I have had a profile on the dating site OKCupid for a few years now and they have finally recognized my greatness! By which I mean they have asked me to do a bunch of work for no pay and no recognition. Which isn't really the same thing, now that I think about it.
What specifically happened is OKC sent me a message telling me that they think I am a good contributor to the community and they want me to help moderate the site by flagging photos and profiles that are against the rules. While I generally am not big on the whole 'do work for a company for free' thing, I really could not stop myself at least checking it out to see what exactly they would have me doing. I thought it would be fascinating to see exactly what sorts of problems they have to deal with.
I was not disappointed.
The main thing that moderators have to deal with is endless spam from sex workers and scammers. There are endless profiles using pictures of attractive young women that have been grabbed from the internet and slapped onto OKC. I assume some of them are escorts / prostitutes, some are cam sites, some are other dating sites, and the balance are just a bunch of con artists looking to get me to pay money because Real Russian Women Want To Date You. Most of these sorts of profiles get flagged and the moderators all agree that the pictures are easily found in Google Image Search so they are clearly fake.
The second most common thing is profiles flagged as overtly sexual. Some of these are just people posing with very little on, or even nude but positioned such that their genitals / nipples are covered. Certainly some users object to this but it isn't against the rules. However, I have had a small collection of dick pics pop up on my screen and those definitely are against the rules so they get squelched without any thought required.
So since we have covered greed and lust, what is the great third sin that occupies the time of OKC's volunteer moderators? Think on it for a minute...
Incompetence, of course!
I got a lot of profiles that contained perfectly normal pictures of men with perfectly small, boring descriptions but which were listed as female and looking for single men. Initially I was puzzled as to why this might exist, but then I discovered that OKC defaults to female and straight. This is just a case of these men being useless and lacking attention to detail. They spent enough time to upload boring photos of them standing in their living rooms but not enough to check that their basic stats were correct. Now as you would expect these men didn't take the time to make decent profiles otherwise either, they are just a couple of vague 'looking for someone fun, no drama' statements combined with bland, useless platitudes.
The last thing I got sent to deal with was profile pictures that didn't actually contain a picture of the person. Some of them were actually really nice photos of mountains or sunsets or cars or whatever that weren't in the least objectionable, but the rule is that a profile photo is actually supposed to contain the user so these photos get flagged for removal. One was a roughly eight year old girl with her picture having a French flag filter on it... which is so not right as a profile picture and out it went. Doesn't matter if that eight year old is the user many years ago, pictures of kids as profile pictures is not at all allowed and that is a policy I can get behind. This section isn't really a great sin so much as people not quite grasping that others actually want to see what they look like and a beautiful autumn nature scene isn't quite doing that.
Not sure I am going to keep doing this any more but it was certainly interesting to have a quick look to find out what sorts of things exist in the quagmire of online dating moderation. I do like the idea of cleaning up the internet though...
Saturday, November 28, 2015
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Liquidity
I have been thinking a lot about electoral systems lately since the new Liberal government has stated their intention to change Canada's First Past the Post system to something less bad. I approve of the change but there are a lot of options in terms of what we could end up with, and some are better than others. I suspect for the Liberals the best strategy in terms of selfish desire to rule is a simple ranked ballot. Under that system an awful lot of voters will rank NPD - Liberals - Conservatives or Conservatives - Liberals - NDP and that will work wonders at keeping the Liberals in power. (Which isn't my goal, but it seems the likely result, and not one the Liberals will ignore.)
However, today I ran across an interesting set of ideas called Liquid Democracy that proposes a fairly radical change to how voting and governing function. The idea is captured in this chart reasonably well:
The basic idea is that people nominate proxies for themselves to vote on individual issues or vote directly. Part of it is the assumption that proxies can also have proxies, and that each proxy can be contingent on the type of vote going on. For example, I could vote directly on issues relating to justice, nominate one person to vote on native issues for me, and nominate another proxy to vote on everything else through their network of proxies, which hopefully is a carefully selected group of experts. It has a lot of basic appeal, but also a ton of issues.
I actually take issue with the basic idea that it is a good thing to have the entire country voting on each individual issue. People are shortsighted and don't have a grasp of the big picture, and if their votes are based on individual issues they aren't going to have any kind of overall strategy. It seems very likely that everyone would happily vote for lower taxes, better healthcare, and more money spent on their project of choice, and then be angry when the budget was a total disaster. People already vote themselves free stuff when they can and letting them do it on a case by case basis seems terrible.
The way I see it we actually need people who are in the business of governing and who are going to be at it for awhile to make cohesive plans. I also question our ability to actually group up legislation into discrete chunks in that way - how do I separate the fiscal group from nearly any other group? How do we decide if legislation regulating land use in a way that impacts native reserves is voted on as an environmental or native vote?
However, this was a useful exercise because it got me thinking about how we group our voting power and considering alternatives. Right now things are greatly focused on physical location, operating on the assumption that people who live in an area have similar views that should be represented. While I have things in common with someone who lives 2 blocks away, I have a heck of a lot more in common with atheist socialists living in Vancouver than I do religious conservatives living in my building.
So how might we go about letting people find representatives that match their interests better without completely removing the idea of local representation?
The idea I am putting forward here is that voting be shifted from pieces of paper based strictly on location to online voting that is location independent. Imagine a system where people go to vote and have a list of possible representatives which includes everyone in the country who has gone through the procedure to be listed. Each candidate would still be able to list themselves by riding, so that people who want to vote for someone local can see the list of ~5 people who are local candidates, or they can search (with electronic assistance, obviously) for the candidate they want that isn't local.
