance writer and professional voice artist. He was born and raised in downtown Nashua with great interest in Nashua history circa 1950-1970. He now resides in Litchfield.

Cambridge Analytica: Microtargeting or How to catch voters with the LASSO

Humidity is important

Comments from Arnold Kling

One of Kling’s commenters:

…I just had a close relation sign up with Facebook which insists in the contract on the work being performed physically from either the Bay Area or New York City with no telework options, and thus has to offer tons of money to compensate for the significantly higher cost of living.

What makes more sense. To say that these companies with individuals who are the most likely on earth to adopt and exploit cutting edge technologies are walking past $100 bills on the sidewalk, or that they know from experience that, like it or not, the most productive development environments are ones in which team members work in close, physical proximity with each other, and with managers and subordinates?

My experience:

Managers that rise in an organization are the anal-retents/obsessive compulsives that work 80 hour weeks and give their direct reports the opportunity to do the same. Reports are rewarded for face time and loyalty. None of this is compatible with remote working. As Jack Welch (thrice-married father of four) said “There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.”