Are You On LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is laying off 668 people across its engineering, product, talent and finance teams as part of a broader restructuring, the social media platform announced last Monday. This is in addition to the 718 people they laid off recently. The company is dedicating many of its resources towards artificial intelligence.
LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. They also paid billions of dollars to buy into the makers of ChatGPT, the company OpenAI. They don’t need as much human talent anymore. But that is not the end of it. If you are on LinkedIn, you are the fodder for a brand new AI product that they are launching. They are going to use your career data to pigeon hole you, add all sorts of tags and then push you to employers, whether you want to be or not. Here is the problem:
When you decide that you want to apply for a certain position, you can tailor your resume/CV to that position. You can amplify certain experiences and personal strengths and talents to that position even though you do not exactly fit the mold. And if you get the job, you will excel at the work, if it is as advertised and it is not a toxic workplace or employer. However with the new LinkedIn tool, you will be pigeonholed and ear-tagged into categories that you have no control over. It may be the biggest career limiter, other than ageism that you will face.
They are introducing these tools in the first quarter of 2024. Currently they are using your career data to train their AI. Then after you are probed and classified, your CV will be offered to recruiters through a chatbot. If your newly made machine profile matches what a recruiter is looking for, then you may get a job offer. However with many applicants with the same virtual ear tag, it will be a race to the bottom. If you ask for too much money, AI has a whole list of fellow classifees that will work for less. That is in Wave 1 in the first quarter of next year. Here are their own words: “Recruiter will automatically find many interested and qualified candidates, drawing on billions of data points from the world’s largest professional network. “ But that’s not the end. They promise more de-humanizing innovation to be announced in Wave 2 next year. The few clues available are that they are integrating their “talent” feedlot into the global economy. Whatever that means it doesn’t bode well for the hordes of job fodder who are being marginalized by AI.
It is time that we took the advice of Cory Doctorow and stopped the enshittification of the internet.
The Great Candy Decline
Pity the poor processed junk food producer in the United States of Obesity. They got fat and rich on selling sugar and fat confections mixed with chemical flavorings and exotic colors. Many venerable candy companies started in the early 1900s when the population could absorb the calories that they pandered to the public. Sugar was expensive, candies were occasional treats and not daily snacks. Advertising was in its infancy and not dedicated to shortening our lives with addictive, instant-gratification pleasures stuffed into our cake holes. So the assembly lines poured out tons of processed crap and Madison Avenue told lies that it was good for instant energy. It was a boon to the fat factories for about 50 years. The fatification of America is almost complete. And just like the smoking craze ended when folks started dying left and right, the obesity scare is now among us. American mortality rates have actually regressed.
And the sharks of business that capitalized on fats and sugars, found another way to raid our pocket books. It is the anti-fat drugs Ozempic and Wegovy. These hugely expensive drugs are now the rage, melting fatbergs in the waistline quicker than climate change is melting the polar ice caps of dear Mother Earth. And corporate America is scared sh*tless. Here are some of the impacts:
Conagra is changing the portion sizes of their snacks due to nutritional re-education of Americans.
Insulin monitoring device manufacturers and companies related to dialysis and metabolic related sectors are seeing a downturn.
Sugary soda pop sales have decreased by 27% however that is because they have been supplanted by sugary energy drinks rose by over 638%. After the initial sales bump, zero calorie sugar drinks are eating into the market share of soda pop.
The biggest indicator of the great candy decline is Tootsie Roll Industries. Tootsie Roll first appeared in the late 1890’s and have become candy icons in America. They went to war with American soldiers in both World Wars I and II. The stock price has been rather impervious to stock market fluctuations. However, Tootsie Roll Industries Inc has declined -14.12 (-32.07%) in the past 6 months.
Random Thoughts, Predictions And Trends
Iran
I sat beside a professor of geopolitics from a storied American university on a recent flight. He postulated that Iran, perhaps with Russian influence is trying to draw the United States into war alongside Israel, to blunt its effects of the US support for Ukraine against Russia. Recent rocket attacks at US bases in the Middle East seem to support his hypothesis. He further stated that there is a potential powder keg building up, similar to the one that preceded World War II and ignited a global conflict. He further cites the growing political authoritarianism as conditions contributing to this dangerous phase of our history.
Republicans
In an optimistic note, the self-same professor mentioned in the above paragraph, said that the travails going on in the Republican party in the United States, with the problems in electing a speaker in the senate, may actually be good for the party. It may rip out the cancer of Trumpism and restore truth, decency and actual representation to the party, but not after it is decimated in the polls and the various right wing cancers and ignorant tumors are excised. I hope that this is true, and not like his previous prediction on global conflict.
Poor Britain Shoots Itself In The Foot & Locally Going Bust
My aunt used to tell me stories of how in the UK after World War II, things were fairly rough during the post-war reconstruction. There were widespread shortages. In Commonwealth countries (that used to be colonies of Britain), one could buy Christmas baskets full of foods, jams, cheeses, prepared meats and sweets to send back for poorer relatives back in the old country.
We may be headed back to those days again. UK councils, the equivalent of local governments are going bankrupt at an alarming rate. There are large withdrawals of services. Inflation is at an all time high. There are fears of a depression in the UK. It didn’t help that they shot themselves in the foot with Barmy Boris’ Brexit, the devastation of Liz Truss’ financial follies and the mismanagement of Rishi Rich. We need the UK to prosper because they and their European allies are key to stopping Putrid Putin.
China Syndrome
Things are really economically bad in China. Many pundits say that to survive, President Xi may try to spin the wheels of Russian roulette and invade Taiwan. This would divert the Chinese populations angst from various crises that are infecting their current lives. So researchers are poring through papers trying to determine how the Chinese might attempt to navigate such a scenario if they suffer the same sanctions as the Russian have over the illegal invasion of Ukraine. Chinese pundits have devised a survival strategy that says that they would need to create a global network of companies, seize American assets within its borders, and issue gold-denominated bonds. Good Luck with that. It still doesn’t dispel the anxiety of the volatile tinderbox forming all over the world.
One in six chances of kissing your ass goodbye & the Extinction of Humans Soon
And speaking of tinderboxes and global danger, Oxford-based philosopher Toby Ord published a book called The Precipice about the risk of human extinction. He put the chances of “existential catastrophe” for our species during the next century at one in six.
And finally, you might help save a little bit of world
Do you know of any restaurants or personally know any chefs? Do you have any of them in your networks? A German clam farmer on a remote Pacific Ocean Micronesia island is looking to sell some of the most exotic proteins to these people to serve in their restaurants and help save the planet. You can watch the Youtube video HERE, or put them in touch with Martin at info@imtrona.de . Just tapping the network effect to see if we can bring some exotic food to our tables and incidentally save an important pelagic species at the same time. Thanks.
I have been busy this entire October, so I haven’t published these Substacks as often as I would like to, so thanks for bearing with me, and thanks for reading.