Questions from the Edge | profile

I wonder if we’ll continue to tolerate influencers next year (not to mention admiring them, not liking them, not to mention envying them, because none of those passions have ever been about this species).

The sphere of public opinion, in its most classic formulations, was opinion-forming and therefore “influences” had political weight. But today it all boils down to one (usually very stupid) person using a product or brand for increasingly ridiculous amounts of money, with the supposed goal of “influencing” someone to buy that product or stick with that brand.

The topic is extremely vile, because it’s very clear that people won’t buy perfume, watch or car because this or that idiot uses it (sorry, I meant to write “influencer”). Even those who pay influencers know this. Why does this vicious cycle of falsehoods, injustices and disregard for the general intelligence of the population continue? I would say that these advertising market “strategies” are all about keeping the most miserable part of the techno-capitalist machine running. I imagine a year in which people block influencers and their recommendations outright, a dawn in which people decide to get rid of the networks’ puddle of dirt.

I also wonder how long we can endure being humiliated by our rulers. I refer not only to the executive branch, but also to the scourge of the legislative branch, which today is erasing with its elbow what it asserted with excitement yesterday. These vultures who are willing to sell their “parliamentary influence” for personal gain or a pre-paid drug fee deserve public ridicule.

Of course, I also wonder how long we will continue to accept the delusional transit system that is choking Buenos Aires. In the province they have just resigned with an exemplary measure (an example of stupidity). In the only section of the western approach where the maximum speed was previously 130 km/h (a speed that could only be reached in the early hours of the morning), it was reduced to 110 km/h.

In other words, since the highway has collapsed like all other roads, the only solution anyone can think of is to reduce the speed limits instead of thinking about how to fix the mess, the traffic jam, the congestion. Let everyone fix themselves. It is enough to observe what happens when two highways meet (the Perito Moreno with the 25 de Mayo, the Western Access with the General Paz, the Panamericana with the Ramal to Pilar) to realize that all of these intersections or confluences have design defects that hinder traffic (add at least ten minutes of travel time and increase blood pressure by 50 millimeters of mercury) that no one cares about. Everything is insane, psychotic and blames the driver of the vehicle. Will points be deducted from my license for violations? Why don’t they deduct points from those who designed the highways? Why don’t they deduct points from idiots who get into an accident (on the highway!) for looking at their phone or shaking their nose while driving? I think: Anyone who has an accident on the motorway should have their driving license revoked forever (in any case, as soon as liability is clarified, which the insurance companies do very well and very quickly). But no: it’s better to deduct points from the distracted person who missed a camera because traffic was moving and they weren’t traveling at a cruising speed in their car. To those who collide, our condolences. Our thanks go to those who plan the highways. For the government that does not plan to invest a single peso in repairing the messy streets in Buenos Aires, our useful vote.

Another intrigue for the coming year. Will Peronism exist again as a force? It’s still a feeling (inaudible), but for now in the form of a puddle of stagnant water that doesn’t flow. I suspect that the first thing Peronist friends would have to do would be an examination of conscience, a moral storm that would allow them to think beyond the corrupt clientelism that has dominated their practice for the past five years or decades. When I talk to some of them, I see that they continue to naturalize the same system that kept them collapsing. They are simply waiting to get money again (regardless of where it comes from) in order to distribute it (irregularly, of course) to the poor, which is all of us.

Another question or wish (in Italian a question is called “domanda”): Can I sell my house in Conurbano to live in Mar del Plata, the destination of the crazy people who flee, those who are at enmity with the world, those who no longer give anything, those who want to lock themselves up to write?