February 17, 2019 • 19 mins
Welcome to the Daily Dive: WEEKEND EDITION. This is a compilation of the most compelling stories of the week
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Daily Dive weekend edition. I'm Oscar and
Mirrors and we're running down some of the top stories
of the week. Don't forget to check out The Daily
Dive Monday through Friday for more news without the noise.
One of the interesting stories we talked about earlier this
week was how easy it is for a hacker to
get into your webcams and see you in your most
vulnerable times at home or just when you're not paying attention.
(00:23):
We spoke to Joanna Stern from The Wall Street Journal.
She asked a certified ethical hacker to get into her
webcams and what she found was pretty interesting. The guy
was even able to hack a baby monitor and spy
on her child. They made a great video for The
Wall Street Journal. Let's play a clip of it right now,
and it kind of sets up the whole interview. I
asked Alexander Hyde, the chief research officer at Security Scorecard
(00:47):
and a certified ethical hacker, to break into my webcams
to see just how vulnerable I was. With some deliberate
negligence on my part, he got into my Windows ten
laptops webcam and from there a connected baby monitor on
my WiFi network. He also eventually cracked my MacBook Air too,
although both operating systems were initially able to thwart the hacker.
(01:08):
Why in the world would I ask someone to spy
on me on a st answer, because I've been seeing
lots of these webcam covers and I wanted to know
if they were really needed. We've put cameras everywhere, so
how secure are they and what can we be doing
to better protect our literal privacy. I see those webcam
covers all over the place, and I always ask somebody
why they're using it. Let's jump into the interview with Joanna.
(01:31):
She has some tips for us on how to protect
ourselves and the biggest realization that we're often our own
worst enemies. He definitely figured out how to watch me
with my approval, with my consent, he watched me in
my home. He watched through a baby monitor, so he
watched my son as well. But I really did this
all to see one what the likelihood of someone wanting
to break into your webcam is, and then too, how
(01:53):
easy is it? And then there's a third part of
that too, which is what can we do to protect
ourselves if this is a genuine thread and someone may
really want to watch you through your webcam. I love
the quote that you had in there. When a hacker
sent me a photo of my son after breaking into
the baby monitor on my WiFi, my thought was, I'm
an idiot and with a lot of what this is
(02:13):
going on here, it is our own fault. We're like
our own worst enemies when it comes to this. And
that's really what I got to at the bottom of
this is it's human vulnerability versus device or network vulnerability.
That seemed to be the main way that hackers can
get to us now, and that really is because so
many of the protections in the operating systems and in
(02:36):
our phones and in the software has become so good
that the hackers tried to entice you through phishing spear phishing,
which is a method of just posing as somebody you
may know, and an email. In the case of this hacker,
he devised a pretty smart plan, right. He saw that
I had posted on Twitter a couple of weeks ago
that I was looking for a video producer, and he said, well,
(02:57):
if I was a hacker, I would just use that
information and say to look for a video producer. You
asked for two files in this job posting or you
asked for two pieces of collateral. You asked for resume,
and you asked for a video reel, and so those
are my two in he sent two different documents, depending
on what kind of computer I was on. He sent
a document and then he sent a link to another file.
And so presumably that would be the video file where
(03:17):
I clicked this video and helped to watch it, but
really would be a piece of malware downloading to my computer.
And the good news is that he was well. Two
pieces of good news. One, he was using very basic
hacking tools, off the shelf, hacking tools that white hack
hackers used. Two test vulnerabilities of devices and networks and companies,
et cetera. So he wasn't using very advanced technology here
(03:37):
to do this. But the good news is that he
sent these things, and the barriers, both built into the
mac os built into Windows os alerted me, right, they
alerted me that this was a virus or something shady
here was going on. I also knew I was being hacked,
and what I sort of realized the long way was
if someone doesn't know this, these could be things that
people would intentionally disable or just think as everyday occurrences.
(04:00):
I think you mentioned a few times in the article
of just how some of these pop ups are annoying
or they're an inconvenience when we're actually trying to get
something done. Maybe we want to download a program, an
open source program, something like that, and we do have
to disable some certain things along the way. I know
I've done that before and then re enable them after. Thankfully,
sometimes they are to that point of annoyance where like, okay, whatever, whatever,
(04:20):
click it, click it, whatever you need to click to
get through to the end, you're gonna do it. And
if you're not paying attention close enough, you might open
yourself up to these vulnerabilities. One thing that was also
like really enlightening to me was just how important some
of the stuff we take for granted is. I mean,
we've all heard how important passwords are, but it really
for me wasn't until the hacker Alexander Hyde, who worked
(04:42):
with me on this project. He was like, I can't
get into your Nest camera. The only way I could
get into your Nest camera is to know your passwords. Here.