Example: I go to vote. I can vote for Carolyn Bennett, my local Liberal rep, as she appears alongside Ginny McGee and Dorfus The Greedy as my local candidates. Or I can type in "May" and find Elizabeth May's name in the list and vote for her because I like the Green Party. Or if my best friend Bob is running for office I can look him up and vote for him.
The top 300 candidates each get a job in Ottawa forming Parliament. Everyone else who gets any votes can vote on each piece of legislation, and they get as many votes as they got in the election, but they don't get a job and full time salary. Could potentially have a cut off (say 100 votes) over which everyone gets a small stipend to cover the costs they presumably incur in trying to represent their constituents. This way if a geographic area wants their needs recognized they can vote for a local person to do that, but if I am more concerned about legalizing pot, or marriage equality, or keeping out refugees, I can vote for the person who is dedicated to doing just that.
Under this system gerrymandering ridings is still possible but almost entirely pointless. People nearby to my riding can still vote for Carolyn Bennett if they want, but her name is in that short list for people actually in her riding to make it easy for those who haven't done their research.
It is even possible to change your representative partway through the term under this system, but doing so would require that your vote be registered to you and that is an issue all on its own. While it would give more accountability it would also make voting anonymously impossible and that isn't great. In any case this eliminates strategic voting, lets people who have very specific issues and preferences find exactly the right candidate, and lets people vote by the group or issue set they identify with rather than restricting it to locale.
I like it, but if anyone sees any really big holes in the theory I would appreciate hearing about them.
However, today I ran across an interesting set of ideas called Liquid Democracy that proposes a fairly radical change to how voting and governing function. The idea is captured in this chart reasonably well:
The basic idea is that people nominate proxies for themselves to vote on individual issues or vote directly. Part of it is the assumption that proxies can also have proxies, and that each proxy can be contingent on the type of vote going on. For example, I could vote directly on issues relating to justice, nominate one person to vote on native issues for me, and nominate another proxy to vote on everything else through their network of proxies, which hopefully is a carefully selected group of experts. It has a lot of basic appeal, but also a ton of issues.
I actually take issue with the basic idea that it is a good thing to have the entire country voting on each individual issue. People are shortsighted and don't have a grasp of the big picture, and if their votes are based on individual issues they aren't going to have any kind of overall strategy. It seems very likely that everyone would happily vote for lower taxes, better healthcare, and more money spent on their project of choice, and then be angry when the budget was a total disaster. People already vote themselves free stuff when they can and letting them do it on a case by case basis seems terrible.
The way I see it we actually need people who are in the business of governing and who are going to be at it for awhile to make cohesive plans. I also question our ability to actually group up legislation into discrete chunks in that way - how do I separate the fiscal group from nearly any other group? How do we decide if legislation regulating land use in a way that impacts native reserves is voted on as an environmental or native vote?
However, this was a useful exercise because it got me thinking about how we group our voting power and considering alternatives. Right now things are greatly focused on physical location, operating on the assumption that people who live in an area have similar views that should be represented. While I have things in common with someone who lives 2 blocks away, I have a heck of a lot more in common with atheist socialists living in Vancouver than I do religious conservatives living in my building.
So how might we go about letting people find representatives that match their interests better without completely removing the idea of local representation?
The idea I am putting forward here is that voting be shifted from pieces of paper based strictly on location to online voting that is location independent. Imagine a system where people go to vote and have a list of possible representatives which includes everyone in the country who has gone through the procedure to be listed. Each candidate would still be able to list themselves by riding, so that people who want to vote for someone local can see the list of ~5 people who are local candidates, or they can search (with electronic assistance, obviously) for the candidate they want that isn't local.
Example: I go to vote. I can vote for Carolyn Bennett, my local Liberal rep, as she appears alongside Ginny McGee and Dorfus The Greedy as my local candidates. Or I can type in "May" and find Elizabeth May's name in the list and vote for her because I like the Green Party. Or if my best friend Bob is running for office I can look him up and vote for him.
The top 300 candidates each get a job in Ottawa forming Parliament. Everyone else who gets any votes can vote on each piece of legislation, and they get as many votes as they got in the election, but they don't get a job and full time salary. Could potentially have a cut off (say 100 votes) over which everyone gets a small stipend to cover the costs they presumably incur in trying to represent their constituents. This way if a geographic area wants their needs recognized they can vote for a local person to do that, but if I am more concerned about legalizing pot, or marriage equality, or keeping out refugees, I can vote for the person who is dedicated to doing just that.
Under this system gerrymandering ridings is still possible but almost entirely pointless. People nearby to my riding can still vote for Carolyn Bennett if they want, but her name is in that short list for people actually in her riding to make it easy for those who haven't done their research.
It is even possible to change your representative partway through the term under this system, but doing so would require that your vote be registered to you and that is an issue all on its own. While it would give more accountability it would also make voting anonymously impossible and that isn't great. In any case this eliminates strategic voting, lets people who have very specific issues and preferences find exactly the right candidate, and lets people vote by the group or issue set they identify with rather than restricting it to locale.
I like it, but if anyone sees any really big holes in the theory I would appreciate hearing about them.
Monday, November 23, 2015
Strictness
Scott Adams, who writes the Dilbert comic strip, is an misogynist asshole. I really like Dilbert most of the time and Adams has often written blog posts that were entertaining to me, so I have reasons to like the guy, but you just can't get past the awful sometimes.
(Also his blog posts were entertaining in the sense of me being in awe that someone could actually forward such a ludicrous proposition - like say that Donald Trump is some kind of wizard.)
The latest awful is a post that asserts that Western nations are female dominated and makes all kinds of absurd claims about how straight sex and relationships work. The crowning glory is his assertion that sex in Western societies is strictly controlled by women. That assertion is a bit tricky to support. For example, if a woman came up to Adams while he was walking along the street and demanded sex on the spot, he would refuse.
