The Boy and I figured at the current odds, it was a good time to buy McCain. He's at about 1-to-6 on Intrade. So I create an account and try to fund it--but am informed that my bank refused, apparently due to some recent Congressional shenanigans.
I'm soooo glad they're here to protect me. What would I do without their wisdom?
Meanwhile $700B gets thrown around--and wasted---on a dubious prospect. I guess it's okay to gamble with my money as long as they're doing it.
Showing posts with label rants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rants. Show all posts
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
New Link To Horror Comix Site
S. Weasel (already in my sidebar, and quite possibly in my trousers--one never knows with weasels) used an graphic for her run-in with customs. Apparently, there are arcane rules about air guns in Pifferdous Albuyin (or whatever he calls England) and even though she hadn't actually gone afoul of those rules, that was of no interest to the bureaucrat running the show.
That led me to a site where pre-code horror comics are uploaded daily. It's called The Horrors Of It All, and looks pretty cool.
I've often noted how each adult generation is just sure the youth are going to hell, and what they latch on to as "proof", and how different things were when they did more or less the same crap as kids. Horror comics--those innocuous, occasionally campy, crudely drawn, four color books were targeted in the '50s.
What the big publishers (like DC) managed to do, of course, was drive the smaller publisher (like EC) out of business by setting up a "code" and controlling it. The movie industry set up a similar barrier in the Hays Code and (to a lesser extent these days) the MPAA>
One of the things that cracks me up about the socialist/communist/radical left types is how they talk about big corporations not wanting to be regulated by the government. But of course, big corporations LOVE big government because it absolutely strangles any smaller competition: And the little guys with the ideas are the ones that kill.
And since they can influence the government, the more power it has, the more power they have.
I mean, if you want to join me on the radical fringe, you can just fight every expansion of government power you run across. I haven't worked out how that fight should go, exactly. But it needs to be an idea out there with a real champion.
Any how, this all crosses over nicely The Boy's brush with Johnny Law. Isn't it interesting how all the anti-second amendment right folk talk all the time about how the Founding Fathers couldn't possibly have imagined the devastating weapons available today? We know from history that private citizens owned the weapons that were used to fight America's early wars, including cannons and even frigates.
But even allowing that argument, on what basis should the government be allowed to restrict ownership of what are basically primitive weapons, like knives? Or shurikens! Shurikens are expressly not allowed by law!
The excuse usually given relates to gang violence. And we all know how respectful gangs are of the law, and how effective these laws are at curbing gang violence.
See, this is the main problem with government: Just because something is stupid, and everybody knows it's gone to hell, doesn't mean you can stop doing the stupid thing.
That led me to a site where pre-code horror comics are uploaded daily. It's called The Horrors Of It All, and looks pretty cool.
I've often noted how each adult generation is just sure the youth are going to hell, and what they latch on to as "proof", and how different things were when they did more or less the same crap as kids. Horror comics--those innocuous, occasionally campy, crudely drawn, four color books were targeted in the '50s.
What the big publishers (like DC) managed to do, of course, was drive the smaller publisher (like EC) out of business by setting up a "code" and controlling it. The movie industry set up a similar barrier in the Hays Code and (to a lesser extent these days) the MPAA>
One of the things that cracks me up about the socialist/communist/radical left types is how they talk about big corporations not wanting to be regulated by the government. But of course, big corporations LOVE big government because it absolutely strangles any smaller competition: And the little guys with the ideas are the ones that kill.
And since they can influence the government, the more power it has, the more power they have.
I mean, if you want to join me on the radical fringe, you can just fight every expansion of government power you run across. I haven't worked out how that fight should go, exactly. But it needs to be an idea out there with a real champion.
Any how, this all crosses over nicely The Boy's brush with Johnny Law. Isn't it interesting how all the anti-second amendment right folk talk all the time about how the Founding Fathers couldn't possibly have imagined the devastating weapons available today? We know from history that private citizens owned the weapons that were used to fight America's early wars, including cannons and even frigates.
But even allowing that argument, on what basis should the government be allowed to restrict ownership of what are basically primitive weapons, like knives? Or shurikens! Shurikens are expressly not allowed by law!
