During the COVID-19 pandemic, I felt like I was in a fog.
I desperately downloaded _Getting Things Done_ as an audiobook. I
adopted its recommendations as I listened. In the last five years, I
have been practicing and much is now automatic.
The most valuable insight for me was one idea:
Keeping things in my head caused much of my stress.
The stress shrunk upon writing things down. Of course, without
organisation, you won't trust your notes and your stress will creep
back.
This might sound like psychopathy, but bear with me.
There is an important difference between _empathy_ and _sympathy_.
_Empathy_ is sharing some of the same conscious experiences as another
person. _Sympathy_ is instead feeling compassion towards someone else
who is suffering. Empathy requires a relation between you and a
conscious experience. Sympathy does not.
A philosophical zombie appears to have conscious experience but lacks
it. A P-zombie can still suffer but it lacks conscious experiences.
So, one can sympathise with a P-zombie but cannot empathise with it.
If I doubt meaningful conscious experiences exist, then I must doubt
empathy exists.
As a deterministic agent, you still have preferences. (These are
pre-defined and moulded by external factors.) You prefer "good"
outcomes, "good" intentions, and "right" actions. Your preferences
combine and collide with those of others in your communities. These
form social expectations. Community members formalise these and
enforce them with rewards and punishments. You do not receive rewards
and punishments due to your "moral responsibility". You receive them
due to your (mis)alignment with the community. But this alignment goes
both ways. Moral progress is a judgement of increasing alignment with
your current preferences. Current misalignment encourages you to be
political.
I was eight years old when I had my earliest metaphysical reflection.
(This excludes religious doubt.)
My thoughts:
It was obvious that “bigger” and “smaller” were adjectives describing
relations between objects. But “big” and “small” were also relations
between objects and not properties of a single object. I am big
compared to an ant, and small compared to the Milky Way, but I am
neither big nor small alone. I conjected that there were no
properties, only relations. I am not “alive” alone; I am more alive
than someone in a vegetative state, who is more alive than a skeleton.
_Lonely and Horny_ was a web video series created and acted by Jake
Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld. Amir plays an obnoxious character named
Ruby who only cares about himself. There’s an interesting speech made
by Ruby in _Lonely and Horny_. He gives a spirited, funny, and
coherent defence of philosophical egoism that I haven’t seen often.
_"I'm the only one that I am, dude… I don't care about *other*
people, because they're not me. … Me is the only feelings I know and
can have, so I’m invested in *my* feelings *being good* for *me*."_
Søren Kierkegaard wrote in "Fear and Trembling" about Abraham
sacrificing his son. Despite its contradiction with universal moral
norms, Abraham was willing to obey God. This is Kierkegaard's example
of "teleological suspension of the ethical". Here, the duty to obey
God supersedes moral duty. I'm interested in coherent moral codes,
which allow for determinate decision-making. I would frame this
obedience to God as a "trumping" duty within a pluralistic moral
framework. Reasoning drives quotidian decisions but a command from God
would override that all. Kierkegaard appears to object to fitting this
sublime duty of obedience into morality. Seems odd.
"Strong opinions, held lightly." Indecision is paralysing. Knowledge
is unreachable. Without certainty, how do we decide?
Effective decision-making requires:
1. Pragmatism: favour action over perfection.
2. Probabilistic reasoning: balance possible outcomes.
3. Fallibilism: accept that you will often be wrong.
4. Ethical consideration: link your options to your moral values.
5. Community wisdom: seek feedback and collective experience.
By factoring these into each choice we make, we build habits and
intuitions. As we reflect and practice, we gain speed and accuracy.
Poor decisions also guide us to invest more in learning and discovery.
In the end, we gain humility, empathy, and confidence to move forward.
In the Trolley Problem, a runaway trolley is about to kill five
people. You can divert it to another track, but if you do, another
person will die instead. Many disagree about whether to divert the
trolley. Some would choose to divert the trolley to minimize the
number harmed. Others would refuse to divert the trolley, possibly
because harm caused is worse than harm allowed. The lack of consensus
can teach us about moral pluralism. Moral pluralism means different
people have different moral values and moral codes. The Trolley
Problem offers a framework for discussing and appreciating actual
moral pluralism.
Battery technology is crucial for mitigating climate change. But the
materials often come from countries with lax environmental and labor
protections. For example, there are reports of child labour and forced
labour in the extraction of cobalt in the DRC. Lithium extraction is
also water-intensive, impacting local ecosystems. Pausing or delaying
the mining isn't the solution. Mining is essential for the transition
away from fossil fuels. Instead, the focus should be on improving
conditions and ethical sourcing. Failure to raise environmental and
labour standards will extend our fossil fuel dependency. This will
only entrench the harm of fossil fuel mining.
AI is taking off, and this year brought new developments like GPT-4,
Stable Diffusion XL, and llama.cpp. Even if all progress paused, the
tools we already have could reshape society. Guessing what ten more
years will look like is hard. We already struggle to predict the
current pace of technology. We also can't be sure how people or
governments will respond to these new tools. We don't know how they
might want to direct its development. We should be careful and
thoughtful, taking responsibility for how we use it. All while
assuming everyone else will rush to use it.
There's a funny scene in John Wick 4 where Wick is climbing a
staircase, only to have to fight his way up against assailants. He
gets kicked all the way back down, and has to repeat the ascent.
As he climbed those stairs, the music rang familiar. Listening
closely, I realized it was a remix, but this was Justice! Justice is
one of my favorite French electronic bands, and it made perfect sense
since the scene was set in Paris.
The pulsing music of Justice is in line with the film's electronic
vibe, and I was just totally loving it.
Look closer. The right side of South America once snuggled into the
left side of Africa. For hundreds of years, since the development of
good global maps, we suspected it but didn't _know_ it.
A century ago, geologists too were in a process of upheaval. In 1915,
Alfred Wegener outlined this theory in _The Origins of Continents and
Oceans_. But Wegener had more than a map: he had fossils.
_Mesosaurus_ was too little of a croc to swim across oceans, but lived
on both sides.
And _Glossopteris_ was a seed fern whose seeds were too fat to blow so
far.
