I am a pretty informal person. I don’t hold any institutional authority. The interests I represent are my own. I speak for myself.
Obviously I care a great deal about my family and my friends and want to reflect well on them but I can only speak for myself. This is a given in an age where big institutions often find themselves frustrating the interests of normal people. And people take a stand.
So when I find myself haggling with medical insurance or trying to wrap my head around a set of requests from someone claiming to be a representative of a large power, I think back to a viral tweet by Patrick McKenzie (@patio11), about the efficacy of the dangerous professional voice.
The “Dangerous Professional Voice” is less about aggression and more about clarity, formality, and signaling that you understand the system and expect to be taken serious.
What are my options?’”
McKenzie suggests this phrase, calmly and professionally delivered, often prompts the other party to reveal escalation paths or alternatives that might not otherwise be offered.
The voice suggests it solving it is a given. Getting down to business and showing you mean business. Even if you are an informal person sometimes you may want to use this dangerous professional voice as you go about your day. Share if it works. Patrick says he enjoys hearing about use in the wild.
I’m not sure exactly how to characterize Doomer Optimism other than a kind of social club for Internet denizens that wish to retain their optimism in the face of chaos and change. It’s a very human group and I’ve enjoyed their company for years.
I’m one of the odder congregants in this group which includes a diverse array of characters from all classes and walks of life. I say I’m the odd man out only because I’ve seen them as a generally regenerative self sufficient localist group that in another era would have been back to the land hippies, unionists, environmentalists and anarchists. Generally left wing coded but skeptical of state and corporate power.
That I’m one of a handful of practicing technologists that participates, and a libertarian, means I argue for the liberatory power of open source software and its range of applications for individuals to enable a life that can provide means and meaning without being in the jaws of the Machine.
Decentralizing technologies lets us all participate. More individuals are interested in thinking how they engage with industrial processes. 3D printing enables many types of freedom and is crucial to the right to repair movement. Which gives power back to the owner of property and not the corporation from which it was purchased. I unabashedly support the freedom to compute as a human who wishes to find a harmony with the machine in all its forms. Be not controlled by your tools or their makers. Make your own future.
If none of this strikes you as particularly right wing, reactionary or otherwise populist, or even statist; I’d agree with you. I am a libertarian.
And yet there are those who are still enthralled by old narratives of political poles that this individual, and choice centered, politics is one grounded in real people with real problems not financial or social abstractions.
Paul is a neighbor, a friend, and a gentleman in the most noble possible sense. He does not traffic in status or social cachet. He is a free thinking and curious American man who is dedicated to hearing a large swathe of perspectives. He wrote a response and included the email screenshot below. I am certain Paul really does mean his hospitality genuinely.
Dear @awinston
Thank you for your email (below). Of course its intent was not in good faith nor was it evidence of genuine curiosity, but it did cause me to reflect on the scope of @thewagonbox project and the growing constellation of characters around it. And I had to think about you, and Mr. Wilson, and how one should respond to the sort of witch hunts for political wrong-think that have become your cottage industry (one that I’m afraid is dying.)
To your first point: an interesting aspect of the Wagon Box, and particularly our Doomer Optimism events, is the breadth of the politics represented. Seneca Scott is a ‘90s democrat who wants a safe community for his family and goats. James Pogue, like me (and Jesus), has anarchist sensibilities, cares about the habitat for the trout he fishes and is leery of the global hegemonic machine. Ashley Fitzgerald is a suburban mom who likes regenerative agriculture and healthy neighborhoods. The event has largely focused on a suspicion of “The Machine” and ways to live humanely and harmoniously with the natural world. The idea that it is some hotbed of “hard/far right” ideology, or that we are promoting “corporate governance” is laughable.
To the question of the “ties” I have to Ryan Payne, or Jonathan Keeperman, or D. C. Miller, or any other person you may see as a “smoking gun” evidence of nefarious ideology, I have a few comments. First of all, you have left out other characters who have graced the Wagon Box, some of whom you might even consider even worse! And of course there are others hard to place politically, like Walter Kirn, Patrick Deneen, Paul Kingsnorth, or Max Foley. All these characters differ quite widely, have deep disagreements, but all have something in common: I find them interesting and care about what they have to say, and they see enough in me to take me up on my invitation.
You ever get to talking to someone and you see their eyes glaze over? They do not care what you have to say, they are not listening. It’s no fun. It is death. What’s the point? Good faith curiosity is the lifeblood of any relationship, of any conversation, of journalism, and of self governance. There are swaths of folks who have had good faith curiosity driven from them, and it has been done largely by people like you, who paint in caricatures and come to stories with an agenda, who live on fear and suspicion. You send a guy like me some sort of hostage note instead of an invitation to a real conversation. It’s sad.
At the root of the Wagon Box project is my personal curiosity in people, and at the root of that is a conviction that we will all be together eventually at a large table in a conversation that will never end. Our enemy is no person, but the stale impulse of death that preys on love, on connection, on community. It thrives in the Machine of mass delusion of which, regrettably, The Guardian is a mouthpiece. It has forced you to have a narrower view of people, a static view, and one that lacks curiosity. But I really do care about you, as you too are on a journey and I’d love to hear about it. Let’s grab coffee and talk sometime. No deadline.