You know, I really wanted to try the Nest camera
because it's the most popular connected WiFi camera and there's
been lots of talk right now, but the security of it.
So he said to me, I would need to know
your unique password and use your name for that. And
he said, well, I guess I could key log you, right,
(05:04):
I could install something on your computer and track all
your passwords and eventually get it. He's like, we I'm
not going to do that, but I could also just
go into this database of publicly available use their name
and passwords that have come from the numerous breaches over
the last number of years, everything from yeah who breach
to the LinkedIn breach and does end up on the
Internet in a public space where the hackers can get
to them or any security expert can get to them.
(05:25):
So he just typed in my email and up came
this password that I used to use maybe three or
four years back, and you know, I was like, oh wow,
Like just seeing that on his computer screen made me realize, like,
have I been as secure as I need to be
with my passwords? I use a password manager, I always
try to remember to use a different password every time,
but like maybe that old account they flipped there. It
(05:47):
really enforced in me like how important these things that
we do every day are to protecting I mean not
only our face, but all of our digital information. The
other thing you mentioned is obviously installed all of those
security and operating system updates for your phone, laptops, routers,
even your thermostats, you know, anything that connects to the Internet,
(06:08):
because those are the security updates that are going to
be helping you. Tell us the bottom line, I watch
what you're doing on the internet, be wary of everything,
and when your computer is telling you this could be
a problem, this could be a virus, you should probably
trust it. Yes to all of those things. Again, passwords
are important. Find I got my editor to let me
leave that in all caps because I just it feels
(06:30):
like something we always hear and like we're beat over
the head with it. But like when you see that
that password is out there, they can get access to
so many things if you're not safe about that about
keeping that password. You guys made a great video for
the Wall Street Journal, so we'll link to that also
so everybody can get a look and see pictures of
your webcam being hacked. Joanna Stern, personal tech reporter for
(06:51):
The Wall Street Journal, Thank you very much for joining us. Yeah,
hopefully you're not looking at me through my webcam right now.
This last week was Valentine's Day, so we talked a
little bit about love. We focused on the gamification of dating.
It's all around us. There's viral matchmaker shows to find love.
There's apps that we use to endlessly swipe on to
(07:12):
find dates. But this technology might not actually be helping us.
It might be making it harder to meet the one.
We spoke to Jesse Leash, she's a reporter for Axios,
and we talked about how these apps are the new
norm in dating and how it affects us. The big
picture is that the gamification of dating has become dis
global phenomenon. So it's not just in the US. It's
in China, it's in South Africa, it's in Australia, it's
(07:34):
in England and so on. And when I was exploring
in the gamification of dating, I specifically looked at these
two facets of society where dating is becoming gamified. So
first in pop culture through reality dating shows like you
mentioned different matchmaker shows like The Bachelor in the US.
And then second I explored the gamification of dating in
tech and social media through dating apps and so, like
(07:54):
you said, apps are definitely the new Norman dating. But
the catches that these endless choices on these dating apps
can actually be overwhelming and might make it even more
difficult for us to meet the one. With regards to
the TV shows and you know, things like The Bachelor
and whatnot, people love to watch those things. There's high drama,
high competitiveness. It is a huge, huge game. And then
(08:15):
with regards to the apps, as you said, I just
know that the swiping thing has become so ingrained in
all sorts of other apps now. I mean YouTube is
starting a swiping feature so you can swipe videos, so
you can stay there forever watching videos. You know, that's
just how these things have evolved. Now, Millennials spend ten
hours a week on dating apps, and I think a
lot of that can be attributed to the game of
(08:38):
fine Nature. First of all, you know, the format is
like a game where you essentially slipe yes or no
on people's profiles, and so there is this psychological motivation
to make a match actually because it sends these pleasurable
signals to your brain. One professor actually told us that
it's kind of like a drug. You can get this
release over and over and then there's also the design
of the app where you have an endless number of options,
(09:00):
and that makes people want to continue sliping. There was
a survey from match where you know one in six
singles that they actually feel addicted to the process of
looking for a date. And there are also psychologists who
have compared these apps to slot machines because all these
different gamified elements actually make us even more fixated on
these apps. One of the other problems with all of this.