"Robert Falcon Scott, Last march", Wikipedia (EN) ("Next to their bodies lay 35 pounds of
_Glossopteris_ tree fossils which they had dragged on hand
sledges.")
I'm tired. It's not so bad. Others have it worse. But I'm tired.
Last year was quite a year, but my close friends and family didn't get
COVID-19. My relationships have strengthened despite the stress.
Worrying about elderly neighbours and isolating with bored children
didn't wear me down.
But it wore me out.
Every day is on autopilot with dozens of easy 5-minute tasks left
undone for days. A brain fog smothers me from morning til night.
The thing about walking through a fog is that you don't know where it
ends. How much further do we have to go?
Free will has a problem. Either one chooses for a reason or for no
reason. Either it's not a choice but an effect or it's not a choice
but a dice roll. Either way, it's hard to blame someone like that.
_The Sixth Extinction_ surveys human irruption and decimation of other
species. It doesn't lay blame. At a species level, the course of human
history seems to be a mix of mere causality and being lucky. There's
no call-to-action at the end of the book, because it's not clear there
is an action anyone can take to reverse human nature.
Climate change is likely to cause hundreds of millions of extra people
to die this century. Billions more will suffer. It cannot be
“stopped”. In the face of this, grief is reasonable.
But preventing climate change is not binary: not only success or only
failure. It is a matter of degree. With every degree increased,
millions more suffer. 6° is worse than 5° and 4°.
In turn, 4° is better than 5° and 6°. With every degree averted,
millions more avoid suffering. So, even small actions have tremendous
impacts. Choosing to avoid meat, or cycle, or catch a train helps.
Modularisation in software design is about breaking down simple
collections of complicated components into complex collections of
simple components. A complicated component acts incorrectly when you
cannot understand its internal behavior. A complex collection acts
unexpectedly when you cannot understand their external interactions.
All non-trivial software is both complicated and complex, and we can
refactor to trade-off between complicated and complex designs.
Object-oriented programmers explored these trade-offs for the last few
decades and now microservice architects are exploring them too.
Since working with a few microservice designs, I'm starting to see
some trade-offs, especially with tracing interactions and
serialisation overhead.
I missed the deadline to register to vote in Germany for the European
Union elections. I am very proud of having voted in every national and
local election I could, until now. I’m not proud of every vote, but
proud that I voted.
I have lots of excuses for missing the registration deadline:
1. Brexit
2. Taking a working holiday in New Zealand
3. The deadline being on a Sunday
4. Not having a printer for my form
But they’re all bad excuses.
I knew that I could have been eligible, and should have sorted out my
registration well in advance. I’m ashamed now.
links
_The Uninhabitable Earth_
by David Wallace-Wells ("Each of us imposes some suffering on our
future selves every time we flip on a light switch, buy a plane
ticket, or fail to vote.")
WOW, you have a beard
by Michael Henry ("Too busy to have your voice heard, I see.")
Benjamin Franklin said that time was money. You could have earned ten
shillings today, but you spent half of it sitting idle. You only got
five shillings for the half-day you did work. To Franklin, you spent
(or threw away) the other five shillings in front of the television.
Suppose we talk about ten thousand dollars instead. You would likely
save a child’s life by donating ten thousand dollars worth of mosquito
nets. Have you spent (or thrown away) that child’s life by not
fighting for a raise? Or upgrading a good car for a newer model?
Our daughter is almost two, and we now also have a two-month old son.
As I settled him back to sleep after his night feeds, I watched the
original series of Star Trek on mute with subtitles. After a great
first season I ordered some wireless headphones and continued
watching. When they arrived I excitedly set them up, but the sound was
jarring; I felt like somebody had taken Kirk, Spock, and McCoy and
dubbed over their original voices. Of course I knew these were their
voices, but I couldn’t continue watching without feeling like the show
had become corrupted.
My favourite _Star Trek_ episodes so far:
1. _The City on the Edge of Forever_ (season 1, episode 28)
2. _The Deadly Years_ (season 2, episode 12)
3. _The Trouble with Tribbles_ (season 2, episode 15)
There are three categories of moral actions: forbidden, required, and
permitted. Forbidden actions are those which one must not do. Required
actions are those which one must do. Permitted actions are those which
one may or may not do. When searching for a moral code to guide their
lives, people look for a system of principles, justifications, and
directions for how to act. This makes restrictive religious standards
popular and powerful. Alternatively, if a moral code primarily
consists of only permitted actions, people can't use the moral code to
make decisive choices because they are given too much wiggle room.
If we assume that the Islamic State coordinated the November 2015
attacks on Paris, it should be quickly obvious that such an attack
intended to encourage a backlash against Islamic refugees. The cynic
in me entertains the possibility that the Syrian passport found by one
killer's body was a prop to brew distrust of all Syrian refugees. It
is unknown whether it belonged to the killer. All of the other
suspects or identified killers appear to be Belgian or French. To
retaliate against refugees who are fleeing these killers would
compound the tragedy. I hope for a calm, measured response.
My daughter Evelyn turns one today. It's a celebration for my wife and
I as much as it is for our daughter, so I made cupcakes. I did the
mixing with Evelyn. (She kept eating the flour.) I want to show my
daughter that baking is not a "mum" activity, and cupcakes have little
chance of error. They turned out slightly dry, but still great.
The only party hats the Warehouse had were "princess" themed. I was
wanting something more gender-neutral, so I grabbed some gold wrapping
paper and covered one. Another day in the life of a feminist dad.
The second trailer to _Jurassic World_ shows Beth (Bryce Dallas
Howard) telling Owen (Chris Pratt) that the scientists have
genetically modified a dinosaur to keep the park audiences interested.
Owen scoffs that dinosaurs are already interesting. "Corporate felt
genetic modification would up the 'wow factor'." "They're dinosaurs.
'Wow' enough." I reacted similarly and rolled my eyes when they
mentioned genetic modification in the first trailer, but now think
that maybe the filmmakers are commenting on the nature of the
_Jurassic Park_ film franchise. The filmmakers clearly thought that
the new film also needed something extra to keep their audiences
interested.