Which, strangely enough, suggests that he, a male, has some say in when sex happens.
There are a few things that could make such an idiotic claim true. For example, if we assume that men always want sex under any circumstances with any woman, then it could be true. But we know that they don't because there are plenty of women who want sex with specific men and get denied it. I can verify the existence of such things through a variety of sources, including personal experience. I have been turned down more than I have turned other people down, but it happens both ways! Adams' statement could also be true if women never wanted sex and would only have it to gain leverage or for other gain, but as a professional straight man I can assure you there are women who want sex. Several, in fact.
Since these propositions are both absurd, let us try to think what could bring Adams to conclude that women strictly control sex.
The obvious answer is that Adams recognizes that sometimes he doesn't get to have sex with women because they aren't interested, but when the situation is reversed he doesn't even recognize their desires as real. He lives in a world where other people wanting things isn't even a thing that must be acknowledged unless it happens to prevent him getting what he wants. He just pretends that those other feelings don't exist.
The short and pithy version is "I only care what women think when it prevents me from getting my way, and is backed up by threat of force from the state."
Fact is, the only time when sex is strictly controlled by women is when there are only women involved. Any sex that does involve both men and women is strictly controlled by *both*. It is a collaborative thing that everyone must consent to, and should that consent not come from all sides it is called rape instead.
So let's shut down this ridiculous 'female dominated society' nonsense. The people saying 'female dominated society' with a straight face seem to always be conflating it with 'I can't force women to have sex with me at will'. That isn't a bug in a matriarchy, it is a feature of treating people with some modicum of decency.
(Also his blog posts were entertaining in the sense of me being in awe that someone could actually forward such a ludicrous proposition - like say that Donald Trump is some kind of wizard.)
The latest awful is a post that asserts that Western nations are female dominated and makes all kinds of absurd claims about how straight sex and relationships work. The crowning glory is his assertion that sex in Western societies is strictly controlled by women. That assertion is a bit tricky to support. For example, if a woman came up to Adams while he was walking along the street and demanded sex on the spot, he would refuse.
Which, strangely enough, suggests that he, a male, has some say in when sex happens.
There are a few things that could make such an idiotic claim true. For example, if we assume that men always want sex under any circumstances with any woman, then it could be true. But we know that they don't because there are plenty of women who want sex with specific men and get denied it. I can verify the existence of such things through a variety of sources, including personal experience. I have been turned down more than I have turned other people down, but it happens both ways! Adams' statement could also be true if women never wanted sex and would only have it to gain leverage or for other gain, but as a professional straight man I can assure you there are women who want sex. Several, in fact.
Since these propositions are both absurd, let us try to think what could bring Adams to conclude that women strictly control sex.
The obvious answer is that Adams recognizes that sometimes he doesn't get to have sex with women because they aren't interested, but when the situation is reversed he doesn't even recognize their desires as real. He lives in a world where other people wanting things isn't even a thing that must be acknowledged unless it happens to prevent him getting what he wants. He just pretends that those other feelings don't exist.
The short and pithy version is "I only care what women think when it prevents me from getting my way, and is backed up by threat of force from the state."
Fact is, the only time when sex is strictly controlled by women is when there are only women involved. Any sex that does involve both men and women is strictly controlled by *both*. It is a collaborative thing that everyone must consent to, and should that consent not come from all sides it is called rape instead.
So let's shut down this ridiculous 'female dominated society' nonsense. The people saying 'female dominated society' with a straight face seem to always be conflating it with 'I can't force women to have sex with me at will'. That isn't a bug in a matriarchy, it is a feature of treating people with some modicum of decency.
Friday, November 20, 2015
Assumptions
I have been watching coverage of the response to the attacks in Paris and found a new reason to deplore the state of politics. In the US there is a new piece of legislation coming through that would pretty much stop any immigration from Syria as it would impose unreasonable and pointless restrictions on anyone coming from there to the US. It has been passed by Congress with enough support from both parties that Obama is not able to veto it.
The part that really stuck with me though was the way it was described in the news. Republicans were assumed to be totally behind the new rules, because obviously they want irrational government restrictions that serve no purpose because they cement their racist credentials. That was something the press clearly assumed as a given. However, reports also mentioned that Democrats supported the legislation because after all it is an election year and they have to worry about being reelected.
Because obviously politicians of both parties vote for awful things just to establish how bigoted they are to the populace. Winning votes requires such posturing.
Is it worse that everyone assumes that the US population demands such things, or that everyone knows that when an election is coming nobody even pays attention to what the things they are voting for actually do? That such failures of governance aren't even worth remarking upon is depressing.
Canada, thankfully, is on a different track. We are going to take in a bunch of those refugees, and we will reap the eventual rewards. One small reason to celebrate.
The part that really stuck with me though was the way it was described in the news. Republicans were assumed to be totally behind the new rules, because obviously they want irrational government restrictions that serve no purpose because they cement their racist credentials. That was something the press clearly assumed as a given. However, reports also mentioned that Democrats supported the legislation because after all it is an election year and they have to worry about being reelected.
Because obviously politicians of both parties vote for awful things just to establish how bigoted they are to the populace. Winning votes requires such posturing.
Is it worse that everyone assumes that the US population demands such things, or that everyone knows that when an election is coming nobody even pays attention to what the things they are voting for actually do? That such failures of governance aren't even worth remarking upon is depressing.
Canada, thankfully, is on a different track. We are going to take in a bunch of those refugees, and we will reap the eventual rewards. One small reason to celebrate.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Time to die
The Canadian government is trying to figure out how to implement doctor assisted suicide. They are going so far as to put ads on websites to let people know that they can go to the government site and input their opinions to make sure their thoughts are considered. There is no 'I don't want doctor assisted suicide to happen' option, because the Supreme Court ruled that it has to be legal. All we are doing is trying to figure out the details. I went through the whole process of picking numbers from 1-5 for a huge number of questions to explain how important things were, how much they worried me, and what I thought might be issues we should be concerned about.
