It turns out that my vacation hiatus was very much devoid of posts instead of light on posts. I felt like it wasn't worth trying to use the internet when loading up the main google search page took 4 minutes.
Dodgeball Champ and I talked a while over the holiday about revenge for discrimination in times past. It was brought up by a series of posts that I was involved in on another blog Here where I argued about how a particular point about advocating for women was made. The fundamental issue behind the arguments to my mind is the question of whether or not it is reasonable to get revenge for discrimination in the past as a way to remedy the situation. In particular, is it ok to have very different standards for gender discrimination that hugely favour women because of past discrimination against them? This argument applies equally well to other groups that have been disadvantaged - which pretty much means anyone who isn't a white male.
It should be noted that I absolutely support equality and I also support efforts to assist those who have disadvantages to have all the opportunities that someone like me (white english speaking male) has. It does make me uncomfortable though that wearing a Gay Pride / Black Unity / Girl Power Tshirt is considered acceptable but a White Unity / Male Power / Straight Pride Tshirt would be the ultimate in bad taste and might well get me beat up. Thing is, I know that in many places and times being gay, female or nonwhite was/is a tremendous disadvantage and those people had to obey the white straight men in charge and that situation was downright awful. I want gender, sexual orientation, culture, heritage and many other things to be no barrier whatsoever for employment, social status, comfort, power and many other things.
The trick is that we want all these groups to have equal opportunity but we don't want to perpetuate a cycle of revenge. It is possible to think that we should solve previous inequalities by simply punishing those who were ahead in the past until they are no longer advantaged. I think that by doing that we end up making the divisions between the groups larger and more durable though because those who were ahead end up resenting and discrediting the people receiving the benefits. If someone gets a job ahead of me or is given freedoms I am not I will resent them and resent the measures used to force equality. That creates an incentive for people who are disadvantaged by the current rules to band together to attempt to circumvent those rules for their own benefit and to share their frustration with the current situation.
On the other hand I do think it is extremely valuable to provide extra support where it is needed and to recognize that that support may need to be focused around groups like I have outlined above. It makes a lot of sense for us to focus on providing additional counselling, training and support for natives trying to enter the workforce for example because they have (on average) a lot of additional barriers to overcome. It obviously makes sense to have women's shelters and not to have an equal number of men's shelters. There are many things we can and should do to support disadvantaged groups.
Regardless of those I will continue to find it frustrating that people celebrate aspects of themselves that I cannot celebrate, even though I don't particularly *want* to celebrate them. I am proud of my country in general and my city in particular because they are so accepting of differences and marginalized groups. (Not to say we couldn't do better, but we do very well.) I am *not* proud that any particular person is gay, I honestly don't care who they want to fall in love with or have sex with, but I am proud of their ability to do so happily and comfortably in my society. I do think though that by setting different standards for behaviour based on race / gender / sexuality / etc. we end up supporting the divides between people instead of eliminating them.
ETA: I have no desire at all to wear a White Power / Man Pride / Straight Unity shirt. I just want my ability to wear one to be equivalent to the comparable ones.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Hiatus
I am going on a vacation for the next week to the great white north. My internet and time availability is very much in question so posts over the next week are going to vary between inconsistent and nonexistent. I will be back in business at the start of August.
Wendy and I had a great conversation last night about banks and investing in particular. She got her statement for her investments over the last few years and it told her that her return was 1.12% per annum. Given the remarkable crash that occurred and the lack of a complete rebound that doesn't sound too bad but strangely the total value of her investments had actually dropped over that time. She was initially really puzzled until I pointed out that the bank had been taking close to 2% of her total money every year in fees to maintain those investments and those fees were not noted on the statement anywhere. She got pretty ticked off about this and I certainly can understand that; the fact that when the investments were made there was no mention of the size of the fees is pretty awful but the 'creative' bank reporting is a new high for them.
Thing is, percentages are comparisons. The bank statements are obviously structured to present the percentage increase per annum against something and the bank wants you to think you are comparing it against that money sitting under your mattress. Instead they are actually comparing your return against a person handing the bank 2% of their net worth every year *for no return whatsoever*. As such the return looks like investing with them actually helped when compared to the Bank of Mattress when in fact it lost her money.
