Monica Chin @mcsquared96

愛凌. writer and editor with words at @verge, @thisisinsider, @tomsguide and others. represented by @clarkliterary. mastodon: @[email protected] instagram.com/monicawchin/ New York, USA Joined May 2011

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Hank Green @hankgreen

2 years ago

I think a harm of online activism is the "THIS IS ACTUALLY EASY" argument. I've seen lots of folks indicate that a single billionaire could solve homelessness, or that there are 30x more houses than homeless people so we could just give them all houses. These words are fantastic for activating people, but they are also lies. The US government currently spends around 50B per year keeping people housed. States, of course, have their own budgets. If Bill Gates spent the same amount of money the US does just to keep people housed, he would be out of money in 3 years. I think that would be a great use of his money, but it would not be a permanent solution. The statistics about there being more houses than homeless are just...fake. They rely on looking at extremely low estimates of homelessness (which are never used in any other context) and include normal vacancy rates (an apartment is counted as vacant even if it's only vacant for a month while the landlord is finding a new tenant.) In a country with 150,000,000 housing units, a 2% vacancy rate is three million units, which, yes, is greater than the homeless population. But a 2% vacancy rate is extremely low (and bad, because it means there's fewer available units than there are people looking to move, which drives the price of rent higher.) Housing should not be an option in this country. It should be something we spend tons of money on. It should be a priority for every leader and every citizen. it should also be interfaced with in real, complex ways. And it should be remembered that the main way we solve the problem is BUILDING MORE HOUSING, which I find a whole lot of my peers in seemingly progressive spaces ARE ACTUALLY OPPOSED TO. Sometimes they are opposed to it because they've heard stats that the problem is simple and could be solved very easily if only we would just decide to solve it, which is DOING REAL DAMAGE. By telling the simplest version of the story, you can get people riled up, but what do you do with that once they're riled up if they were riled up by lies? There are only two paths: 1. Tell them the truth...that everything they've been told is actually a lie and that the problem is actually hard. And, because the problem is both big and hard, tons of people are working very hard on it, and they should be grateful for (or even become) one of those people. 2. Keep lying until they are convinced that the problem does not exist because it is hard, it exists because people are evil. Or, I guess, #3, people could just be angry and sad all the time, which is also not great for affecting real change. I dunno...I'm aware that people aren't doing this because they want to create a problem, and often they believe the fake stats they are quoting, but I do not think it is doing more good than harm, and I would like to see folks doing less of it. One thing that definitely does more good than harm is actually connecting to the complexity of an issue that is important to you. Do that...and see that there are many people working hard. We do not have any big, easy problems. If we did, they'd be solved. I'm sorry, it's a bummer, but here we are.

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Monica Chin @mcsquared96

3 years ago

@jjvincent @verge Congratulations on a great run, James! Looking forward to keeping up with your work going forward!

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Andrew Kaczynski @KFILE

3 years ago

Congrats to everyone on the Forbes "30 under 30" list for still being under 30.

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Monica Chin @mcsquared96

3 years ago

I hope to be back doing this again very soon. But for now, I am excited to dive into all of your MacBook reviews!

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Monica Chin @mcsquared96

3 years ago

I was at The Verge for almost four years, which is wild to think about. I’ve learned and grown an unimaginable amount in that time. Thank you so much to my colleagues for everything—and thank you all, readers, for reading my work. I hope you enjoyed it and that I helped you.

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Monica Chin @mcsquared96

3 years ago

~Personal News~ I’ve made the decision to take a temporary step back from full-time journalism.

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Techmeme @Techmeme

3 years ago

Surface Laptop Go 3 review: premium design but low-resolution screen, no keyboard backlighting, limited port selection, and too expensive for what it offers (@mcsquared96 / The Verge) theverge.com/23906932/micro… 📫 Subscribe: techmeme.com/newsletter?fro… techmeme.com/231012/p21#a23…

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Tom Warren @tomwarren

3 years ago

Surface Laptop Studio 2 review: this could be so much more. Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop Studio 2 has new chips, a new touchpad, and a very, very high price tag. @mcsquared96's review is right here: theverge.com/23900932/micro…

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Techmeme @Techmeme

3 years ago

HP unveils the Spectre Fold, a foldable PC that can be used as 17-inch tablet or laptop, or as a 12.3-inch laptop, weighing under 3lb, starting at $5,000 (@mcsquared96 / The Verge) theverge.com/2023/9/14/2387… techmeme.com/230914/p13#a23…

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Monica Chin @mcsquared96

3 years ago

TikTok is now banned on the Wi-Fi networks at public colleges and universities around the US. Students are using VPNs, downloads, and massive amounts of phone data to get around them. theverge.com/2023/9/9/23864…

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Techmeme @Techmeme

3 years ago

Lenovo unveils $4,400 Legion 9i, a gaming laptop with liquid-cooling, 16" Mini LED display, 13th Gen Intel Core i9, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, available in Oct. (@mcsquared96 / The Verge) theverge.com/2023/9/1/23853… techmeme.com/230901/p5#a230…

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Techmeme @Techmeme

3 years ago

Asus ROG Strix Scar X3D review: the $3.7K, 17" gaming laptop outperforms a pricier Intel-powered rival by up to 20% due to its stellar AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D chip (@mcsquared96 / The Verge) theverge.com/23840504/asus-… techmeme.com/230822/p17#a23…

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Techmeme @Techmeme

3 years ago

LG Gram Style (2023) review: 120Hz OLED, bold color-changing body, and lightweight, but limited power, poor thermal management and trackpad, and bendy chassis (@mcsquared96 / The Verge) theverge.com/23837288/lg-gr… techmeme.com/230821/p5#a230…