The Pour Over Today - Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Episode Date: October 6, 2021

Facebook goes dark, a whistleblower speaks, secrets of the global elite are published, and other top news for Wednesday October 6th. Stay informed, while remaining focused on Christ, with The Pour Over.

Happy Wednesday. It's October 6th and you're listening to The Pour Over. Today we cover Facebook going dark, a whistleblower speaking out, secrets of the global elite being published, and other top news. We're here to help you stay informed while staying focused on Christ. Here's the quote of the day. Gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift. It liberates us from the prison of self-preoccupation. John Ortberg

It liberates us from the prison of self-preoccupation. John Ortberg. Pandora doesn't just have a box. She also has papers. The Pandora Papers are a set of 11.9 million leaked documents that detail the secret ways billionaires, celebrities, and the politically powerful obscure their finances with offshore tax havens. Tax havens aren't technically illegal. Just how Taco Bell's spicy chicken sandwich taco isn't technically a sandwich.

But the Pandora Papers show that they're often used for questionable purposes. Here are four of some of the wildest highlights for the Pandora Papers. One, Vladimir Putin's alleged mistress lives in a $4.1 million apartment in Monaco. Two, an 11-year-old legally owns a $44 million office block in London. And no, he's not TikTok famous. Three, the King of Jordan owns properties in Malibu that are worth over $100 million.

And four, the term offshore doesn't always mean what it sounds like. Offshore can sometimes mean South Dakota. The state's laws make it easy to hide wealth and avoid paying taxes. It's easy to become angry and indignant over world events, but much more difficult to live with the tension of desiring and creating change while simultaneously loving everyone involved. As Christians, we're called to love everyone, even foreign kings hiding wealth for political reasons. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?

Even sinners love those who love them. Zuckerberg's entire empire, meaning Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus, was down for six hours on Monday. So no, it wasn't just you who was unable to procrastinate. It was the longest outage for Facebook since 2008, back when they had just 80 million users compared to the 3 billion users today. It knocked down everything, including employees' badges that are used to open office doors. And remarkably, this wasn't even the biggest Facebook news this week. Frances Haugen, a former product manager at Facebook, unmasked herself as the whistleblower

who recently leaked the Facebook files. These files showed that Facebook's own research indicates Instagram is bad for the mental health of teens. Also, it revealed that certain users are whitelisted, allowing them to break rules without consequences. And finally, Facebook knew that an algorithm update fueled more anger and political division. Facebook has said the files are being more anger and political division. Facebook

has said the files are being misrepresented and show an incomplete picture. But yesterday, it was Haugen who got to tell her story to Congress. She said that when faced with making changes to promote user safety, her former employer repeatedly, quote, chose to optimize its own interests like making more money. She also threw Zuckerberg under the bus, saying, quote, there are no similarly powerful companies that are as unilaterally controlled. And in the end, the buck stops with Mark. There's no one currently holding him accountable but himself. According to Haugen, that accountability needs to come from Congress.

Our goal is to keep the big things big and the small things small. It's not that Facebook isn't important. It is hugely influential. It's just not God of the universe important. Regardless of what happens with Facebook, eternity remains unchanged. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory. Colossians 3 verses 2 through 4. In other brews, we've got a rapid round of updates.

Back in black, eight of the nine Supreme Court justices were back to work in person on Monday, kicking off a monumentous term where they'll hear key challenges to abortion, gun rights, and religious rights. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who tested positive for COVID last week, was the court's lone call-in user. Two scientists who use chili peppers to discover how our bodies sense warmth and touch shared the Nobel Prize in medicine. And a trio of physicists with an average age of 84 shared the Nobel Prize in physics for their physical modeling of Earth's climate. More prizes will be announced daily this week.

Beijing is rationing energy to factories. Natural gas shortages have tripled the price of electricity in Spain, and petrol stations in the UK have no petrol. Experts say that the global energy crunch, which kind of sounds like the name of a protein bar, it isn't a supply issue, but the result of a mix of policy decisions and supply chain issues. The stock market is continuing to yo-yo all over the place. Yesterday, the S&P 500, a weighted average of 500 large U.S. companies, gained 1.1%, erasing most of its 1.3% drop from Monday. COVID numbers, inflation, rising interest rates, and the looming debt ceiling deadline are all keeping investors on their toes. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. If you found this podcast helpful or

informative or encouraging, we would really appreciate it if you consider leaving a review or sharing it with someone you know. Otherwise, we hope you have a great day and we'll see you back here on Friday.