I wish these sorts of shenanigans were the exception and we could change banks to get away from it but that just isn't the case. Investment firms/departments aren't selling investment advice since their people can't even beat the base market increases on average and they surely aren't selling a structure for building wealth. What they sell is quite simply the illusion that you are doing good things with your money and they charge an incredible fortune for it. The investment experts at the bank aren't able to beat the market and the investment advisers are salespeople paid to get you into an expensive fund. Their priority is simply to do a survey with you and then regardless of the results to recommend a fund that has the bank taking the maximum percentage of your money they can get away with. If you try to swap your money into a low cost fund the bank will give you huge amounts of resistance and warnings and red tape before finally succumbing.
The simple fact is that the investment side of banks is insanely profitable because all they do is take 2% of everyone's money every year. Whether the funds go up or down is irrelevant to them so their focus is simply to trick you into ignoring the fees they charge and make it easy for you to buy expensive funds. Given the modern requirement to build up wealth over your life the state of investing is a disaster for the average person and a windfall for the thieves *cough* banks.
Wendy and I had a great conversation last night about banks and investing in particular. She got her statement for her investments over the last few years and it told her that her return was 1.12% per annum. Given the remarkable crash that occurred and the lack of a complete rebound that doesn't sound too bad but strangely the total value of her investments had actually dropped over that time. She was initially really puzzled until I pointed out that the bank had been taking close to 2% of her total money every year in fees to maintain those investments and those fees were not noted on the statement anywhere. She got pretty ticked off about this and I certainly can understand that; the fact that when the investments were made there was no mention of the size of the fees is pretty awful but the 'creative' bank reporting is a new high for them.
Thing is, percentages are comparisons. The bank statements are obviously structured to present the percentage increase per annum against something and the bank wants you to think you are comparing it against that money sitting under your mattress. Instead they are actually comparing your return against a person handing the bank 2% of their net worth every year *for no return whatsoever*. As such the return looks like investing with them actually helped when compared to the Bank of Mattress when in fact it lost her money.
I wish these sorts of shenanigans were the exception and we could change banks to get away from it but that just isn't the case. Investment firms/departments aren't selling investment advice since their people can't even beat the base market increases on average and they surely aren't selling a structure for building wealth. What they sell is quite simply the illusion that you are doing good things with your money and they charge an incredible fortune for it. The investment experts at the bank aren't able to beat the market and the investment advisers are salespeople paid to get you into an expensive fund. Their priority is simply to do a survey with you and then regardless of the results to recommend a fund that has the bank taking the maximum percentage of your money they can get away with. If you try to swap your money into a low cost fund the bank will give you huge amounts of resistance and warnings and red tape before finally succumbing.
The simple fact is that the investment side of banks is insanely profitable because all they do is take 2% of everyone's money every year. Whether the funds go up or down is irrelevant to them so their focus is simply to trick you into ignoring the fees they charge and make it easy for you to buy expensive funds. Given the modern requirement to build up wealth over your life the state of investing is a disaster for the average person and a windfall for the thieves *cough* banks.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Religion in Relationships
I have been reading a book lately called Parenting Beyond Belief. It is a collection of essays, letters and columns by a variety of authors talking about raising children as an atheist/agnostic. In it I found a story about dealing with differences in religious opinion within a marriage that really brought me back to a particular relationship I had in university. The essays were from the perspective of an atheist who married a former Catholic. Initially in their relationship the former Catholic was either against or indifferent to religion but eventually went back wholeheartedly to religion and they struggled to maintain their marriage and to raise their child but did prevail with much difficulty.
My religious relationship experience started out similar but ended up very differently. Initially the girl involved seemed pretty indifferent to religion and gave me the impression of being some sort of agnostic or perhaps a believer in non religious spirituality. I was an atheist then as now but back then I was much more sold on the side benefits of religion and felt it to be more of a mistaken curiosity than a menace. I was also overconfident and felt sure that eventually I could bring her around to my point of view. I was wrong. Eventually through the course of 3 years her attitude swung around to being much more traditionally religious and eventually it became a major factor in our breakup. We never attempted to convert or enforce values on each other but it was certainly clear from my perspective that religion was an insurmountable problem.
Certainly children figure very heavily in my doubts about having two very different religious views within a marriage. It is entirely possible to be very laissez-faire religious and essentially do nothing different from an atheist when no children are involved and to have a fine relationship that ignores that topic for many people. I am not those people mind you, as I would always challenge my partner to justify their beliefs when those beliefs are supporting groups that have committed and continue to commit terrible crimes. However, when children are involved these issues immediately come to the fore because the child has to be told what to believe and people find it very hard to watch someone they care about be imprinted with beliefs they find abhorrent or even just incorrect.
