Recommended shows

I have a lot more personal stress than usual lately, combined with the daily terrible global news (suddenly I care much more about how crappy the world is), makes for a depressing outlook and a general feeling of misery. 

So I'm going to talk about things I like today.

Recently I've seen some very good shows, so here are a few I recommend:

Upload: This is a light-hearted, techy, sort-of sci-fi dramedy (mostly comedy) and it's just been fun. It takes place in the near future (maybe 20-50 years), and I will say some of the predicted tech/gadgets are so dystopian, pessimistic and reflective of some of the worst innovations of today that they feel like certainties. 

Worth a watch if only for those, but the show has a ton of fun with the concept of uploading your consciousness into a digital "heaven" upon death that even when the story is lacking, everything else makes up for it. But don't worry, the story is mostly fine and so is the acting. Available on the evil Amazon Prime.  

The Expanse: Probably the best sci-fi show in the last 10 years. Possibly the best sci-fi show ever. 

Season one took me a while to get used to. I remember watching it years ago, and gave up after 3 or 4 episodes. But I re-watched them and started to like it. Once you get it, and get comfortable with it, everything clicks and the show is freaking amazing. I think maybe season 5 is the best, but 6 is pretty damn good too. But if you haven't watched it, and if you like serious sci-fi, and if you can take in 4-5 episodes of season 1, you will be immensely rewarded. Honestly, season 1 isn't even that bad, I don't know what my problem was. I think it was just getting used to the belter accents. 

Anyway, I don't want to spoil anything nor spend all day writing about it, so I will say this: the effects are as good or better than big-budget films, with realistic space physics, while using mostly realistic scale (space is huge), which is refreshing not to have your intelligence insulted for the sake of storytelling. The drama, politics, conflicts, and the people are compelling. A few questions remain unanswered at the end of the show, but most were answered and I cannot remember seeing such a great show with a worthy ending. Extremely recommended. Also available on Prime.

Reacher: I watched this recently and just felt compelled to binge watch it. It's like a book you can't put down. Almost non-stop action, not big-dumb-Michael-Bay action, but the kind that you can follow, makes sense, leads from one point to another, and provides the occasional twist. 

The show is a little surprising. Jack Reacher, the hero, turns out to be more than the one dimensional stereotypical action figure. I'll just say things aren't so black and white and it's very well done. Great acting, great action, great characters, good story, and it all works incredibly well together. Highly recommended. Also on Prime.

The Witcher: This show is almost great. But there are some questionable set designs and actors that prevent me from completely gushing over it. But I will gush a little because many things about it are well-done. 

Henry Cavill is perfect as Geralt and crushes the performance as well as Geralt slays monsters. Most of the CGI stuff is really good, I really can't complain. A lot of it feels like a lived-in fantasy world with real characters, but then other moments feel like they cheaped out and the sets are sterile, some of the dialogue is lazy (old-world style fantasy characters using colloquialisms straight out of 2022 America is sloppy), and the acting feels forced at times (typically from the secondary characters). Overall though, it's nice to have a mostly competent fantasy show. Available on Netflix.

The stupid singularity is approaching

Posted without comment, except to say, these are actual articles--I looked them up. Click to enlarge.

Via Clown World Today.

Polarizing effect of social media algorithms

Have you noticed this? You try to get some outside opinions, a healthy take from sources outside your circles and challenge your ideas. But the recommended videos, tweets, and social media bites--all tailored to your worldview--incessantly steer you back into your bubble.

This is very unhealthy if one desires to be somewhat well-rounded and knowledgeable, have a civil democratic republic where ideas are thoughtfully considered and debated prior to acting on anything important, let alone something emotionally-charged. 

I've got to start using my bookmarks more frequently and find more diverse commentary. I feel like I cannot relate to a comment-posting-Biden voter, even though I work and communicate with many Biden voters on a regular basis. 

I feel like I get and understand the average American about most things, but I'm mostly at a loss understanding why many of them vote for Democrats, barring the likely case where their parents did and they never thought about it much. And maybe because the Republican base is excessively portrayed as ultra-conservative, racist cavemen (and I get there's a lot of Trump hatred). But that shouldn't account for roughly half the country--at least I really hope not.

Deplatforming works, but not the way you want

I saw a post on Minds.com (yes, an alternative social media site similar to twitter) by its COO, Jack. He argues deplatforming does not work:

...there is an immense amount of evidence that suggests deplatforming is causing far more division, radicalization and violence than ever before.

I think he's both right and wrong. Deplatforming works, especially as big-tech colludes, cooperates, and coincidentally sing the same tune on all things to the right of Mao. It works remarkably well in removing people from the platform, reducing their influence on said platform, and generally erasing them from said platform. Especially when you remove the person, many similar personalities, and many of their followers--basically, just remove the weed and everything else within a 20-yard radius. Do that a few times and you won't have any more weeds!

The former Reddit CEO knows what she's talking about:

Her tweet was a reply to another tweet containing a link to a study that found out that “deplatforming is effective in minimizing the reach of far-right channels like Alex Jones & cannot be compensated on alternative platforms.”

Pao was Reddit’s CEO for a few months, between November 2014 and July 2015. During her brief tenure, she earned the nickname “Chairman Pao” for her strict pro-censorship policies that changed the culture of the platform.

Segregation, excommunication, & ostracism work well in removing people from groups. But it does not remove them from society. They are still out there. Only now they are far less moderated, far less policed, and far less observed than they used to be. It's a recipe for radicalization and fringe factionalism. 

It's like prohibition. Lets ban alcohol because it causes bad things. Well now there are a lot worse bad things because all things alcohol are run by criminals. Prohibition drove the alcohol trade underground, and well, there's a lot to be said for sunlight.

Deplatforming just removes the sunlight. Not only is it wrong, it's dangerous.

Science is dying

 Real science, that is.

“We are going to kill ourselves because of stupidity” pic.twitter.com/PgXvVdqAKe

— Mark Karake (@KarakeMark) May 29, 2021

I was in college a long time ago, and "peer-reviewed" was the standard. Only those articles could we cite to back up our arguments. Sure, we could toss in some anecdotal evidence, news reports, etc., if it supported the peer-reviewed stuff, but if something wasn't peer-reviewed it was generally ignored.

It's unfortunate because a lot of the new, interesting, and even weird stuff needs investigating, further research, and more discussion. You know, it needs more science. But academia will keep trodding along with their rekindled addiction to group-think and tribalism. 

 Luckily, we still have some independent thinkers among us, who stubbornly resist being ostracized.

Internet politics

The most devastating death in Game of Thrones

was of the writing in the last few episodes.

I didn't want to jump on the GoT hating bandwagon, but after season 8 episode 5, I don't really have any expectation that it will end well. It's already too late to end well.

It's all been said before, but check out r/freefolk and just scroll for days if you want to get a feel for some of the devastatingly salient criticism.

Logic, consistency, character arcs, and good dialogue have been utterly neglected or just cast aside for whatever reason. And the addition of some very odd things (too much deus ex machina for one) on top of that is rubbing salt in the wound. I don't know if it was laziness, financial considerations, stupidity or all three, but what the hell?

This is up there with LOST and Heroes.

My hope for the audience of Game of Thrones season 8, episode 3

GoT isn't perfect, but it has done some refreshingly different things for television, combined with usually excellent acting, cinematography, etc., it will be remembered for the high bar it set and cultural impact it had (assuming it has an ending worthy of itself), not to mention ratings.

GRRM and the writers on the show have done such a good job of killing main characters and delivering just enough surprises to keep it intellectually thrilling and realistic in a way. This method has been so rewarding that I worry the show writers may have fallen into predictability--relying on such upsets, that they no longer are surprising.

Because everybody now knows, and talks so certainly as if it already happened, that Brienne of Tarth, Greyworm, and a few others are going to die. They are not just going to die in this final season, but in the very next episode Sunday.

I'm just making my wish out loud. I hope the show surprises these arrogant speculators, not because I like these characters (I do, but they don't need fairy-tale endings). But there are other ways to negatively surprise audiences than killing, or zombifying characters whose arcs appear to have ended or hit their high point.

At this point, given the show's history, killing Brienne, Jaime, Grey Worm and/or Missandei in tomorrow's episode would not be surprising.

I'm aware there will be other surprises and lots of death, including at least a few main characters keeping in tradition with the realism of the show. But I wish the smugness of the some of the audience would be poetically rewarded with a surprise of being so, so very wrong.

I'll end this complainer of a post with a speculation of my own. Someone is going to turn on the living. It's been a while since somebody close to the "good guys" has done something bad, like really evil. The only other bad guys at this point seem to be Cersei way down south and the Night King, or those in their service. It's time to see a traitor in the North screw with things. Probably won't happen, but maybe.

Cautiously pessimistic about Star Trek: Discovery

As a Trekkie, my anticipation for a new Star Trek television series began with excited wonderment. News of a new Trek series is always good news. Until it's not.

I don't want to be one of the bandwagonistas kicking a fetus before it's born, but I also don't want it to suck. Let's just say ST:D (wow, what a terrible acronym) has had its share of production problems--according to rumors and I think some other, more reliable sources.

