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<title>15 December, 2022</title>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Kyrsten Sinema and the Fantasy of the Political Lone Wolf</strong> - Surely there’s some electoral calculation behind the Arizona senator’s decision to leave the Democratic Party, but the timing is especially confusing. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/the-political-mystery-of-kyrsten-sinema">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Some Good News on Inflation</strong> - The latest Consumer Price Index indicates moderating price pressures—something the Federal Reserve should take on board in setting interest rates. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/some-good-news-on-inflation">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Can the U.N. Save the World from Ecological Collapse?</strong> - At this week’s summit, delegates will consider ambitious new conservation targets—even though the old ones have yet to be achieved. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/can-the-un-save-the-world-from-ecological-collapse">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Professor Who Challenges the Washington Consensus on China</strong> - Jessica Chen Weiss argues that Biden Administration policy is contributing to an “action-reaction spiral.” - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/persons-of-interest/a-professor-who-challenges-the-washington-consensus-on-china">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Fusion Breakthrough Suggests That Maybe Someday We’ll Have a Second Sun</strong> - In the meantime, we need to use the sun we’ve already got. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-fusion-breakthrough-suggests-that-maybe-someday-well-have-a-second-sun">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<li><strong>ChatGPT has given everyone a glimpse at AI’s astounding progress</strong> -
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<img alt="OpenAI logo displayed on a phone screen and ChatGPT website displayed on a laptop screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on December 5, 2022" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Xi5rJbyoYqTSAMbLT7rehAQ6vas=/294x0:3251x2218/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71752528/GettyImages_1245391800.0.jpg"/>
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Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The results are impressive — and a little bit scary.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BLm98d">
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There’s a new AI chatbot to check out — provided the servers that host it aren’t down from overwhelming traffic.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zdUyD9">
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Since ChatGPT launched last week, more than a million people have signed up to use it, <a href="https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1599683104142430208">according to OpenAI’s president, Greg Brockman</a>. It’s a funny, inventive, engaging, and totally untrustworthy conversation partner, and I highly recommend you check it out when the servers aren’t staggered under the load.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="K4jZL2">
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Other writers have had a ball getting ChatGPT to, say, write a rap battle between <a href="https://www.blopig.com/blog/2022/12/a-chatgpt-rap-battle/">antibodies and small molecule groups</a>, or a <a href="https://twitter.com/goodside/status/1598077257498923010?s=20&t=m8CiD-ncul-pi_I8lDW5RQ"><em>Seinfeld </em>script where Jerry learns about the bubble sort algorithm</a>. But there’s no funny AI-generated text here for you today, just some thoughts on ChatGPT and where we’re headed.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="k8uvjR">
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A few weeks ago, I <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23447596/artificial-intelligence-agi-openai-gpt3-existential-risk-human-extinction">wrote</a> about the stunning recent advances in AI, and I quoted Google executive Mo Gawdat, who tells the story of how <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/can-this-man-save-the-world-from-artificial-intelligence-329dd6zvd">he became concerned about general AI</a> after he saw robotics researchers working on an AI that could pick up a ball: After many failures, the AI grabbed the ball and held it up to the researchers, eerily humanlike. “And I suddenly realized this is really scary,” Gawdat said. “It completely froze me. … The reality is we’re creating God.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yKkxHb">
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Many people working on AI systems have had a moment like that at one point or another over the past few years — a moment of awe mixed with dread when it suddenly became clear to them that humanity is on the verge of something truly enormous. But for the general public, before 2022, there was little chance to come face to face with what AI is capable of. It was possible to play with OpenAI’s GPT-3 model, but on a relatively inaccessible site with lots of confusing user settings. It was possible to talk with chatbots like Meta’s Blenderbot, but Blenderbot was <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23307252/meta-facebook-bad-ai-chatbot-blenderbot">really, really dumb</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="21uZuV">
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So ChatGPT is the general public’s first hands-on introduction to how powerful modern AI has gotten, and as a result, many of us are having our version of the Gawdat moment. ChatGPT, by default, sounds like a college student producing an essay for class (and its most immediate implication is that such essays will likely <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/chatgpt-ai-writing-college-student-essays/672371/">become a thing of the past</a>).
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YiYOW2">
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But it doesn’t have to sound like that; tell it to <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/could-an-ai-chatbot-rewrite-my-novel">clean up its essays in the New Yorker house style</a>, and it writes better. Tell it to write Shakespeare, <a href="https://www.economist.com/business/2022/12/08/how-good-is-chatgpt">and it’ll try</a> (the cadence of anything meant to be spoken is generally not very good, so good luck with iambic pentameter). It is particularly good for rephrasing great philosophers or great works of literature in the <a href="https://www.learngpt.com/prompts/give-painstakingly-minute-instructions-on-how-to-cross">vernacular of a 1920s mobster</a> or a <a href="https://medium.com/@farhadmalik/i-asked-openai-chatgpt-to-rap-about-medium-vs-youtube-in-drake-vs-eminem-style-7e5b6e54bda5">1990s rapper</a>; it can be funny, though it’s never clear how intentionally. “This is big,” I have heard from multiple people who were previously AI-skeptical.