The main takeaway from the questionnaire for me is that we don't need to fill it out. The people who created it took time to clearly outline positions on both sides for most issues, had lots of notes to explain background when necessary, and clearly had an understanding of the difficulties far exceeding my own. Just the fact that they asked about things like "Do you think that people with disabilities will be more likely to have their doctors recommend assisted suicide should they qualify for it?" tells you that they have really looked at all the angles. The people running this are aware of the fact that people with disabilities might be treated as though their lives aren't as worth living, and that we need to be very aware of such things when constructing the rules. Another good example is the questions about whether or not a doctor who will not perform assisted suicide should have to provide a referral to a doctor who will.
The public obviously wants to be consulted on this but I question how much their answers are going to be useful. The gesture of letting people have input is reasonable but honestly I would much rather that the people who have clearly already figured it out just do the thing that seems right rather than worry about which answers got 1s and which got 5s. Asking for simple answers to hard questions in that way just isn't going to tell you much, so even if the average person's opinions on the specifics were useful (which I question greatly) actually getting those opinions out of them in an actionable way doesn't strike me as likely.
Clearly we are going to have doctor assisted suicide, which is long past due. Dying by choice is a right people should have, though certainly there have to be many precautions in place. The people doing it are seeking public opinion, clearly know what they are about, and are definitely on the right track.
Big time thumbs up from me.
The main takeaway from the questionnaire for me is that we don't need to fill it out. The people who created it took time to clearly outline positions on both sides for most issues, had lots of notes to explain background when necessary, and clearly had an understanding of the difficulties far exceeding my own. Just the fact that they asked about things like "Do you think that people with disabilities will be more likely to have their doctors recommend assisted suicide should they qualify for it?" tells you that they have really looked at all the angles. The people running this are aware of the fact that people with disabilities might be treated as though their lives aren't as worth living, and that we need to be very aware of such things when constructing the rules. Another good example is the questions about whether or not a doctor who will not perform assisted suicide should have to provide a referral to a doctor who will.
The public obviously wants to be consulted on this but I question how much their answers are going to be useful. The gesture of letting people have input is reasonable but honestly I would much rather that the people who have clearly already figured it out just do the thing that seems right rather than worry about which answers got 1s and which got 5s. Asking for simple answers to hard questions in that way just isn't going to tell you much, so even if the average person's opinions on the specifics were useful (which I question greatly) actually getting those opinions out of them in an actionable way doesn't strike me as likely.
Clearly we are going to have doctor assisted suicide, which is long past due. Dying by choice is a right people should have, though certainly there have to be many precautions in place. The people doing it are seeking public opinion, clearly know what they are about, and are definitely on the right track.
Big time thumbs up from me.
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Let them in
Here we are again. Another firestorm of debate surrounding taking in refugees ignited by a terrorist action in a first world nation. Considering the progression of the discussion is a maudlin sort of affair.
Religious extremists bomb Paris. Awful. Western social media explodes with coverage and people expressing solidarity with the French. Which is good... but it shows how racist that caring is when we realize that recent terrorist attacks in countries that aren't white got no such response.
That doesn't mean that everyone who publicly supports France is being racist, but it shows us that in aggregate Western society pays attention to people based on race. We share and care about terrorism in France in ways that we don't when the location is Beirut instead. We should all take this as a lesson that we need to stop Othering people in countries that are culturally or racially different than our own. We need to stop ignoring their suffering, and only paying attention when one of our own tribe is in trouble.
Far worse though are the people using this as a platform to complain about immigration and refugees. That isn't systemic racism revealed by examining actions in aggregate, no, it is just straight out racism. The refugees are fleeing IS. They are running away from the exact same group that masterminded the murders in Paris. They are looking for a new home, a place of safety away from the chaos in Syria.
I said it before and I will say it again. We have a moral obligation to help refugees. But we don't need to help them solely because of moral obligation as taking in refugees results in economic benefits for the country in question over time. We are making the world a better place by helping desperate people in dire need, and in the end we will help ourselves too.
Anyone desperate to use this event as a platform to rail against refugees coming to their nation is just trying to cover their bigotry in the cloak of safety or frugality, both of which are ridiculous, trivially falsifiable arguments. Maybe that bigotry is cultural imperialism, maybe it is racism, maybe it is religious discimination, or perhaps some combination of the three. But in no way should we condone this nonsense and it should be called out for what it is.
The way to push back against IS isn't to toss more bombs at cities or to build walls against desperate civilians. It is to welcome with open arms the people displaced by their violence, to help those still in harm's way with food and medicine, and to set an example of living well and lovingly. There are many ways to stir up a potential bomber to fanatical levels, but "Go kill those people who help those in need of a home and who cure the sick and feed the hungry" doesn't generally do it, but "Go kill those people who bombed your hometown" sure does.
Religious extremists bomb Paris. Awful. Western social media explodes with coverage and people expressing solidarity with the French. Which is good... but it shows how racist that caring is when we realize that recent terrorist attacks in countries that aren't white got no such response.
That doesn't mean that everyone who publicly supports France is being racist, but it shows us that in aggregate Western society pays attention to people based on race. We share and care about terrorism in France in ways that we don't when the location is Beirut instead. We should all take this as a lesson that we need to stop Othering people in countries that are culturally or racially different than our own. We need to stop ignoring their suffering, and only paying attention when one of our own tribe is in trouble.
Far worse though are the people using this as a platform to complain about immigration and refugees. That isn't systemic racism revealed by examining actions in aggregate, no, it is just straight out racism. The refugees are fleeing IS. They are running away from the exact same group that masterminded the murders in Paris. They are looking for a new home, a place of safety away from the chaos in Syria.
