I think I was going to post some other cutesy idea this week but this Brett Kavanaugh stuff is occupying too much space in my brain and I wanted to get some thoughts out, so I'm not turning it over in my head all the time.
The fact is, despite all the hot takes on Twitter, or the Saturday Night Live jokes, or the collections of photos of Judge Kavanaugh yelling while women behind him look unhappy, I don't see our side winning this one. The Republicans are trying to ram their guy through, and would really wish all this scrutiny would just go away so they can go back to dismantling the rule of law and criminalizing everyone who isn't a rich, white, male patrician Southerner or East Coaster.
I watched Christine Blasey Ford's testimony unfold on Twitter, following on as people who were watching it posted quotes and thoughts. I did the same in the afternoon when Kavanaugh took the stand, and was left with a sense of a man insulted that his right to this position is being questioned. I saw the photos of him yelling, read the quotes where he denounced "the left", and have to agree that this is not the impartial judge the country needs.
That sense of entitlement bothered me, as an inchoate thing I couldn't define, until I saw a thread on Twitter by Matt Stoller, where he linked what we're seeing to the moral system of aristocracy - the idea that only the elite has rights and that we're meant to put up with it. That's going to be the defining sense of this era of American politics, assuming there are any eras of American politics to follow.
We've seen it with all the people this "president" has selected for his cabinet, from movie producers in charge of the treasury to billionaire heiresses in charge of education. There's no sense of selecting the right people for the job, just rewarding cronies for their financial support, and doing it so brazenly and openly that those of us who choose to protest can be laughed off - because after all, this is America and we don't have aristocracies here.
Stoller rightly points out that the Democrats are complicit in this atmosphere of elites, given their epic tone-deafness in losing the very bedrock of their support in 2016, without even noticing. The only difference, and this is subtle, is that for all her "my turn" approach to campaigning, Hillary Clinton never threw a tantrum like a baby in front of the Senate judiciary committee.
But let's not deny that for the moment the greater threat is the Republicans, and their likely voters. The first thing Stoller notes is how Kavanaugh's show of emotion is taken as "authenticity" by many on the right; I go a step further by noting that a lot of these folks are content to let anybody into office, as long as they're committed to the GOP's goals of dismantling the very concept of administrative government.
What they don't see is that each of these actions builds on the ones before it to undermine the independence of our institutions, as well as the public's faith in them. They probably don't care, and they probably think that doing this just entrenches them further into power. They're probably right.
The simple fact is that even though the accusations against him are credible, and there's no statute of limitations for such crimes in Maryland, Kavanaugh's not going to go to criminal trial for his assaults, and even if he did it'd be hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt what he did. That's not great, but if the norms of civilized behavior were being followed, the GOP would go to the next page of their grimoire of potential candidates until they found a loathsome entity without any behavior that can be attributed to him.
Unfortunately, we can't even clear that low a bar, and so the Republicans are going to fight to get this specific guy onto the Supreme Court, no matter what accusations have been leveled against him. And many on the right are going to bleat that what a man does at 17 shouldn't disqualify him for office later in life, because he agrees with them about how those blacks/gays/women/whatever have too much power for their own good.
So I expect the FBI investigation to be a formality, for Kavanaugh to be approved with a simple minority in the Senate (a friend predicted that Mike Pence would cast the deciding vote, but I don't believe that), and he's going to infest our lives for the next thirty years or so. And in the years to come, it won't matter, because presidents after this one, if there are to be any, will continue to do whatever they want with ever less regard for norms and laws, until they can just hand the office to their sons.
Not that I'm pessimistic or anything.
Sunday, 30 September 2018
Sunday, 23 September 2018
Traveling with Tony
I wasn't a huge fan of Anthony Bourdain's initially. My parents watched Parts Unknown religiously on CNN, and I checked a few things out on Netflix when I moved back here in 2014, but I think I had trouble binge-watching them - though I really loved some of the episodes he did in Asia, particularly Thailand and Japan.