Immersive virtual reality experiences may be only years, if not
months, away. Despite enthusiasts' suspicion and hostility to the
announcement, Facebook's acquisition of Oculus gives it a prime
position for hosting the Street-like public hub. However, the majority
of social interactions will be in private rooms like the Black Sun and
Hiro Protagonist's office in _Snow Crash_. A federated social network
could allow a heavy user to self-host and a casual user to connect
through Facebook and both share the same virtual space. Rooms could
establish realism standards and exclude avatars which break the
immersion, encouraging investment in new designs.
If World War III ended with a few scrappy scavengers in a desolate,
nuclear wasteland, I can imagine several technologies being easy to
rebuild. A wheel is simple and could be crudely constructed by anyone.
With some engineering experience, you could likely find the scraps and
basic tools needed to build something like a water pump. But could
even the greatest engineer in electronics rebuild or repair a CPU?
Blunt tools would be insufficient for the nano-scale precision
required. Some materials, such as rare earth metals, might be
impossible to find. Some technology production clearly relies on
multibillion dollar infrastructure.
"Student Plans Complete Nuclear Bomb", Spokane Daily Chronicle ("Dr. Frank Chilton, a California
nuclear scientist who specializes in nuclear explosion
engineering, said Phillips' design, outlined in a 34-page
paper, would be 'pretty much guaranteed to work.'")
Emily St. James claimed that _Gone Girl_ is a feminist film, but her
article seems more interested in shocking up page views than in making
a convincing argument. While I can see _Gone Girl_ as a favourite of
MRAs and red-pillers, I see it as a film advancing feminism too. _Gone
Girl_ presents a strong female villain which almost never exists. If
actresses need better roles to prove they are as talented as men,
better roles need to be written. No matter how you feel about the
character, it is clear that _Gone Girl_'s Amy is such a role.
"Hollywood's Highest-Paid Actresses: Where Gender Bias
Reigns Supreme"
by Moira Forbes, Forbes ("'The problem is the [earnings]
averages don't work, because there are not enough parts for
women to star in to get paid,' shared Amy Pascal, co-chair of
Sony Pictures Entertainment…")
I was thinking about victim-blaming and consequentialism as I walked
home yesterday and as I crossed a pedestrian crossing, a cyclist was
coming quickly down the road. The cyclist stopped to let me cross, and
then pedalled hard to regain his lost momentum after I was across.
This isn't very sensible. Cyclists have a much harder time
decelerating and accelerating than pedestrians and drivers.
Pedestrians should give way to cyclists so that they can maintain
their momentum and use rolling stops instead of actual stops. It's
arguably safer, too. Accidents might happen if a pedestrian assumes
cyclists can stop quickly.
A student wishes to take a shortcut through a dark alleyway and knows
they risk being attacked. They take the shortcut anyway, and get
mugged. Deontologists blame the aggressor entirely: the victim had a
right to not be harmed. Consequentialists might argue that the student
knew the risks and is partially responsible for the consequences of
their choice. This is uncomfortable logic. In response we can either
(1) reject consequentialism, (2) accept that we should blame victims
(at least privately), or (3) refine the consequentialist calculus to
stop victim-blaming. Maybe we could argue that optimal consequences
require systems of rights?
I try to eat lots of vegan food. The livestock industry produces
somewhere between 18% and 51% of global greenhouse gas emissions and
eating less meat and dairy is the easiest way to reduce the pollution
you cause. Pure veganism, though, can be a chore when you are pelted
with advertising for beef and milk. Applying the Pareto principle, 80%
of the reduction could probably be done for 20% of the effort, and
vice versa. Convince others that 80% veganism is easy and more
emissions will be reduced than trying and failing to convince people
to go straight to 100%.
"The role of livestock in climate change", United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO)
("Globally, the [livestock] sector contributes 18 percent (7.1
billion tonnes CO₂ equivalent) of global greenhouse gas
emissions.")
"Livestock and Climate Change", World Watch ("… our analysis shows that livestock and their
byproducts actually account for at least 32,564 million tons of
CO₂e per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions.")
Yesterday, I heard that Benoit Mandelbrot had died and I heard the
news in a peculiar way. Jonathan Coulton plays an excellent song
called "Mandelbrot Set" and I really liked the line
Mandelbrot's in heaven, at least he will be when he's dead.
Right now he's still alive and teaching math at Yale.
I listened to a recent album where Coulton played the song to an
audience in Dallas. When he reached the line, he sang "Mandelbrot's in
heaven" and then didn't sing any of the rest of the line. It reminded
me of my former teachers who had died.
I'm not convinced that divestment from fossil fuel companies is
effective. I think the financial arguments being put forth are very
convincing: fossil fuel companies likely have a lot of reserves which
are going to be stranded as people take climate change more seriously
and investment funds which have a long-term focus should be
calculating this into their investment strategies. But if the purpose
is to starve fossil fuel companies of investment, can it ever succeed?
Part of my scepticism comes from a worry that other investors will
happily buy the divested shares because their price-to-earnings ratio
is slightly lower.
"Does Divestment Work?"
by Eric Hendey, Harvard University Institute of Politics ("The
evidence from South Africa suggests that divestment, while
ineffective in a financial sense, can have an impact by shaping
public discourse.")
Adam Grant wrote about the scepticism that men face when exploring
feminism. ("Was he trying to ingratiate himself with women to improve
his dating prospects?") I worry about this myself. What I found most
interesting in what he wrote, though, was the effect of inclusive
group names and labels. Labelling an organisation "Princeton Men and
Women Opposed to Proposition 174" encouraged more advocacy for other
genders than "Princeton Opponents of Proposition 174". _Feminism_ is a
label used to describe advocacy for women's rights. But it also
extends to the promotion of gender equality for everyone. Is the label
"feminist" exclusive?