The excuse usually given relates to gang violence. And we all know how respectful gangs are of the law, and how effective these laws are at curbing gang violence.
See, this is the main problem with government: Just because something is stupid, and everybody knows it's gone to hell, doesn't mean you can stop doing the stupid thing.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
It's Hard Being Right All The Time
As the global warming house of cards tumbles, it's time to revisit my views on oil.
Like the real estate bubble, which I was vigorously assuring people would pop (I mean honestly, anyone who can afford to pay $750,000 for a house is pulling down six-figures minimum, and not that many households are doing that), I've also stated that as soon as we start sinking money into alternative fuels, the price of oil will drop to the point where those fuels are not financially feasible.
Behold! According to this, oil is below $70 per barrel. The most feasible of the alternatives I've read about is shale oil. (Still oil, but in crunchy form.) According to this, shale costs more than $60 per barrel, though I've seen estimates that it can be brought in slightly cheaper.
Russia's slap-happy waking bear dreams aside, I would suggest that oil can't be kept higher than the price that encourages alternatives. I mean, obviously, if you have magic car-moving goo for $90 barrel then oil can't go higher than that, or people will buy MCMG.
But also, the higher the price of a barrel, the more the alternatives can cost, and therefore the greater the interest in providing those alternatives.
Simple, eh?
Oil producers are simply motivated: They want as much money as they can get for what they have for as long as possible. By reducing output, they raise the prices and extend the longevity of their supply. But people will simply use less, on the one hand, and look for alternatives on the other.
The oilmen know this and act accordingly.
Eventually, I'm sure, we'll get to that better form of fuel. But it'll probably be something we don't even see now, maybe taking advantage of physics we don't even understand yet, say, at the quark or sub-quark level.
That would be cool. In the mean time, enjoy your oil. How low will it go? Think it might go back to sub-$50? Sub-$20?
That, I cannot say. I do like to point out that the peak oil people assured us it could only go up from here, much like the global warming people.
I'm petty that way.
Like the real estate bubble, which I was vigorously assuring people would pop (I mean honestly, anyone who can afford to pay $750,000 for a house is pulling down six-figures minimum, and not that many households are doing that), I've also stated that as soon as we start sinking money into alternative fuels, the price of oil will drop to the point where those fuels are not financially feasible.
Behold! According to this, oil is below $70 per barrel. The most feasible of the alternatives I've read about is shale oil. (Still oil, but in crunchy form.) According to this, shale costs more than $60 per barrel, though I've seen estimates that it can be brought in slightly cheaper.
Russia's slap-happy waking bear dreams aside, I would suggest that oil can't be kept higher than the price that encourages alternatives. I mean, obviously, if you have magic car-moving goo for $90 barrel then oil can't go higher than that, or people will buy MCMG.
But also, the higher the price of a barrel, the more the alternatives can cost, and therefore the greater the interest in providing those alternatives.
Simple, eh?
Oil producers are simply motivated: They want as much money as they can get for what they have for as long as possible. By reducing output, they raise the prices and extend the longevity of their supply. But people will simply use less, on the one hand, and look for alternatives on the other.
The oilmen know this and act accordingly.
Eventually, I'm sure, we'll get to that better form of fuel. But it'll probably be something we don't even see now, maybe taking advantage of physics we don't even understand yet, say, at the quark or sub-quark level.
That would be cool. In the mean time, enjoy your oil. How low will it go? Think it might go back to sub-$50? Sub-$20?
That, I cannot say. I do like to point out that the peak oil people assured us it could only go up from here, much like the global warming people.
I'm petty that way.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
My Oil Platform
As regular readers know (both of them), I'm pro-gasoline. Love the stuff. Would put it on my cereal in the morning.
So, as a public service, the Bit Maelstrom is going to state its position on oil drilling, in case any enterprising politician wants our vote. (Sure, it's only one, but it's quality, not quantity, right?)
We've got to get over this attachment to pieces of the crust that we call "nature". "Nature" herself is going to destroy it all when we're dust--after killing us (or alongside of killing us in a twofer). That's what she does. She'll bury the redwoods under a mega-volcano, and Rushmore will collapse under some tectonic plate shifting in due time.