The first trailer didn't inspire much confidence either. I guess it could've been worse:



Something just seems off. I think part of it is that it's meant to be different. Part of it is that I think it has to be different, given the Star Trek copyright mess of Paramount and CBS, and that it has to be modern while sticking to 1960s ST canon. No doubt they are squaring a circle here, and not everyone will be pleased.

Be that as it may, things could have gone better. The Youtuber Midnight's Edge seems to have the down-low on all things ST:D:



He's got a few more informative videos on the topic. Worth a watch if you're interested. By the way, if you haven't seen Prelude to Axanar, give it a watch. It's the best Trek fan film I've seen.

So after all of the delays and the uncanny Discovery trailer I became pessimistic. Then, after seeing the new Klingons and reading the news that ST:D will have season long story arcs, rather than self-contained weekly stories as every previous series, I lost most of what little optimism I had left.

But after thinking about it a bit, especially given how so many relatively recent tv dramas have been very good if not excellent, I thought maybe this could be great too. Probably not, but you know, it could be. So I'm still pessimistic, but not quite as much now. I hated the new Klingons at first, but now, who cares? ST has a history of changing the appearance of alien races. As long as they don't depart too much from canon, Klingons will be Klingons. Besides, they look more alien than they used to, which I think is good.

I felt I've rambled enough about a show that hasn't even aired yet. So here's the latest trailer:



Ugh, some things in it just bother me. I hope it's not a train wreck.

Oops: Forgot to mention that it's set to debut Sunday, September 24, 2017 on CBS.

Google has some purging to do

[Updated. See end of post.]

You can't be a progressive vanguard with this kind of ideological infighting going on.

So some tech geek at Google got a little fed up, mouthed off, and it's news.¹ [Update: use this link for the full, unedited, unGizmodofied essay. Fucking worthless hacks at Gizmodo--see footnotes]

The poor guy/girl/xyrl is going to burn for xyr heresy; the beast and its devotees demand nothing less.

One piece of advice, if you're going to argue for something politically incorrect at a place where PC is sacred, you better be articulate, charming, funny, and back all that up with a very large collection of rock-solid, peer-reviewed studies from many of the most respected journals.² I imagine this 'manifesto' would have more footnotes than its primary content.

So when you might say "we need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism," all people will hear is "women [are] somehow genetically limited."³

But I heard you. And my inner scientist really wants to dig into that. Plus a lot of the other interesting things you said. I also heard when you said, you "value diversity and inclusion" and aren't "denying that sexism exists."

Unfortunately, nobody else heard those things. As evidenced in the response of Danielle Brown, Google's VP of Diversity, etc. to your "anti-diversity screed":

Diversity and inclusion are a fundamental part of our values and the culture we continue to cultivate. We are unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success as a company, and we'll continue to stand for that and be committed to it for the long haul.

And in the countless, breathless, raging tweets I won't bother to show here. They've successfully reframed your essay as something else entirely. I'm sorry. I really am.

You nitpicked the approved approach to addressing demographic anomalies, which means you're backwards caveman scum. You've blasphemed, committed social suicide by SJW.

Hope you survive it.

Update: Google Fires Author of Divisive Memo on Gender Differences

2nd update: I've included a link to the PDF containing the unedited essay. Here it is again if you missed it. I knew Gizmodo was scummy--hence my first footnote--but now I'm done. I'm never linking nor trusting Gizmodo or Gawker anything again. I'll leave the one I linked above to remind me what hacks they are.

Also, Google is evil.

3rd update: Slate Star Codex looks into the science behind differences in vocational interest between the sexes.⁴ Scott further notes how sad that this is life now for many industries:

... start treating each other as human beings again. Your co-worker could just be your co-worker, not a potential Nazi to be assaulted or a potential Stalinist who’s going to rat on you.

Read the whole thing.

----------------------------------------------
1. Sorry for the link to Gizmodo.
2. After finding the whole, unedited essay, there are actually several footnotes, dozens of hyperlinks to sources, and a graph. Gizmodo conveniently edited those out to ease reading, I'm sure.
3. Jazz Shaw is a fucking idiot.
4. It would be so wonderful if people accurately represented the essay, which contended biological differences in interest, not ability.

Social authoritarianism

Several years ago I quit consuming political news on a daily basis. With seemingly rare exceptions, political news largely consisted of partisan hacks screaming about the other partisan hacks. Then the ignorant would take their cues and proceed to yell at each other.

Having an ignorant, naive, and/or biased media report on such goings on only contributed to my despair. So I quit. Mostly. I kept a healthy distance.

As the years went by, the increasingly toxic political atmosphere only served to reinforce my decision. Things got worse. The concept of "loyal opposition" seemed to have gone out the window.

Even now, even after Hillary walked back her "deplorables" comment, you can't step foot in a political forum without Trump supporters being called racists/sexists. And as we all know, people labeled racist or sexist tend to lose their jobs, friends, social media privileges, etc. Essentially, you risk being ostracized for voicing a political opinion. Sometimes, even for not voicing the right one.

It's not Republicans vs. Democrats. It's the more extreme leftist factions (stupidly united under the big Democrat tent) vs. anyone threatening their narrative.

The parallels to oppressive authoritarian regimes aren't always hyperbole. They may not go to the same lengths as the Stasi or NKVD, but the difference is in degree, not in kind.

In a perverted way, this was kind of tolerable, at least in Western democracies. Because we Westerners don't have (by most observations) secret police. There is no significant government-sanctioned thought-policing going on. It's all social. And we all knew it was coming from the same loudmouths we try to ignore.

But I'm not sure it's going to stay that way. This social authoritarianism is growing, and I worry it may catch on as a viable strategy for other groups. Only because we're letting it work.

What am I getting at, you ask? Well, I'm still sick of political hacks yelling about each other and don't think that will change anytime soon, but this social authoritarianism is another beast. I hate it, and won't sit idly by while we are relentlessly nudged and prodded into safe-space Ingsoc chambers.

There's good news and bad news about this. The bad news is that the gains made by this newly empowered social authoritarian beast haven't gone unnoticed. Like I said, we're letting it work. Because it's working, the political hacks are allying with, co-opting, doing whatever they can to use it. Hell, maybe they invented it. But the scope of the beast is much larger than politics.

The good news is that even while most ignorant people are blind to partisan hackery, and most informed people are blind to their own side's hackery, the social authoritarianism is much harder to miss.

I've been sporadically blogging about this kind of stuff for awhile now. The phenomenon got me consuming news and commentary on a regular basis again.

So it's refreshing and reassuring to see more and more people take notice, re-examine their views, and wise up. Like Dave Rubin. He hosts my new favorite talk show. It surpasses the quality of any talk show on cable. He talks a lot about this kind of stuff too, including his most recent interview:

 

More recommended tv shows

It's about that time of year where a new season of fall television shows gets rolling, the spring and summer shows have concluded and I have a bit of time to reflect on what I've watched and enjoyed recently.

Everything I watch is available online (via Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or in rare circumstances, other means); I haven't watched via cable or the airways in several years, so most, if not all of my recommendations shouldn't be too hard to find and watch at your leisure--that probably goes without saying at this point.

A couple things I should note: on occasion I will include shows which are more than a few years old. Most are at least somewhat popular, so apologies if you've already watched them. [I've tried watching many obscure shows and most are disappointing.]


Fargo. Coming from the Coen brothers based on the homonymous film, this is clearly and deservedly a popular show. The first season is better than the second and sticks to a more coherent plot, but both are quite good. Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton have an interesting dynamic and really give the first season the feeling of a quality feature film. It's a graphic, intense, and wild ride.

While I will maintain that the second season is good, it is annoying, especially the end. I won't spoil anything, but the season persists with a pointless distraction--with deus ex machina qualities (metaphor or not, it's really dumb), and a not particularly satisfying or clever ending. Regardless, as with the first season, the performances and several plot points are fantastic. And despite what the show says, it's all fiction. Well worth the watch, if only for the first season.





Westworld. Only three episodes have aired at the time of this writing, and while nothing huge yet has happened, I get the distinct feeling something will soon. The performances and writing are all top notch so far, slowly hinting at and escalating things; it almost feels like we're marinating what we all know will be a wonderfully delicious roast. We just have to wait. Maybe I'm blinded by my own high expectations, but I'm a sucker for good sci-fi and westerns, all the more when they're blended so carefully that they don't clash.

If, like me, you haven't watched the original film, then here's a few things you might want to know: Westworld is pretty much an amusement park for the very wealthy. It takes place decades (I'm guessing) in the future, where rich customers fulfill their fantasies in an Old West setting, among hundreds or thousands of very life-like androids that have all passed the Turing test. The AI is pretty good at conversation and improvisation, keeping the park and web of narratives alive. Of course things aren't so perfect, and you get this constant feeling that the whole thing is about to unravel in a spectacular, bloody failure. But we're not quite there yet.




Stranger Things. Another extremely popular Netflix show. Perhaps owing to the 80s nostalgia and the
near perfect execution, the hype was absurd. I don't think it was as great as most seemed to claim, but still I enjoyed it very much. It's reminiscent of J. J. Abrams' Super 8, the Goonies, and other 80s films with an adolescent cast, but now in episodic form.

