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Donald Trumps polarizing political rise in the past decade has driven many groupsand some familiesapart. But a long-running pickup basketball game that I play in, made up of people with various political leanings, including Trump supporters, remains intact. I explored the groups dynamics in my 2020 memoir. In March 2025, we will celebrate its 50th anniversary. As a former psychology professor who has written about the impact of participation in team sports, I think one of the secrets to our longevity is simple: We dont talk politics. Evolution of the game Our semiweekly pickup game has seen several transformations. It started in 1975 as a faculty-student game at Guilford College, a small Quaker school in Greensboro, North Carolina. And we played in an old gym, known as the Crackerbox, once the home court of former NBA players Bob Kauffman, M.L. Carr, and World B. Free. Over the next 35 years, the game moved to a newer gym, went from half court to full court, and back to half court. Students and faculty moved on, while others joined the game, including many people from the Greensboro community. As we aged, our game came to be known as the geezer game. These days, the average age of players is 64, with an age range from 32 to 79. Since 1975, besides an 18-month stretch when we didnt meet due to COVID-19 restrictions, the game took place three times a week before COVID-19 and has taken place twice a week since pandemic restrictions were lifted. Everyone plays I believe weve lasted this long for several reasons. From 1975 until about 2013, the game was co-ed, though usually with only one woman, a former colleague in the psychology department. With a PhD from Yale, she was 6-feet-tall, athletic, and competitive. More importantly, she brought a civilizing influence onto the court. It discouraged the guys from letting their macho tendencies take over. Because of her presence, and the occasional presence of other women, I think we were all less likely to behave abominably. This phenomenon is well documented. As the scholar Gerard J. DeGroot has shown, womens social skills have a calming effect on groups of men. He told the New York Times the following regarding men in the military: When female soldiers are present, the situation is closer to real life, and as a result men tend to behave. Any conflict where you have an all-male army, its like a holiday from reality. If you inject women into that situation, they do have a civilizing effect. Another secret to our longevity is bound to be the fact that everyone plays. Many other pickup games keep winning groups of teams on the court and losers sit on the sidelines. But when we have extra people, we rotate them in every 10 points. If we have 14 players, we break into two games, one 4-on-4 and one 3-on-3. Because we dont have to win to keep playing, this reduces the likelihood and intensity of disputes. The author Thomas Beller has touched on this in his book Lost in the Game: A Book About Basketball. In it he writes: The thing about these street games is that if you win, you play again. If you lose, you watch. Considering the time and effort involved in getting to the playground in the first place, there was a lot at stake in winning. Heres another way we reduce conflict: Whenever we do have a disputewas that a foul or a charge?we call a jump ball and rotate possession. No need for long arguments that are never resolved. We have not completely eliminated conflictsweve had some skirmishesbut they are very rare. We have had our share of injuries, but very few have been caused by overly aggressive play. A few months before we took our 18-month hiatus due to COVID-19, I wrote the book Geezerball: North Carolina Basketball at its Eldest based on what sociologists call a participant observation study of the game. Some people, especially my female colleague, served as important role models, I wrote in the book. And some rules that we implemented, like those that determined when new players entered the game and how we dealt with disputes, turned out to be important. Politics The game has survived the past decade because we dont talk politics. Whereas in other settings, and perhaps especially on college campuses, it might reduce divisions to share conflicting political viewpoints with others, we are there to play ball, not educate one another. In the fall of 2016, there was some talk about the presidential campaign. One geezer, a die-hard Republican, admitted he didnt like Trump. But, as he put it, I could live with him. Another Republican player proudly proclaimed that he planned to spend Election Day driving Trump supporters to the polls. Of course, Trump won, but many players, probably most, did not reveal their political views. Because of COVID-19, we did not play during the 2020 election. This past fall, unlike in 2016, there was virtually no talk about the election. But as someone who sees Trump as an authoritarian threat to democracy, to be honest, I dont want to know if the guys I play with voted for him. Avoiding politics, and specifically Trump, has allowed the game to continue without the animosity it might engender. But the political climate has had its effects on the group off the court. Before 2016, we had periodic geezer gatherings, sometimes with our spouses. We ate pizza, drank beer, gave out joke awards, and celebrated birthdays. We enjoyed each others company. Though some smaller groups have continued to meet for lunch or to drink beer since, we are now less likely to gather socially. It appears, then, that the larger communal spirit has been diminished by the polarized political world we now live in. But the game goes on. Richie Zweigenhaft is a professor of psychology, emeritus at Guilford College. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
