5 Thoughts for Thanksgiving 2024
Thanksgiving can make for some awkward moments in these politically charged times. I thought I’d provide some food for thought and potential conversation.
1. The Road Not Taken, a famous poem by Robert Frost ends in the lines,
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
It’s often quoted as a reason to do things differently. It turns out context matters.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
It’s a poem about how people justify the decisions they’ve already made to describe where they are, not about prescriptively doing the uncommon. Through collective dementia, we’ve turned the meaning (which on its own is meaningful!) on its head. We’ve taken the catchy part and missed the meaning.
2. As we sit on the precipice of another Trump presidency I think it’s useful to think about how we felt 4 years ago and how that turned out.
Personally, I assumed Joe Biden was a one term president - as he said he would be. I hoped, after almost two decades of the executive branch concentrating power and witnessing the abuse of that power, he’d build an enduring legacy pushing power back to the legislature where he built his career. It turns out he didn’t actually think he was a one term president, wasn’t going to weaken the executive branch, wasn’t going to stand down the increasingly belligerent posture of the military, wasn’t going to promote human rights, wasn’t going to deal with climate change in a way that couldn’t be immediately reversed, and wasn’t going to treat “brown” people domestically and around the globe with dignity. So a tough beat from what one might have thought to what one might have got. While it’s not promising that being telegenic appears to be the primary consideration of a cabinet position, with a bonus for being Floridian and accused of sexual assault, perhaps this Trump presidency will go differently than initial expectations.
3. The Trump presidency whether you want it or don’t want it appears to be rife with paradox.
His least loved daughter’s Lebanese father in law is the new envoy to Lebanon. His most loved daughter and son in law seemingly want nothing to do with this administration.
He claims to be an expert on the economy, but no one actually understands the economy.
During one of the tighter job markets in our nation’s history, he wants to free up jobs for Americans by deporting Hispanic immigrants. (Historically it’s meant that those jobs just don’t fill.)
He wants to lower the cost of food. Hispanic immigrants harvest and prepare that food.
He wants to lower the cost of housing. Hispanic immigrants build those homes.
He needs lower interest rates. Tariffs historically have been inflationary.
He needs lower interest rates. Tax cuts lower the ability for the country to pay back its debts and usually result in a higher longer term interest rates (although sometimes lower in short term due to fund flows).
He wants control of the Federal Reserve. But the Federal Reserve system was created by and is responsible to the legislative branch by decree and design.
He wants control of the Federal Reserve. Every time, globally, the central bank has been put under the control of the President, it has resulted in hundreds of basis points (multiple percentage points) increase in interest rates.
He wants to end diversity in the military. ~40% of the military is African American and Hispanic Americans. ~17% are women.
The Presidency’s aims and the reality on the ground means no one has any idea what Trump can practically do in his four years as president with only 2 with a guaranteed supportive legislative branch. When you add the expansion of executive power also being sought in the courts, the ability for multiple paths moving forward is quite high, but the ability for it all to be reversed is also quite high. Beware the prognosticators.
4. The Chinese military appears to have cut multiple undersea cables that connect Baltic nations to the rest of Europe. Whether for economics or geopolitical reasons, tariffs and sanctions are likely to be the rule rather than the exception globally in the near term.
5. With the notable exceptions of Firefox and Safari, most of the world’s browsers use source code freely provided by Google. The DOJ recently suggested that Android and Chrome be forcibly split from Google. I can’t think of anything dumber, particularly in the case of Chrome.
Chromium, on which Chrome is based, and which Google actively contributes most of the source code, appears to be Google’s attempt to avoid antitrust regulation. It allows developers to slap their own name on Chrome, benefit from most of features, the widespread developer support from web and extension developers and all of the security support.
Chrome as a separate company has no reason to support the ongoing development of Chromium and every reason to keep security and feature updates solely in support of Chrome. All of the best, most widely compatible browsers have Google doing most of the heavy lifting adding features and sparing the developers from having to provide security support. The others incorporate the changes and take what would otherwise be Google’s revenue and data, make it their own (or not), and provide a few additional but importantly differentiating capabilities. It allows for competition. For instance:
Privacy focused Brave browser is built on Chromium;
Microsoft focused Edge browser is built on Chromium;
Customizability focused Vivaldi browser is built on Chromium;
Productivity focused Arc browser (my favorite!) is built on Chromium;
Alleged Chinese spyware focused Opera browser is built on Chromium.
All lose valuable support and become less safe if Chrome stops contributing new code to Chromium. It’s easy to foresee a world where users coalesce to Chrome and market share actually becomes more concentrated to Chrome proper, not less. Google, like Apple in phones, won, when developers decided to use the best technology stack. The web has already been optimized for Chrome’s core technology, Apple’s works, Firefox’s works, but both often run into compatibility issues. And the Chrome lead is likely to get bigger as Europe forces Apple to open iOS to other browsers to use their core technology, not just a skin of Apple’s technology as they have to date. Extensions on Chrome/Chromium are plentiful and able. Much like iPhones often operate better and have more apps because application developers only have to focus on Apple’s stack, for years web developers have optimized for Chrome. Things work elsewhere, but they’re better on Chrome. They’re better on Chrome whether it's part of Google or not.