It follows a group of D&D playing boys in suburban America, who happen upon a lost girl, and crazy stuff that they have to investigate. Yeah I can't say it's original or unique really. It was just done well. Definitely worth checking out.







Wentworth. So I was about to give Orange is the New Black a try based on a few recommendations, but then I noticed this other show about a women's prison. A comedy inside a women's prison doesn't sound all that appealing to me, so when I read about Wentworth and its more serious tone, I gave it a chance.

I was not disappointed. The first season is pretty damn good. The second season however is incredible. The third and fourth are very good as well, but the second alone is some of the best television I've seen. If you want proof an all female cast (well, virtually all female) can deliver excellence, this is it.

I have a few nitpicks with the setting and its plausibility, but then I have no idea how women's prisons are run in Australia. I mean, if I had to go to a maximum security prison, I'd want to go there (at least as far as amenities and personal freedom are concerned). It's just a little hard to believe sometimes.

Wentworth is an Australian show and it's pretty much just about life inside an Australian women's prison. It tends to focus on the main character, Bea Smith (Danielle Cormack) and her struggles. She grows into a compelling character, as do many others, but so, so much more is weaved in that you end up with this complex richness, and just watching it evolve and adapt gives you a wonderful apprehension. I've probably missed a lot, but the show is great at subtle hints and setting up future plot points, so rarely if ever do you end up scratching your head. The set ups do their job and the subtleties make you smile.

I want to say the writing, directing, and acting are all superlative, but that's like saying the entire show is awesome. And well, it's true. Other than my nitpicks I am at a loss to criticize this show. Highly recommended.

Star Trek: Discovery

I thoroughly enjoyed the last Star Trek movie. It felt like a good TOS episode, keeping the spirit of Trek true to itself. It didn't have to blow up the planet Vulcan, didn't have to threaten Earth. Didn't have Spock become a violent psycho. It wasn't perfect (warning: link contains spoilers). But it was nice. I strongly recommend it.

That being said, after recently re-watching Star Trek Beyond, it got me curious about the planned tv series. I know next to nothing about the planned show; nobody knows much about it, there just isn't much information out at the moment. But it is coming.

From the little I've read, I am both cautiously optimistic and worried. They are taking risks, which is good. But risks are risks--the direction they're taking things might not pay off. And Trekkie fandom could suffer.

Here's what I know: The show is called Star Trek: Discovery and is due to be released in May 2017. It's a CBS show of course, but at this point is not planned to be on television. Rather, it will be released online, on CBS All Access (the premiere will air on television, but after that it's all online). If I may be cynical for a moment, it could mean the suits at CBS aren't very confident in it. But I could be wrong: exclusive online media is the new hotness, so maybe Star Trek will be their flagship online draw. Like Netflix's House of Cards. Maybe.

The setting will take place 10 years before the original series, so they are limiting themselves. It's a Star Trek show so it has to be futuristic and fancy, but it takes place before a show made in the 60s. They'll have to cram a new square peg in that round hole. But that's not too worrying, since the new movies got few complaints there. Which means this exclusively online show will have to look something like those big-budget movies. People are tired of reboots, so I doubt they'll be inventing a new ST universe--which means they can't mess up existing canon (or should painstakingly try to avoid it). Fifty years worth of canon. I hope they pull it off.

And there will be diversity. Diversity in Star Trek is a given, but this time we're talking what will probably be the SJW dream team of diversity. Which is fine. It's the 23rd century. Crewmates can be having gay, transgender, alien, android orgies and marriage ceremonies in their quarters for all I care, but it shouldn't be a focus where we get didactic stories about tolerance, especially arising from conflict among the crew. We don't want or need a Zootopia in space.

Also, apparently the captain of the U.S.S. Discovery will not be the leading character. Like I said, risks.

I want so much to vicariously go to space with the new Star Trek, but I damn sure don't want to be hit over the head with the politics of the last 10 years. Give me the politics of 2250 and Orion slave girls. Give me Vulcans and Klingons and new aliens. Give me violence and give me high-concept sci-fi. Give me Star Trek. Please.

Thought leaders, cool kids, signalling, & the beast

I don't want to talk about this, nor feel obligated to. Yet it nags at my soul. The feeling is like that Somebody is Wrong on the Internet phenomenon only exponentially worse; it's like a cultural/meta-tribal mass signalling ritual gone wrong sort of thing.

It happens everyday. It becomes really pronounced when something big and bad happens. I should note that it's only painfully obvious when you, yourself, aren't instinctively compelled to mimic or repeat what are increasingly the culturally sanctioned memes. When you are on the outside looking in.

I'm talking about the verbalization or other use of such memes.

There's the pleasant and harmless variety:

• "Please" and "Thank you"
• "Good morning/afternoon/evening"
• "Have a nice day" 

There's the questionably sincere and/or thoughtless variety:

• "My thoughts and prayers are with you."
• "Bless you"
• "I'm sorry for your loss"

There's the ignorant political variety (these tend to be thematic and narrative-based):

• "America's guns/assault weapons/culture of violence is the problem."
• "Muslims/immigrants are the problem"
• "Democrats hate the wealthy"
• "Republicans are bigots"
• "Liberals are pussies"
• "Conservatives are idiots"
• "Libertarians are selfish"

Not to forget the image variety, often found on facebook, twitter, instagram, etc, showcasing how normal/awesome/fun that person is.

These aren't all bad. A good many are probably good. We are social animals (most of us) after all, and I think all of us engage in some kinds of social signalling rather frequently. A lot of it is unthinking instinctive stuff we learned in order to smooth out our interactions within the cultural landscape.

Some of it is status/reputation building/maintenance (hereafter referred to as "status-bullshit"). Some of the status-bullshit really bothers me. I'm not sure why. It comes across as phony, even unnaturally forced at times. (I even find myself questioning why phonyism bothers me as much as it does. I have some theories, but don't want to get too far off track.) But even most status-bullshit is harmless.

The big issue I have is with this fuzzy, trickle-down, meme-based, in-group status signalling. It's like fashion, only it's pseudo-intellectual and all ego. You signal your peers: you are with the cool kids, therefore you are not of the uncool; you are better. If this sounds like high school bullshit, that's because it is; status-bullshit is high school bullshit, which is collective animal behavior. We are stupid social animals who really have to hurt our brains to not be, and rarely does it pay off.


Create a Meme, Master the Universe

For a long time I assumed most people weren't particularly influenced by "thought leaders." For a long time I thought that Mr. Famous News Editor had virtually zero impact on anybody's choices. It was all at the margins--only a few on the fence might be swayed. Well, I now think that I was both right and wrong at the same time. I still think a "thought leader" has virtually zero impact on any one person. But now I believe many "thought leaders" have a significant impact on a large number of people over time.

The key parts: many and over time. I used the term 'fashion' earlier, and for lack of energy I'll use it again, in a shitty analogy:

Think of fashion being the direction of a raging river. The masses are that river. They follow the fashion. In a perfect natural world, the raging river forges its own direction as allowed by the environment--that is, the masses choose the fashion where possible. While a few drops might escape now and then, the vast majority of the water follows along, reinforcing the fashion.

But what could one idealistic droplet do to change the course of the river? Practically nothing. What can many idealistic droplets do over a long period of time? Well, they can slowly direct a few more, and a few more, and a few more in another direction. Carve out some trenches here, fill in some sand there, and after a while, you've got more water going in your desired direction than in the old.

Forgive allusions to social engineering, since I know that's a bad word and the idea muddies the water (I don't like easy puns, but wrote it--almost memetically--before I caught it) doesn't help discussion.

That, I think, is what is going on. I won't and probably can't prove the who/what/when/where/why behind the intellectual culture shift--the broad, laymen & academic alike, kind of intellectual culture. But I think the sheer likelihood of information having a not insignificant effect on culture is too much and too obvious to deny. The only slightly controversial claim I make, is that it tends to go in more or less a certain direction, as opposed to any other direction if all else being equal.

Most right-of-center bloggers will say "Duh, what the hell do you think we've been pointing out for the last 15 years?" or "Welcome to the culture wars Captain Obvious McBornyesterday." I'm sorry if this sounds too much like me praising the awesomeness and practicality of the wheel, but I'm going somewhere and attempting to spit out the nuance on it I have in my head.

It's more than political, more innocent than "culture war" implies, and I think ultimately, more dangerous. I mean innocent and dangerous in the way a child with a gun is both of those things.


The Joneses

What the hell is it, where is it going, and why, you ask? While there probably is some relatively small-time colluding, bias, and other activist "journalism" being perpetrated, I seriously doubt there exists a large Illuminati style mass-media conspiracy to manipulate the public.

What I think is happening is a lot of status-bullshit stuck in a positive feedback loop, equipped with a megaphone. There is an intelligence to it, and a sort of purposeful direction. But probably not the way you think. I mean there's an intelligence guiding the general direction the way a superorganism does things, on purpose. Like an ant colony, or even coral. Many argue that the human species, or at least modern society is a superorganism, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a subgroup in a subgroup driving a species where individualism, disagreement, and critical thought are things that really matter.

