The Third Slip: Issue 126 - Sillycon Valley
Hello, Slippers! Welcome to The Third Slip - the weekly newsletter that separates the chaff from the wheat, further refines it into flour, massages it with oil, beats it mercilessly into a desired shape and cooks it into a porotta served with some beef with coconut shavings on the side. The majority of the country doesn't know what it tastes like, but the few who do mostly swear by it. Except for some heathens who think pun is the lowest form of wheat, but they still have a beef with us.
This is issue 126, in India's independence week which obviously leads us to use that cliched line - independence is mightier than the indesworddence. But did you know that this classic saying originates from the ancient children's hand game of Pen—Sword—Dictator? Pen beats Sword, Sword stabs Dictator, Dictator jails anyone wielding the Pen. Fun fun fun. But we're not just about historical facts, we're also about real-time news...
India
Pro-state cancer
Happy Independence day! We all know the Indian government didn’t do anything for the first 60 years after its independence, but now we have the greatest leaders in the world at the helm. This year, on the 73rd anniversary of our Independence - they’ve unveiled the greatest creation of all - parallel universes of realities! So screw the BBC, Al Jazeera, and actual human journalists on the ground who are claiming people are protesting and all. Screw also historians who are sounding the death knell to democracy. Don’t bother with facts and reality, join in the fun with jingoism and ignorance - it’s much more pleasant here.
See ya later, valley baiter
Don’t worry, everything is fine in Kashmir! Everything is so fine that the government doesn’t feel the need to restore phone and internet access to the region. So much so that journalists have to resort to old-school means to deliver news - going to the printing presses and selling low-quality-print papers off bikes like it was contraband. The government has also told the UN to go away, there’s nothing to see here.
Nuke before you leap
Imran Khan called India’s government fascist. It’s likely some BJP supporters said “why, thank you, that’s very sweet.”. Meanwhile, the Defence Minister reassuringly said that “no first use” of nukes will depend on circumstances.
Eco-logical endpoint
Construction of Mumbai’s quite useless Coastal Road project has been paused after the High Court finally came to its senses. Elsewhere environmental clearances have been eased near buffer zones and ecologically fragile areas. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Poster boy
The (ex?) BJP MLA who raped a minor and tried to kill witnesses is now front-and-center in an Independence Day ad, which is a fitting symbol of what this country has become. Their buddies, the Shiv Sena, asked Muslims to stop having so many kids.
Legal judgeornaught
This week, the President (remember him?) increased the number of Supreme Court judges from 30 to 33 to reduce backlogs. A former SC clerk argues why that’s unlikely to help. (TLDR: The SC is too liberal in allowing appeals to reach it).
Around the World
Prima-Donald
Updates from the Greatest Country on Earth™ - Trump allows companies to discriminate against LGBTs on religious grounds, lowered protection for endangered species and wants to buy Greenland (for all its beautiful natural resources). One of his party members wondered if there’d be any population left if it were not for rape and incest. Trump and Israel’s Netanyahu team up to solve one of several modern-day crises: How to bar critics (even if they are members of Congress) from entering Israel. Walmart is doing its bit after the recent shootings: Removing video games, but keeping the guns.
Game on
Clearly a millennial intern is behind this - Bernie Sanders is going to be on Twitch. Said intern probably left out mentioning him that Twitch is owned by the company he loves to hate, Amazon. But then trying to live in a world without Amazon is like living in the world in 2025 with climate change apocalypse - wait that’s a different Amazon. Oh well, how does it matter? We’re all going to die anyway.
Neither will Norway
A white nationalist tried to open fire in an Oslo mosque but was stopped by some brave men. This could have easily been a repeat of Christchurch.
Bull in a China shop
How long can a peaceful protest remain peaceful? Well, 10 weeks apparently. This week, the good guys in Hong Kong finally lost it and the airport had to shut as protests moved from peaceful to violent (and apologised for it soon after).
The “Don’t bother investing in long-term mutual funds” section:
Fission Impossible
A small nuclear reactor blew up in Russia.
Target audience
Cambridge Analytica might be dead, but there are several other companies doing similar things.