Part of the game is to make yourself as desirable
(09:22):
as possible. So this is the whole thing of making
sure your profile is top notch, great pictures, the whole nine,
great taglines and profiles, working and everything. But some of
this stuff is also counterintuitive. Once you maybe you make
a match, then you meet somebody, your hopes and expectations
are so high, and then it could be very awkward
when that other person doesn't meet those expectations. You build
(09:44):
somebody up in your mind, and what if they're not
that person in real life. One sociologists we spoke to
actually said that using these dating apps and dating today
has actually become a form of work. It's not just fun,
it's not just a game anymore, because you have so
much sure to present this version of yourself that is
as desirable as possible, and so obviously, like you mentioned,
(10:05):
this can lead to unmet expectations, and there are a
lot of ways that people are trying to grapple with that.
One of the most common ways, of course, is just
asking your friends to help you edit or look at
your profile, sending screenshots of your different matches, and getting
your friends to help you fashion responses. But there's also
this whole industry of services that has popped up that's
(10:26):
trying to address that, and it's this industry of dating coaches, essentially,
And I spoke to a lot of dating coaches, and
a lot of them are essentially twenty four seven coaches
around the world who will help you style your profile
and will even go as far as helping you to
craft sentence by sentence what you might say to another
person that you match with. And I think there is
(10:47):
this growing need for these kinds of dating coaches because
people feel so uncertain and feel so lost in this
world of dating apps that they actually need to seek
outside counsel to help them with their dating profiles. There's
an interesting notion from somebody that you spoke to for
match dot Com, Helen Fisher, who's their chief scientific advisor,
said there's this whole thing of fast sex and slow
(11:08):
love where because of the way the online dating culture
has changed everything, people are hesitant to really make those commitments. Instead,
they'll have that one night stand. A lot of them
will have sex with somebody before their quote unquote actual
first date. There's this whole thing of hey, we're hanging out, now,
we're friends with benefits, then we're going to have our
(11:30):
first date. It's really interesting Helen Fisher's idea of fast
sex slow love and yeah, she she definitely talks about
how it's basically this phenomenon among millennial singles where they're
more likely to go through these motions that are traditionally
associated with a relationship before even actually defining the relationship. So,
like you said, they'll go on dates, have sex, all
of that, and they won't even define whether they're a
(11:52):
couple or you know, once they're in a relationship, they're
moving together and do all these things together, but they
won't even discuss marriage. But an interesting tidbit of analysis
from her is she said that some people might view
this as reckless behavior among millennials, but she actually sees
this as caution. She kind of sees this as in
this increasingly gamified sphere of dating, people are on their
(12:12):
toes more than ever, and it causes this desire in
millennials to want for everything to be right, to fall
in the right place before they tie the knot. And
so it's actually it could be seen as a good
thing that millennials are more cautious about how they date
more than ever. Jesse Lee, thank you very much for
joining us. Thank you so much. Man. I feel so
lucky to have missed this whole online dating thing. I
(12:34):
know you as well, Mirandom, missed this whole boat. How
did you meet your husband? My husband and I are
both lifeguards at a water park, and he actually had
a car crash that made the city newspaper, so he
lost his license for a little while. And he had
called my best friend to get a ride from her,
and she recommended me because he and I had the
same schedule. I even made my brother come with me,
(12:54):
just in case he was like a raper. He wasn't,
but just in case. That's so. No I met my wife.
She used to have these in our friend group these
parties of legend. They were like parties out of a movie.
And uh, we had some mutual friends and they invited
me and I went there and I remember being in
the backyard. She was inside by the kitchen, and I
was like, I'm gonna go talk to that girl and
(13:16):
make her a drink. So that's what I did. I
walked in and it's like, hey, can I make you
a drink, classy lady, and drink and we started talking
over that and the rest is history. Do you still
make her drinks? Of course? I think shortly after that,
it was maybe two days had gone by, and then
we all went to the movies together and literally we
have never been apart more for more than a few days.
(13:37):
After that, it was the same story. I took him
to work and I brought him home and June three,
here we are there we go. Thank you, Miranda. To
the surprise of many, Amazon canceled its plans to build
its HQ two in Long Island City, New York. This
comes after a whole year of them trying to find
(13:58):
a place to host a new campus. It was seen
as a big victory by local lawmakers and housing activists.
They had a big problem with the three billion dollars
in tax incentives that Amazon was going to get. On
the other hand, there was land developers and and apartment
brokers that were angry at the miss opportunity and lost
economic activity. If you had a deal in the process,
(14:20):
you are scrambling right now. My producer Random joins us
for why Amazon is backing out now. Amazon has decided
to cancel their plans in response to the public outrage
and outcry from the people who have lived in this
borough of Long Island City, part of Queens because their
concerns about government kickbacks. There were concerns about skyrocketing rents
(14:42):
and land values. People were concerned that they were going
to get priced out of the neighborhoods they've been living
in for fifty years. And that's a very real concern.