I'm talking about pretty much anyone who works in the media industry. Directly or indirectly, those in the industry are exposed to the masses. That's their job. No exposure equals no job. Because of this, they want to appear sophisticated--who wouldn't want to appear sophisticated in front of the masses? Sophistication means many things, but it typically means intelligence, education, respectable fashion, and holding ideas that aren't widely considered to be bad.

With feedback loops it's easy to shrug it off as a chicken or egg thing and not think about it. My problem with chicken and egg thinking regarding social issues is that it tends to imply revolutions or massive shocks to the system to "reboot" things, and overturn the chicken and egg cycle. I'm not sure that's necessary. In any case, putting on airs to appear sophisticated is probably something we're all guilty of, especially in the presence of a lot of people. Most of us will study and rehearse before public speaking, put on a suit/dress or something "respectable," and avoid spouting our more unpopular opinions. We signal our inness with the cool kids, consciously or not. We call people who don't do this, "crazy." Bam, reinforcement.

Our kids, our students, our peers see this. They learn, they mimic what appears to be "success." This is human nature. This is all fine; except when it's not. I would call this a potential shortcoming innate to humans and most social animals. Everybody is keeping up with the Joneses, but what happens when the Joneses drive off a cliff? A lot of people will be fucked. Thankfully, we're not literally mind-controlled drones and are fairly diverse, but sometimes the herd-like stuff is scary.


Aliens

So what specifically are you talking about, you ask? Like I said, it's kind of fuzzy. To me, right now, at least it seems kind of fuzzy. It may seem like I'm dancing around something without pointing out what I'm really talking about, and that's partly because I'm not quite 100% sure on what it is. I agree, that's lazy and weaselly, so I'll attempt to get specific.

Let's take Fox News and Drudge Report for example. I feel so refreshed naming such specific shit. You're welcome. These two organizations are both media giants in their own ways. They have a lot of influence, not so much as telling people what decisions to make (although that is probably something), but influence in what actually makes the news and what people are talking to each other about. You may have heard a lot about "gatekeeping" with respect to news organizations. Well that's a thing, it by necessity exists, and for good or ill it shapes conversations around the world and in other newsrooms. They have a butterfly effect, merely by putting text on a screen or words through television speakers. Let's pretend they made something up, really bad, very scandalous about President Obama. Drudge says one thing and Fox says something similar. Totally made up. Well, fake or not we are going to be talking about it for days at least. The White House will probably make some kind of a statement denying things, other news orgs will have to at least discuss it. People around the world will be talking about it. Ideas are exchanged, information repeated, billions of times. That shit has an effect.

That was nothing. That was small time shit. Let's say there's a new thing that happened. One few people have even thought about. Aliens sent a package to Lima, Peru, detailing methods to make the best coffee mugs in the galaxy. First contact, and it's about coffee mugs. Before the leaders of the world can put out statements, editors and columnists are already working on their articles and how their take on things is what really matters here:

• Peru's curious alien relationship and why the international community should permanently establish a headquarters in Lima and take the lead in coffee mug design. -Washington Post

• Quality mugs bode well for a peaceful coexistence, but what about the Coffee Mugs Union of North America and the EU's Artisans de Tasses à Café? -New York Times

• The Top 10 Reasons Alien Coffee Mugs are Really Signs of Invasion. -Buzzfeed

• Why Peru Should Disseminate All Coffee Mug Designs Freely Over the Internet, and What That Means for the Future of Open Source. -TechCrunch

One or two of something along those lines will in large part be the discussion. Sure, we'd talk about how cool/scary/weird first contact is and all that, but we'd also be talking about fucking unions, open source, or prepping for a global invasion. And coffee mugs.

"Are you pro-coffee mug? Yeah, I used to think that too, but now with everything going on, and you know things have changed, man. I've learned that, over the years, I've really come to understand the other side, and never really thought about it until recently. It just kinda seems like the right thing to do. Oh crap, gotta go. Game of Thrones is on, whooo!"

"#NoCoffeeNoProblems"

"#MugsRthugs"

"Senator Smith was found disheveled in his home today with an arsenal of Peruvian coffee mugs. He is scheduled to give a statement later today; sources expect him to announce his resignation."


Sharing is Caring

Perhaps my made up examples got out of hand. I don't watch tv, and haven't read newspapers in a long while, so a bunch of it I honestly can't point to. Still, a lot seeps through to the internet. Well, now the internet is usually the first stop for meme-sharing. I don't socialize very much at all, so yeah, I think that's why it's both super easy for me to pick up on this, but also fuzzy to see how it spreads.

On twitter for example, one of the few social things I engage in--and I use it mostly to follow gaming news--I seem to end up staring at what often turns into a hyper-liberal clique. WTF does gaming have to do with politics? Very little.

I casually paid attention to the Gamergate thing. My impression was that gamers were more often than not, indifferent to feminist critiques of games and against bullshit journalism. Today, I find my gaming-specific twitter feed to be mostly comprised of gaming news with a good dose of lefty mantras. After something like the terrorist attack in Orlando, the politics come out in force. Lately it's been dressed up as "not about politics, just common sense," which of course inevitably calls for something rabidly partisan. I'm not telling them to shut up, I'm not saying stop talking politics, I'm not even complaining about my oddly political gaming news feed. I'm just saying this is what it looks like.

In my mind, much of the twitter politics is virtue signalling. What do I mean by virtue signalling? Well, on twitter you cannot really go into detail, nor explain any opinion beyond the equivalent of monkeys throwing poo at each other. So twitter is not for debating. It is not for engaging people and changing minds. It is not there to better understand one another. It is there to share bite-sized info and memes.

If you aren't very knowledgeable, but really, really want to shout your tidbits of political genius at your enemies, then twitter is the place for you. If you aren't one for confrontation, and still want to share your political genius, my friend, twitter is the place for you as well. My liberal game developers and various other gaming personalities I follow usually don't follow anyone not liberal. In my feed, there are two kinds of political opinions: the ones on the left, and the ones not spoken. So what good is it to share a political opinion (which by definition is at least a little divisive) with people who all agree with you? To remind them that they are like them. "Yo peeps, almost didn't get to my phone in time to tweet that I am, in fact, still a progressive, in the wake of this horrible tragedy." "We still cool?"

I don't think they are consciously thinking "hey, I need to keep saying stuff like this to appear thoughtful and cool," I think it's mostly unthinking. Maybe they spent a few minutes or even a few days thinking about some of their political beliefs years ago, then they just retweet Mr. Super Popular Liberal's political tweet, or repeat some old lefty meme. Whether they agree with what they tweet and retweet is one thing, but it has the added benefit of signalling to others in their circle that they are with the cool kids. People signal back. "Hey man, saw your tweet. Totes agree, I hate coffee mugs too."

The gaming industry is part of the media industry. The old media industry is and was largely comprised of left-leaning people. These people interact with one another frequently. Networking is a powerful thing. Would you want to alienate yourself with most of your potentially lucrative network? If you're human and not dumb and want to keep working, you won't start sharing your pro-coffee mug opinions all over the internet. You want to stay all chummy with your liberal friends. Sooner or later, you're surrounded by apparently like-minded people all singing the same tune. Kumbaya.


A Big Fat Phony!

Go ahead and regurgitate Noam Chomsky, or Thomas Sowell, retweet that celebrity who just wants some common sense. Don't spend the hours it takes to actually study the intricacies of politics, or why the Democrats voted against subsidized coffee mugs, or why Republicans voted to increase Peruvian tariffs. It's far easier to appear smart and assume your political rivals are evil.

It's not just politics. Like I said, it's more, it's innocent, and it's dangerous. I watched the Warcraft movie the other day. I loved it. As a fan of the games and the lore, it was heaven for 2 hours. The movie doesn't suck. It's got some pretty neat stuff in it. I'm obviously biased here, as a fantasy genre fan and Warcraft fan, I am in double jeopardy territory. But if I can give my worst, but still honest, critical opinion of the film, leaving no flaw unpunished. I would still rate it on par with, if not above, most blockbusters in recent memory. It felt a little bit rushed and a little bit jumbled at times. But I felt very entertained both times I saw it, satisfied with the story, satisfied with the acting, very satisfied with the scenery and CGI. It was a solid, competent movie. The international box office earnings show that.

But the American critics have a stick up their ass and few of them can find any love for it. I know, opinions, especially on artwork, are matters of taste. Maybe many of them genuinely didn't like it. But damn they were excessively harsh, and I can't take them seriously anymore. Maybe they thought it was supposed to be a one-and-done story, beginning, middle, end. But that's not really what it is. It's an introduction to Warcraft. An introduction to the world, the saga, the characters. It's a story within a story. The marketing here was bad, sure, but I thought it was fairly obvious the movie was an intro to something bigger.

A big dumb action video game movie it is not, and yet that's how critics and many noncritics treat it. What I'm trying to get at here is that the movie did somewhat poorly in the U.S. on opening weekend, and several of the gaming tweeters and youtubers I follow gave lukewarm reviews at best. Anecdotes are worthless I know, but that shit bothered me. These were guys and girls who were in the same fandom as I, yet they could barely crack a smile when discussing the movie. And what really bothered me the most, was that here they were, goofballs suddenly putting on their glasses, getting all hyper analytical, and upping their vocabulary just to piss on a movie that was made for them. They said they liked it as a fan, and would give it a 9/10, but if they were "to be objective about it" they'd "rate it a 4.5/10." Okay smart guy, even though you really liked Transformers 3, thanks for taking the cue from all your smart friends and giving us an objective rating.