But that changed when he died. Just as I was shocked by the suddenness of it, I was also shocked by the outpouring of grief, from friends, family and other entertainers. That whole long weekend, which began with me arriving at San Jose Airport only to learn that Bourdain had killed himself, I read and listened to people talk about him and try to make sense of his death.
The feeling of things gone mad wasn't helped by the fact that the summit with North Korea, as brokered by Dennis Rodman, also occurred that weekend.
Naturally, then, I went back to rewatch the eight seasons of Parts Unknown that were on Netflix. I've been watching them since then, with added urgency now that they're set to disappear on 1 October, and I think I've reappraised why people like Bourdain's shows. I won't go over the stuff that other people have said, like how he used food to get to know places and people, or how he shined a much-needed spotlight on places that Americans know nothing about (both inside and outside the US).
But I'm struck by the breadth of people he spoke to during these shows. It's strangely satisfying to see one of my favorite authors, Paul Theroux, pop up in the episode on Hawaii, for example - for most viewers, I'm sure that Theroux was just some dude that Bourdain talked to briefly, but because I've been reading his books for fifteen years I know why Theroux's there to tell Bourdain about what Hawaii represents, because I know how he himself ended up living there. At least, insofar as anyone who read The Happy Isles of Oceania can know that.
What I've also found myself enjoying is that even if I'm uninterested in a place before watching an episode, I watch it anyway because by now I trust Bourdain enough to know that he'll pull something interesting out of it.
Mostly, though, what I keep coming back to in almost every episode is his death. In a lot of episodes he talks offhandedly about death or suicide, like he's joking. In others he talks about the future, about where he'll be in five years or ten years or twenty, or about being a father to his daughter. And I can never hold back from yelling at the TV that he's broken those promises, that he won't be there to see how a troubled situation develops, or to see how his daughter grows up.
Abstractly, as well, I wince a little whenever I see friends of his who popped up. There's Eric Ripert, obviously, who found Bourdain's body and so becomes difficult to watch in the few episodes where he and his friend are clowning around, like in Sichuan (which I watched just today). But I also think of Dinh Hoang Linh, Bourdain's friend in Vietnam going back to 2001 or so - in both of the Vietnam episodes I've seen, they talk about the length of that friendship and I feel bad for Dinh, imagining how he must have heard the news of Bourdain's death.
Another common thread of the reports on his suicide was how difficult the life must have been. Bourdain was on the road a lot, spending his time in hotels and airports and train stations, or on location, and far from his family and friends. And even having friends was difficult, the articles said - he'd blow into your life for a few days, create some intense experiences somewhere, and then vanish, not to be seen again until the next time. Until there wouldn't be a next time.
That's why I find it difficult to laud the lifestyle he led. Traveling to places, eating delicious food in unfamiliar surroundings, spending the days solving the tasks of getting around and finding stuff to do, are all things I love, but I've realized in the past couple of years that I don't think I could cope with doing that all the time. Sad as I was to leave Tokyo last October, I know that at some point I'd have felt the need to get back home to my bed, my friends and my routine.
I thought about that strain a lot, in the context of other travelers I admire, from Paul Theroux to Rick Steves, and I note that each of them has had divorces and other unpleasantnesses, possibly or explicitly related to all their traveling. Theroux himself admits that during the writing of The Great Railway Bazaar, his first travel book and the one that effectively launched his career, he was miserable at being away from home and his kids - and that his marriage hit a terrible patch as a result.
Speculating on someone's suicide strikes me as tacky and gross, so I won't do so. But in the end I do keep coming back to the question of why, and what he was thinking as he prepared to do it. I think of all the lives he encountered shooting his show, and I wonder how they must have taken the news, from chefs and artists he dined with to the Filipino family who welcomed him for Christmas dinner in his Manila episode. Knowing Bourdain's fate made that sequence heartbreaking for me to watch, as he reads his hostess a letter from his former colleague, who was raised by her, and as she sings a rendition of Edelweiss that leaves him speechless.