The only permanence we have is that which we carve, bloody, out of what narrow windows of opportunity the universe gives life. To do less than carve everything we can to prolong our (probably fleeting) existence is nihilism.
And nihilism, as the Dude says, is exhausting.
So, as a public service, the Bit Maelstrom is going to state its position on oil drilling, in case any enterprising politician wants our vote. (Sure, it's only one, but it's quality, not quantity, right?)
Wherever there may be oil, we should allow drilling. That means if there's oil under the redwoods, we drill. If there's oil in my backyard, we drill. If there's oil on Mount Rushmore, Lincoln's getting a lobotomy.
We've got to get over this attachment to pieces of the crust that we call "nature". "Nature" herself is going to destroy it all when we're dust--after killing us (or alongside of killing us in a twofer). That's what she does. She'll bury the redwoods under a mega-volcano, and Rushmore will collapse under some tectonic plate shifting in due time.
The only permanence we have is that which we carve, bloody, out of what narrow windows of opportunity the universe gives life. To do less than carve everything we can to prolong our (probably fleeting) existence is nihilism.
And nihilism, as the Dude says, is exhausting.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Fault-Proof to a Fault.
Commenter William over at Althouse, in the anthrax thread, wrote:
Civilization, of course, has a very high tolerance for error, at least at this point. In other times and places, minor errors can threaten it, which is why societies enter stoic. The tolerance of error is why societies exit epicurean, as well. In other words, when your survival depends on strict behavioral codes, then the homosexuals in your culture are stoned, unless they line up and have children like the everyone else. Thievery costs a hand. Blasphemy--which is an attack on the code--results in crucifixion. And so on.
Ultimately, society becomes "safe", and therefore soft, and ultimately is destroyed by not realizing the cost of each individual transgression against the whole. I think this is most readily apparent in Western Europe, where Islam is permitted unthinkable sins (rape, violence and even murder) because, at least at some level, nobody can actually conceive of Paris or London or Rome falling.
The various links that hold things together can be strained: The current oil bubble is an example of that. A combination of speculation, inflated dollars, and refusal to produce in the face of rising demand, causes some discomfort. Then the response comes in the form of decreased consumption, pressure to control inflation, and abandonment of seemingly cherished-beliefs-that-are-in-fact-fads (environmentalism).
Even outright evil in the form of overt attempts to destroy a civilization can be easily handled. (They can even be a "good thing", for reasons explained later.) Even knocking down the WTC--which was timed exquisitely (however coincidentally) to wreak havoc on the economy--was ultimately a minor blip.
Although it doesn't get reported much, the economy under most of Bush's two terms was about as strong as it was under Clinton. (Clinton inherited a great economy and left a mess, while Bush inherited a mess and will leave a mess, but both had good--even great--times in between. And, of course, they had little to do with the successes and failures of the economy, which is why President is such a sucker job.)
Remarkable when you consider that Clinton's term took place during a time when we didn't consider ourselves to have any serious enemies, and Bush's time has been a constant war.
Civilization trucks on. Fault-proof to a fault, you could say.
What kills civilization is corruption. Where the corruption begins--i.e., it is possible to have noble leaders and corrupt populous, just as it's possible to have noble people and a corrupt leadership, Confucius notwithstanding--almost doesn't matter. Americans have traditionally been hardasses, I think, much better people than our leaders have reflected, which is why a political career used to be so fragile.
It's not so true any more. Because wherever the corruption starts, it ultimately spreads. If anyone ever felt any romantic attachment to any mdoern communist government at any time, all you'd have to do is point out that corruption was rampant in all of them from the get-go. Anyone could get out of the USSR with enough bribe money.
Various populations of the US have elected convicted felons to office often enough to suggest that, at some level, other concerns now trump any concerns about corruption.
Not to suggest our impending doom, or anything. Civilizations spiral downward and one can always believe that things are different now than they've been before.
Ironically, a direct attack on a civilization can be "helpful". The sort of patriotism engendered by WWII and even a few weeks after 9/11 can make corruption seem treasonous--which it really is. It's a lot harder to brook corruption when you're sacrificing.