I said it before and I will say it again. We have a moral obligation to help refugees. But we don't need to help them solely because of moral obligation as taking in refugees results in economic benefits for the country in question over time. We are making the world a better place by helping desperate people in dire need, and in the end we will help ourselves too.
Anyone desperate to use this event as a platform to rail against refugees coming to their nation is just trying to cover their bigotry in the cloak of safety or frugality, both of which are ridiculous, trivially falsifiable arguments. Maybe that bigotry is cultural imperialism, maybe it is racism, maybe it is religious discimination, or perhaps some combination of the three. But in no way should we condone this nonsense and it should be called out for what it is.
The way to push back against IS isn't to toss more bombs at cities or to build walls against desperate civilians. It is to welcome with open arms the people displaced by their violence, to help those still in harm's way with food and medicine, and to set an example of living well and lovingly. There are many ways to stir up a potential bomber to fanatical levels, but "Go kill those people who help those in need of a home and who cure the sick and feed the hungry" doesn't generally do it, but "Go kill those people who bombed your hometown" sure does.
Saturday, November 14, 2015
What a night
Elli had her birthday party last night and she finally got her wish granted - a sleepover with 3 extra friends. I was pretty sure that 4 twitchy, overly stimulated small kids would stay up really late and be quite irritating but I wasn't quite prepared for just how late and just how irritating.
They had all gotten up around 6:30 to have a full day of horseback riding and they got back from that around 7:00 in the evening. I figured that this might even bode well for an early night - surely children exhausted from a long day with the horses would sleep at some reasonable hour?
But no. I tried to get them to settle down and sleep for about 3 hours from 10 till 1, and finally just gave up and went to bed myself. I was awoken by shrieking directly outside my bedroom door at 2, then at 2:30, then 3, then 3:30. You see, each time one of the small girls needed to pee, one of the others would sneak up to the bathroom and turn off the lights from the outside switch. Then of course the one in the bathroom would start screaming bloody murder because they were alone in the dark... and I would come awake in a adrenalin filled haze.
At first I handled it pretty well I think. I got them all places to sleep, negotiated my way through all of their random requests, and acted very much like a reasonable adult. (Afraid of the closet! Afraid of the barbie dolls in a cupboard! Thirsty! Pillow not comfortable enough! She is taking too much room!)
The second wakeup was not handled as well. I was very grumbly and irritable and lacked much in the way of patience. Their excuses, blaming each other, and lying about what they were doing had a lot less 'aww, this will make a good story' value, and a lot more 'I hate the universe. Especially the part of the universe that has children'.
The third wakeup was almost comedic. I snapped at them to get themselves off to bed, but was told 'But Daddy, I need to get the green makeup off of my face!'
It is three in the fucking morning. Why do you have green makeup all over your face? Why are you awake? GO TO SLEEP!
There was some yelling, and threats of severe punishments if I was awoken again. I am not proud of the yelling, but I cut myself some slack because the circumstances did not exactly allow me to be at my best.
The fourth wakeup was going to be bad. Thankfully Wendy had gotten to sleep through the first five hours of bedtime ordeal and she took over and let me roll back over so I didn't have to go out there and follow through on my earlier threats. I would have, had I been the one to go back out there, so it was good I didn't have to. I was really feeling that seething anger and it took me an awfully long time to get back down.
Finally the children were separated into three separate rooms and they fell asleep, only waking me up three more times before morning.
Somehow the kids seemed to think that everything went fine last night. They forgot all about how at any given time one of them was sobbing in a corner or injured or freaking out. They don't seem to be fazed by the yelling, the grumpiness, the constant fighting with each other, and their own exhaustion.
Next year the party is not going to include an overnight component. That sort of nonsense is for people who have enormous houses or camper vans for the kids to sleep in.
They had all gotten up around 6:30 to have a full day of horseback riding and they got back from that around 7:00 in the evening. I figured that this might even bode well for an early night - surely children exhausted from a long day with the horses would sleep at some reasonable hour?
But no. I tried to get them to settle down and sleep for about 3 hours from 10 till 1, and finally just gave up and went to bed myself. I was awoken by shrieking directly outside my bedroom door at 2, then at 2:30, then 3, then 3:30. You see, each time one of the small girls needed to pee, one of the others would sneak up to the bathroom and turn off the lights from the outside switch. Then of course the one in the bathroom would start screaming bloody murder because they were alone in the dark... and I would come awake in a adrenalin filled haze.
At first I handled it pretty well I think. I got them all places to sleep, negotiated my way through all of their random requests, and acted very much like a reasonable adult. (Afraid of the closet! Afraid of the barbie dolls in a cupboard! Thirsty! Pillow not comfortable enough! She is taking too much room!)
The second wakeup was not handled as well. I was very grumbly and irritable and lacked much in the way of patience. Their excuses, blaming each other, and lying about what they were doing had a lot less 'aww, this will make a good story' value, and a lot more 'I hate the universe. Especially the part of the universe that has children'.
The third wakeup was almost comedic. I snapped at them to get themselves off to bed, but was told 'But Daddy, I need to get the green makeup off of my face!'
It is three in the fucking morning. Why do you have green makeup all over your face? Why are you awake? GO TO SLEEP!
There was some yelling, and threats of severe punishments if I was awoken again. I am not proud of the yelling, but I cut myself some slack because the circumstances did not exactly allow me to be at my best.
The fourth wakeup was going to be bad. Thankfully Wendy had gotten to sleep through the first five hours of bedtime ordeal and she took over and let me roll back over so I didn't have to go out there and follow through on my earlier threats. I would have, had I been the one to go back out there, so it was good I didn't have to. I was really feeling that seething anger and it took me an awfully long time to get back down.