Seriously, go see Warcraft. If you like fantasy, magic, stunning visuals, or something different from typical Hollywood, you will probably enjoy it.

Most of you probably don't care about Warcraft, so thanks for putting up with my barely-related anecdote. The interesting thing about it is the disparity between the international markets and the U.S., and between the foreign critics and the American. It's so big, that there obviously is something going on. We watched the same movie. We just happened to feel differently about it, because America.
 
It's not just movies that reveal these odd disparities with the wider Western world. It's politics--and I mean that in like, the nonobvious stuff, but politics you think we'd more closely agree with. Like abortion, immigration, even taxation. I'm too tired to get into it here, but it's like how America as a whole is further to the right than most of Europe. Yet on many issues we are further left. Even in the Democratic party, they are further left than many European leftist parties on various issues. Republicans are further left than many rightist parties, and some leftist parties on certain issues in Europe. Generally speaking, the Republican platform is rather centrist compared to European rightist parties. Some of that is situational--political stances forged by global pressures, but some of it is still philosophy. We do not neatly fit in a political philosophy to the right of Europe.

So what's with these odd differences? You think I'm going to say it's a culture thing? Or do you think I'm going to say it's a phony/status-bullshit thing? It's both. I think what is happening, to a certain extent, is that we're in our own little (maybe big) bubble. And it's exacerbated by the media status-bullshit feedback loop.

Ace of Spades talked about the bias inherent in media and academic institutions a lot. Wish I could find some of his more salient posts, but they are buried deep in his archives and my searching skills aren't that great. But he has chipped away at the chicken or egg thing, explaining why such institutions are like that. The gist of it is pretty damn plausible, if not very likely: Academics and journalists are self selected. It takes a certain kind of person to want and succeed in those positions. While there are no apparent political quotas, it's easier in life to get along, to sync with your network and colleagues. At some point in the past, the political and cultural leanings of a critical mass of the academics and journalists on some level synced. It probably wasn't hard. Roughly half the country belongs to either one major party or the other. I mean, just by random chance roughly half of an industry will lean one way, and it won't be perfectly symmetrical.

Throw in some time, memesharing, mimicking success, and you have a feedback loop. Soon it's not roughly symmetrical, it's wildly asymmetrical. It's important to remember, it's not about politics, even if it started out that way (perhaps it didn't). It's about appearing sophisticated. Keeping up appearances, gelling with your network, colleagues, peers, those you look up to, and those you want to impress. While there maybe tens of thousands of different companies, schools, and people all with their own goals, they collectively become this superorganism thanks to this feedback loop. And it sort of pushes them, and directs all of us one way.

But the academy and media hold a special place in our culture. And it's a really powerful place.


The Anti-Climax

It's should be perfectly okay to disagree, and publicly without jeopardizing your professional or social life. Just not with me. Because I will screenshot your pro-coffee mug opinion and share it with your employer, and shame you all over cyberspace. Nah, I'm not that rude. I, myself used to be pro-coffee mug, but I changed my position when it was fashionable to; you know, right before the President did (we've all changed positions, I'm making fun of myself here).

I guess my biggest concern is not that we're being pushed in a certain direction, or that by and large, the media and academy are all culturally and politically monotone (those things still really suck), but that it has a chilling effect. What's really insidious, is that the chilling effect only feeds the monster, which makes the chilling worse.... feedback loop. Now I'm venturing eerily close to advocating revolution, or a shock to the system, but I don't think that's necessary. Not yet. Because this beast isn't controlled by some sinister Illuminati, it's got a mind of its own, and one day it will go where the "thought leaders" don't want it to. It may not be good for us either, but when it happens it will shake things up.

You may have got the impression that I think this is a liberal beast heading us in a leftward direction. I think that's only partially true. It just happens to be a left-leaning beast, that happens to be heading us in what appears to be a leftward direction. But it could've easily been a right-leaning beast heading us in a rightward direction. It may yet still. But it's a beast, and it's controlling our direction. That's the part I don't like. That's what is dangerous.

Humans tend to do bad things. Groups of humans tend to do worse things. Superorganisms however, are amoral, and we've given this thing the keys to our future.

Image credit: JeffChangArt

Now is where I fail at creativity and fully embody weaksauce, advocating unoriginal shit that probably won't work. Solutions are hard. But if we can perhaps dig a trench here, fill in some sand there, maybe one day, we can change a thing or two.

• Stop the unthinking memes. Maybe once in a while, think about something before repeating the standard phrase. Come up with something sincere, thoughtful. Maybe you won't come up with anything, but at least you thought about it.
• Respectfully disagree. Diversity in thought is interesting. It leads to innovation. Conflict sometimes, but can we not be civil? 
• Support someone's right to do something you really despise. Coffee mugs aren't so bad, even alien-inspired Peruvian ones.
• Read, and try to understand the other side, whatever it is. Maybe come up with your own "side."
• Assume, at least sometimes, your rivals aren't evil or stupid. 

I'm not talking about stuff like flat-earthers, Nazis, or total racists. But stuff that is perhaps on the other side of the mainstream, and perhaps a tad outside of the mainstream. Some of that crazy stuff at least makes for good reading.

Tyler Cowen, you're talking out of your ass

Read this:

3. There are the libertarians, who hate martial culture on the international scene, but who wish to allow it or maybe even encourage it (personally, not through the government) at home, through the medium of guns.  They are inconsistent, and they should consider being more pro-gun control than is currently the case.  But I don’t expect them to budge: they will see this issue only through the lens of liberty, rather than through the lens of culture as well.  They end up getting a lot of the gun liberties they wish to keep, but losing the broader cultural battle and somehow are perpetually surprised by this mix of outcomes.

Okay. There are so many assumptions and loaded concepts here and in the rest of his blog post, that if he unpacked it so as to minimize the risk of significantly different inputs--and therefore outcomes--from his many different readers, it would be dozens of pages long, if not more. Such is the semiotic nightmare of politics, but it should be avoided, even, I daresay, in extemporaneous and pithy blog posts.

This image sort of works. Can't find who to credit however.

Cowen is generalizing of course, but still, it's god damn lazy to throw around the term "culture" and "martial culture" only to mix it in with broad categories of political philosophies and movements and end up with 2+2=everybody's stupid.

Maybe it's not the point. Maybe there is enough truthiness to his argument to where it has value when considering future foreign and domestic policy. I mean, it rings true, kind of, but only because you or I agree with the implied stereotypes and our input into those loaded words and phrases closely resembles Cowen's meaning.

But what the fuck is "martial culture"? What the fuck is "martial culture on the international scene"? What the fuck is "the lens of culture"?

I identify with libertarians and consider myself to be one. But I could be wrong. It could be that most competently self-labeled libertarians would not label me such. I'm no anarchist. I'm not even really much of a minarchist if you want to quibble over the size of the state, or semantics, but I do favor a push in that direction... much smaller government and fewer, less cumbersome regulations. But that doesn't mean I don't want a powerful military. Or an "active foreign policy" whatever the fuck that means. Maybe that makes me a cardinal sinner of inconsistency. I'll see you in hell, pro-gay marriage, anti-drug war progressive nannystaters.

When I read words I try to avoid applying the simplest most idiotic meanings to and assumptions behind them. So when I read "active foreign policy" I think, well it could mean having diplomats all over the world, engaging with various other foreign officials, for whatever purpose, peaceful or otherwise.

When I read "active foreign policy" I don't think "GEORGE BUSH JINGOISTIC NEOCON INTERVENTIONIST IRAQ WAR FOR OIL JACKBOOTED RACIST IMPERIALISTIC FASCIST" nor do I read "martial culture" as "YEAH LETS BLOW SHIT UP! SEND OUR ENEMIES TO THE STONE AGE! TANKS AND FIGHTER JETS AND MACHINE GUNS WHOO 'MURICA!"

And then the politics are all wrong. Day-to-day politics doesn't mean anything, other than partisan hackery for the most part. Conservatives are winning Cowen says, because Obama wants to get all interventiony on Libya and Syria's asses. Obama must be a conservative and conservatives must like what Obama's doing overseas then, right? No that makes no sense. So lets ramp the complexity up to infinity by throwing in martial culture bullshit and tie it into relevant news by implying guns=martial culture.

For libertarians, Cowen is asserting that we can't have our cake and eat it too. With guns, comes jingoistic international militaristic adventurism (maybe imperialistic too?), or "martial culture" for short. Guns must be pretty powerful, so much so that they're indivisibly part and parcel of "martial culture" and perhaps only that culture. Can't get rid of one with out getting rid of the other. Which is utter crap.

Broadly or narrowly defined, culture is not a rigid, unmalleable artifact of humanity. Want proof? Try defining "American culture". Have fun and good luck. Even if Cowen is right, we can still have our cake and eat it too, even if that means we have to culturally appropriate and/or excise a few things.