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</p>
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<h3 id="uOkp0f">
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The First Law: Don’t get canceled
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zNPZHM">
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It’s still far from perfect. Despite OpenAI’s best efforts, ChatGPT still frequently makes up nonsense and still sometimes can be coaxed into <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-12-08/chatgpt-open-ai-s-chatbot-is-spitting-out-biased-sexist-results">saying racist or hateful things</a>. And as part of a desperate effort to train the system to not say racist and hateful things, OpenAI also taught it to often be silly or evasive on any question that might even touch on a controversial topic.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YenUXN">
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Sometimes, though not reliably, ChatGPT will claim that it’s offensive to “make generalizations about any group of people based on their gender,” if asked a basic factual question such as “are men typically taller than women?” (<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/human-height#:~:text=Where%20are%20men%20much%20taller,3%25%20to%20over%2012%25.">They are</a>.) If asked about difficult topics, it immediately insists at length that it is just a language model trained by OpenAI, with no beliefs or opinions, and yet at other times, if prompted cleverly, it will <a href="https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RYcoJdvmoBbi5Nax7/jailbreaking-chatgpt-on-release-day">happily express beliefs and opinions</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cJ4OsX">
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It’s not hard to see why OpenAI did its best to make ChatGPT as inoffensive as possible, even if getting around those limits is eminently doable. No reputable AI company wants its creation to start spewing racism at the drop of a hat, as Microsoft’s Tay chatbot did a few years ago. If OpenAI trained its system using some <a href="https://webhome.auburn.edu/~vestmon/robotics.html">Isaac Asimov-style Laws of Robotics</a>, the first law is definitely “don’t embarrass OpenAI.”
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</p>
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<h3 id="wALXof">
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A glimpse into what’s ahead for us
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iMgQkX">
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But if ChatGPT is flawed, it’s smart enough to be useful despite its flaws. And many of the flaws will be edited away with more research and effort — quite possibly very soon, with the next major language model from OpenAI just weeks or months away.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2GU311">
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“The piece of this that just makes my brain explode … is that ChatGPT is not even OpenAI’s best AI chatbot,” the New York Times’s Kevin Roose <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/podcasts/can-chatgpt-make-this-podcast.html">said this week</a> on the Times tech podcast <em>Hard Fork</em>. “Right now, OpenAI is developing the next version of its large language model, GPT4, and if you talk to people in Silicon Valley who work in AI research, they kind of talk about this like it’s magic.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MAwrlS">
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Silicon Valley’s biggest names have been entirely candid about why they’re doing this and where they think it’s headed. The aim is to build systems that surpass humans in every respect and thereby fundamentally transform humanity’s future, even though that comes with a <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23447596/artificial-intelligence-agi-openai-gpt3-existential-risk-human-extinction">real chance of wiping us out if things go wrong</a>. “ChatGPT is scary good. We are not far from dangerously strong AI,” Elon Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1599128577068650498">tweeted earlier this month</a>. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman offered qualified agreement, <a href="https://twitter.com/sama/status/1599134747761946624">replying</a>, “i agree on being close to dangerously strong AI in the sense of an AI that poses e.g. a huge cybersecurity risk. and i think we could get to real AGI in the next decade, so we have to take the risk of that extremely seriously too.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Exy9Cg">
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There’s been a tendency to dismiss such claims as meaningless hype; after all, every startup in Silicon Valley claims that it’s going to transform the world, <a href="https://towardsdatascience.com/history-of-the-first-ai-winter-6f8c2186f80b">and the field of AI has been marked by summers of optimism followed by winters of dashed hopes</a>. But ChatGPT makes it clear that behind the hype and the fear, there’s at least a little — and maybe a lot — of substance.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C9FXee">
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<em>A version of this story was initially published in the Future Perfect newsletter. </em><a href="https://confirmsubscription.com/h/d/A2BA26698741513A"><em><strong>Sign up here to subscribe!</strong></em></a>
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</p></li>
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<li><strong>How workers fought back in 2022</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/eexy3OJngqZ6bBwW3acmmsDBpmM=/189x0:3656x2600/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71752498/GettyImages_1245289556a.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Gloria Bartolo leads marching postdoctoral scholars and academic researchers as they demand better wages, student housing, child care, and more from the University of California Los Angeles, on December 1, as contract negotiations continue and thousands strike. | Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images
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</figcaption>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Workers unionized, quit their jobs, and refused to go back to the office.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rK7EVa">
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Marissa Peterson quit her job as a bartender in Durham, North Carolina, in June, after she was sexually assaulted by a customer and felt management didn’t do enough to keep her assailant from returning to the establishment.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y7l3Rm">
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Her decision, Peterson said, was informed by time she spent at home during the pandemic, after being laid off from another job. Extended pandemic unemployment insurance gave her, for the first time in her adult life, space from work and time to consider her relationship with it.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="edKD3g">
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“I was able to truly start thinking about how I had been mistreated by several employers, and just the things that I tolerated, and, unfortunately, how I allowed them to mistreat me by not saying anything or by not leaving sooner,” she said.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rPt344">
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When the incident happened at her new job, the decision was clear, even though it meant missing out on much-needed paychecks.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wWgxNX">
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“When I ended up quitting, it was because I felt as though my own self-respect was worth more than money,” Peterson explained.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eOhQCH">
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Even as the worst of the pandemic has waned and many things have returned to normal, many are refusing to let work return to how it was before. Workers like Peterson are expressing that sentiment by their willingness to quit their jobs. Currently, the quit rate in the US is at 2.6 percent, down from its peak of 3 percent<strong> </strong>last winter but still above historic norms. In other words, the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2022/article/empirical-evidence-for-the-great-resignation.htm">Great Resignation</a> is still going. Others are trying to improve the jobs they’re in through collective action like unionizing and striking. Those who were able to work from home during the pandemic and felt it made their jobs and lives better are refusing to come back to the office.