Then there's the idea--codified by the left, but used by everyone long before--that truth is secondary to partisanship. Think "I'd rather be wrong with _____ than right with ______". One this idea becomes ensconced, once it's apparent that, at long last, there is no shame, you have a society on the way out.
Although it seems bad today, it's probably not as bad as all that. 1jpb wrote in the treadmill thread, the French are somewhat shocked by Carla Bruni. The French! We get a homogenous view of other people thanks to the homogenous media, but really, Europe isn't completely filled with effete, amoral pseudo-intellectuals.
But this brings me to another post, on why I hate politics.
What was so scary about the anthrax scare was that it took just one bright individual to sabotage a basic service of civilization....The sniper nut and his young companion in the Wash-Virginia area weren't even all that bright...There are so many moving parts, many with a zero tolerance for error, that keep civilization pumping out the goodies that it's a wonder it all hangs together-- especially when you consider how many would love to see it all fall apart....
Civilization, of course, has a very high tolerance for error, at least at this point. In other times and places, minor errors can threaten it, which is why societies enter stoic. The tolerance of error is why societies exit epicurean, as well. In other words, when your survival depends on strict behavioral codes, then the homosexuals in your culture are stoned, unless they line up and have children like the everyone else. Thievery costs a hand. Blasphemy--which is an attack on the code--results in crucifixion. And so on.
Ultimately, society becomes "safe", and therefore soft, and ultimately is destroyed by not realizing the cost of each individual transgression against the whole. I think this is most readily apparent in Western Europe, where Islam is permitted unthinkable sins (rape, violence and even murder) because, at least at some level, nobody can actually conceive of Paris or London or Rome falling.
The various links that hold things together can be strained: The current oil bubble is an example of that. A combination of speculation, inflated dollars, and refusal to produce in the face of rising demand, causes some discomfort. Then the response comes in the form of decreased consumption, pressure to control inflation, and abandonment of seemingly cherished-beliefs-that-are-in-fact-fads (environmentalism).
Even outright evil in the form of overt attempts to destroy a civilization can be easily handled. (They can even be a "good thing", for reasons explained later.) Even knocking down the WTC--which was timed exquisitely (however coincidentally) to wreak havoc on the economy--was ultimately a minor blip.
Although it doesn't get reported much, the economy under most of Bush's two terms was about as strong as it was under Clinton. (Clinton inherited a great economy and left a mess, while Bush inherited a mess and will leave a mess, but both had good--even great--times in between. And, of course, they had little to do with the successes and failures of the economy, which is why President is such a sucker job.)
Remarkable when you consider that Clinton's term took place during a time when we didn't consider ourselves to have any serious enemies, and Bush's time has been a constant war.
Civilization trucks on. Fault-proof to a fault, you could say.
What kills civilization is corruption. Where the corruption begins--i.e., it is possible to have noble leaders and corrupt populous, just as it's possible to have noble people and a corrupt leadership, Confucius notwithstanding--almost doesn't matter. Americans have traditionally been hardasses, I think, much better people than our leaders have reflected, which is why a political career used to be so fragile.
It's not so true any more. Because wherever the corruption starts, it ultimately spreads. If anyone ever felt any romantic attachment to any mdoern communist government at any time, all you'd have to do is point out that corruption was rampant in all of them from the get-go. Anyone could get out of the USSR with enough bribe money.
Various populations of the US have elected convicted felons to office often enough to suggest that, at some level, other concerns now trump any concerns about corruption.
Not to suggest our impending doom, or anything. Civilizations spiral downward and one can always believe that things are different now than they've been before.
Ironically, a direct attack on a civilization can be "helpful". The sort of patriotism engendered by WWII and even a few weeks after 9/11 can make corruption seem treasonous--which it really is. It's a lot harder to brook corruption when you're sacrificing.
Then there's the idea--codified by the left, but used by everyone long before--that truth is secondary to partisanship. Think "I'd rather be wrong with _____ than right with ______". One this idea becomes ensconced, once it's apparent that, at long last, there is no shame, you have a society on the way out.
