Fluff

The Labor Implications of Shaking it Off

A bronze age arrowhead that came from outer space. Also, Taylor Swift has a decision to make, Lizzo's lawsuit is pretty wild, working from home is actually good for the economy, and a very good pencil boy.

Endeavorance

04 Aug 2023 — 4 min read

Sokka Made an Arrowhead

Researchers have been pouring over collected artifacts from the Bronze Age, and have determined that one collected arrowhead was made from iron that fell to the earth from a meteor.

To be clear: this means that back in the bronze age, someone constructed and fired an arrow that came from SPACE METAL.

SPACE. METAL. ARROW.

Here's the wildest part: they also think they know what meteor it came from. A meteor big enough to make a crater smashed into the Earth in what is now Estonia back in 1500 BC. According to the composition of the arrowhead and cross referencing the timing and location, they're approximately very sure that's where it came from.

Anyway, that's dope. I want a space arrow.

A Tay Late And A Dollar Short

So you probably know that Taylor Swift is on tour. And you may have heard about how she's bringing a huge economic windfall to wherever she plays. Hell, I talked a bit ago about the seismic activity from her fans dancing in Seattle. But now she's being asked to stand in solidarity with striking workers by postponing her shows in L.A.

Hotel workers with Unite Here Local 11 have organized a strike for better pay to allow for employees to live anywhere closer to their actual workplace.

As cost of living skyrockets and—as I'll mention later on—leisure spending increases, the people who work the service jobs to run, clean and maintain hotels are simply asking to be paid well enough to live in the area they work in. Y'know, that thing that you should be able to do as a worker?

Local officials have written to Tay(tay) asking for her to postpone her show there. I find the likelihood of that happening to be suuuuuuper small given the incredible level of logistics involved in a Taylor Swift tour, but hey. Maybe she will! Maybe. Probably not. But maybe!

I know virtually nothing about Lizzo but here is what I have gathered

On the same day that we learned about the new Trump indictments, a lawsuit was filed against singer/flutist/artist Lizzo. Multiple former backup dancers who worked with Lizzo alleged a wide range of uh… deeply odd shit. For the sake of not getting too graphic, I will just leave it at "a lot of stuff that can easily be considered sexual assault or at the very least, deeply uncomfortable and not a thing you should have to deal with without consent".

Additionally, they allege they were working in a hostile environment, fearing they'd be fired if they didn't just deal with hostility, body shaming and more. All of this is especially notable given Lizzo's loud message of body positivity.

In response, Lizzo posted to a message to her Instagram which essentially summarizes to "nuh-uh"

At this point, its important to remember a couple of things: these are allegations, but at the same time these are multiple people coming forward with consistent stories about a person who is in a position of extreme relative power, money and influence, and who's posted statement is attempting to flip this around on the alleged victims.

Also get ahead of a smidge of misinformation: Lizzo has hired on a lawyer who worked for Bill Cosby. It's a real good factoid because it sounds real bad, but this lawyer did not represent Cosby during the sexual assault trials. That said, he's still a major figure in Hollywood lawsuits.

Working From Home is Good for the Economy, WHODA THOUGHT

The US GDP rose 2.4% in the past quarter, which economists are crediting in part to increased leisure time spending from people. The reason why? Working from home.

Managers and CEOs are super big into getting people back into the office, mostly because they paid for the office space and are stuck in a lease, but also because they don't like it when they can't sit and watch over their own little personal kingdom of workers.

But with a much larger percentage of the US workforce working remotely, people are spending less time (and money) in commutes and expensive lunches and whatnot and instead spending on hobbies and entertainment. While downtowns and major cities who have spent decades building up massive business centers which are otherwise devoid of life outside of working hours, broader economic boons are landing in hospitality, music venues and like, I dunno, Steam Decks or something.

(Fun fact: The Valve Steam Deck, which is a handheld Linux-based gaming console, has pushed Linux past MacOS in usage metrics on Steam)

On This day…

Today is the birthday of Nicolas-Jacques Conté, born in 1755. He was a notable engineer and fan of hot air balloons, having been known for this own balloon which he flew in the public square. He then went on to invent the modern pencil. Ya boi contains multitudes.