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These decisions have been made possible, in part, by a tight hiring market where employers have struggled to find enough workers. But the fact this scenario has lasted so long — as <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22638555/unemployment-extension-benefits-biden">extended unemployment insurance</a> ran out, as <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/11/10/23451038/silicon-valley-layoffs-meta-facebook-jobs-work-identity">layoffs</a> crowd the headlines — suggests there’s more at play. There seems to have been a fundamental shift in how many Americans consider work’s role in their lives, moving the needle ever so slightly from “live to work” to “work to live.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4rQuNh">
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This change came about for many reasons. The pandemic shed more light on and caused more appreciation for the plight of front-line workers, whose jobs were exceedingly difficult and underpaid even before they became more overtly dangerous. For knowledge workers, who can do most tasks with just a computer and an internet connection, it showed that commuting to a physical location wasn’t necessary to do their jobs or for their companies to thrive. Perhaps most poignantly, the millions of deaths that the pandemic wrought showcased the fleetingness of life and made people a little more cautious about how they spend their short time on Earth.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kN0Uns">
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Importantly for many Americans — including Petersen, who currently works three jobs —quitting is not simply a decision of having an income or not. Many Americans have learned how to survive on a spouse’s income, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/12/13/23500066/pandemic-savings-inflation-recession">dwindling savings</a>, or simply less. That means the decision to quit a job is a little less arduous than it used to be.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ry9TxB">
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In some ways, the current moment is also a reaction to what came before, when overwork became not only commonplace but also glorified, according to Simone Stolzoff, author of the upcoming book <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/704142/the-good-enough-job-by-simone-stolzoff/"><em>The Good Enough Job</em></a><em>. </em>The 2000s and 2010s were plagued by celebrity tech CEOs, hustle culture, and the misplaced <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2021/08/demise-of-the-girlboss.html">promise of the #girlboss</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3q3tj7">
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“Now we’re seeing the pushback,” Stolzoff said. “Employees have been able to see an alternative both with their eyes on social media and taste it in their lived experience of their own work.”
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</p>
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<div id="Ilo1Dy">
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
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The Office was good TV for the age of gifs, lolcats and wordart memes and less so for today’s content economy. But also, the stranglehold workplaces have on people now is far greater for it to really be a relatable workplace comedy
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</p>
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— HK (<span class="citation" data-cites="HKesvani">@HKesvani</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/HKesvani/status/1600427033061777409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 7, 2022</a>
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</blockquote>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EdMaD8">
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As we enter a potential recession — even a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/recession-economy-unemployment-jobs-11656947596">jobful</a> recession, as some have dubbed this one — jobs will likely become scarcer, and decisions to leave or fight back at work will become tougher. Still, there are reasons to believe this era of worker power won’t go away without a fight.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="O9A14G">
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Demographic changes in the US, including an aging population, low birth rates, and low immigration, suggest the tight hiring market could continue beyond the pandemic. And as members of Generation Z, some of whom came of age during the pandemic and its hardships, enter the job market, so too will their <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22977663/gen-z-antiwork-capitalism">views on work</a>, which are decidedly critical.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GsfIEZ">
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How long this era of worker power lasts could change what more workers expect from their jobs. And depending on how aggressive workers get with their demands, employers could change what they have to offer in the first place.
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</p>
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<h3 id="67Q7pP">
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The fight to keep work remote
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eF0z4l">
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What worker power looks like in practice varies by industry and by worker, but it has cropped up most noticeably among knowledge workers as a push to continue working from home. People are eating at restaurants and attending concerts and sporting events, but they have not returned to the office at pre-pandemic rates, suggesting their reluctance is not simply due to fears of getting Covid. After successfully working from home for more than two years while corporations made <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-25/us-corporate-profits-soar-taking-margins-to-widest-since-1950">record profits</a>, many companies’ decisions to call workers back to the office have fallen on deaf ears. That has meant many workers have <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23161501/return-to-office-remote-not-working">refused to come back in</a>, while others have gone as far as to quit in order to find the privilege at another employer.
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</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="joNrZp">
|
||
The jobs with the biggest growth in people looking to quit are in positions that were remote during the pandemic and where people are being called back, according to a <a href="https://www.payscale.com/research-and-insights/hottest-jobs-end-of-year-report-2022/#module-16">new report</a> from compensation software company Payscale.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HsTAd6">
|
||
Craig Register, a father of two in Los Angeles, quit his job directing operations at a beauty company in January after his employer asked workers to return to the office full time. Register said he left along with his whole team, but soon got a call from the company attorney asking if he’d come back, remotely, until the company found a replacement. He did, and it took two months.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XJMc8v">
|
||
For Register, who spoke to Recode after he was able to duck out of work midday to see his son’s play, there was no going back to his hour-long commute each way and trying to juggle child care.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xgFWYy">
|
||
“You went to work and you commuted if you had to, and that was just the way things were,” Register said. “Then the pandemic really, I think, opened a lot of people’s eyes to, well, it can be a different way, and this different way is better.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LHBEWZ">
|
||
Remote work has had even more dramatic impacts on people’s lives, like allowing people to become homeowners since they weren’t tied to a single region and its real estate costs.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-float-right">
|
||
<aside id="A20zOg">
|
||