Although it seems bad today, it's probably not as bad as all that. 1jpb wrote in the treadmill thread, the French are somewhat shocked by Carla Bruni. The French! We get a homogenous view of other people thanks to the homogenous media, but really, Europe isn't completely filled with effete, amoral pseudo-intellectuals.
But this brings me to another post, on why I hate politics.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Say what?
Apparently, Time-Warner is planning to spend $25M on advertising the DVD for the moderately successful (and surpriginly good) Horton Hears A Who, with the idea that its target audience is, you know, addled (either from having children or being children). No, that's not it. It's that they have the book, so they'll want the movie.
Well, okay. I like the movie, but I barely associate it with the book. No loud-ass blockbuster Jim Carrey flick is on the same plane as a book. Not saying better or worse, just not comparable. But, okay, that's just me. Others doubtless go, "Ooh! A movie based on a book! That I've read!" and snap it right up.
OK, so with a $25M ad budget how much are pricing these at in order to move those puppies?
$29.99
Say what? My initial shock was ameliorated somewhat when I realized that that was the "retail price", i.e., the price you pay at the convenience store for, you know, convenience, and that the real price will be somewhere in the $20, probably $15-25.
Still, I have to wonder if they've really worked out the curve on this.
My first "real" job was for Paramount Home Video. I was customer support. I don't mean that I worked in customer support, I mean that I was customer support. And it was a part time job. (The other part of the job was accounting.)
At this time, it was commong for videos to cost $40-$50, or about 30 gallons of gas, if you want to scale for inflation. (What? What do you mean that doesn't work?) Anyway, it amounted to over $100 in modern "fun-time bucks", or whatever we're calling greenbacks today. You could pay $100 for a copy of Gator Bait, or other movies that were "priced to rent".
Not long before I got there, some genius at Paramount had figured out that if you sell a video for $20, instead of $40, you sold a whole lot more videos. In fact, they had launched a big promotion with Pepsi and (I think) Burger King, in conjunction with that modern classic Top Gun (dir. Tony Scott).
And they had, for the first time, sold over one billion copies of the Tom Cruise/Val Kilmer love story.
What? OK, one million copies. But they sold 'em lightning fast. And they sold another million pretty damn fast as well.
Over the years, prices have dropped both on the tag and in real dollars. I don't know about y'all, but that makes me very inclined to pick a movie up casually. $7 for the Bedazzled remake? Worth it just for Elizabeth Hurley's 14 outfits. (And she's the weakest part of that movie!)
I've noticed that the HD--well, not anymore, but the Blu-Ray movies are back up to $30 and $40. Whoa! Shock to the system! Since a big part of the high-def push is to find ways to lock content down, you might think they'd use marginally higher prices (on the newer stuff that actually benefits from high-def) while keeping older classics at the same prices (or even lower!). That would be a very compelling argument for getting a new player.
Then they could sneak in whatever dastardly content protection they wanted.
Unfortunately, they are the greediest of the greedy. They fought VCRs tooth and nail, and when they lost that battle, they made billions off the VCR. They really feel that not only do they deserve to charge you $40 for a movie that was made before any of them were born, but that the laws of the land should be changed to make it so that they can charge you whatever they want long after their bones are dust.
Of course, the bandwidth for truly high-high-high def stuff isn't out there. You can't get a computer to deliver it. But now that the cat is out of the bag that you're not actually getting it when you pay for it, from your cable/sat/etc company, it'll be intriguing to see how it all plays out.
Oh, and the $30 for Horton. Well, when I worked there, one of the most expensive movies we had that wasn't rent-to-own was The Godfather. You needed two video tapes, and it cost about $70 bucks ($150 or so today). Cost to Paramount to make those tapes? $2.62.
DVDs are even cheaper, however you measure.
Well, okay. I like the movie, but I barely associate it with the book. No loud-ass blockbuster Jim Carrey flick is on the same plane as a book. Not saying better or worse, just not comparable. But, okay, that's just me. Others doubtless go, "Ooh! A movie based on a book! That I've read!" and snap it right up.
OK, so with a $25M ad budget how much are pricing these at in order to move those puppies?
