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The increasingly inaccurately-named blog of journalist and futurist Chris Taylor. Either the most sporadically brilliant amateur blog, the most brilliantly amateur sporadic blog, or the most amateur sporadic brilliance on the Web since 2001.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
Do you write any other blogs, by chance? Could that have something to do with the fact that Daily Blah isn't always Daily?
Yes -- the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. And yes. If you want true, editorially-mandated daily coverage from me, that's probably the best place to look.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
Praise for Daily Blah:
"It is fun to watch the author's navel-gazing joy." - Sunday Times (UK)
"It's really funny and informative." - Dave Eggers, author
"The Blah is becoming a daily destination for me." - Richard Marsh, Playwright
"I like it, and I don't." - Fiona Hogg, Teacher
"Better than Xanax." - Lessley Andersen, journalist
"Dude, lay off the crack pipe." - Souris Hong-Porretta, gamesmith
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Daily Blah for... Monday, March 09, 2009
Goodbye to all that (consumption)
How heartening to see Thomas Friedman's latest column in the New York Times going viral. Everywhere I look, netizens are posting it -- on blogs, on Facebook, on Twitter. It simply says what many of us have known for a long time: the engine of American consumption, as it stands, is unsustainable. The collapse of a financial system that grew rotten from within has changed everything. The culture of trying to get ever more wealthy and buy ever more stuff has vanished. Americans just needed to get off the treadmill for a minute to see how dumb it was.
They tried investing in real estate, and got their hands burned. Spurred by informercials, they bought tons of plastic junk from China, and it didn't make them any happier. They worked longer and longer hours -- but for what?
True, consumers are currently hoarding cash because they're afraid of losing their jobs, if they haven't already. But at the same time, they're starting to realize just how cheaply they can live. They don't actually need that cable subscription for the channels that are mostly there to sell them plastic crap from China. The Internet has all the free entertainment they could want, and targeted ads that are actually useful. Neither their homes nor their cars need to be big and shiny. A walk in the park is more pleasant than a trip to the mall: better for your bottom line and your waistline. They can split that entree, and still have enough leftovers for breakfast.
Yes, you knew it, I knew it, the rest of the world knew it, most of the coastal elites knew it. But now the penny is dropping in the heartland, in that vast cattle pasture of consumerism. America is growing up.
Which is why it is increasingly vital that Obama shunts us into science and infrastructure jobs as fast as possible. Because if we don't start making useful, sustainable things -- if we assume that the engine of consumerism is alive and well and need only be sluiced with tax rebates -- there's going to be a black hole at the center of the global economy, and the world will collapse into warring fiefdoms faster than you ever thought possible.
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