#69 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Friday June 25)
Good morning!
IS MARK ZUCKERBERG UP TO THE TASK?
There is something of a cottage industry based upon trying to figure out what Facebook’s role in our civic, political and journalistic world ought to be. Concurrently, there is a cottage industry trying to understand Mark Zuckerberg, the 36 year-old CEO of Facebook—the creator, largest shareholder, and, because of the nature and structure of Facebook, the absolute decision-maker on all things. The question of his relative naivete, his unwillingness or inability (or both) to grasp the position Facebook holds at the center of our political dialog and civic life, has occupied pages and pages of op-eds. Make no mistake about it—Facebook is the most significant purveyor of journalism and ideas in America and the world.
Is Mark Zuckerberg up to the task? I fear a lot is riding on the answer to this question. I’m not sure that, even with the legions of professionals advising him, the answer is yet clear. He is, after all, a 36 year-old college dropout, at the helm of one of the most important corporations in the world. Here is a guy who was the proverbial “hedgehog” now being thrust into the role of the “fox.” One may recall that a hedgehog is really good at one thing but weak in others. A fox is good at many things, although perhaps not as good as the hedgehog in a single thing.
Whether he has the intelligence, gravitas, and wisdom to wield so much power, and whether such power will be wielded more benevolently than I fear it might, is up for grabs. But it gets me thinking about what intelligence means when trying to ascertain Zuckerberg’s preparedness. That got me thinking about what we consider “intelligence.” I believe intelligence boils down to four categories. Here they are, whether he possesses it, whether he has access to it, and its importance.
Innate intelligence. This is about something that tends to be undervalued these days, as we struggle with whether “all people are equal.” Some are smarter than others—have greater critical thinking skills, retention skills, or just plain raw intelligence. I believe this is Zuckerberg’s strength—he had the intelligence and the vision to see what many of the rest of us couldn’t.
Book smarts. Here, Zuckerberg is wanting. He dropped out of college (albeit a very good college). He is not well educated (at least not in a traditional sense) in the humanities and social sciences in a way that we would like our children to be educated—exposed to the triumphs and foibles throughout history and centuries of thought and analysis of the human condition and the world around us.
Street smarts. While he certainly put one over on the Winklevoss twins and others, I think his street smarts or “emotional intelligence” was limited to that singular (yet meaningful) example. His social skills seem challenged; he appears to be awkward when interviewed and wanting for the ability to manage a conversation to appear genuine (for instance, he would only appear at the Aspen Ideas Festival with an interviewer of his choosing and questions he preapproved). The ability to participate in a discussion and respond intelligently with mental flexibility can come with experience, I suppose.
Wisdom. This is the smarts that comes with age. Yes, I know that this generation thinks it has everything figured out (as, I suspect we and all generations before us did), but there is something to be said for “putting in the time.” Wisdom is acquired through experience and trial and error. We gain wisdom through our successes and our failures (and those of friends), accumulated through life. As Bill Maher said a few weeks ago on his show, “everyone knows that when you’re young, you’re beautiful and when you’re old, you’re wise.”
At the end of the day, we should be more concerned with the mental health, the social and intellectual development, and liberal tendencies to do good of this one man. Our future—and that of our children—is closely associated with, and dependent upon, Mr. Zuckerberg’s world view than anyone else, including our political leaders, scientists, journalists, and academics.
But I think the four types of intelligence are a good synopsis of different types of intelligence. One can look at others through this lens. Dr. Fauci succeeds in three of these—falling short on the street smarts of hard-knuckle politics. Former President Trump is strong in the street smarts category but weak in the others. And if you don’t agree, just read his rambling rants. And if that doesn’t work, I’m happy to recount my meeting with him (the most bizarre business meeting I’ve ever had) with the most vile and among the dimmest people with whom I’ve met.
THE FAILURES OF THE PAST IN AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Ken Kahan notes:
“Regarding affordable housing… it is truly a mess because of the history of affordable housing. When all those “Projects” built around the country under LBJ’s great society to house the poor turned into cesspools of crime the Federal answer was to demolish them, abandon Project based Section 8 and hand the poor housing vouchers.
I am no expert but I understand the answer was to revise the system. The 1986 Tax Reform bill created the most arcane, overly cumbersome set of affordable housing rules you ever saw…. a boon to lawyers, bond underwriters, etc.
You need to be Stephen Hawking to understand the way affordable housing tax credits, combined with soft seconds, etc. create new units and rehab old ones. Then add California labor code 1720, which requires that all governmental funding of any kind must be built utilizing prevailing wages! For this one you can blame another Democratic governor (https://corporate.findlaw.com/human-resources/sb-975-is-it-bad-news-for-california-real-estate-development.html).
The result are affordable housing projects that are 30-40% MORE costly and take longer to fund (by approximately two years) to fund than a regular project.”
MORE ON GRAMMAR
From Mark DiMaria:
“Speaking of apostrophes, possessives, and plurals, my biggest bugaboo is the possessive of names that end with the letter S. It's not Jesus' followers or Charles' shoes, but rather Jesus's followers and Charles's shoes. You can look it up in Strunk & White! By the way, we each were given a copy of that short volume at my first firm, and I have pulled it out many times over the years to settle grammatical debates at later stops. That slim paperback has become quite yellowed with time, but remains vibrant in its substance!”
And Peter Bain:
And let us observe yet another Churchillian contribution to grammatical discipline: “A dangling preposition is something up with which I simply will not put!” Indeed, Winston, indeed.
Have a great weekend,
Glenn
FROM THE ARCHIVES