Good morning, Quartz readers!
If this is the first time you’re seeing this email this weekend, we apologize for the delay. If this is the second time you’re seeing this email this weekend, we apologize for the redundancy. The same technical issue is responsible for both scenarios.
Months after the new coronavirus was recognized as a worldwide health risk, months after society’s top science, public health, and medical minds pulled together in an unprecedented scramble to contain its spread, the US president and his wife, Melania, two of the best protected people on the planet, tested positive for Covid-19. The same day the news emerged, we got the latest US employment report, which showed that job gains were slowing, a sign the overall economy has downshifted. Anything resembling a full recovery remains far away.
Sometimes it’s tempting to think the worst is behind us. New York City restaurants re-opened some indoor dining this week, and parts of America have gotten back to work after the pandemic forced widespread lockdowns. But it turns out we can’t wish away Covid-19 and beat expert-led practices like mask wearing and social distancing.
There’s plenty of magical thinking to go around, though, especially in Washington. Trump, behind in most polls, insists that mail-in votes will mar the November election, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. Congress, meanwhile, has yet to agree on further spending for the unemployed, meaning there is no plan right now to counter the lasting damage that’s being done to livelihoods.
Millions have lost jobs, a trauma that ripples through families and continues to affect people even when they find work again. That reality, kind of like falling ill with Covid-19 at age 74, is frightening.
Those who have been hardest hit by the crisis are going to need continued support from government spending and society at large. The more fortunate among us are still going to have to make hard choices about whether it’s safe to see family and friends in person, and we have to continue listening to well informed health experts, even if we don’t like their advice. We’re not going completely back to our pre-pandemic lives anytime soon. We do, however, have a chance to get through this by looking out for each other and making some sacrifices.
But you knew that already, even if the political leadership in Washington did not.—John Detrixhe
Five things on Quartz we especially liked
The virtual commute. I never thought I would miss being packed into an overcrowded subway car on my way to the office. But as many of us continue to work from home (or put another way, live at work) that lack of travel time at the beginning and end of the workday makes the boundaries even fuzzier. So I will definitely be trying Lila MacLellan’s suggestions for creating a new ritual to transition from one facet of your life to another. —Liz Webber, senior news curator
Reliance Jio is everywhere in India. And yet, it’s a tech phenomenon still largely unknown to the West. But that will soon be remedied as Google, Facebook, and a whole host of investors put big bucks behind the youngest venture of India’s richest man. In this detailed piece, Niharika Sharma makes a case for why the world needs to wake up to India’s Jio, and why that time is now. —Manavi Kapur, Quartz India reporter
This might end a few arguments. With every election, in every place, there are those who talk about how it’s done better and more fairly somewhere else. Amanda Shendruk takes the US electoral college system and applies it to the UK, Canada, and India’s parliamentary democracies. You’ll have to find out for yourself how it plays out. —Hasit Shah, deputy editor, global finance and economics
Trash tubes are the answer. As a New York City resident, I’m very aware of garbage: I see it on the sidewalk, I smell it in the air, and I watch as public trash bins periodically overflow. Nicolás Rivero’s story on how cities like Stockholm and Seoul are using pneumatic tubes to dispose of waste brightened my day, allowing me to daydream of a better-smelling, less rat-heavy way of life. —Sarah Todd, senior reporter
Power check. When I learned that Trump had Covid-19, I thought that maybe this would change his strategy and messaging around the killer virus. Alex Ossola’s reporting on the psychological impact of a Covid diagnosis on other world leaders, including UK prime minister Boris Johnson, left me feeling cautiously optimistic. If Trump’s illness plants seeds of empathy for those at risk, he could make changes that would save tens of thousands of lives. —Lila MacLellan, senior reporter
Indian weddings, by the digits
$50 billion: Size of the wedding services industry in India, according to a 2016 KPMG report, including everything from matchmaking to wedding planning, jewelry, and apparel
25,000: Weddings in Delhi on Dec. 7, 2015. Every year, one such astrologically auspicious date sees close to 20,000 weddings in the nation’s capital alone.