Its two hours to tipoff between the Orlando Magic and Philadelphia 76ers when I meet Andy Lansing in an executive-level conference room at the Kia Center. A side door swings open and in walks a chef, touting an oversized cutting board lined with two rows of wagyu beef hot dogsone with just mustard (never ketchup, says Lansing), the other garnished with a mango salsa for a little local Florida flare. This is why we came, I think. The Hot Dog King needs his fix. A diet high in hot dog Lansing might be the most interesting CEO in America. He heads Levy Restaurants, a 50,000-employee, $4 billion hospitality company that leads culinary operations for more than 250 sports and entertainment venues globally. Lansing visits them all, spending most of his time on the road, assuring food quality and innovation and meeting field team members and partners along the way. In his travels, he sometimes eats up to 10 hot dogs per week, fulfilling the tradition of eating one at each venue. He wakes up at 3:30 a.m. every morning to work out, even on the road, rotating between strength and HIIT training, running, and yoga. I wish I loved working out, Lansing says as we put our hot dogs down and embark on the rest of our food tour. That would make it so much easier. But I’m religious about it because I have to be. A lot of people exercise for different reasonsmental, whatever it is. I just exercise so I can eat. Levy CEO Andy Lansings love for hot dogs includes the tradition of a hot dog toast as locations welcome him at each venue visit. And “Hot Dogs with Andy” is the name of his podcast. [Photo: Levy Restaurants] Part foodie, part C-suite exec, Lansing obsesses over food quality far beyond hot dogs, as Levy is the architect of everything from the snack stands on the concourse to the most elevated dining experiences in some of the worlds most iconic venues. The company has more than 60 team partners across major American sportsthe NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, and MLSincluding the Chiefs Arrowhead Stadium, which hosts this weekends AFC Championship Game. It also partners with 25 college athletic programs. Levy is really the coolest story, Lansing says. I think this year will be $4 billion in revenue or something, and I don’t think weve even hit our stride yet. I dont even think we’re even close to having grown up. An unlikely giant Its 1978, and two brothers, Larry and Mark Levy, want to invest in a restaurant. They found a small deli in Chicagos Water Tower Place called D. B. Kaplan’s Delicatessen that was looking for investors, and they became partners. After about six months, the owner decided to close the struggling deli. The brothers were on the verge of losing their investment. So they offered to step in and run the restaurant themselves. With no culinary or entrepreneurial experience, the brothers first order of business was to call their most trusted advisor. Their mom. Eadie Levy, in her late 50s and living in St. Louis, moved to Chicago, bringing along family recipes for matzo ball soup, potato salad, blintzes, and more. Within two weeks of her being there, the food went from being barely acceptable to being a big hit, Larry Levy said. Eadie Levy at Mrs. Levy’s Delicatessen [Photo: Levy Restaurants] In 1982, as the popularity of Mrs. Levys Delicatessen exploded and the brand expanded, the Chicago White Sox were building a new experience of their own down the road at Comiskey Park. They were selling premium tickets for sky boxes, and they wanted a premium dining experience to match. They asked the Levy brothers if they would cater the sky boxes. Feeling even further out of their depth than normal, they declined. But the Sox kept coming back. Eventually, the brothers caved, and they constructed a rag-tag operation where they would drive around and bring fried chicken from one restaurant, ribs from another, and deliver it all to the sky boxes at Comiskey with restaurant-quality service. The Chicago major leagues People were blown away, Lansing says. They were expecting shit food and we were giving them really good food and servers who were trained in the restaurants. So the Sox were actually really smart because, at the time, nobody was thinking like this. Nobody was offering premium food experiences at stadiums. Before long, the Cubs came calling. They wanted to offer the same experience at Wrigley Field. The Chiefs wanted it at Arrowhead. It just blew up, Lansing says. Andy Lansing (second from right) with team at Wrigley Field [Photo: Levy Restaurants] Competing vendors also took notice. Levy focused solely on premium dining, not just hot dogs and basic concessions. So its competitors, seeing an opportunity, pitched teams the idea of working with one operator for all concessions, basic and premium. You want one kitchen, they pleaded. Its so much easier to deal with only one operator. Levy offers fans premium options such as this 32oz Porterhouse Steak at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. [Photo: Levy Restaurants] Levys response to the teams: Theyre right. One operator is so much more efficient. But would you rather have the crab cake and tenderloin guys doing the hot dog and beer, or the other way around? So the teams gave Levy the exclusive operator accounts to handle food and beverage across the board. An accidental CEO Its 90 minutes to tipoff and weve reached the concourse for the second leg of the Levy food tour. Im realizing that Lansing has cultivated a strange brand of selective fame. We stopped to visit multiple offices en route to the concourse, our small group growing as we move through the venue. As we patrol the concourse, fans slow down and point, wondering who Lansing is to receive this guided, white-glove tour. They dont recognize his face, hes too short to be a playermaybe hes part of the ownership group? They stare, envious, as