I can look through the blurry cultural lens while still clinging to my guns and liberty. It's not hard; you should try it sometime Mr. Cowen.

Couch Potato Suggestions

Not counting the samey-same day-to-day stuff, my life has little routine: in fact I have failed to identify a monthly or yearly routine. I don't have a meta-routine. One year, I'll read 25 books or so and the next I might not even read a newspaper. Some months, I'll watch hundreds of hours of tv shows (online mostly), and others months I'll just read blogs. Then sometimes I start playing video games to the exclusion of almost everything else. Hell, 7 or 8 years ago I used to blog voraciously, but now I can't be asked.

My brain is like a small child: it will want to play with a new toy for days on end, but after a while when it loses interest, it tosses the toy aside and gets all whiny upon finding there isn't a new, more interesting toy to play with. And just as I'm about to crawl back to crossword puzzles (or the entertainment equivalent in a Youtube video) in despair, the heavens open, and a new Netflix show gloriously descends, lights up our screens and whiny brains everywhere rejoice.

If you're anything like me, you really want to know about the good shows out there, to rekindle that high of watching high quality, well-written, cathartic stories. But desperately wanting to avoid all the mediocre let-downs, or worse, into your precious time. It's hard to do that, even if you read a lot of reviews. And reviews are usually bad anyway; they're either way off or so spot on they spoil it.

That's partly why I don't do reviews. I do minimally informative suggestions (or cautions if it's bad). I like to think that I have high standards when it comes to tv shows, so even if you disagree with my suggestion, you might be able to at least appreciate the level of craftsmanship that went into such a show.

To make all this rambling resemble some coherency, the point is that my spoiled brat brain doesn't tolerate low quality entertainment when it realizes it is consuming low quality entertainment in a shiny new wrapper--despite creators' attempts to hook you with character/story development by the time the shine wears off. (Some shows are deceptive. E.g., LOST, which was a bad story* but a great show, and it worked well until the ending--imagine if LOST was low budget with poor acting, the story wouldn't have been enough to carry it) My spoiled brat brain does however, become addicted to the good stuff, usually until the good stuff runs out.

So, without further wall of text, I present my strongly encouraged shows to watch:

Halt and Catch Fire.

 

 
Wow. It's been a while since I last watched this, but it does have staying power--I can't wait for the next season to start. I want to say Lee Pace carries that show because his performance is just superlative, but I shouldn't because it's a damn good show on its own.

Halt and Catch Fire is like the 80s dramatic version of HBO's Silicon Valley. A good dose of nostalgia for 70s and 80s kids but that's just the icing. Once you get into the cake that is the twists and turns of cutting edge 1980 PC technology/culture and the dynamic between Lee Pace and Scoot McNairy's characters, you know you've hit couch potato gold.


 



Speaking of Silicon Valley...

Hilarious show that doesn't sacrifice good drama for comedy nor vice versa. Every episode tends to feel like it topped the last one in entertainment value. There's the occasional bit of ribaldry type stuff in there, but it's woven so flawlessly into the dialogue and mood that it works well, and is actually funny--it's not just there for shock value.

Silicon Valley is the funnier more dramatic version of what I imagine life is like inside a somewhat promising tech startup in Silicon Valley. One of the show's creators is none other than Mike Judge, so you get that fun kind of comedy that pushes and crosses the boundaries of political correctness that only he can provide. Only 8-10 episodes per season (2 so far) and each is just 30 minutes long (which really is too short for good shows) so it won't swallow up too much time. Definitely worth a look if you haven't already.




Better Call Saul.

Well, I was wrong. This is good. There's something about it, maybe it has to do with being in the Breaking Bad universe, but I just cant put my finger on it. It starts slow, and I mean slow. If memory serves, it takes at least 3 episodes to get things moving. I mean really the whole first season is pretty much just exposition--setting up the character that is Saul, and getting a glimpse of the bigger story. That sounds terribly boring, but there is just the right amount of bread crumbs and just the right amount of pay-offs without going too far. It's serious but tastefully sprinkled with humor. You can't help but like Saul Goodman. I feel like we've just barely covered the first page of the first chapter that is the thick book of Saul, in a good way.

If you haven't seen Breaking Bad, well, Saul Goodman is a sleazebag lawyer helping criminals of every income bracket, and himself, to beat the system. But he sure didn't start out that way--and that's what you'll be watching in this show. Whether it's early Saul or later Saul, he's always a wisecrack. I still can't wait to see the next episode.


Peaky Blinders.

Yet another British-made period drama that takes place in Britain. Heh, but seriously, the Brits must have so much practice at this by now that they can't help but make great period dramas, and that's what they did with the Peaky Blinders. Imagine Sam Neill. Okay, now imagine Sam Neill as a bad guy. Intrigued? I was. But it gets better. The bad guys (members of the Peaky Blinders) are actually the good guys--at least that's who you sympathize with--and the good guys (the cops) are well, not necessarily bad, but the chief cop Neill plays definitely is not a good guy.

There's really nothing new here--a show about gangsters from their point-of-view set in 1919 --but it's so well scripted and acted that the only thing I could really complain about is the soundtrack (some of it really sounds like dive-bar rock bands, but the actual main theme works well). The music is only occasionally distracting, but you either get used to it, or they eventually started using a lot less of it--I'm not sure which. What I've written about it isn't very compelling, but the show is. This show is up there with the best of them, or I wouldn't have included it. It's almost as good as...


Narcos.

Handy Netflix Link

Who would want to watch a show about a drug dealer? I didn't think I did, but then I watched Breaking Bad and fell in love. But surely a show about a scumbag terrorist drug trafficker from Colombia would be off the table, right? I gave this show a chance, feeling skeptical, ready to stop the moment it got boring. It never did, and I watched all the episodes made so far in short order. Just amazing, captivating, graphic, and it's pretty much a dramatized documentary. Don't get me wrong, it feels like a normal fictional tv show. It's just that, you know.

The bad guy is a truly bad guy, and the good guys are sometimes bad, but usually good. But the way this show, the story is told is different. And you don't even notice it! There is well-written narration from the perspective of a DEA agent, but most of the show is from the Drug Lord's perspective. So you kind of sympathize with the bad guy, but not completely, because he's a really really bad guy. You also sympathize with the good guys, but also not completely, because they're not really so good. How does a show like that keep your interest? It just does, compellingly.


Rick and Morty.

Yes, a cartoon. And it's awesome. A crazy fun sci-fi cartoon that doesn't take itself too seriously, nor does it insult your intelligence. It explores sci-fi concepts and general wackiness without getting bogged down, nor failing to deliver the laughs.

The show follows the adventures of Rick, an uninhibited alcoholic mad-scientist type grandpa and Morty, the slightly under-achieving naive moral compass teenager and their family. The show isn't for kids. Lets just say Morty's conventional moral compass often gets them into trouble, followed by lots of gore and/or risqué dialogue. Just the same, Rick's total lack of a moral compass also leads them into hilarious troubles, but I don't want to spoil anything.

Rick's got a sharp tongue, and the way Morty interprets it is just gold. Every show is an adventure, a quickly-paced joyride, and it's a damn shame the next season isn't coming for like a year or more.


*Shows are about stories. The characters are a part of the story, not THE story--even if it's a story about one person. Right around the time LOST was coming to an end, I distinctly remember the creators spinning it as a show about the characters--which is just another way of saying the LOST story sucked and they couldn't fix it.

Rabbit holes and sundry

I haven't gotten around to reading or even skimming the recent SCOTUS opinions, other than a few excerpts on various blogs.

I'll just say that I'm mostly content with gay marriage being available to anyone in the country. This argument has been so thoroughly debated since the early aughts, and now with the finality of that decision, I don't see it being an issue much longer.

But I'm a cynical contrarian, and I feel the rebel urge to go against the seemingly and increasingly popular majority opinion in favor of it. And my libertarian tendencies repel me away from the tired and conventional arguments. It's like there's some little-explored nuance that I've yet to discover, and it's calling my name. I'll always be for equal rights and opportunity, but the way most of the coverage has been is like "YES, we stuck it to THE MAN! Take that, anachronistic evil old white puritan who still somehow controls all the levers of society! A long-awaited win for the little guy!"

There's just something grating and disingenuous about that, and I don't think it would be particularly useful to explore why. Maybe I'm misperceiving it all?

...

I haven't been the voracious consumer of blogs, politics, and current events as I once was not long ago. But now and then I stumble onto a few things and follow them down rabbit holes to other things which I cannot help but drop everything and completely absorb.

Such as this excellent short sci-fi story from the seemingly sage polymath Scott Alexander at Slate Star Codex:  ... And I Show You How Deep the Rabbit Hole Goes. Just a very fun, well-written adventure story for all personalities.