Amazon to their part, so that they're not going to
reopen their HQ to search. So wherever you're living, don't
stress if Amazon is going to kind of live there too.
They're not. They're gonna and expand or where they already exist.
So the jobs slated for New York City are going
(15:04):
to be relocated to other parts of the HQ two.
So it's like DC, Nashville, and then other parts of
New York City. Yeah, and that was a huge process
in and of itself. They spent over a year looking
for candidates to host the new HQ two. That's when
they decided they were going to split between two cities,
and then also in Nashville, they were going to open
some other operations hub there. Nobody knows exactly what the
(15:26):
fate of those jobs are going to be or that
two five billion dollars in investment. Obviously it's going to
be spread about, but it's not going to be as
much of an impact in one location as it was before.
They also said that, you know, they love New York,
but they needed a place that required positive collaborative relationships
with state and local elected officials who will be supportive
(15:48):
over the long term, and they just were not getting that.
Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor build A. Blasio helped usher
in all this stuff. Assuming they kind of cleared the
way without the need for a lot of local input,
and that's really what the big sticking point was. They
got mad that they got skirted over it and had
to give all sorts of concessions. Yeah, and you know,
(16:09):
it's the smaller neighborhood representatives Alexandria Cassio Cortes tweeting out
anything as possible. Today was the day a group of dedicated,
everyday New Yorkers and their neighbors defeated Amazon's corporate greed.
But to their part, the brokers are furious because they're saying,
we want the Bezos, is you want the Carnegies and
the Rockefellers. And if they're going to get pushback like this,
(16:29):
we're going to stop bringing big business to New York City. Yeah,
a lot of the land developers and the brokers, as
you're saying, they're just in the lurch now. You know,
if you had a deal that was in the process,
now you're thrown into chaos. And they've been saying that,
you know, it would have been great to transform Long
Island City into some type of district with you know, shops,
(16:50):
the whole nine, you know, housing and all the stuff
that comes with it. And now that it's just going
to remain a place for Manhattan commuters to sleep. You know,
it's not going to become anything there. It's a bedroom community.
I have close friends who just moved away from there,
and it is it's like a small town that's a
six minute subway ride from Midtown, and you know, a
lot of people are pissed at the fact that they
(17:12):
were going to get so much in tax incentives. Amazon,
for the second year in a row, will pay zero
in federal income taxes. You know, when people hear that
kind of stuff, the huge mega corporations, you get angry
at the fact that they don't have to pay taxes.
And then as we're all doing our income taxes right now,
you know, a lot of people are getting screwed. So
it's an interesting thing to kind of square away. But
(17:33):
three billion dollars in tax incentives, who's to say how
much real economic benefit they would have brought just with
the amount of people, with the amount of development. It
seems to me that it would have been more than
that ultimately in economic boom. But Amazon has also faced
a lot of criticism in the fact that they're very
anti union, and labor activists, especially in New York City,
have been trying to stage protests since the announcement was
(17:56):
made in November, saying Amazon will have to unionize that
they want to be in New York City. Increasingly, people
are ordering things online Amazon obviously at the forefront of
a lot of that stuff. I don't think it will
hamper their ability to send out deliveries. But where business
centers are going to be created, they're all missing out
there now. And uh, you know, it also sends a
signal that yes, the people did win and they pushed
(18:18):
Amazon out. But also Amazon leaving just like that proves
that they're not going to take anything from anybody, and
if you don't want them there, hey, we'll move our
business elsewhere. The other cities in Virginia, Northern Virginia and
in Nashville, they're not getting any pushback like this, nothing
like this in Amazon specifically chose New York because they
wanted to have a wide reach in order to cast
(18:40):
a wide net and get the best available talent. So
all those New York City tech programmers either gonna have
to move or something else works somewhere else. YEA, thank you, Miranda.
Thanks all right, that's it for us this weekend. Be
(19:01):
sure to check out The Daily Dive every Monday through Friday.
Join us on social media at Daily Dive Pod on
Twitter and Daily Dive Podcast on Facebook. Leave us a comment,
give us a rating, and tell us of stories that
you're interested in. Follow The Daily Dive and I Heart Radio,
or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. The Daily Dive
is produced by Miranda Moreno and engineered by Tony Sarrantino.