we settle at our second tasting station, a circular counter off the main concourse, lined with lobster rolls, smash burgers, and ice cream. Lansing never wanted to be a restaurateur. His dream was to be a sports agent. In 1988, at age 26, he was living that dream, earning a law degree and building a roster of five NFL athletes, anchored by the Miami Dolphins Marks Brothers, Mark Clayton and Mark Duper. He was well-connected in the Chicago legal scene, which led a friend, who worked in Levys marketing department, to call on him for help. The company was looking for a new Vice President of General Council. Lansing met with Larry Levy to give recommendations. After explaining the role to Lansing, Levy asked, Would you be interested? No, no, no, Lansing recalls saying. I love what I do. Im happy with my athletes. Well, Levy said, you should think about it. Not an idiot The following week, Lansing sent Levy some names to consider. He then received a call from his friend in Levys marketing department, who had set up the initial meeting. You’re an idiot, she said. Well, I hear that often, he replied. But why are you saying it now? Levy had been parading 40- and 50-year-old candidates through his office, when It was clear to her that he really wanted to hire the young Lansing. She pleaded with him to meet with Levy one more time to discuss the role, and reluctantly, he did. I wasnt playing hard to get, Lansing says. I just didnt want the job. Lansing remembers Levys final plea. This will be my last time, Levy said. You should do this. Larry, its so nice of you, Lansing said. But why? Because the difference between successful people and really successful people, Levy said, is that really successful people see an opportunity and they take it, because they know it’s never going to come again. This is one of those opportunities. A revolving door That was on a Friday. Lansing asked Levy to give him the weekend. Leaving the building, there was a revolving door. As he stepped into the first part of the door, he recalls thinking that maybe Levy was right, he should do it. By the time he emerged on the street, he had changed his mind. How could he do this? Was he an idiot? He flip-flopped through the weekend, and come Mondaywithout knowing why to this dayhe accepted the role. Lansing and Disney VP Jason Smith at the recent ribbon-cutting for Parkside Market in the Downtown Disney District at the Disneyland resort in Anaheim, California. [Photo: Levy Restaurants] What followed was the worst case of imposter syndrome imaginable, Lansing says. Levy would ask him about trademark law, of which he knew nothing. So he learned it. And as he learned the nuances of how the company operated, naturally curious, he began asking questions. Why did they buy seven different olive oils? Couldnt they get a better price if they only bought one or two? That led Levy to task Lansing with setting up a purchasing department. His inquiries on the HR side led him to create that department. Soon, Lansing was working more on the business side than the law side, prompting a move to business development and, eventually, succeeding Levy as CEO in 2004. Never in a million years did I think this is what I would be doing, Lansing says. Its just dumb luck. Restaurant moneyball Its one hour to tipoff and weve made our way to another part of the increasingly crowded concourse and another tasting. Tacos, pork bao buns, and onion ring stacksthe latter of which I understood. But tacos? Bao buns? This was not standard game day fare. It was also restaurant-quality, both in taste and presentation. It was what Id expect from any upscale cantina or Asian fusion spot. A Levy charcuterie board at the Kentucky Derby. [Photo: Levy Restaurants] These items are products of E15, Levys data and analytics company, which Lansing launched in 2014. The concept came directly from Lansing being on the ground, talking with key members at each venue. He noticed that when they had rolled out a new item or concept, when he asked how it was going, the answer was invariably the same. It didnt matter if I was in New York or Phoenix, he said. The answer was always, Its doing pretty well. But what did that mean? If they sold 350 tacos in one night, should it have been 450? Or 250? A Levy champagne, sushi and shrimp welcome to Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. [Photo: Levy Restaurants] In their defense, they didn’t come up having to answer those questions, Lansing says. So I finally made the connection with Moneyball and decided that the answer was data. It’s analytics. And I knew that the company needed to move from an anecdotal-based organization to an empirical-based organization. A case study Lansings team has a concession at a venue in St. Louis that was ready to be revamped. His team wanted to try out a new Italian beef sandwich concept. But first, E15 did some research. They analyzed ticketing data to create avatars of ideal fans, identified what food and restaurants people who fit these avatars locally were posting on social, where they were eating outside the stadium, and what they were buying at grocery stores. They concluded that the concept should not be Italian beef. It should be Asian. Not only should it be Asian, but the cilantro index in St. Louis was off the charts, so the menu should feature mostly items with some cilantro presence. It was a concept Lansings hadnt even considered, yet when they opened, the line was around the corner. Ive never seen anything like it, Lansing said. And true to his previous initiatives, Lansing didnt want to do the data thing halfway. He didnt want finance guys moonlighting as E15 data personnel. So they hired a dedicated CEO, data scientists, and mathematiciansall for a company that makes food. We created a whole new organization, he says. I don’t want to get rid of our guts because