Those moments are what, for me, make his end so sad. If they hadn't been captured on camera and shared with millions, they'd be gone irrevocably, just like all the moments and memories that disappear whenever anyone dies. I feel privileged to watch those moments where he connects with people he'd never otherwise encounter, and sorry that these moments of connection weren't enough to save him.
How to get help: In the US, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. The International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide also can provide contact information for crisis centers around the world.
But that changed when he died. Just as I was shocked by the suddenness of it, I was also shocked by the outpouring of grief, from friends, family and other entertainers. That whole long weekend, which began with me arriving at San Jose Airport only to learn that Bourdain had killed himself, I read and listened to people talk about him and try to make sense of his death.
The feeling of things gone mad wasn't helped by the fact that the summit with North Korea, as brokered by Dennis Rodman, also occurred that weekend.
Naturally, then, I went back to rewatch the eight seasons of Parts Unknown that were on Netflix. I've been watching them since then, with added urgency now that they're set to disappear on 1 October, and I think I've reappraised why people like Bourdain's shows. I won't go over the stuff that other people have said, like how he used food to get to know places and people, or how he shined a much-needed spotlight on places that Americans know nothing about (both inside and outside the US).
But I'm struck by the breadth of people he spoke to during these shows. It's strangely satisfying to see one of my favorite authors, Paul Theroux, pop up in the episode on Hawaii, for example - for most viewers, I'm sure that Theroux was just some dude that Bourdain talked to briefly, but because I've been reading his books for fifteen years I know why Theroux's there to tell Bourdain about what Hawaii represents, because I know how he himself ended up living there. At least, insofar as anyone who read The Happy Isles of Oceania can know that.
What I've also found myself enjoying is that even if I'm uninterested in a place before watching an episode, I watch it anyway because by now I trust Bourdain enough to know that he'll pull something interesting out of it.
Mostly, though, what I keep coming back to in almost every episode is his death. In a lot of episodes he talks offhandedly about death or suicide, like he's joking. In others he talks about the future, about where he'll be in five years or ten years or twenty, or about being a father to his daughter. And I can never hold back from yelling at the TV that he's broken those promises, that he won't be there to see how a troubled situation develops, or to see how his daughter grows up.
Abstractly, as well, I wince a little whenever I see friends of his who popped up. There's Eric Ripert, obviously, who found Bourdain's body and so becomes difficult to watch in the few episodes where he and his friend are clowning around, like in Sichuan (which I watched just today). But I also think of Dinh Hoang Linh, Bourdain's friend in Vietnam going back to 2001 or so - in both of the Vietnam episodes I've seen, they talk about the length of that friendship and I feel bad for Dinh, imagining how he must have heard the news of Bourdain's death.
Another common thread of the reports on his suicide was how difficult the life must have been. Bourdain was on the road a lot, spending his time in hotels and airports and train stations, or on location, and far from his family and friends. And even having friends was difficult, the articles said - he'd blow into your life for a few days, create some intense experiences somewhere, and then vanish, not to be seen again until the next time. Until there wouldn't be a next time.
That's why I find it difficult to laud the lifestyle he led. Traveling to places, eating delicious food in unfamiliar surroundings, spending the days solving the tasks of getting around and finding stuff to do, are all things I love, but I've realized in the past couple of years that I don't think I could cope with doing that all the time. Sad as I was to leave Tokyo last October, I know that at some point I'd have felt the need to get back home to my bed, my friends and my routine.
I thought about that strain a lot, in the context of other travelers I admire, from Paul Theroux to Rick Steves, and I note that each of them has had divorces and other unpleasantnesses, possibly or explicitly related to all their traveling. Theroux himself admits that during the writing of The Great Railway Bazaar, his first travel book and the one that effectively launched his career, he was miserable at being away from home and his kids - and that his marriage hit a terrible patch as a result.