I was sitting by a pool in a sunny resort in Fiji. Next to me there
was a piña colada with condensation beading on the glass. And I
couldn't put down _The Grapes of Wrath_ by John Steinbeck. The pain
and poverty of its heroes was jarring against the luxurious, tropical
backdrop. After adjusting for inflation, someone in 1937 would need to
have picked over half a US ton of peaches to pay for the piña colada I
had. Nonetheless, the novel has unrelenting optimism about
perserverence through hardship. Meanwhile, Benjamin Graham made 14.7%
per annum during the Great Depression.
"The Intelligent Investor"
by Benjamin Graham, Wikipedia (EN) ("There is no exact record of
Graham's earliest returns, but from 1936 until he retired in
1956, his Graham-Newman Corp. gained at least 14.7% annually ...
.")
We are all jacks of many trades and experts of only a few, if any.
Despite this, opinions about everything are easy to develop and even
easier to publicise. We encounter difficult questions about subjects
unknown to us, such as climate science. In these situations, it is
unreasonable to expect us to find our own answers. Instead, we rely on
experts and we trust their judgment about their topics of study.
Suppose that you cannot trust experts; they might be colluding to
mislead you. Can you trust yourself to understand the complex topics
more than you can trust the experts?
Yashar Ali wrote a good summary of how dismissing women's negative
reactions to sexism can make women feel like they are being
irrational. There is an unfair stereotype that women are crazy, so if
a woman responds to sexism in a negative way, she must be
'overreacting'. Saying "you're so sensitive!" undermines her
perspective. Some people see this rejection of women's opinions as
inconsiderate, most don't notice it at all. But it fuels a cruel
stereotype by muting women's viewpoints, as it seeds self-doubt and
self-censoring. If this causes women to be hesitant to speak up,
communities lose valuable voices.
I was reading the newly-launched FiveThirtyEight blog today (it's not
difficult to notice my nerd crush on Nate Silver) and he used his
bookcase as an example of the 'trade-off between vividness and
scalability'. My wife and I have been sorting our books by spine
colour for a while now, but it's not as impressive as his. I have been
curious about 'objective' algorithms for sorting by spine colour
because some multi-colour books, like Nassim Nicholas Taleb's
Antifragile, just refuse to be cleanly categorised. What about fitting
spine rectangles into a 2-dimensional bookcase rectangle, optimising
for minimal distance between similarly coloured pixels?
I met my wife playing Dungeons & Dragons. The world-building, improv,
and camaraderie made it feel like the perfect hobby for me, but a few
factors have caused me to drop it. I'm geographically further away
from my D&D group than I was during university (albeit most players
still live in the same city as me) and I don't have as much free time
to waste on map-making, which was one of the best parts. Finally, the
stress from juggling increasingly powerful players alongside expanding
permutations of game-breaking abilities burned me out. Even so, I'm
feeling drawn to DMing again.
I was scrolling through my friends' Instagram photos and noticed that
most were of girls wearing Black Milk leggings. I rolled my eyes and
thought about how overrated they were, but then felt bad. The
patterned leggings actually look pretty cool, and I reckon that
Instagram has worked well as a word-of-mouth platform. I don't wear
them myself, but I think I might be the kind of person to post photos
of how they looked if I did. I don't particularly care about leggings,
but I just thought it was interesting how I reacted negatively to a
stream of photos.
One of the sexiest things I've ever seen was one of my best friends
impressing a girl by reciting Lewis Caroll's 'Jabberwocky' to her from
memory. The poem shows why Alice's pair of books are incredibly
insightful into the puzzles of language. Half of the words (like
'vorpal' and 'chortle') are made up, but the words still have meanings
(even if Alice doesn't 'exactly know what they are'). We derive
meanings from context, allowing us to learn new vocabulary. Even when
half of the words are made up, we can understand them from how they
reflect off of known words.
Where does the line get drawn about what can be said? Dissent?
Ignorant hatred? Inciting imminent violence? Trolling religious
zealots? I generally believe that the better response to hate speech
is more speech, presented in a civil manner, to expose the ignorance
of the haters. But how does that protect the victims of hate speech?
When racial slurs are aimed at children, how should a liberal respond?
A hedonistic liberal would say that liberty is virtuous only for the
sake of making people happier. Freedom of speech almost always does
that, but I can imagine situations when it does not.
As I hope you have noticed, I put at least as much effort into
visually laying out my blog posts as I do into writing them. I
carefully use Markdown to format my text and GIMP to shoop my
decorative images maybe obsessively. So, when the Tumblr app on my
phone strips my drafts of their formatting, it frustrates me. Back
when I was a teenager, I would evangelise OpenOffice.org as a
reasonable alternative to Microsoft Office, but it was difficult to
justify making my documents look nice if exporting to Word was just
going to butcher the layout.
_Sucker Punch_ suffers from problems like poor pacing and shallow
character depth, but while the form has obscured the message, the
message is much more interesting than the story or visual effects. On
one side of the coin, you are presented with a criticism of modern
female exploitation: these animated exaggerations are not real women
-- they are geek fantasies. But on the other side, the film is
shamelessly indulging in the very fetishes it criticises. The sucker
punch is thrown at the audience, drawing them in to see a video game
fantasy, and then reprimanding them by breaking their toys.
A month ago we put an avocado stone and some spring onion stumps in
water and placed them on the window sill. They are growing faster than
I thought and my delusions of grandeur are giving me dreams of an
indoor vegetable farm. My girlfriend bet me that the avocado stone
would sprout within four weeks and I bet that it wouldn't. It sprouted
a week later. Because I lost the bet, I'll have to run up to the top
of the street in my underwear, and I don't know when she will make me
do it. Dumb, over-achieving avocado!
When someone is criminally punished only for driving while
intoxicated, they are not being punished for an action which caused
harm but because they performed a combination of actions which are
statistically significantly linked with harm being caused. Due to an
element of moral "luck", it is certainly possible for a drunk or high
driver to drive somewhere without causing harm but we still consider
that criminal. How does the act consequentialist reconcile this? Argue
that driving drunk is not intrinsically wrong? Or develop a possibly
convoluted argument for how each individual action of driving drunk
somehow causes harm indirectly?