<q>“Then the pandemic really, I think, opened a lot of people’s eyes to, well, it can be a different way, and this different way is better”</q>
|
||
</aside>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5MdimB">
|
||
Dustin Tanner, an interface designer at Apple, had been commuting three hours back and forth to company headquarters in Cupertino, California, each day. When the pandemic hit and Tanner was able to work remotely, he was finally able to afford a home he and his family had long wanted — in Texas.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sgQEr2">
|
||
“The housing market is so crazy that even working in the executive design team at Apple designing all of their flagship products, it was still really hard to buy a home if you hadn’t been established in California for a long time,” he said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0uZun8">
|
||
When Apple told workers <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/15/apple-tells-employees-to-come-in-3-times-a-week-starting-september.html">this past summer</a> they’d be expected to return to the office three days a week, Tanner considered flying back and forth from Texas every week but ultimately decided to give up his “dream job” in exchange for one that would allow him to continue working remotely and spend more time with his family.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qjE9Fj">
|
||
“If we take those remote opportunities, we don’t have to make all these sacrifices,” he said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ilNTDT">
|
||
Remote jobs make up less than 15 percent of jobs on LinkedIn but get more than half of all applications, the company told Recode. That suggests there are more people who want to work remotely than there are jobs. It also suggests that employers who offer remote work will get more interest.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aVBaVK">
|
||
It’s also possible that workers won’t have to fight as hard for remote work soon, as the move to return to the office is coming up against the need to save money. Employers, loath to fire workers, are <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/11/30/23484001/recession-cost-cutting-return-to-office-software">cutting back on office space</a> instead.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div id="MPUCTA">
|
||
<div id="datawrapper-iHdT6">
|
||
|
||
</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SSFLak">
|
||
Currently, 79 percent of people whose jobs could be done from home are working from home, either in a hybrid or fully remote arrangement, according to data from Gallup. That rate has remained surprisingly <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/397751/returning-office-current-preferred-future-state-remote-work.aspx">consistent</a> over the last year and a half.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="R8zPQW">
|
||
The state of the union is strong
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JTgyFC">
|
||
Workers are not only taking stands on single issues like remote work, they’re collectively organizing to tackle a much broader range of issues. Americans are joining unions at levels not seen in years, as workers organize to get better conditions. More than 1,000 unions have won elections in 2022, the most since 2015, according to preliminary data for this year provided by <a href="https://pro.bloomberglaw.com/">Bloomberg Law</a>, which will likely be revised upward.<strong> </strong>People are also organizing in sectors that were once considered impossible to unionize, like retail. Workers at <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22993509/starbucks-successful-union-drive">Starbucks</a>, Apple, <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23005336/amazon-union-new-york-warehouse">Amazon</a>, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/8/13/23299622/trader-joes-starbucks-union-movement">Trader Joe’s</a> all unionized this year in the hope of getting better working conditions by collectively organizing.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div id="nMJk7D">
|
||
<div id="datawrapper-zy0ph">
|
||
|
||
</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ThpUL0">
|
||
The pandemic, again, seems to be the galvanizing force here, Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, told Recode.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iTb74M">
|
||
“They were greedy, and they took too much from workers, expected too much from workers, and, most of all, took too much for themselves,” she said, referring to companies and their record profits while workers, especially front-line workers, endured poor working conditions. “I think that’s the spark.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="M6mkj8">
|
||
It helps that there’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/8/30/23326654/2022-union-charts-elections-wins-strikes">extremely high approval for unions</a> in the US right now, with more people saying they support unions than at any time since 1965. That’s happening even in the face of strikes that could potentially make life more difficult for Americans.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-float-right">
|
||
<aside id="Gpv3ak">
|
||
<q>“They took too much from workers, expected too much from workers, and, most of all, took too much for themselves”</q>
|
||
</aside>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xefHa4">
|
||
There were 360 strikes from January to November this year, a 45 percent jump from the same period last year — which was also a big year for strikes — according to data shared by Johnnie Kallas, project director of Cornell’s <a href="https://striketracker.ilr.cornell.edu">ILR Labor Action Tracker</a>. Earlier this year, <a href="https://abc17news.com/money/cnn-business-consumer/2022/09/12/massive-health-care-strike-15000-minnesota-nurses-walk-off-the-job/">15,000 nurses went on strike in Minnesota</a> to try and get better staffing and patient care. Last month, Starbucks workers across the country <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/11/17/23464263/starbucks-workers-red-cup-rebellion-union-strike">stood on picket lines</a> on what’s considered one of the company’s busiest days of the year in the hope of getting the company to finally bargain on a contract. Congress was forced to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/11/29/23484623/congress-rail-strike-biden-sick-days">intervene</a> earlier this month to stop a rail strike, as rail workers nearly <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63798110">incapacitated</a> cross-country trade to protest strict attendance policies and the fact that they don’t have a single paid sick day. And last week, more than 1,000 New York Times employees <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/business/media/new-york-times-union-walkout.html">stepped off the job</a> and asked readers not to cross their digital picket line by going to any of the company’s publications to protest stalled contract negotiations.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MK7zOw">
|
||
The more people unionize and strike, the more others are encouraged to do so as well.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GrWMyh">
|
||
“Organizing and strikes are contagious,” Bronfenbrenner said. “When they see that workers just like them have done it and succeeded, it inspires them that they can do it, too.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mlRT-mX-ivqeRH9D4gq4AWJVU04=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24288632/GettyImages_1447762081a.jpg"/> <cite>Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
More than 1,100 unionized New York Times staff members participated in a 24-hour strike on December 8 outside of the paper’s headquarters in New York City. Continued negotiations between the Times Guild and the paper’s management broke down mostly over pay. Journalists at the newspaper have not had a working contract since March 2021.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PcGZdQ">
|
||
That was the case for Tracy V. Wilson, host of the podcast <em>Stuff You Missed in History Class</em>, who successfully organized with her colleagues at iHeartMedia, which voluntarily recognized the union in <a href="https://twitter.com/iheartpodunion/status/1496902608979693580">February</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G2VNnM">