Finally the children were separated into three separate rooms and they fell asleep, only waking me up three more times before morning.
Somehow the kids seemed to think that everything went fine last night. They forgot all about how at any given time one of them was sobbing in a corner or injured or freaking out. They don't seem to be fazed by the yelling, the grumpiness, the constant fighting with each other, and their own exhaustion.
Next year the party is not going to include an overnight component. That sort of nonsense is for people who have enormous houses or camper vans for the kids to sleep in.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Fear the ponies
I found a lovely article today talking about the ridiculous fears we have about drugs. The author talked about equasy, a habit that results in acute harm in 1 in 350 cases and which causes the release of endorphins and adrenalin into the system of humans who use it. It had thousands of Britons in its grip, including many small children.
Of course equasy is horseriding, and despite the fact that it is vastly more dangerous than nearly any illegal drug no one bats an eye at people exposing children to it.
It is a similar comparison to one I often make where I talk about how people don't think anything at all of children being put in a car and driven long distances to a cottage but they freak out about children walking home alone or using an elevator by themselves. The fact that the ride to the cottage is vastly more dangerous simply doesn't factor into it as their worry has nothing to do with actual measureable danger.
I am imagining a cop show where the plucky cop duo crash through the door of a ski resort, slam the manager down on the floor, and pack them away into a squad car before delivering some pithy one liner involving saving children from broken legs and frostbite. (I tried to figure out something about frostbite and broken legs in jail, because that is how those one liners go, but I came up empty. I guess I shouldn't try to write for TV.)
Canada is going to legalize pot, which is a great first step, but it is only the first step. Pot has the most medicinal value and the least downsides of the illegal drugs so it is definitely the first candidate for legalization but we should not stop there. We need to legalize all of it, regulate it, tax it, and focus on helping addicts instead of locking them up. Failing to do so is the height of hypocrisy in light of how we look at other sources of danger.
Of course equasy is horseriding, and despite the fact that it is vastly more dangerous than nearly any illegal drug no one bats an eye at people exposing children to it.
It is a similar comparison to one I often make where I talk about how people don't think anything at all of children being put in a car and driven long distances to a cottage but they freak out about children walking home alone or using an elevator by themselves. The fact that the ride to the cottage is vastly more dangerous simply doesn't factor into it as their worry has nothing to do with actual measureable danger.
I am imagining a cop show where the plucky cop duo crash through the door of a ski resort, slam the manager down on the floor, and pack them away into a squad car before delivering some pithy one liner involving saving children from broken legs and frostbite. (I tried to figure out something about frostbite and broken legs in jail, because that is how those one liners go, but I came up empty. I guess I shouldn't try to write for TV.)
Canada is going to legalize pot, which is a great first step, but it is only the first step. Pot has the most medicinal value and the least downsides of the illegal drugs so it is definitely the first candidate for legalization but we should not stop there. We need to legalize all of it, regulate it, tax it, and focus on helping addicts instead of locking them up. Failing to do so is the height of hypocrisy in light of how we look at other sources of danger.
Monday, November 9, 2015
Dreams
I think we, as a society, have tied up fun and money too tightly in our formula for a good life. There is a persistent idea out there that in order to have a good life you need to follow your dreams, make your hobbies your job, and somehow magically you will get to have fun all of the time while being paid buckets of money for it. That fantasy is pretty harmful in a lot of ways because it encourages people to think of themselves as failures when they have to do a normal job and leaves a lot of people chasing dreams into poverty and desperation.
I found a quote I quite like here:
The most likely route to career contentment is to find work that is neither too hard or too easy, that's ethical, with a good boss, with a decent commute, and that pays decently. Then work diligently at it so you're good at it.
That, to me, is a formula for career success. It doesn't play as well at parties, perhaps, as the I Followed My Dreams story, but it will likely get you a lot more happiness. Happiness is tied to being financially secure (though not particularly to being rich), to having a short commute, and to being around people you like and trust. The correlation to following your dreams just isn't there.
I don't mean that you should actively avoid doing work that you might do just for fun, but that you can achieve just as much happiness by working a job you are good at with people you like and pursuing your passions on the side. You don't have to make a living playing gigs to play music and have it be fulfilling. You don't have to work as a chef to get great enjoyment out of cooking. Go to your day job, come home, and do the thing you love when you want, in the way you want. You even have the advantage that you don't get burned out on your passion because you don't have to mix in meetings and deadlines and annoying end users and the desperate need to sell yourself so you can eat next week.
This is the kind of advice kids need when talking about work. I don't know anybody who would list fixing electrical boxes, selling beds, or helping customers navigate software issues as their passions, and yet I know people who have jobs doing these things that give them great satisfaction. They found something useful that they were good at and practiced until they were experts. A few people are going to make a living being painters, NFL quarterbacks, or celebrity chefs but mostly people find their happiness in much more mundane professions and indeed nearly everyone *has* to find their happiness there. Somebody has to serve the coffee, enter the data, and ring up the total and there is nothing shameful in doing those things just because it isn't the culmination of a lifelong dream.
Stoicism has something to say about this sort of thing. When you decide that you will work to the limits of your ability to write a song, the achievement of that goal is up to you. When you decide that you will make tons of money writing songs, the achievement of that goal is up to everyone else. Pegging your happiness and achievement on the whims of the rest of the world seems ridiculous to me - you need not base your sense of success and failure on things you can't control.
This is why I find it so difficult to talk to people about my games sometimes. They nearly always want me to make it more, bigger, and to spend my days doing all the administrative, sales, and bureaucratic work that would be required to turn them into a source of revenue. I don't want that. I hate all that kind of work, especially when it isn't paying me a decent wage (and independent game design does not pay a decent wage, trust me.) Sitting at my computer creating my games, building my constructs in the ether, makes me deeply happy. Trying to convince others to buy them does not. So I will do what makes me happy.