I brought up the context of there being technologists as part of this conversation as another reporter who shares a similarly slanted lens who seems to have quite a problem with Silicon Valley while not really understanding the core values that technologists share that are not compatible with a controlled statist or even corporatist view of power.
We are going through a huge cultural change that will sweep many of us up its cascading consequences. We will have materially different conditions as artificial intelligence changes day to day life.
Do you want to trust those who insist on control to prevent horrors? Or do you want to trust yourself and your fellow man to engage with one another as human? I’ve chosen optimism. I believe we can build freely.
I am in a lot of physical pain and I have been cranky about it all day. I just did not have the energy to self censor my discomfort either. I spent a lot of the day in bed popping off.
Because people are polite I only ever get rewarded for being spicy. I’m sure people harbor all kinds of uncharitable opinions about people who are mouthy, especially women. But I mostly find you can say quite a lot. Especially with your ingroup.
In fact being disagreeable is tolerated, and even celebrated, in almost all public forums. Hard truths, straight acts, unpleasant realities tend to be celebrated. Truth telling can become someone’s persona even when nothing is wrong.
But watch out for that dark path. If you care too much about broader opinions of yourself you can easily become what is called audience captured in which your persona gets adapted to what gets a response. Modeling your life as get it can go very wrong for people.
I felt for comedian John Mulaney who got typecast as the affable guy and absolutely hated being the bad guy for his various addictions and personal life complications.
In his special “Baby J,” Mulaney reflects on the burden of his public persona: “Likeability is jaaaaaaaail,” summary via Perplexity of a much better substack piece
In some ways, playing to type is just cognitively easier for everyone. A social contract if you will. Being able to show more than one side of yourself shouldn’t be shrugged off as people pleasing nor is being disagreeable always a sign of bad temperament. Humans contain multitudes even if everyone plays to type.
I’m surprised that the bad manners and poor social graces perpetuated by pandemic isolation continue to plague all forms of public transit.
I am flying from Europe to America today for a conference appearance in Boulder Colorado. This has involved a few smaller regional hops where an hour or so of flight time is spent in the air. Not so bad right? Wrong.
You must plan for an hour on each side of a flight transit to manage border control, passport control, baggage screening and security.
Add in another half an hour for the chaotic free for all that is getting a plane loaded up and your day can disappear quickly as folks cut lines, misunderstand their luggage options and otherwise practice social misanthropy.
It’s as if no one understands any basic conventions of transit anymore and we are collectively refusing notice or to do anything to fix it.
If I am lucky enough to be flying business or first class (the flat lay on a transcontinental flight is a must for my spine) I’ll typically board first. This used to be a huge perk
But now group systems are a mess. Frequent flier status & business class has now become group 2. First boarding is, of course, children and the disabled.
I get how this can be confusing. Once the elderly were onboard, I watched multiple passengers try to line jump me only to get a red light and loud beep. They would shrug and hang back.
If I haven’t managed to board first I’ll find my front of cabin baggage completely used up. The new trend is taking first and business class storage and then going to your seat. I had to get a Tumi moved as someone took up the storage for my entire row.
Even as I was struggling to move other people’s baggage with the annoyed crew, the other travelers ignored our exertions. I’m quite short so getting a roller bag up often requires me climbing on a seat or getting a boost from someone taller than me to get it over the lip of the bin. Thankfully a military man stepped in after ten minutes of failures. Thank you for your service.
I feel the change all around me. I feel the change inside me. On Easter one feels the miraculous in big and small ways.
Having traveled a not insignificant portion of the Silk Road from Adriatic to Ionia to the Bosporus this week I feel the changing flows of commerce, empire and faith rather viscerally. It sounds grandiose and yet now else can one explain the gravity of time and place?
Being embodied is our human journey. To overcome it is the stuff of myth, faith and religious belief. Understanding its meaning is glimpsed here and there in the natural world but is mostly beyond our ken.
I do not know what is coming or what I will learn in the process. The glory is in being put on the path. Happy Easter.
Over the winter we did a mold test on our bedroom after I had had a batch of sub-optimal bloodwork and flares in my autoimmune condition. We wanted to be thorough in assessing potential reasons for any issues from environmental to pharmaceutical.
I was suspicious that mold would be a culprit. Or perhaps I did not want it to be a culprit. Mold has always seemed like an excuse the professionally sick lean on like a crutch. You can imagine some worried well Goop reading white woman blaming mold.
I don’t know if this is engrained ableism on my part (lol) but no one wants to be that annoying sick woman with the litany of vague issues plaguing her life. And yes I fear this about myself because I do have to manage an autoimmune condition.
So I went into mold testing with some cynicism. It’s mike making a claim you’ve got a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. Sure both mold and fibromyalgia are real but I’ve learned from experience that you must avoid both lest you be seen as someone unserious.
The wall next to bed.
Alas it has turned out to be serious. It took most of the winter to work through the breaking down the walls part but once Alex began pulling back the walls it was dramatic and easy to spot.
The bedroom getting ripped apartment.