(19:23):
I'm Oscar Mayers in Los Angeles and this was your
Daily Dive weekend edition
This is the Daily Dive weekend edition. I'm Oscar and
Mirrors and we're running down some of the top stories
of the week. Don't forget to check out The Daily
Dive Monday through Friday for more news without the noise.
One of the interesting stories we talked about earlier this
week was how easy it is for a hacker to
get into your webcams and see you in your most
vulnerable times at home or just when you're not paying attention.
(00:23):
We spoke to Joanna Stern from The Wall Street Journal.
She asked a certified ethical hacker to get into her
webcams and what she found was pretty interesting. The guy
was even able to hack a baby monitor and spy
on her child. They made a great video for The
Wall Street Journal. Let's play a clip of it right now,
and it kind of sets up the whole interview. I
asked Alexander Hyde, the chief research officer at Security Scorecard
(00:47):
and a certified ethical hacker, to break into my webcams
to see just how vulnerable I was. With some deliberate
negligence on my part, he got into my Windows ten
laptops webcam and from there a connected baby monitor on
my WiFi network. He also eventually cracked my MacBook Air too,
although both operating systems were initially able to thwart the hacker.
(01:08):
Why in the world would I ask someone to spy
on me on a st answer, because I've been seeing
lots of these webcam covers and I wanted to know
if they were really needed. We've put cameras everywhere, so
how secure are they and what can we be doing
to better protect our literal privacy. I see those webcam
covers all over the place, and I always ask somebody
why they're using it. Let's jump into the interview with Joanna.
(01:31):
She has some tips for us on how to protect
ourselves and the biggest realization that we're often our own
worst enemies. He definitely figured out how to watch me
with my approval, with my consent, he watched me in
my home. He watched through a baby monitor, so he
watched my son as well. But I really did this
all to see one what the likelihood of someone wanting
to break into your webcam is, and then too, how
(01:53):
easy is it? And then there's a third part of
that too, which is what can we do to protect
ourselves if this is a genuine thread and someone may
really want to watch you through your webcam. I love
the quote that you had in there. When a hacker
sent me a photo of my son after breaking into
the baby monitor on my WiFi, my thought was, I'm
an idiot and with a lot of what this is
(02:13):
going on here, it is our own fault. We're like
our own worst enemies when it comes to this. And
that's really what I got to at the bottom of
this is it's human vulnerability versus device or network vulnerability.
That seemed to be the main way that hackers can
get to us now, and that really is because so
many of the protections in the operating systems and in
(02:36):
our phones and in the software has become so good
that the hackers tried to entice you through phishing spear phishing,
which is a method of just posing as somebody you
may know, and an email. In the case of this hacker,
he devised a pretty smart plan, right. He saw that
I had posted on Twitter a couple of weeks ago
that I was looking for a video producer, and he said, well,
(02:57):
if I was a hacker, I would just use that
information and say to look for a video producer. You
asked for two files in this job posting or you
asked for two pieces of collateral. You asked for resume,
and you asked for a video reel, and so those
are my two in he sent two different documents, depending
on what kind of computer I was on. He sent
a document and then he sent a link to another file.
And so presumably that would be the video file where
(03:17):
I clicked this video and helped to watch it, but
really would be a piece of malware downloading to my computer.
And the good news is that he was well. Two
pieces of good news. One, he was using very basic
hacking tools, off the shelf, hacking tools that white hack
hackers used. Two test vulnerabilities of devices and networks and companies,
et cetera. So he wasn't using very advanced technology here
(03:37):
to do this. But the good news is that he
sent these things, and the barriers, both built into the
mac os built into Windows os alerted me, right, they
alerted me that this was a virus or something shady
here was going on. I also knew I was being hacked,
and what I sort of realized the long way was
if someone doesn't know this, these could be things that
people would intentionally disable or just think as everyday occurrences.
(04:00):
I think you mentioned a few times in the article
of just how some of these pop ups are annoying
or they're an inconvenience when we're actually trying to get
something done. Maybe we want to download a program, an
open source program, something like that, and we do have
to disable some certain things along the way. I know
I've done that before and then re enable them after. Thankfully,
sometimes they are to that point of annoyance where like, okay, whatever, whatever,
(04:20):
click it, click it, whatever you need to click to
get through to the end, you're gonna do it. And
if you're not paying attention close enough, you might open
yourself up to these vulnerabilities. One thing that was also
like really enlightening to me was just how important some
of the stuff we take for granted is. I mean,
we've all heard how important passwords are, but it really
for me wasn't until the hacker Alexander Hyde, who worked
(04:42):
with me on this project. He was like, I can't
get into your Nest camera. The only way I could
get into your Nest camera is to know your passwords. Here.