I suppose I am following my dreams in a way. My dream is to putter away on my games, and I am going to do that. It is just that this is where the dream ends - it needs no revenue to be realized in full.
I found a quote I quite like here:
The most likely route to career contentment is to find work that is neither too hard or too easy, that's ethical, with a good boss, with a decent commute, and that pays decently. Then work diligently at it so you're good at it.
That, to me, is a formula for career success. It doesn't play as well at parties, perhaps, as the I Followed My Dreams story, but it will likely get you a lot more happiness. Happiness is tied to being financially secure (though not particularly to being rich), to having a short commute, and to being around people you like and trust. The correlation to following your dreams just isn't there.
I don't mean that you should actively avoid doing work that you might do just for fun, but that you can achieve just as much happiness by working a job you are good at with people you like and pursuing your passions on the side. You don't have to make a living playing gigs to play music and have it be fulfilling. You don't have to work as a chef to get great enjoyment out of cooking. Go to your day job, come home, and do the thing you love when you want, in the way you want. You even have the advantage that you don't get burned out on your passion because you don't have to mix in meetings and deadlines and annoying end users and the desperate need to sell yourself so you can eat next week.
This is the kind of advice kids need when talking about work. I don't know anybody who would list fixing electrical boxes, selling beds, or helping customers navigate software issues as their passions, and yet I know people who have jobs doing these things that give them great satisfaction. They found something useful that they were good at and practiced until they were experts. A few people are going to make a living being painters, NFL quarterbacks, or celebrity chefs but mostly people find their happiness in much more mundane professions and indeed nearly everyone *has* to find their happiness there. Somebody has to serve the coffee, enter the data, and ring up the total and there is nothing shameful in doing those things just because it isn't the culmination of a lifelong dream.
Stoicism has something to say about this sort of thing. When you decide that you will work to the limits of your ability to write a song, the achievement of that goal is up to you. When you decide that you will make tons of money writing songs, the achievement of that goal is up to everyone else. Pegging your happiness and achievement on the whims of the rest of the world seems ridiculous to me - you need not base your sense of success and failure on things you can't control.
This is why I find it so difficult to talk to people about my games sometimes. They nearly always want me to make it more, bigger, and to spend my days doing all the administrative, sales, and bureaucratic work that would be required to turn them into a source of revenue. I don't want that. I hate all that kind of work, especially when it isn't paying me a decent wage (and independent game design does not pay a decent wage, trust me.) Sitting at my computer creating my games, building my constructs in the ether, makes me deeply happy. Trying to convince others to buy them does not. So I will do what makes me happy.
I suppose I am following my dreams in a way. My dream is to putter away on my games, and I am going to do that. It is just that this is where the dream ends - it needs no revenue to be realized in full.
Friday, November 6, 2015
The leak in the dam
Finland is preparing to embark on a universal income experiment. The amount of money they are giving everyone isn't huge, (about 11k US$ per year) but it is a massive step forward. The key to implementing it here in Canada is to get people past the initial shock and disbelief at the concept, and seeing it in action in another country and watching that country not immediately degenerate into economic collapse is going to be big.
I find discussions on universal income really regularly come down to disbelief that it could happen. Everyone I talk to agrees that ditching the patchwork system we have with all of its holes, qualification requirements, and additional bureaucracy is a good thing. Making sure that everyone can feed, cloth, and house themselves in a fairly basic way is a great goal, and we clearly have the resources to do it. The objection doesn't seem to be a logistical one, but just a feeling that nobody is going to go for it.
People seem to be stuck on the idea that the people of Canada are totally unwilling to give out money like that. I am sure that some are like that, but if truly the only reason we aren't pushing it is because people are going to be too shocked by it, then the solution is to be loud and boisterous about it to eventually get the idea of universal income normalized. Being able to finally say that another country is doing it is the first drip of water leaking through the dam of 'but it can't be done' and once that water is dripping I don't think anything will stop it.
It wasn't long ago that the idea of legalizing pot here in Canada was outrageous - the drugs, think of the children! and yet we elected a majority government promising to do exactly that. People came around on the idea, and although there are still a few uniformed folks out there who think that Reefer Madness will consume the youth and leave the streets strewn with people dead of pot overdoses the majority have finally realized there is nothing to fear. I suspect we have legalization in parts of the US to thank for that last push, and maybe Canada fully legalizing pot will push the rest of the US to follow suit too.
Or maybe I overestimate how much they pay attention to us...?
In any case the only other objection I have found is that the rich will run away to somewhere where the taxes are lower. I have no doubt that a few will, but quite frankly good riddance. There is every reason to think that the economy of Canada will be much improved should we implement universal income and the attendant higher taxes on the wealthy, and that lifts everyone up. There will be a few less yachts for those in the highest income brackets, but most of them will just live with that and move on.
I find discussions on universal income really regularly come down to disbelief that it could happen. Everyone I talk to agrees that ditching the patchwork system we have with all of its holes, qualification requirements, and additional bureaucracy is a good thing. Making sure that everyone can feed, cloth, and house themselves in a fairly basic way is a great goal, and we clearly have the resources to do it. The objection doesn't seem to be a logistical one, but just a feeling that nobody is going to go for it.
People seem to be stuck on the idea that the people of Canada are totally unwilling to give out money like that. I am sure that some are like that, but if truly the only reason we aren't pushing it is because people are going to be too shocked by it, then the solution is to be loud and boisterous about it to eventually get the idea of universal income normalized. Being able to finally say that another country is doing it is the first drip of water leaking through the dam of 'but it can't be done' and once that water is dripping I don't think anything will stop it.