100: Number of guests currently allowed to attend weddings, due to Covid-19 pandemic restrictions
7.5%: Share of net worth generally spent by affluent Indian families on weddings
9: Number of events and parties—including the fireworks display at the Umaid Bhawan Palace seen above—across three Indian cities in 2018 to celebrate the marriage of actor Priyanka Chopra and musician Nick Jonas
The big fat Indian wedding has withstood the test of time, economic turbulence, social reform, and even modern technology, but can it withstand a pandemic? Manavi Kapur is your plus one for the Quartz Weekly Obsession.
Want to see our newest Obsessions as soon as they’re published? Sign up below.
One IPO we watched
At the urging of their engineers, a handful of big technology firms have walked away from US government contracts employing their products in morally questionable ways. Palantir is not one of those firms. Quartz’s Tim Fernholz examines the ideology and the business model behind founder Peter Thiel’s newly public company—and the marketing feat in Afghanistan that made it all possible. —Heather Landy, executive editor
✦ We write a special email that goes deep into one company a week, and it’s exclusively for Quartz members. This week’s was Palantir—we’d hate for you to miss out on the ones we have in store. Grab your own membership today, and check it out.
Five things from elsewhere that made us smarter
My Three Fathers. Striking the right balance between candor, mischievous humor, insight, and poignancy in a personal memoir takes rare gifts. Fortunately, author Ann Patchett possesses those gifts and brings them to bear in a delightful essay in The New Yorker about how her father and two step-fathers shaped her career as a novelist. By the end, we feel we know all three of these very different men, who loved Patchett each in their own way. —Oliver Staley, culture and lifestyle editor
You wouldn’t know an AI if it smacked you in the face. This post from Nicholas Carr, former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, applies well-known thought experiments on the nature of consciousness to artificial intelligence. Admitting that computer intelligence would look nothing like our own raises the question of whether humans could even perceive the consciousness of an AI. Raising the possibility that “we are already surrounded by AIs but have no idea that they exist.” —Max Lockie, deputy news editor
Measuring hidden carbon footprints. Many oil and gas companies have made commitments recently to cut carbon emissions from their operations. All well and good—except the vast majority of the industry’s emissions come from its customers and suppliers, and few companies have done much to cut, or even count, those. For Bloomberg, David Fickling and Elaine He provides a useful, if “more art than science,” estimate of which big polluters are keeping the most concealed. —Tim McDonnell, climate reporter
Amazing Hazell. Scarves can be small works of art—my mother, who is obsessed with them, has spent my whole life drawing my attention to the colors, the elegance, and the design. I found this same joy in Corinne Purtill’s dispatch from a lovely corner of Covid-19 internet, where locked-down 86-year-old Hazell Jacobs has been blogging about her own scarf collection. With weekly posts of poetic stories, Jacobs delivers beauty, cheer, and an essential reminder that life is, still, something to marvel at. —Annalisa Merelli, geopolitical reporter
A naked analysis. Keanu Reeves may be the rare action and comedy star, but his expansive career also includes a surprising record among many of Hollywood’s leading men. As Carrie Wittmen explains in hilarious, winning detail for The Ringer, analyzing 128 sex scenes reveals some truly awful ones starring A-listers. And while some of the top sex symbols don’t actually go at it all that much on screen, Wittmen determined that the award goes to Reeves for most quality performances, total screen time, and sheer consistency.—Karen K. Ho, global finance and economics reporter
Quartz Africa invites you to a new virtual event. Register for our free virtual event on Oct. 8 from 9:30-10:30am ET for a deeper understanding of China’s investment in Africa. Quartz Africa has brought together a group of experts to explore what the China-Africa relationships mean for the larger global economy—and why you should care.
Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, scarf art, and trash tubes to hi@qz.com. Get the most out of Quartz by downloading our app and becoming a member. Today’s Weekend Brief was brought to you by John Detrixhe and Susan Howson.