You know, I really wanted to try the Nest camera
because it's the most popular connected WiFi camera and there's
been lots of talk right now, but the security of it.
So he said to me, I would need to know
your unique password and use your name for that. And
he said, well, I guess I could key log you, right,
(05:04):
I could install something on your computer and track all
your passwords and eventually get it. He's like, we I'm
not going to do that, but I could also just
go into this database of publicly available use their name
and passwords that have come from the numerous breaches over
the last number of years, everything from yeah who breach
to the LinkedIn breach and does end up on the
Internet in a public space where the hackers can get
to them or any security expert can get to them.
(05:25):
So he just typed in my email and up came
this password that I used to use maybe three or
four years back, and you know, I was like, oh wow,
Like just seeing that on his computer screen made me realize, like,
have I been as secure as I need to be
with my passwords? I use a password manager, I always
try to remember to use a different password every time,
but like maybe that old account they flipped there. It
(05:47):
really enforced in me like how important these things that
we do every day are to protecting I mean not
only our face, but all of our digital information. The
other thing you mentioned is obviously installed all of those
security and operating system updates for your phone, laptops, routers,
even your thermostats, you know, anything that connects to the Internet,
(06:08):
because those are the security updates that are going to
be helping you. Tell us the bottom line, I watch
what you're doing on the internet, be wary of everything,
and when your computer is telling you this could be
a problem, this could be a virus, you should probably
trust it. Yes to all of those things. Again, passwords
are important. Find I got my editor to let me
leave that in all caps because I just it feels
(06:30):
like something we always hear and like we're beat over
the head with it. But like when you see that
that password is out there, they can get access to
so many things if you're not safe about that about
keeping that password. You guys made a great video for
the Wall Street Journal, so we'll link to that also
so everybody can get a look and see pictures of
your webcam being hacked. Joanna Stern, personal tech reporter for
(06:51):
The Wall Street Journal, Thank you very much for joining us. Yeah,
hopefully you're not looking at me through my webcam right now.
This last week was Valentine's Day, so we talked a
little bit about love. We focused on the gamification of dating.
It's all around us. There's viral matchmaker shows to find love.
There's apps that we use to endlessly swipe on to
(07:12):
find dates. But this technology might not actually be helping us.
It might be making it harder to meet the one.
We spoke to Jesse Leash, she's a reporter for Axios,
and we talked about how these apps are the new
norm in dating and how it affects us. The big
picture is that the gamification of dating has become dis
global phenomenon. So it's not just in the US. It's
in China, it's in South Africa, it's in Australia, it's
(07:34):
in England and so on. And when I was exploring
in the gamification of dating, I specifically looked at these
two facets of society where dating is becoming gamified. So
first in pop culture through reality dating shows like you
mentioned different matchmaker shows like The Bachelor in the US.
And then second I explored the gamification of dating in
tech and social media through dating apps and so, like
(07:54):
you said, apps are definitely the new Norman dating. But
the catches that these endless choices on these dating apps
can actually be overwhelming and might make it even more
difficult for us to meet the one. With regards to
the TV shows and you know, things like The Bachelor
and whatnot, people love to watch those things. There's high drama,
high competitiveness. It is a huge, huge game. And then
(08:15):
with regards to the apps, as you said, I just
know that the swiping thing has become so ingrained in
all sorts of other apps now. I mean YouTube is
starting a swiping feature so you can swipe videos, so
you can stay there forever watching videos. You know, that's
just how these things have evolved. Now, Millennials spend ten
hours a week on dating apps, and I think a
lot of that can be attributed to the game of
(08:38):
fine Nature. First of all, you know, the format is
like a game where you essentially slipe yes or no
on people's profiles, and so there is this psychological motivation
to make a match actually because it sends these pleasurable
signals to your brain. One professor actually told us that
it's kind of like a drug. You can get this
release over and over and then there's also the design
of the app where you have an endless number of options,
(09:00):
and that makes people want to continue sliping. There was
a survey from match where you know one in six
singles that they actually feel addicted to the process of
looking for a date. And there are also psychologists who
have compared these apps to slot machines because all these
different gamified elements actually make us even more fixated on
these apps. One of the other problems with all of this.