$29.99
Say what? My initial shock was ameliorated somewhat when I realized that that was the "retail price", i.e., the price you pay at the convenience store for, you know, convenience, and that the real price will be somewhere in the $20, probably $15-25.
Still, I have to wonder if they've really worked out the curve on this.
My first "real" job was for Paramount Home Video. I was customer support. I don't mean that I worked in customer support, I mean that I was customer support. And it was a part time job. (The other part of the job was accounting.)
At this time, it was commong for videos to cost $40-$50, or about 30 gallons of gas, if you want to scale for inflation. (What? What do you mean that doesn't work?) Anyway, it amounted to over $100 in modern "fun-time bucks", or whatever we're calling greenbacks today. You could pay $100 for a copy of Gator Bait, or other movies that were "priced to rent".
Not long before I got there, some genius at Paramount had figured out that if you sell a video for $20, instead of $40, you sold a whole lot more videos. In fact, they had launched a big promotion with Pepsi and (I think) Burger King, in conjunction with that modern classic Top Gun (dir. Tony Scott).
And they had, for the first time, sold over one billion copies of the Tom Cruise/Val Kilmer love story.
What? OK, one million copies. But they sold 'em lightning fast. And they sold another million pretty damn fast as well.
Over the years, prices have dropped both on the tag and in real dollars. I don't know about y'all, but that makes me very inclined to pick a movie up casually. $7 for the Bedazzled remake? Worth it just for Elizabeth Hurley's 14 outfits. (And she's the weakest part of that movie!)
I've noticed that the HD--well, not anymore, but the Blu-Ray movies are back up to $30 and $40. Whoa! Shock to the system! Since a big part of the high-def push is to find ways to lock content down, you might think they'd use marginally higher prices (on the newer stuff that actually benefits from high-def) while keeping older classics at the same prices (or even lower!). That would be a very compelling argument for getting a new player.
Then they could sneak in whatever dastardly content protection they wanted.
Unfortunately, they are the greediest of the greedy. They fought VCRs tooth and nail, and when they lost that battle, they made billions off the VCR. They really feel that not only do they deserve to charge you $40 for a movie that was made before any of them were born, but that the laws of the land should be changed to make it so that they can charge you whatever they want long after their bones are dust.
Of course, the bandwidth for truly high-high-high def stuff isn't out there. You can't get a computer to deliver it. But now that the cat is out of the bag that you're not actually getting it when you pay for it, from your cable/sat/etc company, it'll be intriguing to see how it all plays out.
Oh, and the $30 for Horton. Well, when I worked there, one of the most expensive movies we had that wasn't rent-to-own was The Godfather. You needed two video tapes, and it cost about $70 bucks ($150 or so today). Cost to Paramount to make those tapes? $2.62.
DVDs are even cheaper, however you measure.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Pet Peeve of the Milennium
Know what I hate?
Really, really hate?
You know how when you're watching a TV show and then the commercial comes on at double the volume? I have that licked: I stopped watching TV with commercials, for the most part.
But in recent years, movies and TV shows are mixed so that dialogue is very, very quiet, while the transitional music is super loud. And special effects.
Don't these dunderheads know that you want a much smaller range of audio dynamics for home viewing than in the theater--and frankly, it's overdone in the theater, too. If the only way you can get a reaction out of the audience is to turn the volume to 11, maybe it's time to pack it in, mm-kay?
I was just trying to watch Secret Diary of a Call Girl with the lovely Billie Piper (Rose from "Dr. Who") and it was done in this muttering dialogue style with loud transitional music.
It's TV, fellas, mix it down!
Really, really hate?
You know how when you're watching a TV show and then the commercial comes on at double the volume? I have that licked: I stopped watching TV with commercials, for the most part.
But in recent years, movies and TV shows are mixed so that dialogue is very, very quiet, while the transitional music is super loud. And special effects.
Don't these dunderheads know that you want a much smaller range of audio dynamics for home viewing than in the theater--and frankly, it's overdone in the theater, too. If the only way you can get a reaction out of the audience is to turn the volume to 11, maybe it's time to pack it in, mm-kay?