My experience with Wendy is much different. She had a religious upbringing and occasionally has moments of spirituality but they never stay for long. Inevitably I end up talking with her about what exactly she believes and the precise reasons for it and eventually we come around to the fact that it is "a nice thing to think because it makes me happy but it isn't really true." I have no problem with that - I have plenty of my own little mental tics that cause me to do strange and foolish things. The crux of the issue for me is the ability to step back from a position, evaluate the reasons for it logically and objectively and then choose an action. I might decide that walking over specific patterns of tiles on particular bits of my feet every time is fun but I don't try to insist that it is right, useful or important.
I got very lucky to end up in the situation I did I think. It is easy to end up with a tiny person standing in front of you asking "Where do people go when they die?" and look at your partner and realize that answering that question is going to create tremendous friction no matter what the answer is. I am not one to pander to "There are many paths to truth" or any other such nonsense that pretends that people can base their lives around destructive lies with no consequences and I suspect that I would end up divorced quickly had I ended up married to someone with strong religious views. My answer to the above question is as follows:
When people die their bodies eventually break down into tiny pieces that end up being part of new plants, animals, buildings, air and everything we see around us. A big part of who we are is in other people, in their feelings and memories of the things we did and how we lived. We can change people's minds in positive ways and give them memories of us so that a big part of who we are goes on long after we die.
My religious relationship experience started out similar but ended up very differently. Initially the girl involved seemed pretty indifferent to religion and gave me the impression of being some sort of agnostic or perhaps a believer in non religious spirituality. I was an atheist then as now but back then I was much more sold on the side benefits of religion and felt it to be more of a mistaken curiosity than a menace. I was also overconfident and felt sure that eventually I could bring her around to my point of view. I was wrong. Eventually through the course of 3 years her attitude swung around to being much more traditionally religious and eventually it became a major factor in our breakup. We never attempted to convert or enforce values on each other but it was certainly clear from my perspective that religion was an insurmountable problem.
Certainly children figure very heavily in my doubts about having two very different religious views within a marriage. It is entirely possible to be very laissez-faire religious and essentially do nothing different from an atheist when no children are involved and to have a fine relationship that ignores that topic for many people. I am not those people mind you, as I would always challenge my partner to justify their beliefs when those beliefs are supporting groups that have committed and continue to commit terrible crimes. However, when children are involved these issues immediately come to the fore because the child has to be told what to believe and people find it very hard to watch someone they care about be imprinted with beliefs they find abhorrent or even just incorrect.
My experience with Wendy is much different. She had a religious upbringing and occasionally has moments of spirituality but they never stay for long. Inevitably I end up talking with her about what exactly she believes and the precise reasons for it and eventually we come around to the fact that it is "a nice thing to think because it makes me happy but it isn't really true." I have no problem with that - I have plenty of my own little mental tics that cause me to do strange and foolish things. The crux of the issue for me is the ability to step back from a position, evaluate the reasons for it logically and objectively and then choose an action. I might decide that walking over specific patterns of tiles on particular bits of my feet every time is fun but I don't try to insist that it is right, useful or important.
I got very lucky to end up in the situation I did I think. It is easy to end up with a tiny person standing in front of you asking "Where do people go when they die?" and look at your partner and realize that answering that question is going to create tremendous friction no matter what the answer is. I am not one to pander to "There are many paths to truth" or any other such nonsense that pretends that people can base their lives around destructive lies with no consequences and I suspect that I would end up divorced quickly had I ended up married to someone with strong religious views. My answer to the above question is as follows:
When people die their bodies eventually break down into tiny pieces that end up being part of new plants, animals, buildings, air and everything we see around us. A big part of who we are is in other people, in their feelings and memories of the things we did and how we lived. We can change people's minds in positive ways and give them memories of us so that a big part of who we are goes on long after we die.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
3 is the loneliest number
Today I was doing some testing of various 3 player formats for FMB. Because I am designing a free flowing wargame it is obviously true that 3 players will be a challenging format as traditionally 2 people simply gangpile one guy and kill him off before going to work on each other. FMB has some things that tend to weaken that strategy because all units respawn at their controller's base after dying so actually wiping someone's army out isn't possible; you can push him back and take his Mines but you can't actually destroy him so alliances between 2 players cannot be as solid as in many wargames. The other main thing that discourages gangpiling is the victory condition; cooperating with an opponent is simply foolish once the third player is behind in score so there is a real in game advantage to backstabbing your 'partner' early on.