Part of the game is to make yourself as desirable
(09:22):
as possible. So this is the whole thing of making
sure your profile is top notch, great pictures, the whole nine,
great taglines and profiles, working and everything. But some of
this stuff is also counterintuitive. Once you maybe you make
a match, then you meet somebody, your hopes and expectations
are so high, and then it could be very awkward
when that other person doesn't meet those expectations. You build
(09:44):
somebody up in your mind, and what if they're not
that person in real life. One sociologists we spoke to
actually said that using these dating apps and dating today
has actually become a form of work. It's not just fun,
it's not just a game anymore, because you have so
much sure to present this version of yourself that is
as desirable as possible, and so obviously, like you mentioned,
(10:05):
this can lead to unmet expectations, and there are a
lot of ways that people are trying to grapple with that.
One of the most common ways, of course, is just
asking your friends to help you edit or look at
your profile, sending screenshots of your different matches, and getting
your friends to help you fashion responses. But there's also
this whole industry of services that has popped up that's
(10:26):
trying to address that, and it's this industry of dating coaches, essentially,
And I spoke to a lot of dating coaches, and
a lot of them are essentially twenty four seven coaches
around the world who will help you style your profile
and will even go as far as helping you to
craft sentence by sentence what you might say to another
person that you match with. And I think there is
(10:47):
this growing need for these kinds of dating coaches because
people feel so uncertain and feel so lost in this
world of dating apps that they actually need to seek
outside counsel to help them with their dating profiles. There's
an interesting notion from somebody that you spoke to for
match dot Com, Helen Fisher, who's their chief scientific advisor,
said there's this whole thing of fast sex and slow
(11:08):
love where because of the way the online dating culture
has changed everything, people are hesitant to really make those commitments. Instead,
they'll have that one night stand. A lot of them
will have sex with somebody before their quote unquote actual
first date. There's this whole thing of hey, we're hanging out, now,
we're friends with benefits, then we're going to have our
(11:30):
first date. It's really interesting Helen Fisher's idea of fast
sex slow love and yeah, she she definitely talks about
how it's basically this phenomenon among millennial singles where they're
more likely to go through these motions that are traditionally
associated with a relationship before even actually defining the relationship. So,
like you said, they'll go on dates, have sex, all
of that, and they won't even define whether they're a
(11:52):
couple or you know, once they're in a relationship, they're
moving together and do all these things together, but they
won't even discuss marriage. But an interesting tidbit of analysis
from her is she said that some people might view
this as reckless behavior among millennials, but she actually sees
this as caution. She kind of sees this as in
this increasingly gamified sphere of dating, people are on their
(12:12):
toes more than ever, and it causes this desire in
millennials to want for everything to be right, to fall
in the right place before they tie the knot. And
so it's actually it could be seen as a good
thing that millennials are more cautious about how they date
more than ever. Jesse Lee, thank you very much for
joining us. Thank you so much. Man. I feel so
lucky to have missed this whole online dating thing. I
(12:34):
know you as well, Mirandom, missed this whole boat. How
did you meet your husband? My husband and I are
both lifeguards at a water park, and he actually had
a car crash that made the city newspaper, so he
lost his license for a little while. And he had
called my best friend to get a ride from her,
and she recommended me because he and I had the
same schedule. I even made my brother come with me,
(12:54):
just in case he was like a raper. He wasn't,
but just in case. That's so. No I met my wife.
She used to have these in our friend group these
parties of legend. They were like parties out of a movie.
And uh, we had some mutual friends and they invited
me and I went there and I remember being in
the backyard. She was inside by the kitchen, and I
was like, I'm gonna go talk to that girl and
(13:16):
make her a drink. So that's what I did. I
walked in and it's like, hey, can I make you
a drink, classy lady, and drink and we started talking
over that and the rest is history. Do you still
make her drinks? Of course? I think shortly after that,
it was maybe two days had gone by, and then
we all went to the movies together and literally we
have never been apart more for more than a few days.
(13:37):
After that, it was the same story. I took him
to work and I brought him home and June three,
here we are there we go. Thank you, Miranda. To
the surprise of many, Amazon canceled its plans to build
its HQ two in Long Island City, New York. This
comes after a whole year of them trying to find
(13:58):
a place to host a new campus. It was seen
as a big victory by local lawmakers and housing activists.
They had a big problem with the three billion dollars
in tax incentives that Amazon was going to get. On
the other hand, there was land developers and and apartment
brokers that were angry at the miss opportunity and lost
economic activity. If you had a deal in the process,
(14:20):
you are scrambling right now. My producer Random joins us
for why Amazon is backing out now. Amazon has decided
to cancel their plans in response to the public outrage
and outcry from the people who have lived in this
borough of Long Island City, part of Queens because their
concerns about government kickbacks. There were concerns about skyrocketing rents
(14:42):
and land values. People were concerned that they were going
to get priced out of the neighborhoods they've been living
in for fifty years. And that's a very real concern.