Kabul bulaiyaa
The US is in talks with Taliban (!) to withdraw troops from Afghanistan - which will either lead to peace or a bloody civil war. Nobody knows which, but - given the general optimism of TTS authors, which outcome do you think we’re betting on?
But at least we have this...
Faith in kindman
This beautiful story of a once-refugee finding the man who’d shown her kindness as a child.
Death and Texas
The widower of an El Paso shooting victim had nobody to invite for the funeral. Then the internet delivered.
Gift rapped
Trump tried to interfere in the A$AP Rocky case (he is being tried in Sweden). Some clever Swedes sent him a manual (in IKEA style) as to why that won’t work, and it’s brilliant. (The rapper was found guilty, by the way)
Stage right
Brexit still exists (yes, it’s supposed to be bleak and was possibly the first of the nationalist uprisings but it’s still hilarious and schadenfreude-inducing to see the British doing their best to upstage Yes, Minister in real life).
Golden duck
A comedian and his duck are making Tiktok’s funniest content.
Light at the end of the fridge door
A teenager tweeted from her smartfridge after her mom took her phone.
Gene in a bottleneck
Headline of the week, as always, by The Onion: “Harvard Streamlines Admission Process By Directly Growing New Students From DNA Of Top Donors”
Jo ebola so nihal
And, importantly, we now have a cure for Ebola (actual cure, not the ‘world is dying anyway’ thing we at TTS normally do).
We told you, so
The trouble with being liberal humanists who are sure that history will prove them right is that, unlike a nice 2 hour movie with a beautiful redemption storyline, it usually takes anywhere between 20 years and a lifetime for said history to come about. And boy, does it get exhausting to wring our hands and grit our teeth each week as we try and summarise the depressing news for you in the interim. It makes it much worse that we don’t believe in the afterlife, so any redemption that comes later will be worthless to us. But we would like to keep bringing the news to you. So if you like The Third Slip, here’s how you can help in this life
Become a patron (from $1 a month) on Patreon
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Tech & Business
Index finger
What you used to point at a company that catalogues the world’s information. A look at Google’s influential lobbying division, how its employees refuse to be complicit in Trump-friendly contracts, and all the other shit it’s been through in the last few years (well worth the read). Plus, data emerged that more than half of its searches result in zero-click (depriving several websites of valuable traffic) - thanks to ‘instant results’.
Casteing a shadow
How TikTok is fanning casteist flames in South India (yes, just because it’s not part of the Hindi Heartland doesn’t mean turds don’t exist there - this is a region where kids wear ‘caste bands’ in school).
Every day I’m tumblin’
Oh yeah, and Tumblr got sold to Wordpress’ owner by Verizon (who, you surely remember, bought it from Yahoo!.) (Who, you definitely remember, bought it for over a billion back in 2014).
Netflix and kill
To grow, it has to cancel its original shows. Ah, the challenges poor Netflix has… even as CBS & Viacom merged.
Uninterested
Also, how weird is the global economy if a Danish bank is offering a ‘negative interest rate’ on a home loan and UBS Switzerland will charge people more money if they deposit too much?
My life’s fulfilling
Amazon satire is a genre we never thought would exist - but here we go, fake ‘ambassadors’ tweeting about the conditions in their fulfilment centres.
LinkedOut
A look at how Russia is stoking far-right nationalism in egalitarian Sweden.
An interesting perspective of how, at a time we’re taking a dump on every social media platform, LinkedIn seems to come out without a stain.
There’s a lot of talk about removing social media metrics. Can this remove polarization? (It might give some marketers heart attacks, which will be a good side effect)
A fascinating read about how Coca-Cola stole the secret of stevia (the sweetener) from an indigenous tribe in Paraguay and has all but run them to ruin.
And a nice long look at how Gautam Adani, abetted by his chums in government, is keeping Australia & India hooked onto coal, and taking Bangladesh along for the ride.
That’s it for this week. If you’d like to get in touch with us, we’re on Twitter (Chuck | Tony). Or you can reach us on good ol’ email. Until next week, may you find the strength to be vulnerable again.