I was arguing/discussing with my future wife about what is considered
"art". I believe that the artist's intentions are irrelevant and that
whether something is "art" is determined by how the viewer observes
it. Looking for counterexamples and illustrations, I asked her: would
you consider it possible for a computer program to be "art"? I would,
but she wasn't sure. Undoubtedly, almost all computer programs are
primarily functional, but there is elegant code and there is inelegant
code. Does elegance make code artistic? If it does, I should start a
gallery of clips of elegant code from open-source software.
I attended a dawn memorial service for ANZAC veterans this morning and
thought about how annual commemoration for military personnel serves
as a type of intangible compensation for their unusually sacrificial
employment. A soldier going to war risks much more than I do when I go
to work, but I do not believe they get a "heroism" bonus in their
paycheck. Instead, our social contract teaches us to "pay" them our
respect. A similar honour is bestowed upon public servants with
life-threatening careers such as firefighting and law enforcement. Do
we have a duty to remember and enshrine our valiant?
My understanding of compassion in free market economics is that
reducing the prices of goods and services through increasing market
efficiency will help poor _consumers_ more than government
intervention will help poor _workers_. But there are barriers to entry
which are avoidable and are not caused by government intervention.
Does aversion to multiculturalism act as a barrier to entry? When a
fat, white woman yells "Speak English!" at a Chinese shopkeeper, the
shopkeeper pays a hidden cost to continue working. In a maximally
competitive market, where race shouldn't affect labour, neither should
foreign cultural expression. More tolerance brings more competition.
I took some photos of actors I like when I visited the red carpet
today for the premiere of the first _Hobbit_ film. When I was in high
school, I rushed with my friends down Kent Terrace towards the Embassy
Theatre to see if we could get a good spot to see Viggo Mortensen, Ian
McKellan, Elijah Wood and others at the premiere of _The Return of the
King_. It was good fun: I remember yelling "Viggo! Viggo! Viggo!" in
adoration at the top of my lungs. My reaction was more subdued today,
but I enjoyed seeing glamourous actors again.
My future wife and I took a scenic rafting trip down the Rangitikei
River for Christmas last year and earlier this year we picked a random
weekend to take the trip. That random weekend turned out to be warm
and sunny, and perfect for a relaxing drift down a river a few hours
away from home. As expected, the escape from the city made us consider
quitting our day jobs, even though I haven't even properly started
mine yet. I'm definitely more at home where there are paved roads and
cellphone service, but I need adventures too.
Whether their leaders admit it or not, Republican losses across the
board in US elections of legislative and executive branches indicate a
shift away from the Tea Party. But considering the issues needing
immediate attention, the Democrat gains are not enough to deserve
substantial celebration: the election doesn't solve the problems with
the ongoing political stalemate. But there was one clear winner: Nate
Silver, who stood at the foreground of the battle between
statisticians and pundits, led the number-crunchers to an overwhelming
victory. I feel more vindicated as long-time reader of Silver's blog
than as an Obama supporter.
After closely following the US presidential election for at least the
last year, I am actively avoiding reading any news about the results
today. I am attending an "election party" this evening where we will
watch the news and tally electoral votes ourselves as the states
report their results. Unfortunately, because I live in New Zealand,
the party is effectively time-shifted several hours after the actual
election. Our party starts at 6pm, when the election will actually be
wrapping up (waiting only for inconsequential results from a few West
Coast states, Alaska and Hawaii). Thank god for the DVR!
As I showered this morning, I imagined how I would act as police chief
in charge of maintaining law and order during an "Occupy Wall
Street"-style protest. Balancing the goals of prosecuting trespassers
and keeping the peace is undeniably a difficult task, but I think that
"perception" of police brutality against protesters creates a
Streisand effect by rallying more support for the protesters and
encouraging rioters and violent opportunists. Wouldn't it be better to
videotape any non-violent crimes (like trespassing) and not evict
protesters, waiting for them leave out of boredom? The police can then
prosecute peacefully later.
Reading Joseph Romm's Language Intelligence has led me to pick up my
previously put-aside interest in practicing effective rhetoric. With
my background in philosophy and computer science, I have overvalued
the role that unemotional logic has to play in crafting convincing
speech. Just as I repeated my lines again and again and again when
learning to play Friar Lawrence in school, I have been repeating the
lines of Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream". Starting with
_anaphora_ and alliteration, I am keeping a keen eye on figures of
speech that focus my future approaches to effective arguing.
This Arctic summer has broken records for the least sea ice in recent
history. Lots of that melted ice will return this winter, but the
total thick ice is decreasing. There are two issues to note. First,
this melting trend exemplifies the clarity of the physical evidence
for global warming. While Arctic sea ice levels alone do not establish
human attribution, they identify much-needed climatic research.
Second, the distinction between single- and multi-year ice highlights
feedback loops. As more ice thaws and refreezes, less remains thick
enough to maintain the albedo needed to prevent extra absorption of
sunlight, accelerating warming.
Wouldn't only a narcissist create a website about themselves? I
benefit and suffer from an inflated ego, of course. I wouldn't
consider my opinions worth blogging about if I didn't. But I don't
think that my blog was intended as a soapbox for me to grab attention.
21st century identities are forged much more so on the internet than
20th century identities, and with a blog and a Twitter handle and a
Facebook wall and a Google+ profile, I can manage the definition of
"Matt Heard" more effectively. If I don't, computers will deduce my
personality from my search terms.
I have a habit of reading in sprints, consuming several books in one
month and then not picking up any for the next several months. My
future wife and I challenged each other to read more by starting from
one end of our bookcase and reading each book one at a time. I just
finished my second book: _Introducing Political Philosophy_. I was
cheating, though, because it is short and each page has a large
picture. But it's interesting and seems to be a good summary of the
history of political thought. My next is _Brave New World_ by Aldous
Huxley.
"Why must everybody like you? Who liked J. P. Morgan? Was he
impressive? In a Turkish bath he'd look like a butcher. But with his
pockets on he was very well liked." (Miller, 72)
First of all, I was disappointed by Circa's 3rd of May performance of
"Death of a Salesman" - not because the play was so badly done (it was
great), but instead because my expectations were so high. For the few
days before viewing it, I received the notion that the play in
general, and also this Circa presentation of it were brilliant. I
heard nothing but criticism for both, and so my expectations ran
rampant and free.
