Author Archives: Ron Byrnes

Hurray, META’s Failing

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I have good news. META Platforms, Inc., also known as Facebook, has lost 70% of its value in the last year. Zuckerberg’s gamble on creating on-line, virtual reality work places (and entertainment), is off to a terrible start. Zuckerberg, who seems convinced people want to spend more time on-line, is calling for patience and additional investment in the “metaverse”.

Zuckerberg is making a classic mistake, generalizing from his own experience. Because he wants to spend more or most of his time on-line, he thinks others do too. Surrounded by sycophant’s who depend upon him for their livelihoods, he doesn’t have anyone to tell him to snap out of his on-line fantasy world.

No one, two months from now, is going to say their 2023 resolution is “to spend more time on-line”.

Pre-pandemic, there were a lot of snake-oil salespeople promoting distance learning. All will be well, they proclaimed, if we just move school on-line.

Aspects of hybrid learning obviously make sense, but maybe with the exception of Zuckerberg himself, we are an intensely social species. We desire stronger social connections, involving all of our senses, in real life.

That is the lesson of the pandemic and Meta’s swan dive. Couldn’t be happening to a nicer corporation.

Postscript: Marques isn’t rooting for META either, but for a completely different reason (start at 9:00).

I Am Now An Expert On All Things Hawaiian

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Clickbait title, because after teaching a lot of Hawaiian students over the last 5-7 years, I’m still scratching the surface of understanding our most distinctive state.

Mainlanders who think they “know Hawaii” after spending a week or two at a resort are deluded.

Somewhere around 2015, someone at PLU decided to recruit the islands hard. And it continues.

Some observations in the form of gross generalizations.

On average, academically, they’re behind their mainland peers. Why is that? I don’t know.

On average, because Hawaii is a mosaic of different cultures, they’ve attended much more diverse K-12 schools.

Often, when you talk to them about multicultural education, their eyes glaze over. They are more inclined to embrace “colorblindness”, and as a result, dislike talking about race, class, and gender. Like Norway, they think their islands are free of cross cultural conflict, and yet, I hear and read stories about haole surfers getting beat up by native Hawaiian ones. There has to be more to the story doesn’t there?

I feel for them at this exact time of the year when the sun takes leave and the Pacific Northwest weather turns much cooler and wetter. How do they avoid being SAD I wonder?

Last, but not least, why haven’t any of them invited me to visit? Is it because they’re afraid I might out surf them?

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Sometimes It’s Very Much What You Say

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Clint Smith explains in “What a Racist Slur Does to the Body“.

“As we were walking through the stanchions ushering us past the terminal’s gate, the white woman turned to the Black woman, red with anger, and called her the N-word.”

“. . . it is not that I was unfamiliar with hearing that word out loud; it is that it had been many years since I had heard it used in public, by a white person, in a way that was laced with such unvarnished venom and disgust. It was as if my skin was struck by a match and fire spread through my entire body. My heart’s once metronomic tempo accelerated into a gallop, my blood pumping as if it was trying to tell me to run away. Cortisol was coursing through me.”

A Truly Modern Emperor

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Subtitle: When You Fall Out Of Favor In The Chinese Communist Party

People swear off Twitter all the time, thinking it’s a complete waste of time, but it all depends on being very selective about who you follow. This Yang Zhang tweet, the first of many in the thread, is Twitter at its absolute best. It provides an incredible window into the CCP. Similarly, some Russian intellectuals are using Twitter to provide fascinating windows into Russian’s reactions to their government’s war.

Be careful not to paint all social media with too broad a brush.

On The Tone Of One’s Voice

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Late last week, armed only with a headlamp while on an early morning run, I approached the col de Merc (antile Store) in pitch blackness. I vaguely saw something coming right at me in the middle of the lux bike lane, but couldn’t make it out until it got closer. It was a speeding bro dressed in very dark clothes on a very dark bike. He had just descended the col de Merc and was flying when I yelled “GET A LIGHT!” at him. He didn’t u-turn to (try to) kick my ass because he had headphones in.

Maybe he took the Mariners-Astros series too hard and wanted to end it.

Fast forward to yesterday’s early morning pitch black run. I could feel a car behind me as I turned into our hood so I made sure to hug the left shoulder so they had ample room for their left-hand turn. A middle aged man driving a beater Nissan Sentra pulled up right next to me and rolled down his window. “Okay,” I said to myself, “it’s on like Donkey Kong.” Ask Dan, Dan, the Transpo Man, when my heart rate is elevated, I sometimes morph from chillaxed pacifist to too easily triggered numbskull.

He had a kind look on his face and his soft voice was that of a Zen Buddhist. “Hey, I just wanted to let you know, you’re really hard to see from behind.” It wasn’t so much what he said, but HOW he said it. His tone conveyed genuine concern for my well-being.

When I yelled at my dark, speeding, headphoned “friend”, my tone was way, way more self-regarding. “Don’t be an arse,” my shout conveyed, “you easily coulda ran me over.”

Think about how you say things, and be the Zen Buddhist driver, not me.

Do We Need More Therapy Or Fiction?

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One of my college besties is a psychotherapist in the city of Angels. I sent him this George Saunders essay, “Could I understand the people who rushed into the Capital?” and then asked him whether we need more therapy or fiction. Of course, the answer is both.

TL/DR. . . yes, Saunders could. And so can anyone who dares follow his lead.

Sports Therapist For Hire

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Versus a traditional sports psychologist whose primary objective is improved individual performance. A sports therapist strives to help players in team sports get along with one another. Which, in theory, should translate into improved team play.

Given the number of professional basketball players with mental health challenges, why don’t NBA teams have sports therapists on their staffs? Or maybe they do already?

No one should expect Steve Nash to figure out what’s going on in Ben Simmons’ and Kyrie Irving’s heads (and hearts). In fact, the New Jersey Nets should have a few sports therapists who specialize in working with elite athletes on their staff.

Related. The Los Angeles Lakers want to bring Russell Westbrook off the bench. Which raises the already high odds that the Lakers-Westbrook divorce is going to be a doozy. Yes, you are correct, there’s been plenty of Russ drama already, but buckle up for more. The Lakers put the “fun” in dysfunction.

Another prediction. The revamped Lakers will spend the season looking WAY up at Golden State and Denver. Bold, I know.

Teaching My Ass Off

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Just because I’m oldy and moldy, some might think I should call it a career. But the passion for the classroom still burns bright. I woke up at 2:30a.m. with these thoughts rattling around. Don’t call it a lecture, that’s demeaning. It was more of a homily/sermon.

  • all we’re doing is practicing “thoughtful inquiry”and learning to have “true fun” with ideas— playfulness, connection, flow
  • the cutting and pasting of ideas/approaches to life from other especially thoughtful people
  • social infrastructure . . . we are products of our environments, you are the company you keep
  • how closely have you read the key content, how closely have you listened to your classmates’ ideas, how much time/energy have you invested in examining your inner life?
  • epiphany—a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something; an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure

How closely has the student-writer read the key content?

  • there are no references to any of the author’s key concepts . . . the paper could’ve been written completely independent of the reading—35%
  • the student-writer briefly touches upon the author’s key concepts—55%
  • there are repeated, thoughtful references to the author’s main idea(s), the student-writer’s thinking is changed— a little or a lot—as a result of their careful consideration of the author’s main ideas; the student-writer’s ideas are nuanced and demonstrate an appreciation for complexity—10%