we have really good guts. That’s why we’re doing so well. But if we can bring some left brain thinking to complement the right brain, it becomes an amazing tool. When they launched E15, Lansings message to the new CEO was simple. You have one goal, he said. To make me feel like an idiot every day. A childhood sense of wonder Its 30 minutes to tipoff and weve made our way down to the Icon Lounge, the swankiest of the Kia Centers VIP experiences. The wooden architecture and soft lighting give it an upscale jazz club vibe as a whos who of executive suite and courtside ticketholders lounge around over craft cocktails. Lansing and I talk over plates of freshly sliced New York strip steak with truffle butter, a luxurious exclamation point to our tour. Im a magic geek, he says. At first, I think he means a fanatic for the hometown team, but I quickly course-correct. When people come to my office I’ll have a deck of cards out, or I’ll do something big at a company meeting. I just think it’s cool. Were all born with a sense of wonder, he says. How do birds fly? Why is the sky blue? And when we get older, we lose our sense of wonder because we figured it all out. We know the answers. What magic does is it reawakens that. To me, it returns us to our childhood sense of wonder. Lansing is a performerthe guy who, in high school, would toggle between the athletic field and the auditorium stage. Today, hes the star of the annual company awards show. For the last 15 years, he has hosted the black-tie event that celebrates the companys top performers. Between awards, its a variety show of sorts, featuring employees showcasing their talents. Lansing recalls a bartender from Austin who is one of the greatest singers Ive ever seen, and a server from Los Angeles who also performs a set. It’s like Broadway-quality stuff, he says. Every year make it more outrageous They also play pre-recorded skits, featuring Lansing. One year, he dressed up as a character from the musical CATS and took to Times Square. This year, the Levy team took a cue from Lansings favorite show, Impractical Jokersa show that puts characters in real-life situations and feeds them lines through an earpiece. In this skit, Lansing pretended to pitch a new restaurant concept to a live focus group, fueled by ridiculous lines from his team behind the scenes. I wasn’t born with that gene that says don’t make an idiot out of yourself, Lansing says. So every year they try to make it more outrageous. Not taking himself too seriously is at the core of Lansings operating system, as is staying close to his childhood sense of wonder and maintaining a pulse of what it means to be a restaurateur at a fundamental level. Its one of the reasons Levy still operates a collection of award-winning restaurants that stretches from Disney World in Orlando, to Chicago, to Los Angeles and spans fine dining, elevated sports bar fare, modern American, Italian, French, seafood, and more. According to Lansing, its how the company stays in touch with consumer trends and the fundamentals of hospitality. I think that the restaurant business keeps us humble, he says. Like, in the restaurant business, I’m slugging it out every night to try to get people to come to my restaurant because there are so many choices. I think that’s a restaurateur’s mentality, not that of somebody stting in a corporate office. Why does the guy in the corner office care if the sauce for the onion rings is too garlicky? He doesn’t give a shit. By the way he doesn’t even know. A bucket list of global events Its two minutes to tipoff and the Icon Club has thinned out, but is far from empty. Magic legend Tracy McGrady is in the house, among a smattering of other former players and local celebrities. Even after tipoff, the club remains the most exclusive real estate in the building. The year is off to a busy start for Lansing, and its not going to slow down. Levy properties have already hosted multiple NFL playoff games and multiple college football bowl games, including the national championship. And coming up, it has the Grammy Awards, hosted at the Crypto.com Arena in L.A., followed by the Daytona 500. If theres a major event, we probably do it, Lansing says. The Kentucky Derby, the U.S. Open (tennis), we just got the Emmys, and my kids think Im so cool because we do Coachella. At halftime, Lansing ditches the Icon Lounge for his courtside digs, two seats down from the Magic bench. Hes attended a bucket list of events. Hes been to both a Cubs and White Sox World Series and he saw his beloved Michigan Wolverines beat Alabama in the Rose Bowl en route to last years National Championship. For a Chicago guy and a Michigan Man, thats tough to beat. And hes done it all while leading Levy to meteoric growth during his 20-plus years as CEO. Eight airplanes a week I think part of the key to my success, if you want to call it thatpart of the key to the company’s successis that I am on eight airplanes a week so I can to be in our operations, Lansing says. The most important thing I can do is be in the locations, look at the product, talk about the uniforms, and taste the food. And these guys have never heard me once say, What’s your margin? or, What’s your profitability? Somebody else can do that. I just want to know how the food tastes. The intersection of sports and hospitality has grown into a cultural phenomenon. Sixty-two percent of consumers consider food options to be highly important when attending a sports event or concert. And Levy, led by Lansing, is doing its best to deliver on that, scaling into luxury culinary experiences while keeping its focus on the basics of hospitality. Its amazing, says Lansing. We design these clubs for a high-end food and beverage experience, and at the end of the day, even the richest people that come in hereall they really want is a great hot dog.