I was just trying to watch Secret Diary of a Call Girl with the lovely Billie Piper (Rose from "Dr. Who") and it was done in this muttering dialogue style with loud transitional music.
It's TV, fellas, mix it down!
Saturday, July 26, 2008
The Pauline Kael "Nobody I Know Voted For Nixon" Award
Even though it's pretty well established that she didn't actually say it as it's commonly reported, like fictitious suicidal lemmings and boiling frogs, Pauline Kael will be forever known as saying nobody she knew voted for Nixon, and symbolizing the New York City dweller's out-of-touchness with the rest of the country (which voted for Nixon in one of the great electoral and popular massacres of American history).
I therefore institute the Pauline Kael Award for Insularity, and make its first nominee yet another NY Times writer, Dan Ariely, for his article "Eyes off the Price".
Mr Ariely suggests that it's the very act of watching the price go up that makes us more sensitive to price increases there than other places. That we don't notice the other prices going up because we don't spend the money in the same way.
Really? If you've got a bunch of kids and they go through a gallon of milk a day, you think you don't notice the price going from $2.99 on average to $4.29 in six months--as happened between January 2007 when the ethanol push started, and June 2007?
You don't notice the weekly food bill going from $250 to $350 over a year? You don't notice the water and power bill when it spikes?
Five years ago gas was under $2 and today it's over $4, which makes the increase considerably greater than the increase in milk prices (albeit less condensed).
That's why we notice.
The people who don't notice price hikes in other items are people with lots of disposable income they're not paying much attention to. (I suppose you could be someone without a lot of disposable income whose not paying much attention to it, too, but eventually it'll up and slap you in the face.)
I dunno, maybe I'm off-base. But not everyone drives. Most everyone eats. The food price spike probably hurts a lot more.
I therefore institute the Pauline Kael Award for Insularity, and make its first nominee yet another NY Times writer, Dan Ariely, for his article "Eyes off the Price".
Mr Ariely suggests that it's the very act of watching the price go up that makes us more sensitive to price increases there than other places. That we don't notice the other prices going up because we don't spend the money in the same way.
Really? If you've got a bunch of kids and they go through a gallon of milk a day, you think you don't notice the price going from $2.99 on average to $4.29 in six months--as happened between January 2007 when the ethanol push started, and June 2007?
You don't notice the weekly food bill going from $250 to $350 over a year? You don't notice the water and power bill when it spikes?
Five years ago gas was under $2 and today it's over $4, which makes the increase considerably greater than the increase in milk prices (albeit less condensed).
That's why we notice.
The people who don't notice price hikes in other items are people with lots of disposable income they're not paying much attention to. (I suppose you could be someone without a lot of disposable income whose not paying much attention to it, too, but eventually it'll up and slap you in the face.)
I dunno, maybe I'm off-base. But not everyone drives. Most everyone eats. The food price spike probably hurts a lot more.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Bachelorhood and Society
"I was unaware that anybody owed society anything."
Nobody commented on "I was unaware that anybody owed society anything" at all. Maybe they just ignored it, but I tend to think when something like that gets passed up, it's because there's not a lot of disagreement.
I remember thinking the same thing, when I was a teenager. You know, "What has society ever done for me?" kind of stuff. And it's really that sort of thinking that lies behind the justifications that (say) our officials use to gradually destroy society.
There's not even good faith, much of the time.
What's more, if you point it out, you're obviously a greedy right-wing neocon fascist. I'm an open borders guy, but if I'm asked about the impact on the various social programs, the best answer I can come up with "Get rid of them and it won't be a problem." Most people find that extreme.
Life for the elected elite doesn't seem to be suffering along with our infrastructure. Take that bridge that collapsed last year in Minnesota. I think it was, attributed to some incompetence at the time of its construction. But couldn't there have been some money in the budget to check those things out more frequently? Did we do all that we reasonably could?
Or did someone in office (or someone well connected) have better uses for our tax dollars?
You can argue--fairly, I think--that there will always be some corruption, some waste, whether private or public sector organizations are involved.
But how much of the deterioration of our world comes down to someone not being aware that they owed something to society?
This was from the comments thread at Dr. Helen's site on a topic that might have been labeled Bachelors: Menace or Threat?