Speculating on someone's suicide strikes me as tacky and gross, so I won't do so. But in the end I do keep coming back to the question of why, and what he was thinking as he prepared to do it. I think of all the lives he encountered shooting his show, and I wonder how they must have taken the news, from chefs and artists he dined with to the Filipino family who welcomed him for Christmas dinner in his Manila episode. Knowing Bourdain's fate made that sequence heartbreaking for me to watch, as he reads his hostess a letter from his former colleague, who was raised by her, and as she sings a rendition of Edelweiss that leaves him speechless.
Those moments are what, for me, make his end so sad. If they hadn't been captured on camera and shared with millions, they'd be gone irrevocably, just like all the moments and memories that disappear whenever anyone dies. I feel privileged to watch those moments where he connects with people he'd never otherwise encounter, and sorry that these moments of connection weren't enough to save him.
How to get help: In the US, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. The International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide also can provide contact information for crisis centers around the world.
Sunday, 9 September 2018
The United States of Space
I'm currently reading the Uplift War, the third of David Brin's initial trilogy of Uplift books, in which the galaxy's sentient races are all "uplifted" by older and more technologically advanced races. All except humanity! Which is the main narrative engine of the books so far (he wrote a further trilogy in this setting, which I haven't yet gotten to).
The books are decent. I went through something of a David Brin phase in high school, around the time the film adaptation of his book the Postman came out. I knew about the Uplift books at the time, but didn't pick up the first of the series (Sundiver) until 2004 or so, and the second, Started Rising, a couple of years later.
I mention that to emphasize that because it's been so long since I read them, I don't actually remember much about the plots. So my thoughts are limited to what I'm currently reading in the Uplift War.
As I said, the main thrust of the story is that humans are the only known race (called wolflings) to have uplifted themselves, and to have uplifted pre-sentient races on Earth, in this case chimpanzees and dolphins. It's a neat idea, especially when the narrative examines the ethics of uplifting a race to sentience, asking whether any race even has the right to do that. Uplift tends to be portrayed as a form of indenture (or even slavery), an idea that drives the antagonists and the protagonists who want to avoid this fate.
What I find a little frustrating about all this is that every alien POV character, in each of their chapters, reflects on how freewheeling and clever and exceptional the humans are. They uplifted themselves, after all, before Galactic Civilization made contact with them. They allow their client races, the chimpanzees and dolphins, more leeway to question them than "older races" do. And they just don't abide by the stodgy old norms of Galactic Society, provoking annoyance in the more rigid races and admiration in others.
Leaving aside that this is kind of a "Where's Poochie?" dynamic, it's also hard not to see American exceptionalism in this. I'm aware that SF has a long history of equating humanity with American culture - it's sort of the whole guiding metaphor of Star Trek, for instance, though it goes back further than that. But it's a side of SF that's always sort of bothered me, and I think it's somehow more glaring here than in other SF novels I've read.
To be clear, I'm not surprised or annoyed that American SF does that, because British SF has its own weird tropes and I'm sure SF written in other languages does too. But because the majority of classic SF takes on this trope, it's fairly baked into the genre, and it can get excessive, as here.
It may also be a function of when Brin wrote the stories, of course. The Uplift War came out in 1987, when the US was winning the Cold War and its ideals were on the ascendant, as they haven't really been since 2001 or so. When he was writing, China was still in the first stages of opening up in the wake of Mao's worst excesses, while India was still the "Third World" and not on the radar of most Americans. The one real challenger to American power at the time would likely have been Japan.
So the dominant culture would naturally be the US, which I can understand, for that time. More recent works, like Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice trilogy, certainly take more of their window dressing from what the West knows of Asian culture (like tea-drinking and despotism). But I find the idea that Earth/America is this vital, young society that will form an example for the stodgy, decadent, older races to be a little uncomfortable.
That is, after all, the reasoning behind the colonization and carving up of Asia in particular by Europe and the US (as opposed to the regions that were considered primitive). In the books, certain cultures get "tired" and get supplanted by more energetic ones - indeed, one extremely old race in the Uplift War is described as exclusively interested in ever-more esoteric forms of meditation, and expected to die out soon.