Amazon to their part, so that they're not going to
reopen their HQ to search. So wherever you're living, don't
stress if Amazon is going to kind of live there too.
They're not. They're gonna and expand or where they already exist.
So the jobs slated for New York City are going
(15:04):
to be relocated to other parts of the HQ two.
So it's like DC, Nashville, and then other parts of
New York City. Yeah, and that was a huge process
in and of itself. They spent over a year looking
for candidates to host the new HQ two. That's when
they decided they were going to split between two cities,
and then also in Nashville, they were going to open
some other operations hub there. Nobody knows exactly what the
(15:26):
fate of those jobs are going to be or that
two five billion dollars in investment. Obviously it's going to
be spread about, but it's not going to be as
much of an impact in one location as it was before.
They also said that, you know, they love New York,
but they needed a place that required positive collaborative relationships
with state and local elected officials who will be supportive
(15:48):
over the long term, and they just were not getting that.
Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor build A. Blasio helped usher
in all this stuff. Assuming they kind of cleared the
way without the need for a lot of local input,
and that's really what the big sticking point was. They
got mad that they got skirted over it and had
to give all sorts of concessions. Yeah, and you know,
(16:09):
it's the smaller neighborhood representatives Alexandria Cassio Cortes tweeting out
anything as possible. Today was the day a group of dedicated,
everyday New Yorkers and their neighbors defeated Amazon's corporate greed.
But to their part, the brokers are furious because they're saying,
we want the Bezos, is you want the Carnegies and
the Rockefellers. And if they're going to get pushback like this,
(16:29):
we're going to stop bringing big business to New York City. Yeah,
a lot of the land developers and the brokers, as
you're saying, they're just in the lurch now. You know,
if you had a deal that was in the process,
now you're thrown into chaos. And they've been saying that,
you know, it would have been great to transform Long
Island City into some type of district with you know, shops,
(16:50):
the whole nine, you know, housing and all the stuff
that comes with it. And now that it's just going
to remain a place for Manhattan commuters to sleep. You know,
it's not going to become anything there. It's a bedroom community.
I have close friends who just moved away from there,
and it is it's like a small town that's a
six minute subway ride from Midtown, and you know, a
lot of people are pissed at the fact that they
(17:12):
were going to get so much in tax incentives. Amazon,
for the second year in a row, will pay zero
in federal income taxes. You know, when people hear that
kind of stuff, the huge mega corporations, you get angry
at the fact that they don't have to pay taxes.
And then as we're all doing our income taxes right now,
you know, a lot of people are getting screwed. So
it's an interesting thing to kind of square away. But
(17:33):
three billion dollars in tax incentives, who's to say how
much real economic benefit they would have brought just with
the amount of people, with the amount of development. It
seems to me that it would have been more than
that ultimately in economic boom. But Amazon has also faced
a lot of criticism in the fact that they're very
anti union, and labor activists, especially in New York City,
have been trying to stage protests since the announcement was
(17:56):
made in November, saying Amazon will have to unionize that
they want to be in New York City. Increasingly, people
are ordering things online Amazon obviously at the forefront of
a lot of that stuff. I don't think it will
hamper their ability to send out deliveries. But where business
centers are going to be created, they're all missing out
there now. And uh, you know, it also sends a
signal that yes, the people did win and they pushed
(18:18):
Amazon out. But also Amazon leaving just like that proves
that they're not going to take anything from anybody, and
if you don't want them there, hey, we'll move our
business elsewhere. The other cities in Virginia, Northern Virginia and
in Nashville, they're not getting any pushback like this, nothing
like this in Amazon specifically chose New York because they
wanted to have a wide reach in order to cast
(18:40):
a wide net and get the best available talent. So
all those New York City tech programmers either gonna have
to move or something else works somewhere else. YEA, thank you, Miranda.
Thanks all right, that's it for us this weekend. Be
(19:01):
sure to check out The Daily Dive every Monday through Friday.
Join us on social media at Daily Dive Pod on
Twitter and Daily Dive Podcast on Facebook. Leave us a comment,
give us a rating, and tell us of stories that
you're interested in. Follow The Daily Dive and I Heart Radio,
or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. The Daily Dive
is produced by Miranda Moreno and engineered by Tony Sarrantino.
(19:23):
I'm Oscar Mayers in Los Angeles and this was your
Daily Dive weekend edition
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