|
||
“Seeing other podcast shops successfully unionize and successfully bargain contracts was a pretty big inspiration,” Wilson said. “A lot of the same core issues drove my colleagues to start organizing.” Those issues include overwork and not having enough resources to do their jobs.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V2oOhr">
|
||
Writ large, these realizations have caused workers across the country and across industries to try their hand at unionizing and to test just how much power they have.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="i6sWEl">
|
||
The case for continuing worker power
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yHNuYz">
|
||
The current situation won’t last forever. Layoffs and fewer job openings will put a dent in worker power. And the magnitude and length of any coming recession will determine just how big that hit will be. Still, there are structural and cultural reasons to think worker power has staying power.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B90six">
|
||
While the working-age population is still growing, it’s not growing as fast as it has historically, according to a recent <a href="https://lightcast.io/resources/research/demographic-drought">report</a> by market analytics firm Lightcast, formerly Emsi Burning Glass. And as boomers age, more people will be retiring and leaving the workforce than entering it. By 2034, older Americans will outnumber children for the first time in history, according to <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2018/03/graying-america.html">census projections</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NhOdTz">
|
||
Compounding the situation are <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22411236/immigration-census-population-growth">low immigration numbers</a> and low workforce participation rates. The labor force participation rate, or the share of the working population that’s working or wants to work, is still notably lower than it was pre-pandemic, thanks to fears of the ongoing pandemic, early retirement, and terrible child care options, among other reasons.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X4QJ4F">
|
||
All of this goes to say that there aren’t enough workers, so those who are working have a little bit more power and not as much fear of replacement as they would otherwise. Additionally, the generation entering the workforce may not be as deferential to their employers as their predecessors.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OZE5VD">
|
||
Gen Z workers have a front-row seat to an economy where wage growth <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23451232/2022-crypto-inflation-abortion-flu-remote-ukraine">isn’t enough to counter inflation</a> and where no matter how hard they work, they may never be able to afford a home like their parents or grandparents. That’s done a number on their career outlook. People in Gen Z, the oldest of whom are about 25, say they’re <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22977663/gen-z-antiwork-capitalism">forgoing striving and ambition</a> in exchange for leisure and simply enjoying life. They’re working out of financial necessity rather than some inborn calling. And they expect a lot more out of their jobs than previous generations.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p5LKfM">
|
||
That’s not to say getting better working conditions will be easy. Forming a union and negotiating a contract is an uphill battle with odds in favor of employers. Quitting a job can be terrifying and financially ruinous. Demanding better work-life balance takes a lot of energy. Still, many workers have done the calculus and have decided that better work is worth it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i01PW7">
|
||
“If workers aren’t feeling safe or fairly compensated or protected, they will continue to speak up and advocate for change,” Stoltzoff said. “I imagine there will be fewer workers quitting with nothing lined up on the other side, but I think the push to try and reform and make the workplace better will continue.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><strong>Why are Christmas movie “miracles” never miracles at all?</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="The stars of Great American Christmas’s “A Christmas...Present” strike a pose in front of a Christmas tree." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bG1xhHu13ja-ndsqHPmpbttfoEg=/0x0:1333x1000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71748403/gac1.0.jpeg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Christmas movies are full of miracles and togetherness. Or are they? | Courtesy of Great American Media
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Candace Cameron Bure wants to put the Christ back into Christmas movies, but she’s not really following through.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3BV6E6">
|
||
Last month, I started mainlining made-for-TV Christmas movies — Hallmark movies and their otherly-channeled clones — to research an entirely different article, not the one you’re reading right now. (Maybe next year.) What arrested my attention instead was a common claim in every single one of the movies, one so insistently made that I started to feel a tad skeptical. It’s summed up best, perhaps, in a line from the Lindsay Lohan Netflix vehicle <em>Falling for Christmas</em>: “Christmas,” a grandmother insists, “is a time for miracles.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zwoNmF">
|
||
Miracles, and also magic; the terms are interchangeable, and also made more specific. “Holiday” magic. “Christmas” miracles. Hot single business women find hot single dads to date. Small businesses on the verge of bankruptcy are saved at the eleventh hour. Children wish for family togetherness, and the wish is granted.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CfIgCr">
|
||
These are wonderful things, but not actually miracles, or not in the sense of the actual meaning of the word. A miracle is definitionally an unexplained occurrence that people believe is the work of some divine entity. It’s more often used as a metaphor these days — I bet you’ve uttered the phrase “it’s a Christmas miracle!” ironically a time or two yourself. But in the gentle made-for-TV Christmas movie, they refer to ordinary events that many people experience in their lives — securing a home, finding love, discovering a profitable and sustainable business model — now made sparkly and near-supernatural simply because they occur in the midst of snow and holly. These not-quite-miracles live a double life of divinity and inevitability, because they’re also an expectation. If something is going wrong, it’s okay — once Christmas rolls around, it will be fixed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="A very Christmasy scene, in which a man and a woman and a child talk to a person who looks suspiciously like Santa Claus in a place full of Christmas decorations." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5n9UeRHm0C3j5Jikjxn98xMNZes=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24288892/gac3.jpeg"/> <cite>Courtesy of Netflix</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
The Lindsay Lohan vehicle <em>Falling for Christmas</em> was one of the season’s goofier offerings.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f9KZ4r">
|
||
I saw the miracle idea in movies from the Hallmark Channel, which <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/23/how-hallmark-took-over-cable-tv">was created</a> when parent company Crown Media took over the formerly Christian channel Odyssey in 2001. I saw the miracle mantra in Christmas movies on Lifetime, which offers similar fare to Hallmark but exactly two notches sexier, and on Netflix, which delightfully has instituted the practice of having characters in its Christmas movies stumble across other Netflix Christmas movies in their own world. (Lindsay Lohan, playing the <em>Falling for Christmas</em> heroine, an heiress who experiences amnesia and wakes up in an unfamiliar setting, flicks on the TV in the morning, triggering the Netflix “tudum” sound and the landing page for 2021’s <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81026181"><em>A Castle for Christmas</em></a>.)