To be clear, I'm not claiming that David Brin's a giant racist, because politically he's aggressively centrist (yes, I know), and generally quite sensible. But even those who don't actively believe racist ideology can come out with inappropriate things from time to time, and I suspect that's the case here.
The other thing about it is that I wish the damn aliens would just shut up about how great the damn humans are. It's fair for older cultures to see something refreshing about newer cultures that do things a little better, but Brin's humans seem to be just about the best thing that's happened to the galaxy, which feels a little rich given how shittily we're comporting ourselves at the moment. The closest analogue for me is the Elves in Tolkien's world, a group that is described as so wonderful that after a few hundred pages of reading about how great all their stuff is I just wish he'd get back to talking about the hobbits or dwarves or someone more interesting.
I'm surely not the only one who gets a little tired of the author slobbering over one particular group in their books, where even their negative points are actually positives. And as I said, given where America is right now, and the fact that literally no one else in the world wants to follow our example, it just reads as limited. A much better contrast, from around the same time period, is the Keith Giffen and Tom & Mary Bierbaum "Five Years Later" Legion of Superheroes run. That series builds on the old idea that Earth is basically the US, but has been taken over by despotic aliens with the connivance of corrupt humans, and feels a lot more realistic. Not because I believe that's happening now, but simply because it can happen anywhere, and thus can happen here.
And therein lies my discomfort with American exceptionalism. For as much as I buy into the ideals of the US (too often unattained, alas), I also remain aware that the US is a country like many others, populated by people just like any other, and so susceptible to humanity's worst excesses. And that's something we really are seeing right now.
The books are decent. I went through something of a David Brin phase in high school, around the time the film adaptation of his book the Postman came out. I knew about the Uplift books at the time, but didn't pick up the first of the series (Sundiver) until 2004 or so, and the second, Started Rising, a couple of years later.
I mention that to emphasize that because it's been so long since I read them, I don't actually remember much about the plots. So my thoughts are limited to what I'm currently reading in the Uplift War.
As I said, the main thrust of the story is that humans are the only known race (called wolflings) to have uplifted themselves, and to have uplifted pre-sentient races on Earth, in this case chimpanzees and dolphins. It's a neat idea, especially when the narrative examines the ethics of uplifting a race to sentience, asking whether any race even has the right to do that. Uplift tends to be portrayed as a form of indenture (or even slavery), an idea that drives the antagonists and the protagonists who want to avoid this fate.
What I find a little frustrating about all this is that every alien POV character, in each of their chapters, reflects on how freewheeling and clever and exceptional the humans are. They uplifted themselves, after all, before Galactic Civilization made contact with them. They allow their client races, the chimpanzees and dolphins, more leeway to question them than "older races" do. And they just don't abide by the stodgy old norms of Galactic Society, provoking annoyance in the more rigid races and admiration in others.
Leaving aside that this is kind of a "Where's Poochie?" dynamic, it's also hard not to see American exceptionalism in this. I'm aware that SF has a long history of equating humanity with American culture - it's sort of the whole guiding metaphor of Star Trek, for instance, though it goes back further than that. But it's a side of SF that's always sort of bothered me, and I think it's somehow more glaring here than in other SF novels I've read.
To be clear, I'm not surprised or annoyed that American SF does that, because British SF has its own weird tropes and I'm sure SF written in other languages does too. But because the majority of classic SF takes on this trope, it's fairly baked into the genre, and it can get excessive, as here.
It may also be a function of when Brin wrote the stories, of course. The Uplift War came out in 1987, when the US was winning the Cold War and its ideals were on the ascendant, as they haven't really been since 2001 or so. When he was writing, China was still in the first stages of opening up in the wake of Mao's worst excesses, while India was still the "Third World" and not on the radar of most Americans. The one real challenger to American power at the time would likely have been Japan.