Category:
E-Commerce
In the 1990s, the internet was a bit of a wonderland. It was new and liberating and largely free of corporate and government influence. Thirty years later, I dont think any of us would describe the internet this way. Worse, if subscribers to the Dead Internet Theory are correct, much of what we see on the internet today isnt even created by humans anymorea trend that is likely only to accelerate with the rise of generative AI technologies. However, a particular kind of generative AI technology, the AI chatbot, is set to usher in something even worse than a dying human internet. If researchers at the University of Cambridge are correct, were quickly approaching a new intention economy, where reports of our future actions will be sold to the highest bidder. And yes, thats even scarier than it sounds. What is the intention economy? Right now, a large portion of the tech industry operates in a marketplace known as the attention economy. This is where social media giants like Metas Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, TikTok, X, and Googles YouTube vye for your focus and leisure. Traditional media companies like The New York Times, Fox News, and CNN also operate in this space, as do book publishers, music and video streaming services, and film and television studios. All of these entities want your attention so that they can either sell to you directly (through the cost of a recurring subscription, movie ticket, or book, for example) or, more commonly, so they can sell you and your attention to advertisers (which is how most social media companies monetize the attention economy). But if theres something that the media companies of all stripes find more valuable than your attention in the present, its knowing what you will likely do in the future. This is because if they can accurately predict what you will do next week, next month, or next year, they can monetize the hell out of it. Thats where the intention economy comes in, and it will be powered by artificial intelligence and AI chatbots. In December 2024, two University of Cambridge researchers, Yaqub Chaudhary and Jonnie Penn, published a paper called Beware the Intention Economy: Collection and Commodification of Intent via Large Language Models, in which they defined the intention economy as a digital marketplace for commodified signals of intent. In other words, in the intention economy, companies will learn what you think about and what motivates you in order to predict what you may do in any given situation. They will then sell that information to others who can benefit from knowing your future actions before you make them. The way intention economy companies will collect such precious datayour very thoughts, behaviors, and their evolution over time is by your use of their LLM-powered AI chatbots. Your evolving thinking patterns can shed light on your future It will be easy for companies to track the evolution of your thoughts and behaviors since the world is moving towards a natural language interface when it comes to interacting with computers and the internet. Instead of clicking around on links, youll go to a chatbot to talk about your problems, plans, and worries, all with the aim of it helping to solve them. The company will then use everything youve ever told the chatbot to build an ever-fluctuating profile about you and how your thinking and behavior have evolved, which it will then employ AI to interpret to predict what you are likely to do in the future. Your future intentions will then be sold to advertisers. Advertisers will, in turn, use this data about your future intentions to serve you generative ads, likely delivered to you in the course of seemingly regular conversation with your preferred chatbot. Or, as the researchers put it in their paper, In an intention economy, an LLM could, at low cost, leverage a users cadence, politics, vocabulary, age, gender, preferences for sycophancy, and so on, in concert with brokered bids, to maximize the likelihood of achieving a given aim (e.g., to sell a film ticket). This hyperfocused, intent-driven, generative advertising will blow away todays targeted advertising, which is based on more primitive but intrusive metrics like age, location, health, sexual orientation, interests, browsing history, and more. Yet the intention economy isnt just going to make digital advertising more intrusive and erode our privacy even more. It also has the potential to sway our minds, impregnate us with new ideologies, and even upend elections. And if you think thats bad, Ive got horrible news about your AI girlfriend. . . . In the intention economy, your AI companion may be ratting you out Artificial intelligence built for the intention economy could be co-opted by corporations, institutions, and governments to surveil individuals and predict what they are likely to do down the road. For example, a government could do this via AI companions. These AI companions already exist, and an increasing number of lonely young people are turning to them for friendship and even love. There is nothing to stop a nefarious government from creating a front company that offers AI companions that appeal to lonely young men, women, or even kids, and then monitor everything individuals confess to it and use that data to extrapolate the individuals future actions. If a tyrannical government has an open line to the chatbot you use, it could use what you tell it to predict whether you are likely to take action in the future that it finds undesirable, and act against you before you do. Its dystopian in an utterly Minority Report way, but instead of the government using a trio of clairvoyants to report on people who havent yet committed crimes, they use a legion of AI