Tabs Classic™: I Shall Wear The Redditors' Loathing With Pride

As Jeff Goldblum said, “life… finds a way” to interfere with my writing schedule. But we are fortunate, because seven years ago, on July 6th, 2015 I wrote one of the few lines I actually remember from all of Tabs. This issue featured an early description of what we have come to know as web3, to our great sorrow, and also stands as evidence that I knew exactly how that would go. Also: The Take Tree (from a still title-less Alison Headley), the Greek debt crisis, and nude tennis Choire. It was a better time, there’s no denying, so join me for a fleeting moment in the past, where…

Reddit is revolting! And those revolting users are now also rebelling against reddit, Inc. for firing AMA coordinator Victoria Taylor. The protest took the form of shutting down large parts of the site, which dovetails well with reddit’s current corporate policy anyway so I’m not sure what they hope to achieve. Most of the rebelling mods appear to hate reddit more than I do, so maybe they’re just trying to kill it.

But if reddit’s users don’t succeed in killing the site, klepto-currency snake oilers are standing by to do it for them. Fred Wilson, a major investor in blockchain-based companies desperately searching for problems to exacerbate, thinks reddit might be just such a problem, as does reddit’s former cryoptocurrency engineer, Ryan X. Charles. In the IEEE Spectrum, Morgen E. Peck goes into great depth on all the ways we could make the normal things we do now more difficult and expensive using the blockchain. Maybe they’re right! Perhaps what the world really needs is a way to use math to convert fossil fuels directly into misogyny.

The Take Tree has been watching the U.S. Women’s World Cup team demolish the rest of the world in a sport they care about and we don’t.

Greece voted no on Sunday to the EU/IMF/ECB "offer" of a bailout with yet more punitive austerity measures attached. If you consider yourself an absolute moron, check out NYMag’s aptly-titled "Absolute Moron’s Guide to the Greek Debt Crisis" which expresses the conventional "Greece is a deadbeat state" wisdom pretty well. But Paul Krugman pointed out that the offer on the table was more of a "campaign of bullying… like medieval doctors who insisted on bleeding their patients" orchestrated by what anyone would identify as predatory lenders if they were operating out of a payday loan storefront in Norfolk, VA rather than fancy office towers in Frankfurt. Thomas Piketty did an interview with Die Zeit, which was briefly available translated into English on Medium, where he pointed out how laughable Germany’s high moral dudgeon is, since Germany is the only developed nation that never once paid its own debts. Piketty also observed that monetary union without political union will inevitably fail, which is the real root of the current Greek crisis, and, if it remains unresolved, the future Irish crisis, Spanish crisis, Portuguese crisis, and so on. After winning the vote on Sunday, Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis resigned with a pretty classic mic drop of a statement: "I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride." As of today, the ECB is returning Greek banks to June 26th-level emergency liquidity assistance, which means… something, surely.

Third runway at Heathrow triggers Armageddon, reports Stewart Lee. Long shoes are long. Ban AC (or at least turn it down. Up? Ugh this is always confusing). Chatbots chat. Today in Beaks. Fusion is the Uber of TV no one watches. Gawker makes some money, maybe, depending on how much you trust Nick Denton’s accounting. Industry still fucked. But Choire’s looking really good.

Longreads: "Among the Pyros at One of the Biggest Fireworks Competitions in the World" in VQR, and an excerpt from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s forthcoming book in The Atlantic, about the history and present of the black body in America.

Today’s Good Idea: Go vote for this Lovelace & Babbage Lego set

Today’s Song: Dillinger Four, "Our Science is Tight"

~If you want to destroy my sweater, just pull this tab as I walk away~

Today in Tabs feels weird without an intern huh? I keep thinking I’ve forgotten something. But don’t YOU forget to read us on Fast Company (nice segue, bro) and subscribe by email. Thanks to Alison Headley for the Take Tree.

“Perhaps what the world really needs is a way to use math to convert fossil fuels directly into misogyny.” Chisel it on my gravestone, and let the generations to come say of me that I wrote one worthwhile sentence in this life. Tabs is back and live in our regrettable present tomorrow. See you then.