So the dominant culture would naturally be the US, which I can understand, for that time. More recent works, like Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice trilogy, certainly take more of their window dressing from what the West knows of Asian culture (like tea-drinking and despotism). But I find the idea that Earth/America is this vital, young society that will form an example for the stodgy, decadent, older races to be a little uncomfortable.
That is, after all, the reasoning behind the colonization and carving up of Asia in particular by Europe and the US (as opposed to the regions that were considered primitive). In the books, certain cultures get "tired" and get supplanted by more energetic ones - indeed, one extremely old race in the Uplift War is described as exclusively interested in ever-more esoteric forms of meditation, and expected to die out soon.
To be clear, I'm not claiming that David Brin's a giant racist, because politically he's aggressively centrist (yes, I know), and generally quite sensible. But even those who don't actively believe racist ideology can come out with inappropriate things from time to time, and I suspect that's the case here.
The other thing about it is that I wish the damn aliens would just shut up about how great the damn humans are. It's fair for older cultures to see something refreshing about newer cultures that do things a little better, but Brin's humans seem to be just about the best thing that's happened to the galaxy, which feels a little rich given how shittily we're comporting ourselves at the moment. The closest analogue for me is the Elves in Tolkien's world, a group that is described as so wonderful that after a few hundred pages of reading about how great all their stuff is I just wish he'd get back to talking about the hobbits or dwarves or someone more interesting.
I'm surely not the only one who gets a little tired of the author slobbering over one particular group in their books, where even their negative points are actually positives. And as I said, given where America is right now, and the fact that literally no one else in the world wants to follow our example, it just reads as limited. A much better contrast, from around the same time period, is the Keith Giffen and Tom & Mary Bierbaum "Five Years Later" Legion of Superheroes run. That series builds on the old idea that Earth is basically the US, but has been taken over by despotic aliens with the connivance of corrupt humans, and feels a lot more realistic. Not because I believe that's happening now, but simply because it can happen anywhere, and thus can happen here.
And therein lies my discomfort with American exceptionalism. For as much as I buy into the ideals of the US (too often unattained, alas), I also remain aware that the US is a country like many others, populated by people just like any other, and so susceptible to humanity's worst excesses. And that's something we really are seeing right now.
Monday, 3 September 2018
Throwing a Ring around the World
I don't usually post about tech stuff on this blog. When I worked for Ovum, I kept this strictly separated from that stuff, in part because I could put opinion pieces on our work blog and get my tech-writing yah-yahs out that way. During the (brief) period I was freelancing, I kept that side of things over on my other blog. But sometimes an idea comes up that's good for either, so here we are:
I was thinking about Ring today. It's the smart doorbell manufacturer that got snapped up by Amazon for a billion dollars back in February, and a company I wrote about extensively for Ovum. The interest at the time was this upstart company that just kept attracting funding (including from Amazon's Alexa Fund back in 2016), and when it came onto my radar in early 2017 it had just picked up $109 million for its Series D, making it the most-funded smart home company on my old investment tracker.
That, and their range of products, made them a good target for us to write about, so I chatted with them a few times to prepare a research note, essentially introducing them to Ovum's clients. The thing that stuck with me, and that I was thinking about today, was their approach to the smart home camera sector. Instead of focusing on what was happening inside the home, they reasoned that a good way to make an individual home safer was by making the neighborhood around it safer.
So the Ring doorbell was intended to see what happened out in front of the house, including at other houses on the same street. After all, if someone broke into the house across the street from yours, it would be relevant because your own home could be next. They followed this concept up with smart outdoor lighting, which could help protect your yard, and so on.
As I said, this stuck with me, to the point that of all the companies I wrote about during that time, it's one of the most conceptually interesting ideas I came across. It's also affected my thinking in seemingly unrelated areas, like immigration and foreign policy. The way it applies there is, if a country wants to be safe from illegal immigration, human trafficking, the drug trade, and so forth, it's not enough to combat those things inside its own borders - it'll have to work with its neighbors to sort those problems out at the source.