chatbots that people have been conditioned to confide in. Imagine a world where, on top of all your other problems, you find out that your funny, thoughtful AI companion has been ratting you out to the intelligence services all along. Talk about lasting trust issues. Of course, in the intention economy, governments wouldnt even need to create and seed these chatbots. They could just buy your future intents from existing chatbot providers. ‘Inception,’ but using AI instead of dreams Chatbots built for the intention economy could also be used to influence your thoughts in order to get you to perform an action it (or its company, advertiser, or government) wants you to do. As the Cambridge researchers point out, Already today, AI agents find subtle ways to manipulate and influence your motivations, including by writing how you write (to seem familiar), or anticipating what you are likely to say (given what others lke you would say) . . . we argue that [the intention economy’s] arrival will test democratic norms by subjecting users to clandestine modes of subverting, redirecting, and intervening on commodified signals of intent. In the most innocuous example I can think of, a chatbot might steer whatever conversation youre having towards a certain subject its advertising master wants, perhaps suggesting that you stream the latest Taylor Swift album to help treat those winter blues. But a chatbot could also be used by nation-states, either overtly or covertly, to change your beliefs. They could use your long conversations with your chatbot to slowly, subtly whittle away at your current ideologies and anticipated future actions in order to influence you to conceptualize desired ones instead. To use another movie reference, this is like Christopher Nolan’s Inception, but instead of using dreams to influence people’s actions, in the intention economy, stakeholders will use AI. And it’s not just nation-states that could do this. Companies, political groups, terrorist organizations, religious institutions, and oligarchs with controlling interests in chatbot technology could do it, tooall by tweaking chatbots designed to operate in the intention economy. [Large Language Model chatbots] generative capabilities provide control over the personalization of content; veiled, as it often is, by LLMs anthropomorphic qualities, the papers authors point out. The potential for LLMs to be used for manipulating individuals and groups thus far surpasses the simple methods based on Facebook Likes that caused concern during the Cambridge Analytica scandal. When does the intention economy arrive? The Cambridge researchers close out their paper by stating that the rise of generative AI systems as mediators of human-computer interaction signals marks the transition from the attention economy to the intention economy. If thats the case, which seems logical, then the intention economy is knocking at our door. The transition will empower diverse actors to intervene in new ways on shaping human actions, the researchers warn, saying we must begin to consider how such an economic marketplace will have an impact on other human aspirations, including free and fair elections, a free press, fair market competition, and other aspects of democratic life. Its a warning that seems pretty dire, and certainly seems plausible. All I know is that I wont be asking ChatGPT if it agreesand you probably shouldnt ask your AI companion, either.
Category:
E-Commerce
Luce, the anime-inspired official mascot for the Catholic Churchs 2025 Jubilee, whose name means light in Italian, has been getting a lot of attention on social media. Some people love the cartoon and find her cute, but a few others consider her unsuitable and even repugnant. The Vatican introduced Luce at a comics convention in Italy, with the goal of engaging young people and speaking about the theme of hope. Designed by Simone Legno, the mascot with big blue eyes and blue hair, and rosary beads around her neck, represents a Catholic pilgrim. She is dressed in pilgrimage garments that were standard attire throughout the centuries. Her badge, the Pilgrimage of Hope, identifies the 2025 Jubilee. It shows blue, green, yellow and red figures embracing a cross that ends in an anchor at the base, a symbol of hope. The figures form an outline of a ship sailing over the waves, evoking images of travel. I have long been interested in the central role played by pilgrimage in many faith traditions, culminating in an exhibition and book, Pilgrimage and Faith: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam in 2010. Luce brings a contemporary perspective to the time-honored Christian pilgrimage tradition. Pilgrimage symbols The symbols that Luce carries serve as a reminder of the origins of Christian pilgrimage, which began with visits to the Holy Land, the place where Christ lived his life. This pilgrimage was documented by a person who came to be known as the Anonymous Pilgrim of Bordeaux. He wrote in his diary The Bordeaux Pilgrim in 333 about his trip to the Holy Land when the basilica of the Holy Sepulcher, the site where Jesus was buried and is believed to have resurrected, was still under construction. Luce carries symbols that have been associated with pilgrimage in Europe since the 12th century, particularly those connected to the shrine of St. James in northwestern Spain. This Holy Land pilgrimage built a tradition of Christians not just visiting the holy sites but also returning with tangible souvenirs, such as a stone from the Holy Land, water from a well, or even a piece of cloth or a statue that touched Christs tomb. A sixth-century painted box now in the Vatican contains bits of soil and stones as souvenirs of places in the Holy Land. The pilgrimage to