The simplest rules version I came up with simply has all 3 players accumulating points as fast as they can and the first player to 30 points wins. (The 2 and 4 player versions require 45 points to win.) It has the advantage of being very intuitive and the strategies are easy to understand even for a new player. If one player is particularly bad it shouldn't be a big problem because the other two players will naturally end up fighting each other more as the bad player falls behind in points. I came up with a much more devious alternative though which was based on around the idea of attacking left. In big group games of Magic this was regularly used to encourage action - the idea is that you sit in a circle and win by eliminating the opponent on your left. In FMB I set it up so that the game ends when anyone hits 30 points but that the winner is the person whose left hand opponent has the *smallest* score. This changes things drastically of course, mainly in the following ways:
1. Alliances are impossible. You cannot team up with an opponent to kill the other opponent because either you are hurting yourself by not attacking lefty or your righty is an idiot for attacking someone whose score he wants to maximize. Everyone is forced to be on their own team.
2. The game feels much less intuitive. It feels very natural to defend your territory and attack anyone who is overpowering you and much less so to throw yourself at the throat of a random opponent. Defending your own territory and preserving your army is of secondary importance which surely has a bizarre feel. I imagine for new players this might be really hard to get used to.
3. One poor player can really mess things up. If a player plays very passively (badly) and simply defends themselves then the player to their left is nearly guaranteed to win. Being able to constantly attack and not defend is an incredible advantage. This does require a pretty determinedly stupid player though, as even if they send one fast unit to lefty's home area to put pressure on the game is probably going to work fine.
The question I am mulling is whether or not a loss in intuitive, straightforward play is worth a gain in 'theoretical game perfection' whatever that means. From far away I really like the idea of attacking left and it certainly feels unique but the motivation of the wizard/general we are roleplaying seems strange indeed.
The simplest rules version I came up with simply has all 3 players accumulating points as fast as they can and the first player to 30 points wins. (The 2 and 4 player versions require 45 points to win.) It has the advantage of being very intuitive and the strategies are easy to understand even for a new player. If one player is particularly bad it shouldn't be a big problem because the other two players will naturally end up fighting each other more as the bad player falls behind in points. I came up with a much more devious alternative though which was based on around the idea of attacking left. In big group games of Magic this was regularly used to encourage action - the idea is that you sit in a circle and win by eliminating the opponent on your left. In FMB I set it up so that the game ends when anyone hits 30 points but that the winner is the person whose left hand opponent has the *smallest* score. This changes things drastically of course, mainly in the following ways:
1. Alliances are impossible. You cannot team up with an opponent to kill the other opponent because either you are hurting yourself by not attacking lefty or your righty is an idiot for attacking someone whose score he wants to maximize. Everyone is forced to be on their own team.
2. The game feels much less intuitive. It feels very natural to defend your territory and attack anyone who is overpowering you and much less so to throw yourself at the throat of a random opponent. Defending your own territory and preserving your army is of secondary importance which surely has a bizarre feel. I imagine for new players this might be really hard to get used to.
3. One poor player can really mess things up. If a player plays very passively (badly) and simply defends themselves then the player to their left is nearly guaranteed to win. Being able to constantly attack and not defend is an incredible advantage. This does require a pretty determinedly stupid player though, as even if they send one fast unit to lefty's home area to put pressure on the game is probably going to work fine.
The question I am mulling is whether or not a loss in intuitive, straightforward play is worth a gain in 'theoretical game perfection' whatever that means. From far away I really like the idea of attacking left and it certainly feels unique but the motivation of the wizard/general we are roleplaying seems strange indeed.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Bonuses
I find myself wondering how much the phrasing of a particular game effect changes the way people think about it. In particular there are a few new mechanics in the Cataclysm expansion for WOW that are obviously set up to abuse the perception of a bonus instead of a penalty. The new guild levelling system has a number of different bonuses you can get for your guild members including bonuses to getting gear with faster Honour and Hero Points as well as other percentage bonuses to gathering, mount speed, etc.
All of these things are phrased as a bonus, never as a penalty. The idea of course is that we look at all the shiny new things we are going to get and rejoice instead of being frustrated at having to overcome a deficit but any really objective look at the system must conclude that Blizzard will balance around everyone having these bonuses maxed out and anyone not having them is at a disadvantage. The initial stages will be full of people being excited by getting all these new things but I foresee that very quickly they will change from celebrated bonuses to mandatory requirements.