You can see it here at the US's southern border, where migrants are fleeing violence in their own countries (for example Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador). You can also see it in Europe, where Syrian refugees are fleeing the violence from their country's civil war and the depredations of Daesh/ISIS. In either case, the most enlightened and just policy has to include helping to make their home countries safer (in addition to not mistreating the ones who do arrive seeking asylum or simply a better life).
If you want to stick to tech, this concept is relevant to cybersecurity, and any number of other areas as well. One of the key complaints about smart home devices is the fact that security is often an afterthought, but securing the device, while necessary, is probably not sufficient. You want your network to not be compromised, which means that ideally your neighbors' Wi-Fi networks should be secure too. And so forth.
Amazon obviously bought Ring because its technology could be integrated with the Alexa suite of smart home devices, and because its technical expertise offers a different view on the home than the Echo device had. Also, I don't know Jamie Siminoff at all (I've never met him or spoken to him), but I presume he isn't a bleeding-heart leftie like me.
Still, it's reassuring to know that someone's successfully implemented technology that takes into account the inter-connectedness of communities, and that acknowledges that what's happening outside your house does affect you. This is a powerful but understated idea, and I'd love to see it take root in more of the tech industry - as well as in politics.
I was thinking about Ring today. It's the smart doorbell manufacturer that got snapped up by Amazon for a billion dollars back in February, and a company I wrote about extensively for Ovum. The interest at the time was this upstart company that just kept attracting funding (including from Amazon's Alexa Fund back in 2016), and when it came onto my radar in early 2017 it had just picked up $109 million for its Series D, making it the most-funded smart home company on my old investment tracker.
That, and their range of products, made them a good target for us to write about, so I chatted with them a few times to prepare a research note, essentially introducing them to Ovum's clients. The thing that stuck with me, and that I was thinking about today, was their approach to the smart home camera sector. Instead of focusing on what was happening inside the home, they reasoned that a good way to make an individual home safer was by making the neighborhood around it safer.
So the Ring doorbell was intended to see what happened out in front of the house, including at other houses on the same street. After all, if someone broke into the house across the street from yours, it would be relevant because your own home could be next. They followed this concept up with smart outdoor lighting, which could help protect your yard, and so on.
As I said, this stuck with me, to the point that of all the companies I wrote about during that time, it's one of the most conceptually interesting ideas I came across. It's also affected my thinking in seemingly unrelated areas, like immigration and foreign policy. The way it applies there is, if a country wants to be safe from illegal immigration, human trafficking, the drug trade, and so forth, it's not enough to combat those things inside its own borders - it'll have to work with its neighbors to sort those problems out at the source.
You can see it here at the US's southern border, where migrants are fleeing violence in their own countries (for example Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador). You can also see it in Europe, where Syrian refugees are fleeing the violence from their country's civil war and the depredations of Daesh/ISIS. In either case, the most enlightened and just policy has to include helping to make their home countries safer (in addition to not mistreating the ones who do arrive seeking asylum or simply a better life).
If you want to stick to tech, this concept is relevant to cybersecurity, and any number of other areas as well. One of the key complaints about smart home devices is the fact that security is often an afterthought, but securing the device, while necessary, is probably not sufficient. You want your network to not be compromised, which means that ideally your neighbors' Wi-Fi networks should be secure too. And so forth.
Amazon obviously bought Ring because its technology could be integrated with the Alexa suite of smart home devices, and because its technical expertise offers a different view on the home than the Echo device had. Also, I don't know Jamie Siminoff at all (I've never met him or spoken to him), but I presume he isn't a bleeding-heart leftie like me.
Still, it's reassuring to know that someone's successfully implemented technology that takes into account the inter-connectedness of communities, and that acknowledges that what's happening outside your house does affect you. This is a powerful but understated idea, and I'd love to see it take root in more of the tech industry - as well as in politics.
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