And three blog posts about libertarians, anarchism, and utilitarianism:

Caution: nerdfight zone ahead

The Incredible Vanishing Minarchist

• This and the comments following it kind of surprised me. I simply assumed most libertarians were not anarchists, and perhaps not even "true" Minarchists. I'm sure not an anarchist. While I think that anarcho-capatalism is an unachievable utopian ideal, I think minarchism is, while slightly less utopian and ideal, still unachievable for the indefinite future. So, while I can nod my head and agree with the principles behind AnCap and Minarchism, in practice I'll support just about anything that has a realistic chance of pushing us in that direction. I guess that makes me a lINO (small 'L' libertarian-in-name-only.) I don't care what anyone says, but big 'L' Libertarians I'll always consider to mean members of the Libertarian Party.

5 Reasons Why I’m Not An Anarchist

• A generally okay argument that I mostly agree with, but feel the author is being way too disingenuous regarding what it means to follow the non-aggression principle. To me, following the NAP is like being a lawful citizen. You're not a total pacifist, but you never initiate violence, or threats thereof. You will, however, be willing to defend yourself, significant others, personal property, and perhaps even innocent people to the death from those things. Preemptive attacks are just taking things to another level. Reasonable persons would agree, that most of the time, preemption is going too far. However...
  
  There are the super scary, but totally obvious, yet still loaded with liability, exceptions where preemption feels and is compulsory. It's like there's a de facto threat, whether or not explicit, and is therefore consistent with the NAP.

Not So Hard to Argue

• A short post which I thought was interesting. Utilitarians in favor of redistribution often leave out a few important factors in their calculations.

The power of gardens

Note: This is a long post and it is not about gardening. 


I could probably start anywhere: The Baltimore riots, #Gamergate, the Sad Puppies and the Hugo-versy, human nature, ingroups and outgroups, social media activists, etcetera, and on and on, and so forth.

I suppose I'll start with Through the Worhmhole, season 6, episode 1: Are We All Bigots? This episode is suspiciously and fantastically salient right now.

It was particularly cringe-inducing for me at first, because I remembered a conversation cut short that I initiated with an African-American.

Having been a poli-sci major I tend to have politics and topics of national debate not far from the front of my mind. It's all too easy to reach into that well of poison in an attempt to be topical and raconteur. Years ago, during this conversation I said, "you know, on some level, I think we are all a little bit racist or prejudiced." I was thinking about human history and its tribalist nature, but I see how it could be interpreted very differently. My undiplomatic mouth and the resulting angry stare I got ended what was an otherwise interesting and cordial dialogue. Every time I think about that moment I cringe.

Then this show, hosted by Morgan Freeman no less, comes on and asks (and answers) the same damn thing. Short answer: yes, we are all racist scumbags.

Longer answer: A lot of it is subconscious, and is both learned through cultural exposure and a part of human, even mammalian, nature. This seems obvious to me. But we're not talking about the KKK or making a minority sit in the back of the bus, we're talking about non-overt stuff in modern civilization from millions of people adding up over time where we end up with huge disparities. And it's not just race, it's religion, nationality, sports teams; it's all tribalism. Ingroup vs. outgroup stuff. It's how humans behave. It's how monkeys behave. It's how rats behave!



We have a lot of groups in Western civilization. Western civilization itself is a group. I am a member of that group. I am also a member of the U.S. group, the white group, the male group, the dogs-lover group, the right-handed group, the sci-fi geeky fan group, etc. I am a member of a lot of different groups mostly with parallel, complimentary, and/or non-conflicting interests. Rarely do those interests conflict; more often, obviously, groups with demographically distinct memberships and different interests conflict. I guess you could try to stay out of it, but typically people get at least emotionally invested in a conflict their group is engaged in. Because human mammalian nature.

A relatively harmless example can be the airing of eSports on ESPN. Traditionally, ESPN has aired mostly athletic sports competitions. Although they have on occasion aired poker championships. There's nothing athletic about poker, but it is a sport that a lot of people are interested in. It's a good bet that many fans of athletic competitions (ACF for short) are also poker game enthusiasts (PGE). For ESPN to air a poker game is like Michael Jordan going golfing. No big thing.

But times, they are a changin'. The other day ESPN aired teams competing against each other in the video game, Heroes of the Storm, on one of its channels and I'd venture to guess that the older ACFs and PGEs are generally not fans of this new video game, nor any competitions in it. Which prompted such people to say, "It’s not a sport — it’s a competition. Chess is a competition. Checkers is a competition…. Mostly, I’m interested in doing real sports." That was ESPN president John Skipper. And one of ESPN's hosts, Colin Cowherd had more colorful things to say about covering eSports. Ingroup vs. outgroup.

While I don't care much about Heroes of the Storm or MOBA competitions personally, I do like games and the idea of watching intense video game competitions by pro-gamers. So, not only am I in agreement with TotalBiscuit's sentiment in his video below, but with his specific point--that it doesn't matter whether or not it's called a sport. What matters is that eSports/gamers already has a lot of people in its group, and that group pays the bills by watching.


So yeah, I'm a member of the eSports/gamers group. I was a member of the more traditional ACF group in my youth, paying close attention to my favorite NBA teams, as well as playing Mario and Zelda as often as I could. While I still can identify with the ACF group, I felt the urge to take a side in this little conflict. Go eSports coverage! Yay more-relevant-to-me ingroup!

We tend to think of tribalism as inherently bad, but I don't think it is. I think tribalism is more like gravity. It's amoral. It just is. What we do with tribalism can be either good or bad. Lately it seems, as some of us intend to promote a kind of civility with the tools and weapons of tribalism, we're becoming demonstrably uncivil.

Enter the Prussian, speaking on the recent Hugo awards controversy, who is simultaneously upset and dismissive of SJWs:

Author Larry Correia (not read him, yet) attended one of their cons when he was starting out, and what he found was what he described as a whispering campaign against one of his books.  Not because of the book, mind you, but because of his politics.  Hence he was smeared as racist, misogynist, homophobe and all the rest of I – to the point that his wife started getting concerned phone calls from people worried that she was living with a wife beater.

All of this is drearily familiar to anyone who has experienced the tolerance and fairness of the western left, above all the American left.  The bad faith, the vicious insults, the attitude of throw anything at all and hope some of it sticks – it’s boring and routine at this point.  Forget those of us who are loud and proud rightists, we’ve seen this guff dished out against such bona fide lefties as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens…

In effect, anyone who didn’t toe the extremely thin and boring line of the US center-left was being ostracized and kept out of the awards – there were apparently organized cliques getting together to work out what books to nominate and put forward, and that decision was strongly driven by politics . . .

. . . Despite all their viciousness, SJWs are paper tigers. . . . if you are relying on SJWs to defend issues that actually matter – anti-racialism, women’s emancipation, free speech, the defense of civilization – you are relying on people who cannot even rig an award competently.

I sort of both agree and disagree with him. They're not very good people for using the blunt tools of tribalism like shaming, name-calling, harassment, and general thuggish outgrouping just because they disagree with their victims' ideas. And to some extent, they are paper tigers. But in the internet age, even a small group of paper tigers can make a loud voice and cause a lot of problems.

The Hugo thing was about leftists vs. the at-least-not-overtly-left-enough. Or from the perspective of the SJWs: Decent human beings who happen to be good authors vs. racist/sexist/bigoted people who may or may not be good authors. In the world of tribalism and ingroups vs. outgroups, the sci-fi/fantasy fan group was beset and torn by other warring groups who happened to have members in the sci-fi/fantasy fan group (much like #gamergate). The Worldcon and Hugo award group, for good or ill, deliberately or not, was commandeered for other sociopolitical interests. Rightist and non-leftist members of the group took notice and responded in kind with the Puppies. Whether or not the Sad and Rabid Puppies were justified (I tend to think they were), the Hugo awards will never be the same and will always have that stink of corruption.

Suffice it to say that the leftists occupying other groups use the tools of tribalism to prod those other groups in a direction they want it to go. Don't get me wrong, everybody engages in  tribalism. The problem is that the relatively recent prodding isn't so gentle, or civil; it might be even be quiet and secret. It's not always a rightist group that reacts and fights the prodding, it can be any group content with the way their group is/was. Sometimes rightist groups will take notice and join forces with the prodded group. Other times the prodded will surrender.

And the prodding is Oh-my-God-freaking everywhere. It's the outrage of the day, it's the national shame campaign. But why is it a bad thing? It's taking peoples reputations and ruining them, it's destroying careers. You can't have an old-fashioned opinion and say it out loud anymore. You can't think outside the sociopolitical box without the shame campaign threatening your job. And these are over little more than social faux pas! The ingroups and outgroups will clash, the rhetoric and tactics get sharper with every use. What's next?

Whatever it is, it can't be good. Indeed, the logical leap to the next level has already been mentally considered and accepted by at least one of the prodding leftists.

I'm going to quote Scott Alexander at length, and I hope that's okay with him (you should read his entire post anyway). Here he is at SSC quoting (and responding) to a somewhat-famous leftist:

That post [the one debunking false rape statistics] is exactly my problem with Scott. He seems to honestly think that it’s a worthwhile use of his time, energy and mental effort to download evil people’s evil worldviews into his mind and try to analytically debate them with statistics and cost-benefit analyses.

He gets *mad* at people whom he detachedly intellectually agrees with but who are willing to back up their beliefs with war and fire rather than pussyfooting around with debate-team nonsense.