I criticise the play in general for trying so hard to be depressing,
and although it succeeded at achieving this, it seems like a cheap
attraction for audiences. We go to horror films to watch people in
situations we wouldn't enjoy being in ourselves - watch _Saw_ or its
sequel. (I haven't watched _Saw_ but from the impression I get from
others who have watched it, it's addictive in a disturbing way.) I
believe that people watch depressing films and plays to cheer
themselves up, and I disagree with how a lot of people believe that
making a film or play depressing makes it a better film or play.
The play presents the idea of the "American Dream" and how it fails to
transfer from an idealistic perspective of the social and economic
world to a realistic perspective. The main fault of the idea is that
although everyone may be capable of achieving success and reaching the
top of the metaphorical mountain, not everyone can be on top, so
people must fail for others to succeed. And this is where the majority
of criticism of capitalism comes from: for one person to become
richer, another must become poorer.
I disagree with the idea that the "American Dream" is a failure, as it
is based on ideals which *are* applicable to a realistic perspective
of the social and economic world - ideals such as needing to put in
hard work to succeed and that if everyone is treated fairly, everyone
has the ability to become successful.
Another aspect of the "American Dream" is that America is where dreams
come true. Before dismissing this as illogical because geography
cannot determine 'luck' or 'ability', the statistics need to be looked
at:
In 2004, the US had an average income of $41400US ($64703NZ) while New
Zealand had an average income of $20310US ($31747NZ). That's right,
the average income of the US is double of that of New Zealand.
I'm not trying to show off or anything; my point is that the US is a
land of opportunity because there is a different atmosphere of
competition and hard work.
In California, school was all about competition. You had to get better
than a B (85%) on every test to stay in the top class, and that isn't
easy. I had a friend who was scared to tell his parents that he got
less than 90% on a Biology exam.
I must admit that it's to the other extreme, but the lack of
competitive attitude and the idea of "she'll be right..." has caused
New Zealand to fail to achieve its potential. Of course, I'm speaking
in generalisations. There is a group of extraordinary New Zealanders
who manage to break through this lacking atmosphere to reach their
full potential. And I hope to be one of them, one day.
I went to the theatre and it was packed with 13-15 year olds. I always
wanted it to be less of a spoof movie and more like the original
_Scary Movie_ (more violent and sexually vulgar) so that those damn
kids wouldn't keep laughing at the wrong times. Oh, well.
I can't really make any analytical commentary of it, as all allusions
to other films are parodies and are meant to be blatent and obvious.
One thing that I can say is that there wasn't enough of Leslie
Nielsen, the king of spoof acting. If you like watching parody films
such as _Airplane!_ and _the Naked Gun_, you'll remember Nielsen's
great contributions to the spoof genre. As the President of the US of
A, Nielsen brought back this amazing humour, but I must say that there
wasn't enough of it.
A funny scene with the President listening to a girl reading a story
about a duck when he finds out about the alien invasion, parodying
when Bush kept listening to a story about a goat after hearing about
the September 11 attacks.
Aide: "Sir, our planet is under attack by an alien invasion."
Pres: "Okay, but I just want to see what happens with this duck."
---
_Closer_:
I know it's an old film, but I've been wanting to see it because I
love Natalie Portman (films), if you didn't know.
Natalie Portman was great, but then again, I'm biased.
What I loved about the film was Portman's character, "Alice". The
character had the irony that while being the most honest and virtuous
character, she had the least socially acceptable occupation (as a
stripper).
"Alice"'s real name is Jane Jones, and that's what she calls hersefl
when she's a stripper. But when she meets Dan (played by Jude Law),
she takes on the pseudonym of "Alice Ayres", and stops being a
stripper. When she strips for Larry (played by Clive Owen), she
returns to New York with her dyed hair and her real name. But every
time she's around Dan, she has a natural hair colour, has a job as a
cafe waitress, and calls herself "Alice". What I'm trying to say is
that since her coloured hair and wigs and stripping job are linked to
her real name, those things are what defines her.
I must say, she makes a damn fine stripper, and apparently there were
deleted shots of full frontal nudity. Hah hah... Calum knows what I'm
talking about.
I saw _V for Vendetta_ today, just like I said I would. Damn, Natalie
Portman's hot -- even with a shaved head. (I have a thing for shaved
heads, you may know.)
First of all, I loved it. There are three reasons why I loved it:
1. Natalie Portman is hot, and a damn good actress.
2. Hugo Weaving is cool, and a damn good actor.
3. The Wachowskis are geniuses, and damn good writers.
This film has reaffirmed my beliefs that Natalie Portman is my
favourite actress and Hugo Weaving is my favourite actor. And the
Wachowskis made my favourite movie back in 1999.
I'm only going to say one more thing about the film, before I get into
the philosophical ideas which underline it. I loved _the Matrix_ for
reasons including great action, lots of special effects, and deep
philosophical ideas. But one big reason why I loved _the Matrix_ was
because the Wachowskis packed so much symbolism and meaning into every
bit of the script that every time you watch it, you pick something new
up, despite having watched it hundreds of times. For example, at the
beginning of the Matrix, when the police officers break into the room
where Trinity is on the computer, there are three torches shining on
her, create a triangular shape, on the wall. This is obviously linked
to the idea of the Trinity. Damn good stuff.
In _V for Vendetta_ they put in just as much depth into the script.
For example, near the beginning of the film, when asked by Evey
Hammond (played by the distractingly beautiful Natalie Portman) who we
was, V (masterfully played by the brilliant Hugo Weaving) makes a
monologue littered with words starting with 'V'. In fact, he uses 55
words beginning with 'V'. This is interesting because this can loosely
be translated to the Roman numerals "VV", assuming that you consider
each digit, rather than the whole number (which would be "LV"). What
else is interesting is that 55 is equal to 5 x 11 -- the 5th of the
11th is the 5th of November, which is the date of Guy Fawkes' attempt
on the Parliament, and also the date when V blows up the Old Bailey,
and then Parliament is blown up a year later. Damn good stuff.