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ruifDD">
|
||
And I saw them in the movies of the new “Great American Family” channel, which <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/candace-cameron-bure-traditional-marriage-great-american-family-1235262724/">made news</a> when its star and a channel executive, Candace Cameron Bure, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/candace-cameron-bure-great-american-family-11668205295">told the Wall Street Journal</a> that the channel would keep “traditional marriage at the core.” (A tiny number of Hallmark movies feature same-sex couples.) Bure, the former <em>Full House</em> star sometimes dubbed the “Queen of Christmas,” starred in the 2014 film <em>Christmas Under Wraps</em>, which more or less kicked off the genre. For many viewers, she comes with built-in cred.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="stptzj">
|
||
The fledgling channel’s official moniker for its Christmas programming, “Great American Christmas,” left me sort of in awe. What an artless marketing strategy to name your network and its associated properties — like production company Great American Media — by employing a rather obvious Trump campaign slogan echo. It was blatant and cynical and brilliant, all at once. I had to see what they were actually doing.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PnXa2C">
|
||
It turns out that “Great American Christmas” programming is pretty similar to that of Hallmark or any other channel, but seemingly a lot whiter (and I don’t mean the snow) and, yes, no gay couples. In the grand tradition of Hallmark, the Great American Christmas movies remain studiously “apolitical” (in the sense that politics aren’t referred to directly); perhaps the only textual trope that seemed to smack directly of the grander MAGA belief system is a number of very pointed “Merry Christmas” salutations and no “Happy Holidays.” Otherwise, it’s mostly the familiar greatest hits. The only red hats are on Santa.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NlJmPp">
|
||
In the film <em>Destined at Christmas</em>, for instance — kind of a <em>Serendipity</em> knock-off — a hot single dad (Casey Elliott) and a single, career-focused woman (Shae Robins) meet in a pre-dawn Black Friday shopping line, where he’s finding gifts for his daughter and she for her niece. They wind up spending the morning together chatting and shopping and sipping hot cocoa, then lose one another when the electricity goes out in a store, and they spend the rest of the movie trying to locate one another. They finally do — at the town’s “Christmas village” (a common trope of the genre) and the Christmas Eve “Santa send-off.” The film ends a year later, when they are still together, exchanging gifts and talking about the miracle of love.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uBv066">
|
||
There are many ways to criticize these movies, and <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-152-hallmark-christmas-movies-and-the/id1258545975?i=1000545076424">many</a> <a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/12/25/hallmark-christmas-movies-fascist-propaganda/">have</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/12/23/hallmarks-christmas-movies-are-part-culture-war-their-viewers-are-losing/">done</a> it. The genre can be toxically nostalgic and regressive; they’re usually the opposite of inclusive; the illusion of apoliticality is, itself, political. They’re technically billed as “originals,” but they’re the antithesis of original (though I started to admire the endless variations on the theme that writers seem to invent — Hallmark released 40 Christmas originals this year, while the still-new Great American Family released 18 originals.)
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fmOopo">
|
||
But whatever my feelings as a critic about this material (in part, that they’re so sincere that taking them down feels exhausting and silly and mean, like picking on your grandma), I continually found myself fixating on the “magical miracle” thing.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NkgUp5">
|
||
I was raised in an environment that took the idea of Christmas as a religious holiday very seriously. I wasn’t allowed to believe in Santa as a kid. At church, we often spoke about the “reason for the season” (Jesus) and about the dangers of letting the secular commercialization of Christmas overtake its true meaning. That true meaning was, in fact, framed as a miracle: God became a baby <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%202:6-7&version=NIV">born in a barn</a> to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+1%3A18-25&version=NIV">a virgin</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+2%3A8-20&version=NIV">angels appeared to shepherds</a> to announce it all, and for Christians, history pivoted on its axis around that event.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="r0mX5N">
|
||
It was not really a sweet story, though, at least not as we learned it. Christmas also included <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+2%3A1-3&version=NIV">tyranny and forced occupation</a>, the terror of babies being <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Innocents#:~:text=The%20Massacre%20of%20the%20Innocents,in%20the%20vicinity%20of%20Bethlehem.">murdered by a desperate king</a>, and a small family <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_into_Egypt">fleeing for their lives to Egypt</a>. Even Santa was less a jolly grandpa in the sky and more a warrior; we learned he was based on St. Nicholas of Myra, who stood for justice and, reportedly, rescued girls from forced prostitution <a href="https://www.wctrib.com/lifestyle/saint-nicholas-sparks-legend-of-santa-claus">by dropping gold down their chimney</a> (you see the connection).