It honestly makes me kind of sick. It is exactly the kind of thing that “social justice” activists like me *intend* to attack and “trigger” when we use “triggery” catchphrases about the mewling pusillanimity of privileged white allies.

In other words, if a fight is important to you, fight nasty. If that means lying, lie. If that means insults, insult. If that means silencing people, silence. . . .

Compare to the following two critiques: “The Catholic Church wastes so much energy getting upset about heretics who believe mostly the same things as they do, when there are literally millions of Hindus over in India who don’t believe in Catholicism at all! What dumb priorities!”

Or “How could Joseph McCarthy get angry about a couple of people who might have been Communists in the US movie industry, when over in Moscow there were thousands of people who were openly super Communist all the time?”

There might be foot-long giant centipedes in the Amazon, but I am a lot more worried about boll weevils in my walled garden.

Creationists lie. Homeopaths lie. Anti-vaxxers lie. This is part of the Great Circle of Life. It is not necessary to call out every lie by a creationist, because the sort of person who is still listening to creationists is not the sort of person who is likely to be moved by call-outs. There is a role for organized action against creationists, like preventing them from getting their opinions taught in schools, but the marginal blog post “debunking” a creationist something something is a waste of time. Everybody who wants to discuss things rationally has already formed a walled garden and locked the creationists outside of it.

Anti-Semites fight nasty. The Ku Klux Klan fights nasty. Neo-Nazis fight nasty. We dismiss them with equanamity, in accordance with the ancient proverb: “Haters gonna hate”. There is a role for organized opposition to these groups, like making sure they can’t actually terrorize anyone, but the marginal blog post condemning Nazism is a waste of time. Everybody who wants to discuss things charitably and compassionately has already formed a walled garden and locked the Nazis outside of it.

People who want to discuss things rationally and charitably have not yet locked Charles Clymer out of their walled garden.

He is not a heathen, he is a heretic. He is not a foreigner, he is a traitor. He comes in talking all liberalism and statistics, and then he betrays the signals he has just sent. He is not just some guy who defects in the Prisoner’s Dilemma. He is the guy who defects while wearing the “I COOPERATE IN PRISONERS DILEMMAS” t-shirt.

What really, really bothered me wasn’t Clymer at all: it was that rationalists were taking him seriously. Smart people, kind people! I even said so in my article. Boll weevils in our beautiful walled garden!

Why am I always harping on feminism? I feel like we’ve got a good thing going, we’ve ratified our Platonic contract to be intellectually honest and charitable to each other, we are going about perma-cooperating in the Prisoner’s Dilemma and reaping gains from trade.

And then someone says “Except that of course regardless of all that I reserve the right to still use lies and insults and harassment and dark epistemology to spread feminism”. Sometimes they do this explicitly, like Andrew did. Other times they use a more nuanced argument like “Surely you didn’t think the same rules against lies and insults and harassment should apply to oppressed and privileged people, did you?” And other times they don’t say anything, but just show their true colors by reblogging an awful article with false statistics.

. . .

But then someone else says “Well, if they get their exception, I deserve my exception,” and then someone else says “Well, if those two get exceptions, I’m out”, and you have no idea how difficult it is to successfully renegotiate the terms of a timeless Platonic contract that doesn’t literally exist.

No! I am Exception Nazi! NO EXCEPTION FOR YOU! Civilization didn’t conquer the world by forbidding you to murder your enemies unless they are actually unrighteous in which case go ahead and kill them all. Liberals didn’t give their lives in the battle against tyranny to end discrimination against all religions except Jansenism because seriously fuck Jansenists. Here we have built our Schelling fence and here we are defending it to the bitter end. [Emphasis mine]

Scott uses the apt metaphor of the walled garden (a group/tribe/community), and the uncivil tribalists as boll weevils. As both supporters of a classically liberal society, Scott and I might disagree on the finer points in its execution and the occasional issue here and there, but I feel we're a part of a polite and healthy garden where disagreement on many things are acceptable provided both parties remain civil, which includes intellectual honesty.

(At risk of mixing metaphors I'll continue using "gardens.")

There are many overlapping gardens, but some gardeners don't seem to mind the boll weevils, and even assist them at times.

So far, I've mostly discussed shaming and what basically amounts to ad hominem attacks as the methods of which the uncivil prodding tribalists employ. Mostly to punish mildly sexist, racist, or anti-gay marriage opinions. But there are boll weevils and there are BOLL WEEVILS.

This comes sharply into focus when you look at the two biggest feuding tribes in America, the Republicans and the Democrats, or more broadly the liberal/progressive left and the conservative right.

When a conflict takes on a political characteristic, whether real or imagined, things get out of control and your garden becomes untenable:

• -Scott doesn't allow race or gender to be discussed in his open threads--two relatively recently politicized topics.
• -People get uninvited from speaking on college campuses for safety concerns because of their ideas.
• -Scheduled movies get unscheduled on campuses for appearing to have the wrong message.
• -Authors withdraw themselves from award nominations out of fear of being associated with someone beyond their control.
• -CEOs get pushed out because they held the wrong political view.
• -Not to mention the poor gay guy who let Ted Cruz into his living room, and the bakery who GoFundMe cut off. 
• Pizzerias and sundry being legislated into the outgroup.

It's getting harder and harder to maintain a civil garden because Everything is Political. Video games are now politicized. Glorified book clubs. Wedding cakes. Commencement speeches. Bad jokes. innocuous-looking T-shirts are politicized.

And where does that leave real, dyed-in-the-wool, actual politics? Are the loyal opposition members safe? You might think so, given our robust constitutional political protections. But I wouldn't be so sure:

Don’t call your lawyer.

Don’t tell anyone about this raid. Not even your mother, your father, or your closest friends.

The entire neighborhood could see the police around their house, but they had to remain silent. This was not the “right to remain silent” as uttered by every cop on every legal drama on television — the right against self-incrimination. They couldn’t mount a public defense if they wanted — or even offer an explanation to family and friends. . . .

Most Americans have never heard of these raids, or of the lengthy criminal investigations of Wisconsin conservatives. For good reason. Bound by comprehensive secrecy orders, conservatives were left to suffer in silence as leaks ruined their reputations, as neighbors, looking through windows and dismayed at the massive police presence, the lights shining down on targets’ homes, wondered, no doubt, What on earth did that family do?

This was the on-the-ground reality of the so-called John Doe investigations, expansive and secret criminal proceedings that directly targeted Wisconsin residents because of their relationship to Scott Walker, their support for Act 10, and their advocacy of conservative reform.

Largely hidden from the public eye, this traumatic process, however, is now heading toward a legal climax, with two key rulings expected in the late spring or early summer. The first ruling, from the Wisconsin supreme court, could halt the investigations for good, in part by declaring that the “misconduct” being investigated isn’t misconduct at all but the simple exercise of First Amendment rights.

That, along with the IRS scandal, are extreme examples of what happens when powerful people with different opinions use the weapons of tribalism to punish the outgroup. The prosecutor behind the Wisconsin raids, John Chisholm is just ahead of his time. Maybe. But that's escalation, that is the next logical step.

So it doesn't surprise me that people want to avoid all this nastiness they see in the not-so-distant future and request a divorce. The blogger Ace, tweeted the rationale behind his idea:

there is a pragmatic value to liberalism-- liberalism permits strongly-disagreeing peoples to live among each other peacefully.
if we no longer have this sort of liberalism--if the left is determined to simply "win"--then we shall no longer live together peacefully
that's not a threat, that's just an obvious observation.
I think it's pretty clear the left no longer wishes to live peacefully among us, and, for my part: The sentiment is shared.
i think we're beyond electoral matters.
...
notice the lack of "that's crazy-talk" responses

I don't see this working, geographically or otherwise.

Even if there were a smooth way to secede, conflicts will still arise, the differences are still there. It's just that now there's a bunch of innocent bystanders who are no longer considered innocent nor bystanders. While that may be good for political participation, it would be bad for civility. The boll weevils, or the prodding tribalists would be in charge, unencumbered by considerations for outgroup feelings, emboldened by their newfound situation and ripe for group polarization.

But we already live in our own ideological garden sanctuaries. We may wish the walls held up better with fewer shame campaigns and less name-calling, we don't want to suffer the externalities nor direct attacks from discordant groups.

And so we often just sort of excommunicate the people who're mucking it all up:


What the video doesn't show is what happens after everyone catches on to the repeat takers. The sharers move to another table eventually becoming a big table full of sharers, and the takers are left to themselves. This is the ideal walled garden where everyone reaps the rewards from cooperation. It's the divine grace Scott references.

Yes, we must be kind and civil, especially in disagreement. And when the boll weevils or the prodding tribalists don't cooperate, well, just ignore them.

But if we can't ignore them, everybody loses and it's time to start creating new countries and breaking up families and watch out for thought police and our gardens go to crap.

May 3rd update: So that's how it's going to be, then:

A 250-strong meetup of GamerGate supporters, which included game developers, journalists and think-tank scholars were evacuated from a bar in Washington D.C on Friday after an anonymous bomb threat was made against the gathering.

Is it possible the uncivil activists fail to realize that the double-edged sword they insist upon using does, in fact, cut both ways? Do they expect by starting a war, the other side just quietly goes away?