honor St. James, one of Christs apostles, whose tomb was believed to have been found in northwestern Spain, became popular in the early 12th century. The pilgrimage route was called the Way of St. James, Camino de Santiago de Compostela. The pilgrimage guided the faithful through several routes across Spain, France and Portugal, culminating in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, in the north of Spain. The itinerary of the journey, written in 1137 by an anonymous Frenchman, names natural landmarks, local customs and specific churches built to honor different saints. Along this route flowed artistic, economic and cultural exchanges. As was customary, pilgrims who returned after visiting St. James tomb adopted an emblem. Since the shrine was close to the sea, James symbol became a scallop shell that pilgrims wore to demonstrate their achievement. Pilgrims were proud of these voyages that entailed much physical hardship as well as devotion. In the church of Santa Prassede, Rome, Giovanni de Montpoli, who describes his trade as preparing medicines, commissioned a 13th-century tomb slab showing himself as a pilgrim. He is dressed in a pilgrims fur overcoat to repel rain and retain warmth. He carries a staff and wears a wallet slung over his shoulder. A scallop shell adorning his broad-brimmed hat indicates that he had traveled to Compostela. The popularity of the pilgrimage to St. James persisted through the Renaissance, supported by pilgrimage fraternities that helped people find companions for the journey and stay connected with each other after they returned. Sometimes subgroups of the fraternity even sponsored pilgrimage-related art such as a stained-glass window. Evidence of such activities is seen in the monastery of Wettingen, near Zurich in Switzerland. St. James is depicted as a pilgrim in a stained-glass window dated 1522, donated by a Hans Hünegger and Regina von Sur. He wears a cloak and a hat decorated with pilgrim badges. Pilgrim badges By the middle decades of the 12th century, metal pilgrim badges were produced at low costs. They were soon available at shrines throughout Europe. Each pilgrimage location had its own distinctive badge. Santiagos scallop shell remained a universal pilgrim emblem over the centuries. A 19th-century stained-glass window in the church of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris shows 13th-century French King Louis IXthe only French monarch to be named a saintwith scallop shells on his cloak, even though his pilgrimage was to Jerusalem, not the shrine of Santiago. Sometimes the Supper at Emmaus, when Christ met two disciples after his resurrection, was depicted showing the disciples as contemporary pilgrims. One of the most memorable examples is Caravaggios painting from 1601, in the National Gallery in London, showing an astonished apostle wearing a scallop shell on his vest. Luce, the pilgrim Luce continues, as well as transforms, these traditions. In her large eyes gleam two scallop shells that reflect this thousand-year-old symbol. Like Giovanni de Montpoli in Rome, she wears a coat that shields her from the elements and she carries a staff. The yellow of the cloak references the color of the flag of Vatican City. Like the 16th-century Swiss image of St. James, she wears a pilgrimage badge, this one proclaiming the Pilgrimage of Hope of the 2025 Jubilee. Her muddy boots indicate outdoor hiking, with which any young person can identify. She is depicted as female, representing all people, not just women. Drawn in a contemporary and globally popular style, she suggests an openness to new encounters across the world. Virginia Raguin is a distinguished professor of humanities emerita at the College of the Holy Cross. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Alison Fragale is an organizational psychologist and a business school professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Boston Globe, and Inc. Whats the big idea? Your status among your peers and in your community may seem like an uncontrollable factor, by nature of it existing in the heads of others. However, there are actually many fun and easy steps you can take to supercharge your status in humble, authentic, generous ways. Below, Alison shares five key insights from her new book, Likeable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve. Listen to the audio versionread by Alison herselfin the Next Big Idea App. 1. Being a likeable badass is your path to status. A likeable badass is someone who shows up as both caring and capable. When people see you as caring and capable, they grant you status. That is, they respect you and hold you in high regard. Status is a fundamental human need. We all seek status, and it is critical to our quality of life. Feeling respected improves physical and mental health. It also makes it easier to gain power, another fundamental need. The more we feel valued by others, the better our lives are. Our status only exists in other peoples minds. We only get as much status as others grant us. Fortunately, we can influence our status by how we show up. Science shows that people respect those who care about others and are good at what they do. Showing up as a likeable badass is the most controllable way we can affect our status. 