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-float-right">
|
||
<aside id="h2gdSw">
|
||
<q>That sort of miracle — the one where your dad can pay his debts and doesn’t have to sell you into enslavement — is not quite the same as saving your new boyfriend’s small ski chalet or finding your true love after some mildly pleasant hijinks.</q>
|
||
</aside>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iX37r5">
|
||
That sort of miracle — the one where your dad can pay his debts and doesn’t have to sell you into enslavement — is not quite the same as saving your new boyfriend’s small ski chalet or finding your true love after some mildly pleasant hijinks. Instead, this is the softer miracle of Santa, American-style: he winks or touches his nose and your wish lands on the tree, or there’s some extra light in the sky, or you suddenly realize the guy you’ve been playfully fight-flirting with is actually your soulmate.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kyVVnc">
|
||
These are really lovely things, but they lack the wonder of a real miracle and — perhaps more fascinating — they lack a divine entity making them happen. It seems sometimes like “Christmas” itself is the god of the machinery, the being to be worshiped and celebrated and prayed to. Or it’s Santa, who pops up throughout these movies often as a kindly stranger in the town square selling snow globes or ornaments and listening to our characters’ wishes and woes.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5hMKDb">
|
||
I’m far from wishing God would pop up in American Christmas movies — the holiday is long past being observed in more than a cursory religious way for most who celebrate it, and that’s fine. You don’t have to be a practicing Christian to celebrate Christmas. You don’t have to believe in anything at all. What was curious to me was the near-total absence of even those cursory religious practices; rather than go to church on Christmas Eve, the characters go to the Santa send-off. In a genre so enamored with “miracles,” so rooted in Christianity, it seemed odd to never hear about, for instance, the birth of Jesus.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="A family at church, decorated for Christmas." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-eJ4aRvSPbl6KXxTLTBpPfdQYvo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24288896/gac2.jpeg"/> <cite>Great American Media</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
In <em>A Christmas…Present</em>, the family actually goes to church!
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XuJv7y">
|
||
Until I watched the new original movie that Bure starred in for the Great American Christmas, entitled <em>A Christmas…Present</em>. She plays Maggie, a busy Type A mom with a family of two teens and her lawyer husband, from whom she’s been feeling a bit distant. On a whim, she decides the family actually needs to go to Ohio for Christmas — starting tomorrow, 10 days before the actual holiday — to spend time with her recently widowed brother Paul (Paul Fitzgerald) and his tween daughter. And she has many activities planned.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="z10gPx">
|
||
<em>A Christmas…Present</em> hits most of the genre’s greatest hits: busy career woman returns home and rediscovers herself; lots of talk about family togetherness; plenteous Christmas decorating and cookies and all the trappings. What set this one apart (aside from the fact that the reconnecting couple is already married) was that it actually was religious. Paul quotes the Bible to Maggie a lot — chapter and verse. They talk about belief together. The family goes to church. The word “Jesus” is uttered. In essence, it’s a Christian movie that is set at Christmas, and that’s a rare thing for the made-for-TV Christmas movie, even (as far as I could tell) on the Great American Family channel.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NCtYFH">
|
||
This isn’t a movie where the whole Christmas story gets told, though, or even read aloud as a family. (They do sing specifically Christian carols.) Nobody has an altar call at church. Santa is a real figure in the world, and the Christmas magical miracle is still what everyone’s after — in this case, the miracle of reconnecting with your family.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5qpnjw">
|
||
It felt in keeping with recent research that shows that labels like “evangelical” (the <a href="https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2015/05/Religious-Composition-of-U.S.-Adults.pdf">largest Christian group</a> in America) are <a href="https://theweek.com/christianity/1016833/is-us-evangelical-christianity-more-a-culture-than-a-religion">increasingly associated with culture over religious belief</a>. The miracles served up by the original Christmas story are messy and scary and threatening to the Hallmark ideals of comfort and safety and not rocking the boat. They might threaten the wealthy, spendy Christmas showcased in the genre, even when the movie is set in what’s meant to be a small town. Actual Christmas miracles, if you take the religious origins of the story to be true, are uncomfortable and frightening and weird. They’re the exact opposite of a Christmas movie.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-float-right">
|
||
<aside id="qcrRxL">
|
||
<q>In the movies’ world, not getting in the Christmas spirit is not just unforgivable — it’s unthinkable.</q>
|
||
</aside>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q4p8Vq">
|
||
In the end, that’s the unsettling part of watching all of these movies: that the thing they prize most is a feeling of happiness and peace and expectation, all things we wish for at Christmas. But the thing they <em>promise</em> is that this <em>will</em> happen; it’s the foregone conclusion in a cheaply made, churned-out production, not an actual miracle at all. And if you don’t experience those wonderful but quotidian Christmas feelings, you’re a spoilsport with no faith. If you’re feeling downtrodden on the holiday, or if you don’t feel like singing that carol or decorating that cookie, the problem would have to be with you. In the movies’ world, not getting in the Christmas spirit is not just unforgivable — it’s unthinkable. A religion that understands the inherently disturbing nature of the holiday could be helpful in moments like these, but it’s been squeezed out of Christmas entirely.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qBEDf7">
|
||
It’s true that, at the end of the day, <em>A Christmas…Present</em> aims to remind people that God is a big part of Christmas — something you’d think might be a bigger part of the genre. But even by the end of that film, God is, in essence, Santa: a benevolent presence who brings what you want. At the end of the film, embracing her husband and promising to be more intentional about their relationship when they return home, snowflakes begin to land on their coats. It’s a Christmas miracle. Maggie turns her face up toward the falling snow. “Thank you, God,” she says.
