1. Just make them pretty, stupid

by Mike Solana

America’s favorite future president Spencer Pratt is in some trouble after arguing LA should be “beautiful” again, and “No more of these high-density, SB-79, prison-like structures. We need to bring Art Deco back.” Housing advocates are furious, and look, high-density is important. But Pratt specifically called out the disgusting cookie cutter Lego-looking plastic box buildings of the sort we all — or all of us with a soul — hate. The problem here is YIMBYs spent the last decade+ associating the phrase “high-density” with “ugly,” even often explicitly defending ugliness to some ambiguous far off utilitarian end. Frankly, I think Spencer is just confused, and new to this, and would be fine with high-density deco buildings, which are already all over LA. And that confusion is on YIMBYs, who will now unfortunately learn the hard way: if you tell people ugly things are good, they will just assume you’re evil. Just make things pretty, stupid.

2. Spin-N-Out

by Riley Nork

The California Post reports that a planned retail and dining destination in Irvine, CA will feature one (1) new In-N-Out chain, and because most news coming out of this godforsaken state of late has revolved around such fun topics as “another homeless man stabs Whole Foods shopper” or “another billionaire job creator chooses Miami over living under communism,” dyslexic Governor Gavin is seizing the opportunity to toot his own horn harder than Marilyn Manson post-rib removal. “IN CALIFORNIA YOU SAY?!” tweeted out the social media girlie running his press account in response to the In-N-Out news. And look: it’s easy to get lost in all the terrible things about this state, folks. But if you simply consume a 250mg weed edible from the local minority-owned dispensary, and allow yourself to forget inconvenient facts like In-N-Out’s CEO moving her family out of California specifically citing the state’s terrible business climate… things actually aren’t so bad!

3. Have you tried Jesus?

by Mike Solana

Venture capitalist Deedy Das went viral over the weekend with a Twitter post on the “frenetic” vibes of San Francisco, where something like 10,000 people have ridden AI to generational wealth, while the average depressed engineer is stuck in a hopeless $500 thousand a year job (??), or at least until Hal 9000 eradicates the concept of employment. Now, tech workers are demanding ever higher salaries and rapidly switching companies, as they try to hop into the next hot thing before this wild ride ends, while even the rich are unhappy, as abrupt, extraordinary wealth has left them purposeless. Well, congratulations, we’re in yet another delirious tech industry hype cycle, in which a real technological breakthrough has given way to surreal expectations from life, as the city attracts thousands of money-obsessed lunatics. A bit of advice from a 3x boom survivor: find some friends who don’t care about this stuff, and literally just go outside.

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