Now for deeper things. The first question that you walk away with
after watching this film is "Terrorist or Freedom-fighter?". Like Rob
has said, this is rather late to be asking this question, as it has
been asked and over-asked for the last several years. And so, I find a
different but related question: "Is it justifiable if you use violence
to do something good?"
Let's do some role-playing. There is a generic bad guy who is about to
kill two innocent people, and the only way you can stop him is to kill
him. Do you kill him? Most will answer yes. Now here's a similar, but
much tougher question: There is a generic bad guy who is about to kill
two innocent people, and the only way you can stop him is to kill an
innocent person yourself. Do you kill the innocent person to save the
two other innocent people? You can't just look at it logically and say
"Which is the lesser evil?" because you are the one making the choice
on which set of innocents die. Ponder...
But that's no where near as interesting as one of the philosophical
themes or motifs (or whatever the hell they call them) of the film:
coincidence. Many of the characters of the film, especially V, don't
believe in the notion of coincidence: "There is no such thing as
coincidence, just the illusion of coincidence." But if you do not
believe in coincidence, then you must believe in something connecting
events, whether it be Fate or God or Gaia. Do you believe that you
have Free Will to choose what to do with your life, or do you believe
that every choice you make is not really a choice, but just causality
playing its role on the neurons in your brain, causing you to make a
certain 'choice' because of the way your brain is wired? I would hate
to live with the idea that everything is run by causality.
I'm just going to ramble on a tangent for just a moment longer. The
idea of causality is flawed, as it implies that every event is caused
by a stimulus, which in turn would be its own event. This means that a
giant tree of events would exist and there must've been an initial
event at the start of time (ie. the Big Bang) which was caused by
something. Either something outside of the existence of the universe
from 'before' the existence of the universe must have started the Big
Bang.
Wow, that's really off-topic.
"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as
both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no
mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant,
vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now
venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation
of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish
these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the
violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only
verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for
the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant
and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most
verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor
to meet you and you may call me V."
I'm off to see "V for Vendetta" tomorrow, which I expect to be good,
which in some way is tied to rebellion.
Irony #2 of the evening: Rebellion is socially cool.
Elvis Presley, Eminem, and even Michael Jackson used rebellion to
increase the volume of their image and succeeded. Elvis Presley is
famous for going on the Ed Sullivan show without any pants on. (They
had to film him from the waist up.)
But in the sense that rebellion is non-conformity and popularity is
conformity, you arrive to the conclusion that the contradiction is too
great for the rebellion to be honest.
There are four types of people in this world:
1. The first group is all the people who do something that is socially
"cool" because everyone else is doing it. This is blatant conformity.
This includes all the 3rd Form girls with short shorts and short
skirts at Edgefest, who stand out in the foyer the whole time, because
the only reason they went was to socialise instead of listen to music.
2. The second group is all of the people who say "Fuck Edgefest"
because everyone else is saying it. Sadly, this is blatant conformity.
I must admit that I hate these people more -- the people who call
themselves non-conformists, but are actually conforming to the idea of
non-conformity (if that makes sense).
3. The third group is all of the people who go to Edgefest because
they honestly like POD and the Presidents of the USA. This group is
all of the people who wore a t-shirt and jeans to Edgefest. These are
what I call honest non-conformists. They go to Edgefest -- not to
socialise, but to listen to damn good music. I would like to consider
myself in this group, but I did stand in the foyer during the crappy
music.
4. The fourth and most interesting group is all the people who say
"Fuck Edgefest" and mean it. They say "fuck" not because it's
rebellious, but because they mean it. These are the guys who are
willing to take on the world over what type of music they listen to.
So... cool... in an ironic kind of way.
Instead of doing something because everyone else is doing it, instead
of not doing something because everyone else is doing it, forget about
what everyone else is doing, and just do what you want.
Wow, I've never said "fuck" so many times in a manner of five minutes!
Isn't it ironic that although we exist in a society that teaches us to
tolerate everyone, this same society doesn't tolerate those who don't
tolerate others?
In this post, "society" is basically the idea of the sum of the public
voice when mob mentality is set in place.
Society used to tell us "Don't be homosexual."
Society now tells us "Don't be homophobic."
Society hasn't become tolerant. Society has just changed its view on
who it should accept.
So I say, "Rebel!" I'm going to be homophobic, racist, sexist, and
prejudice in everyway I can, because I deserve the right to hold an
opinion that may offend others.
I've begun 2006's Scholarship English class with the launch of my
English blog. As most of you know, and are probably doing the same, I
will critique what I read and watch here as requested for this year.
Actually, it's less of a request and more of a requirement...
Steriogram hit it big with "Walkie-Talkie Man" to become international
stars in the musical world, especially when "Walkie-Talkie Man" was
selected as the 'spokes-song' for the international Apple IPod ad
campaign, and when the music video for "Walkie-Talkie Man" (directed
by Michael Gondry, who's famous for directing _Eternal Sunshine for
the Spotless Mind_) was nominated for an MTV Music Video Award, which
is considered the highest achievement you can get for a music video
(the award, not the nomination).
Schmack is the Steriogram album that rides the 'Walkie-Talkie' wave,
with the hit at the wheel at track 2. But this isn't like all those
other bands which make one or two top hits and then fizzle out. Most,
if not all, of this CD is great to listen to, and never gets boring,
except for maybe 'Walkie-Talkie Man' which reaches its limit when
you've memorised all the fast-paced lyrics without using the internet.
Other great songs on it include 'Go' and 'Tsunami', which was written
before Boxing Day (December 26th, for all you Americans) has no
relation to the devastating catastrophe that hit the world at the turn
of the year.
Of all the songs on the CD, my favourite would obviously be
'Walkie-Talkie Man' because that song is on a completely different
level of excellence compared to the other songs. Not that the other
songs are sub-par, they're brilliant. 'Walkie-Talkie Man' is just
better than brilliant. But other than 'Walkie-Talkie Man', my
favourite would definitely be 'Tsunami'.