As it turns out the wall on my side of the bed has quite a bit of mold types growing happily. As best we can tell it must be some type of small leak in the pipes.
Gnarly white spores
There’s a couple hydronic heater pipes right by the baseboards so the current theory is maybe one developed a tiny pinhole leak for a bit that sealed itself back up. Don’t ask me about that one as it’s on Alex.
His plan for now is to remediate it, patch things back up, fog the room and have the carpets steam cleaned. Which is a bigger job than we might like but much better than it could have been.
April Fool’s Day is just the worst. Practical jokes were much more enjoyable when telling the truth was still a widely accepted social norm. Our moment is one of a thousand falsehoods.
Our commitment to the truth and a shared sense of what separates truth from falsehoods has never felt shakier to me. It’s one strategic lie after another from all our institutions and leaders.
If you are living in our era of lies, half truths, and various flavors of misinformation & disinformation the idea of dedicated a day to falsehoods seems perverse. I don’t want to be on the Internet or a part of discourse on a day when deliberately lying gives you social capital.
Alas this is an ancient human custom in many places. The Indian festival of Holi, medieval Feast of Fools, and the Roman Hilaria are all early spring celebrations of pranks, jokes and foolishness. The prevailing theory dates to France and the change to the Gregorian calendar.
April Fools’ Day back to 16th-century France. In 1564, King Charles IX adopted the Gregorian calendar, moving New Year’s Day from late March (around the vernal equinox) to January 1. Those who continued celebrating the old New Year date on April 1 were mocked as “April fools” and became targets of pranks, such as receiving fake gifts or being sent on “fool’s errands.”
I rather imagine that the religious traditions mentioned above all valued truth as a foundational virtue. To know the truth of the world and the truth of your soul are the twin ambitions of human life.
Perhaps I’m being too sensitive. Or too rigid. Humans are evolved primates and we play status games that involve deception in the entire primate family. But I’d still prefer that we communicate true information to each other as both a norm and as an aspiration. That’s not a joke.
Going to a spa or a hair appointment has an added layer of stress when you’ve got skin allergies.
I don’t need clean or organic beauty (though I do prefer it). It’s not about being fancy so much as I need it to be free of synthetic fragrances like Limonene.
Limonene is a naturally occurring, colorless liquid terpene hydrocarbon (C10H16) found in citrus fruits and other plants, known for its citrus scent and used as a flavoring agent, solvent, and in various products like cleaning products, cosmetics, and supplements
Somehow I became allergic over the years to a number of fragrances both natural and synthetic. A clean beauty list of “no no”ingredients has become common as everyone from Sephora’s to BeautyPie agreed on things like keeping products free of paraben, sulphate and Methylisothiazol.
It’s a little harder to justify not including citrus or lavender unless you are trying to cater to the most sensitive skin. Both are quite popular for all kinds of personal care. I have to be careful of almost all soaps.
Some of my interest in preparedness (and in travel size cosmetics) surely comes from having to carry around basics from shampoo to shea butter. It’s a pain to have to consider but also a pleasure to always be prepared for any scenario.
A friend of mine has managed a career as a tastemaker of the sort that hardly exists any longer. It’s hard to find a term that’s even appropriate without both identifying them and understating the power of their influence.
Influencing the direction of culture isn’t so much a job as a point of view with a paycheck. It used to be a bit simpler. We had a hierarchy of influence caped by physical realities.
Maybe your pastor or your employer influenced your daily culture. Even when I was younger it wasn’t much broader than your local news and what you could get at the library. Now we live in a mass market of influence.
Influencer, creator, journalist, editor, blogger, hell we even have Twitter accounts that move culture now. So it’s not surprising that it can be hard to keep track of who is truly influential and who is just popular.
Being heard out and being really listened to and considered are very different things. It’s a weird moment for taste. Especially culturally. We keep having vibe shifts. The people who are paid to make sense of it all are as clueless as the rest of us.
The only thing anyone can seem to agree on is that it’s all very chaotic. Which is a point of view with which I’m quite familiar. And naturally that unsettles me. Once everyone agrees on a cultural moment is exactly when the tastemakers look for something new and when the masses really come with the big bucks.
Much of our winter has revolved around various maladies that require the help of professional from doctors to industrial hygienists.
Alex and I (let’s be honest mostly Alex) have been scheduling a lot of consultations and procedures. While I’ll certainly caveat that selling a service does generally mean being friendly to the customer. But it really feels like like we’ve got friendlier people in Montana.
Even our government is friendly. We’ve has cause to call the county and it’s just so pleasant to engage with a kind, present and helpful fellow human.
We’ve really run the gamut. Our trash needed replacing after a hard winter and the company who does our pickup sent us a new one the next day. A recycling service for mattresses excitedly told us about community programs. The eye clinic got us in the day we called. And on the follow up let us add in an eye exam since we were already there.
We are all accustomed to the frustrations that come from indifferent corporations with private equity minders. Healthcare is by far the worst offender here.
So it’s nice to be reminded in a vulnerable world that American towns are filled with everyday people like you and me. And that genuinely makes me happier. We are all in this together and being friendly makes everything for everyone.