It wasn't long ago that the idea of legalizing pot here in Canada was outrageous - the drugs, think of the children! and yet we elected a majority government promising to do exactly that. People came around on the idea, and although there are still a few uniformed folks out there who think that Reefer Madness will consume the youth and leave the streets strewn with people dead of pot overdoses the majority have finally realized there is nothing to fear. I suspect we have legalization in parts of the US to thank for that last push, and maybe Canada fully legalizing pot will push the rest of the US to follow suit too.
Or maybe I overestimate how much they pay attention to us...?
In any case the only other objection I have found is that the rich will run away to somewhere where the taxes are lower. I have no doubt that a few will, but quite frankly good riddance. There is every reason to think that the economy of Canada will be much improved should we implement universal income and the attendant higher taxes on the wealthy, and that lifts everyone up. There will be a few less yachts for those in the highest income brackets, but most of them will just live with that and move on.
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Merit and going hog wild
The new Liberal cabinet has been announced, and as promised it is 50% women. There are a lot of people, nearly all men, who have decided that this is awful and people should be put in cabinet based on merit, not gender.
Funny how this wasn't an issue with other governments who put people in cabinet positions without any relevant experience based on nepotism, dealing favours, or to placate ambitions. That's all business as usual! But having women in cabinet, in numbers that reflect their relative share of society, this is an outrage!
What bullshit.
The Liberals have done well in their appointments as far as I can see. I like that Cabinet has proportional representation for women, has an Inuit person, and has other minorities too. There are of course white men (not much danger of missing out on them) but they are less overrepresented than usual. Crazy.
Anyway, now that the Liberals are in power, my plan is to roll a joint, wander down the local bordello, commit a terrorist act or two, and then wreck the economy. Because Justin Trudeau is just not ready.
Funny how this wasn't an issue with other governments who put people in cabinet positions without any relevant experience based on nepotism, dealing favours, or to placate ambitions. That's all business as usual! But having women in cabinet, in numbers that reflect their relative share of society, this is an outrage!
What bullshit.
The Liberals have done well in their appointments as far as I can see. I like that Cabinet has proportional representation for women, has an Inuit person, and has other minorities too. There are of course white men (not much danger of missing out on them) but they are less overrepresented than usual. Crazy.
Anyway, now that the Liberals are in power, my plan is to roll a joint, wander down the local bordello, commit a terrorist act or two, and then wreck the economy. Because Justin Trudeau is just not ready.
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Adulting
Yesterday I went to clean the shower and discovered that I only had one glove, and it was a left handed glove... not ideal for a righty like me. This has been true for years now, and every time I have gone to clean something with bleach or other harsh chemicals I found the one left glove, cursed it, and did the job one handed, wronghanded.
And yet each time I did those jobs I never really considered going and getting a new set of gloves. I have some really weird quirks in my brain that cause this behaviour, both in terms of my money demon and my lack of feeling like I am actually responsible for my environment. I am the sort of person who wears clothes until they fall to bits - normally my shoes have big open holes for a year before I consider replacing them. That sort of attitude holds true in the cleaning glove department as well. I look at the one glove and determine that I can't buy a new set because that would be wasting the perfectly good glove I have. So I soldier on, trying to use that one glove until it breaks and I can justify buying another.
Problem is, I don't use harsh chemicals often so that glove sat there, perfectly functional (for a lefty) for years. Best bet is it lasts another couple decades at this rate, with me pulling it out and cursing its durability every six months or so.
There is rational thriftiness, which I certainly have. Then there is ridiculous penny pinching, which unfortunately I also have. New gloves cost two bucks and as an adult with both two bucks to spare and a need for gloves there is no reason why I shouldn't just buy the bloody things.
But part of this isn't even about the money, it is just realizing that I am the adult in this situation and I have to solve it. I can't just sit here waiting for somebody else to realize that this is a problem and fix it - Wendy doesn't do any cleaning, and probably can't even reach the cleaning supplies where I have them stored. There is absolutely no way this changes unless I become and adult and take responsibility for changing it.
It is a little odd that the thing that really made me feel like a grownup today was going out and buying a set of cleaning gloves. Maybe someday I will actually be responsible like I imagine adults to be, but I apparently have a long way to go.
And yet each time I did those jobs I never really considered going and getting a new set of gloves. I have some really weird quirks in my brain that cause this behaviour, both in terms of my money demon and my lack of feeling like I am actually responsible for my environment. I am the sort of person who wears clothes until they fall to bits - normally my shoes have big open holes for a year before I consider replacing them. That sort of attitude holds true in the cleaning glove department as well. I look at the one glove and determine that I can't buy a new set because that would be wasting the perfectly good glove I have. So I soldier on, trying to use that one glove until it breaks and I can justify buying another.
Problem is, I don't use harsh chemicals often so that glove sat there, perfectly functional (for a lefty) for years. Best bet is it lasts another couple decades at this rate, with me pulling it out and cursing its durability every six months or so.
There is rational thriftiness, which I certainly have. Then there is ridiculous penny pinching, which unfortunately I also have. New gloves cost two bucks and as an adult with both two bucks to spare and a need for gloves there is no reason why I shouldn't just buy the bloody things.
But part of this isn't even about the money, it is just realizing that I am the adult in this situation and I have to solve it. I can't just sit here waiting for somebody else to realize that this is a problem and fix it - Wendy doesn't do any cleaning, and probably can't even reach the cleaning supplies where I have them stored. There is absolutely no way this changes unless I become and adult and take responsibility for changing it.
It is a little odd that the thing that really made me feel like a grownup today was going out and buying a set of cleaning gloves. Maybe someday I will actually be responsible like I imagine adults to be, but I apparently have a long way to go.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)