On a personal note, it's cool to see a New Zealand band do so well on
the world stage, and is just more evidence that all talent comes from
New Zealand and that New Zealand rules the world, or the future of the
world, at least.
It's a great CD and although I haven't got it yet (I'm borrowing a
friend's copy), I whole-heartedly guarantee that you'll not regret
getting it too.
As I've just completed my homework for tonight, I smile and frown,
knowing that I'm finally at my level of achievement and torture. I'm
at a standard which I've been climbing to get back to, ever since I
left California all those years ago. But now things are different. I
may not be swimming as much anymore, but I have a job now, and I play
multiple instruments, and sing with a barbershop quartet chorus now.
Two more years until my hard work in this endless pit of a hole called
"college" (or in American: "high school") will be paid off.
But I look forward to this year. I've picked up guitar and Drama and
also Chemistry and am learning new things everyday. I thank *God* for
the talents he has given me, and more importantly the time on this
Earth to use them. Now I need some sleep.
Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally
distributed; for everyone thinks himself so abundantly provided with
it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in
everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this
quality than they already possess.
*Editor's 2024 note: This post was imported from another blog.*
Oh, man. I can't wait to tell you guys about my boring life.
I can completely see this blog turning out like my "Saving Drowning
Furbies" newsletter. (Just wait a second. The batteries on my CD
player just killed themselves on me. I'll go get new ones from the
charger. Hooray for rechargables.)
Never mind. There weren't any in the recharger, so I had to steal some
out of my mum's camera. Ah, Steriogram.
Where was I? Oh, yes. "SDF". It was New Year's Eve, two years ago,
when I decided to document my fabulous* life. Well, obviously I was
distracted from the fact that my life was utterly boring, except for
when I saved my brother from the jellyfish, but that's a story for
another campfire. I would spend two and a half hours every Saturday
writing and formatting my newsletter to bore the public with. (Writing
took half an hour and formatting took the rest.) The problem was that
I would try to turn it from a page document into a page image, which
was stressful, especially with a lack of understanding of all the
processes.
_I'm obviously, unfortunately exaggerating._
Anyway, after fifteen people or so gave up putting up with it and got
new e-mail addresses, I realised that it would only work if I was
James Bond or Santa Claus or someone like that with an interesting
life. (Actually, Santa would probably have a boring life, just
sleeping and manufacturing, except for the odd rush at the end of the
year.) But now that my life is getting interesting, other than just
being "homework, homework, homework" like most guys back in
California, I might have something to offer. You guys can let me know
when I'm getting boring. I refer to you because I know that you're
reading this blog, because you'd have to be reading this blog to read
these words.
I'm babbling again.
I have so many things to say, yet so little time... and I don't want
to end up living my life through a video camera, or through a web
blog.
I'll start with an introduction to this blog you're apparently
attracted by. Or maybe it's just the centred text.
My name is Matt, and that is all you need to know about my name, for
now. I may tell you my last name if you're lucky. Or someone my post
it, and then I'll have to flog them. And that's a warning to all
y'all. I'm going to keep this blog relatively casual, unlike some of
my other writings. My writing is often rather formal, although I hate
"Formal Writing" in English. In all my writing (except for this one,)
I call my "mum and dad" my "mother and father". I even talk like that.
The main reason was that I didn't like being laughed at in NZ for
saying "mom" and I didn't like being laughed at in California for
saying "mum".
Just laugh and get it over with.
Anyway, as you can tell, I live in New Zealand. Wellington, actually,
which is the capital of NZ and also the new film-making centre of the
world, amateur film-making at least. I go to school in the middle of
the city. An all-boys school with uniforms. The problems with an
all-boys school with uniforms:
- No girls.
- We have to wear uniforms.
- No girls.
- NO GIRLS!
They go on about how "recent studies prove that boys do better when
there aren't girls to distract them", but I say "bollocks!" (Actually,
I don't say "bollocks", but it's such a fun word to say.) I've been to
a co-ed school with many pretty girls and I must say that... oh,
sorry. I thought I saw a pretty girl.
The uniforms aren't that bad. I just became a senior at my school, so
I got a new, better uniform, which is much less "bleuh" than what my
brother has. Mwua hah hah!
I like to make amateur films, but would like to start doing it
part-time professionally. You know, with a profit. When I make films,
I get my high from the whole production process, not the art, like my
friends. That's why I can spend six and a half hours non-stop in one
night writing my screenplay. I'm fascinated by all the different jobs
of all the technicians you see the names of when you squint at the end
of a movie, when you're looking for your friend's uncle, who
"supposedly" worked in that movie. (That was a long sentence.)
This blog is called "F @ T M @ T" because if you replace the '@' with
"at", you get "fattmatt" which originated from one of the short films
I worked on. First of all, the reason why I used '@' is because I
figured out that I could spell my name "Matt" with three characters,
which I needed to figure out how to do when I once got a hi-score on
some arcade game. M@T. Matt. Anyway. We were at my friend George's
house, and we had a rugby ball and a video camera. So we naturally
decided to make a horror film about a seriel killer getting revenge on
me because he didn't get to play rugby. As you would.
We were filming one of the last scenes, and the sun was beginning to
go down. We filmed the silhouette of the killer crossing against the
white wall of the house. In the corner, there I am, crying because one
of the other kids beat me up because I sucked at rugby. Along comes
the killer and whacks my guts in and out as if the blanket stuffed
under my sweater did any good in protecting me.
*Editor's 2024 note: There was originally an image inserted here but
that was hosted on a now-defunct website called Hiveports. It was
likly a still from the mentioned short film.*
When Dan, my fellow beater of an actor, would bludgeon me with the
hockey stick, the blanket would be pushed aside, and he would start
beating me full contact. Out of self-preservation, like any sane
person, I instinctively pulled my hands in front to protect me.
Subconsciously, I was pulling my hands forwards, and consciously, I
was pulling them back, not wanting to get them hit. It was funny
wiggly dance, like the mix between a chicken with convulsions, and a
boy with his foot jammed in an escalator.
Afterwards, I had bruises all the way down the side of my ribcage. But
I shrugged them off. "For the sake of the movie", right?