In particular this is going to be a real mess when starting a new guild. It will be very difficult to convince anyone to join a guild where they gain gear 9% slower, receive less resources when the mine/herb/skin and even move slower. That initial perception of 'bonus' is going to rapidly become 'required' and any new guild is going to have a hell of a hard time getting people in since they have to be that much better than an established guild. There are some bonuses that won't have this effect like the mass resurrect that will be usable in instances but any numeric bonus that directly affects the player's income and gear acquisition is going to be seen as required and guilds without them are going to have a terrible time getting new players. In my mind this is a very bad thing; players should be encouraged to join whichever guilds suit them socially rather than being very substantially rewarded for sticking with whoever has been around a long time. It may also lead to people selling guilds that have levelled up to others because of the real value in the guild name now - this might actually prove a dramatic problem when people get hacked.
A similar thing occurred when I played a game of FMB this weekend against a new player. He seemed to like the game overall but didn't like the fact that every space on the gameboard was either a neutral space or a space with movement penalties associated - no space actually gives bonuses to anything. I wonder if I should try to incorporate some bonus effects on various spots on the board. There are certainly many places in the game where I made the decision to phrase things as a bonus instead of a penalty because I find I get very strong negative feedback about effects that penalize opponents instead of providing a boost to the owner. I don't want to pander to this entirely though since a few 'screw you' effects are fine but I certainly make the vast majority of abilities work to increase the caster instead of disadvantage the opponent. It is a tricky balance to strike.
All of these things are phrased as a bonus, never as a penalty. The idea of course is that we look at all the shiny new things we are going to get and rejoice instead of being frustrated at having to overcome a deficit but any really objective look at the system must conclude that Blizzard will balance around everyone having these bonuses maxed out and anyone not having them is at a disadvantage. The initial stages will be full of people being excited by getting all these new things but I foresee that very quickly they will change from celebrated bonuses to mandatory requirements.
In particular this is going to be a real mess when starting a new guild. It will be very difficult to convince anyone to join a guild where they gain gear 9% slower, receive less resources when the mine/herb/skin and even move slower. That initial perception of 'bonus' is going to rapidly become 'required' and any new guild is going to have a hell of a hard time getting people in since they have to be that much better than an established guild. There are some bonuses that won't have this effect like the mass resurrect that will be usable in instances but any numeric bonus that directly affects the player's income and gear acquisition is going to be seen as required and guilds without them are going to have a terrible time getting new players. In my mind this is a very bad thing; players should be encouraged to join whichever guilds suit them socially rather than being very substantially rewarded for sticking with whoever has been around a long time. It may also lead to people selling guilds that have levelled up to others because of the real value in the guild name now - this might actually prove a dramatic problem when people get hacked.
A similar thing occurred when I played a game of FMB this weekend against a new player. He seemed to like the game overall but didn't like the fact that every space on the gameboard was either a neutral space or a space with movement penalties associated - no space actually gives bonuses to anything. I wonder if I should try to incorporate some bonus effects on various spots on the board. There are certainly many places in the game where I made the decision to phrase things as a bonus instead of a penalty because I find I get very strong negative feedback about effects that penalize opponents instead of providing a boost to the owner. I don't want to pander to this entirely though since a few 'screw you' effects are fine but I certainly make the vast majority of abilities work to increase the caster instead of disadvantage the opponent. It is a tricky balance to strike.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Bad Medicine
1. The test is accurate.
2. The result has meaningful predictive value.
3. There is something meaningful to be done if the test is positive.
The amazing thing is that so many extremely common medical treatments, particularly expensive and dangerous treatments, have tests that simply fail these very simple rules. I fully expected that all kinds of alternative medicine like homeopathy, naturopathy, aromatherapy, acupuncture and others would completely fail to measure up but I didn't anticipate how incredibly weak the reasons for more mainstream treatments like angioplasty, stents, prostate exams and mammography would be. It seems to be largely true that doctors want to treat patients who come to them with problems even when the problems are insoluble and that the desire to do *something* overrules the desire to do the right thing.