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>FIFA World Cup 2022 | Resilient Argentina bounds past a flagging Croatia</strong> - Argentina scored three in the semifinal match against Croatia who otherwise dominated the midfield</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>FIFA World Cup 2022 | Inside a football-crazy Tamil Nadu village</strong> - When Cristiano Ronaldo appeared on the screen during the World Cup quarter-final between Portugal and Morocco, Tamil Nadu’s Thoothoor and its adjacent villages along the Kanniyakumari coastline cheered enthusiastically. We were among the crowd.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Hyderabad-based Srinivas and Radhika Reddy make a mark with Telugu commentary for Pro Kabaddi League Season 9</strong> - The two are the only couple commentating in Telugu</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>When is FIFA World Cup 2022 final? Date and kick-off time in India</strong> - The 80,000-capacity Lusail Iconic Stadium will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup final between Argentina and France</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Review of Luciano Wernicke’s The Most Incredible World Cup Stories: Football snapshots</strong> - The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 has showcased a game full of history, anecdotes, joy and angst</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Kerala government to consider introducing Bill to curb evil practices and black magic</strong> - The government informs the Kerala High Court that it will consider introducing the Kerala Prevention and Eradication of Inhuman Evil Practices, Sorcery and Black Magic Bill, 2019 in the next session of the Assembly</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Himachal Pradesh cabinet will be formed after State Assembly session: CM Sukhu</strong> - Mallikarjun Kharge asked Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu to share power with party workers so that they also feel the ownership of the government and work more closely with public</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Dense fog engulfs Kochi, three in-bound flights diverted</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Vishwanath hits back at Srinivas Prasad for calling him “political nomad”</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>‘U.S. created Indo-Pacific concept to bring in India to contain China,’ says Chinese official</strong> - Chinese diplomat and Ambassador to France Lu Shaye blames ‘foreign forces’ for fanning recent protests in China</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Denmark’s new government drops public holiday to boost defence budget</strong> - The new government says it will scrap a public holiday observed since the 17th Century.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Boy run over and killed after France World Cup win</strong> - A 14-year-old is knocked down by a car draped with a flag in the southern city of Montpellier.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Hungary’s risky bet on Russia’s nuclear power</strong> - Russia’s war in Ukraine is making a new power station - the biggest single investment in Hungarian history - less likely by the day.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Four in EU-Qatar bribery inquiry to stay in custody</strong> - The arrests follow a year-long investigation into an alleged bribery affair involving Qatar.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>French police search Macron party office and consulting firm</strong> - The raids are part of inquiries into the use of consultancies by France’s president in 2017 and 2021.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Russian spacecraft started leaking uncontrollably on Wednesday night</strong> - After three hours Wednesday night the leak remained ongoing. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1904662">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>High class: A strong electric assist transforms a classic cruiser</strong> - Mixed messages from a casual cruising machine with a powerful motor. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1901684">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Oppo prototypes Magic Mouse-looking health tracker for the whole family</strong> - ECG, sleep tracking, and heart and lung auscultation—all in one unusual design. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1904375">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>COVID is here to stay, but global emergency could end next year, WHO chief says</strong> - Vaccine inequity, long COVID, and weak variant surveillance loom as big challenges. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1904591">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Prosecutors charge 6 people for allegedly waging massive DDoS attacks</strong> - 48 Internet domains associated with the services have also been seized. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1904558">link</a></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A man finds a genie lamp, rubs it and poof a Genie appears.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Genie: I have the power to grant you 3 wishes but keep in mind, whatever you wish, your mother-in-law will receive two-fold…
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Man: Ok. My first wish is for 1 billion dollars.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Genie: Your wish is granted, but keep in mind that your mother-in-law will receive 2 billion dollars.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Man: That’s fine. My second wish is for a 20,000sq ft mansion in the Hamptons.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Genie: Your wish is granted, but keep in mind that your mother-in-law will receive a 40,000sq ft mansion in the Hamptons.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Man: That’s fine.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Genie: Ok. What is your third wish?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Man: I want you to beat me half to death.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/liquidstone_"> /u/liquidstone_ </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zm1efr/a_man_finds_a_genie_lamp_rubs_it_and_poof_a_genie/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zm1efr/a_man_finds_a_genie_lamp_rubs_it_and_poof_a_genie/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What’s the difference between model trains and titties?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Nothing, both are intended for children but it’s the dads who are playing with them.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/cawnion"> /u/cawnion </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zmasnl/whats_the_difference_between_model_trains_and/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zmasnl/whats_the_difference_between_model_trains_and/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The old professor started each lecture with a dirty joke.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
After a real objectionable example of that one day, the female students got together and decided that next time, when this happens again, they will all walk out in unison.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The professor got wind of this plot. Next morning, after he entered the lecture hall, he said: “Good morning! Have you heard about the shortage of prostitutes in Alaska?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Now all the female students stood up and headed toward the exit.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The professor continued: “Oh, ladies, please wait, the plane to alaska doesn’t leave until tomorrow!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“We know, but it takes all of us and a whole day to carry your mom” replied one of the students
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/DerRaumdenker"> /u/DerRaumdenker </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zlw9k7/the_old_professor_started_each_lecture_with_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zlw9k7/the_old_professor_started_each_lecture_with_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>My friend tries to impress girls by drawing realistic pictures of a Ford F-150.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
He’s ….a pickup artist.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/porichoygupto"> /u/porichoygupto </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zlstn6/my_friend_tries_to_impress_girls_by_drawing/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zlstn6/my_friend_tries_to_impress_girls_by_drawing/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Two scientists walk into a bar.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“I’ll have H2O,” says the first. “I’ll have H2O, too,” says the second. The bartender gives them water because he is able to distinguish the boundary tones that dictate the grammatical functions of homonyms in coda positions, as well as pragmatic context.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/SpeedTuber"> /u/SpeedTuber </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zlzu69/two_scientists_walk_into_a_bar/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zlzu69/two_scientists_walk_into_a_bar/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
|
||
|
||
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