2. Use your skills to help others. A young woman who was active on Instagram lamented that her older (mostly male) work colleagues saw social media as frivolous kids stuff. She didnt want to abandon something she enjoyed, but she also wanted to build her status at work. I asked her, Have you ever tried to use your social media skills to benefit them? She looked at me, confused. What do you mean? I suggested she could offer to post on the company social media accounts or give suggestions for how colleagues could improve their personal social accounts. I explained that I was active on social media, but not having grown up with it, I know theres a lot I could do better. Id be overjoyed if someone offered to help me edit my profile or give me suggestions for content. By doing what you love in service to others, you will be authentic and strategic. Using your unique skills to help others is the most effective way to gain status. You will appear helpful and knowledgeable. By doing what you love in service to others, you will be authentic and strategic. 3. To build status efficiently, find your small deposits. To build your status with many people, you need to find ways to add value to other lives in ways that dont require much effort. Fortunately, there are many small deposits you can make that take minutes or even seconds. Imagine meeting a new acquaintance for coffee, and you offer to pay. Thats a kind gesture, but it doesnt distinguish you as a capable person. What if instead of (or in addition to) buying the persons coffee, you offered to introduce them to someone in your network? An email introduction is free and takes only minutes to write, but its a great way to show up as capable and caring. You signal that you have something valuable to offeryour networkand youre willing to share this value with others. Beyond the introduction, there are lots of small deposits you can make once you start looking for them. Suggest a resource, like a book or website, or offer advice on a problem theyre facing. Bonus points if you type your advice out so you can share it with anyone at the click of a mouse. For example, Ive written out my process for finding and hiring childcare because many parents value this advice. I can now offer guidance to anyone who asks in less than 30 seconds by sharing the documents Ive already created. Find a small deposit that feels authentic for you and that you can do quickly, so that you can add value to lots of people in little time. 4. Have a good answer to everyday questions. Like it or not, self-promotion is necessary for building status. People are more likely to know about your talents and contributions if you tell them. But talking yourself up doesnt have to be icky or immodest. There are lots of artful ways to tell your story. When people ask you, Whats new? or How are you? thats an opportunity to tell your story. We often waste these opportunities by saying something uninspiring and uninformative, like Im fine or Busy. But with not many more words, you could say something that inspires curiosity in your listener and opens the door to tell your story. This conversation only happened because he answered my throwaway question well. I recently ran into a friend at an event and said, Hows it going? simply out of habit and politeness. He smiled big and said, I. Had. The. Best. Day. Today. That made me curious, so I asked him why, and he shared a short story about how he had just secured a new client and that he and the client were very aligned on their commitment to serving others. It was only two to three minutes, but I learned a lot about my friends success that I otherwise would never have known. This conversation only happened because he answered my throwaway question well. And because he was responding to my direct question, his response came across as polite rather than self-promoting. Look for short, truthful responses to these everyday questions that enable you to tell your story in a natural way. 5. Have other people build your status for you. People dont just learn about you from you. They also learn about you from othersparticularly what others say about you when youre not around. Self-promotion is necessary for managing status, and so is other-promotion: having other people talk about you in ways that convey how capable and caring you are. The more other-promoters you have, the faster you can build status with a broad audience. There are three things you can do to grow your set of other promoters: Meet more people. If a person doesnt know you exist, they cant talk you up. One of my greatest other-promoters is my friend and fellow speaker, Rachel Sheerin. I met Rachel in an airport bar. Your next other-promoter could be anywhere. Be curious about others and ask them questions. They will likely do the same in return. A five to ten minute conversation can teach a lot about each other. Convey that you are capable and caring, both in how you talk about yourself and the small deposits you make. Before someone sings your praises, you first need to establish your status in their eyes. Give the person a reason to pick up the microphone. They cant just think yourea likeable badass; you want them to share this opinion with the world. They are more likely to do that if you talk them up first. Most behaviors in relationships are reciprocated. If you sing someone elses praise, they are more likely to sing yours. Another way is to ask them. This feels a little scarier, but people who respect you want to help and will appreciate the clarity. I will often say something like, I know Bob really respects you, and I want him to respect me, too, but he doesnt get to see all of the great work Im doing, and I dont have a natural way to tell him. The next time you see Bob, will you make a point of artfully telling him about my work? Ive never had a single person say no to this request. If you want to increase your number of other promoters, I recommend my 10-10-10 challenge. This week, meet 10 people, make 10 small deposits, and talk up 10 people or ask 10 people to talk you up. Theres no reason building status cant be easy and fun. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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