The best two examples in my opinion are prostate cancer and angioplasties done for heart concerns. Even if you can easily figure out if someone has prostate cancer you are faced with the problem that removing the prostate has an unimpressive rate of preventing death by prostate cancer and it causes huge numbers of problems including impotence and urinary leakage in many of those who undergo surgery. The other problem is that prostate cancer usuall takes a long time to kill people so many older patients who undergo treatment have no reason to think they will live long enough for prostate cancer to kill them. Even trying to prevent heart attack by angioplasty is noted to cause cognitive problems (due to breaking up plaques that then cause mini strokes) and is wretched to useless at saving lives since so many people die during the operation itself.
I have real first hand experience with excessive medical testing from my work. In a job I had last year I was working for a private clinic that got CEOs, VPs and the super rich to come in for massive batteries of tests each year. They were tested far more often than makes any sense even if you assume that the treatments would be helpful... and in many cases it seems that isn't true. I figured at the time that if rich people want to blow money being pandered to and tested excessively it wasn't any problem of mine since otherwise they would be buying status symbols with that cash but the fact that this was supported by doctors and was only unavailable to the public due to funding constraints is a sad state of affairs.
Just because a doctor can cut you open and make an effort to fix things inside you is no guarantee that doing so is a good idea. Testing itself costs the patient in time, stress and life disruption and invasive surgery is much worse. Although we might wish that modern medicine could solve all our health problems that is not the way things are. We would all be much better off if our doctors could tell us that there is nothing they can do but wait and see and if we were willing to accept that as the best science has to offer.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Submission
I decided that since I am essentially giving up on the idea of fighting every single business who objects to me being barefoot I should find some sort of compromise solution. Today I went out and bought myself a pair of Vibram Five Fingers shoes which you may remember from an earlier Barefoot post and you can see in the picture below.
They feel very strange initially as I have never had a sock or shoe that wraps each toe individually before. The soles are extremely thin and flexible so I can actually feel cracks in the sidewalk and the edges of paving stones quite clearly which is great because that sensation of knowing the ground I walk on was one of the big selling points of going barefoot for me. The shoes succeed dramatically in some ways:
-I can walk on rocks and hot pavement without discomfort.
-I can go into stores without fear of harassment.
-The shoes are very light if I want to carry them.
-The shoes give the same stride and exercise benefits of actually being barefoot.
They aren't as good as actually being barefoot in many ways though.
-I can't feel the breeze on my feet.
-My feet get hot and sweaty just like any other shoe which does not occur while barefoot.
The new shoes end up being not so much a replacement for being barefoot as a compromise. They are pleasant to walk in and solve all of the issues being barefoot has but they aren't quite the same. In some ways it feels ridiculous that I had to go out and solve my issues with a consumer product considering my aversion to buying things I don't strictly need. I always prefer to use things until they break before getting something to replace them but these new shoes do fill some particular niches where my current sandals utterly fail so I suppose I should just accept it and move on.
Apparently lots of other people feel the same way I do. There are only two stores in Toronto that carry these shoes and they are sold out within a few days of getting a shipment in while constantly fielding calls from people asking when more will arrive. I suppose I should enjoy being in on a new 'fashion' wave before it becomes mainstream - that may well be a first for me.
They feel very strange initially as I have never had a sock or shoe that wraps each toe individually before. The soles are extremely thin and flexible so I can actually feel cracks in the sidewalk and the edges of paving stones quite clearly which is great because that sensation of knowing the ground I walk on was one of the big selling points of going barefoot for me. The shoes succeed dramatically in some ways:
-I can walk on rocks and hot pavement without discomfort.
-I can go into stores without fear of harassment.
-The shoes are very light if I want to carry them.
-The shoes give the same stride and exercise benefits of actually being barefoot.
They aren't as good as actually being barefoot in many ways though.
-I can't feel the breeze on my feet.
-My feet get hot and sweaty just like any other shoe which does not occur while barefoot.
The new shoes end up being not so much a replacement for being barefoot as a compromise. They are pleasant to walk in and solve all of the issues being barefoot has but they aren't quite the same. In some ways it feels ridiculous that I had to go out and solve my issues with a consumer product considering my aversion to buying things I don't strictly need. I always prefer to use things until they break before getting something to replace them but these new shoes do fill some particular niches where my current sandals utterly fail so I suppose I should just accept it and move on.
Apparently lots of other people feel the same way I do. There are only two stores in Toronto that carry these shoes and they are sold out within a few days of getting a shipment in while constantly fielding calls from people asking when more will arrive. I suppose I should enjoy being in on a new 'fashion' wave before it becomes mainstream - that may well be a first for me.
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