You're not the only one unaware of that.
Consider, however, that this society and all others exist because someone felt they did owe society something, and that this society degrades and will cease to exist because people think the sum total of history's efforts up to this point was to allow them an entirely self-involved life.
Nobody commented on "I was unaware that anybody owed society anything" at all. Maybe they just ignored it, but I tend to think when something like that gets passed up, it's because there's not a lot of disagreement.
I remember thinking the same thing, when I was a teenager. You know, "What has society ever done for me?" kind of stuff. And it's really that sort of thinking that lies behind the justifications that (say) our officials use to gradually destroy society.
There's not even good faith, much of the time.
What's more, if you point it out, you're obviously a greedy right-wing neocon fascist. I'm an open borders guy, but if I'm asked about the impact on the various social programs, the best answer I can come up with "Get rid of them and it won't be a problem." Most people find that extreme.
Life for the elected elite doesn't seem to be suffering along with our infrastructure. Take that bridge that collapsed last year in Minnesota. I think it was, attributed to some incompetence at the time of its construction. But couldn't there have been some money in the budget to check those things out more frequently? Did we do all that we reasonably could?
Or did someone in office (or someone well connected) have better uses for our tax dollars?
You can argue--fairly, I think--that there will always be some corruption, some waste, whether private or public sector organizations are involved.
But how much of the deterioration of our world comes down to someone not being aware that they owed something to society?
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Just a slob like one of us...
A few days ago on Althouse, the topic of God sprang from a post about whether Einstein was an atheist or not. I'm doubtless flattering myself here, but when I read Einstein on God, I'm usually seeing in what he writes a reflection of how I feel on the topic.
When someone asks me, "Do you believe in God?" I generally have to reply with "What do you mean by God". Althouse regular cum gadfly Revenant calls me to task by saying:
Now, there is a dictionary definition for "God", of course:
But, oh, what arguments you can find in that simple definition. Omnipotent? What about free will? A lot of religions argue that he can't mess with free will. (And, by the way, can't and won't are the same for the purposes of this discussion.)
Ruler of the universe? Yes, there are some who believe that God rules the universe like a king rules his kingdom, but last I checked he's issued no taxation decrees. No bans against trans-fats. No suspensions of gravity on holidays. Yes, there are commandments and prophets and all that, but really, in a lot of the big theologies, this universe is a virtual sandbox, and God doesn't get to the ruling part till after we leave it.
"God", "angels" or "ghosts" are used to explain many things people don't understand. (And who's to say that those explanations aren't correct? If I were God, an angel or a ghost, I probably wouldn't take kindly to microscopes.) There's nothing to rule out the possibility of a "god", either, coming out of hiding to paint a face on a tortilla or make a statue weep blood. (Are the supernatural beings all just practical jokers? Maybe. Gotta be boring being dead.)
Anyway, if you take that ruling part out, and you're left with some guy (heh) who knows everything. And some would say he doesn't know everything--since with free will, that might be problematic--but that he watches everything.
This is probably the biggest bone of contention I have with discussing the matter. A God who is but does not do--you know, what are we talking about? And when the question arises, it's usually not someone who, like Einstein, was looking out at the universe and wondering, but someone who's really asking "Do you agree with my dogma?" No, I don't, but please don't kill me.
Well, okay, let's forget about what He does or doesn't do, but focus on origination. God is the Creator. That works pretty well. We could say He created the universe and all of us as well . That would be a pretty good definition of God.
Would the being that did that be a being that we could, in any sense, understand? Maybe. Maybe he's just a slob like one of us, only super-powered. But maybe the awareness and power comes from a different sort of consciousness altogether. Even the people who are fond of envisioning God as a giant old white-bearded man in flowing robes maintain that we can't fathom the mind or the workings of God.
There's another issue, regarding the word "exist". Years ago I read a website by an atheist who had a FAQ that read "How do you know God doesn't exist?" and his answer was "God told me that he doesn't exist." He had an explanation of how he had come to talk to God, but there was a certain sense there.
God, if he created the universe, isn't really of the universe. He doesn't exist as you and I exist. Or he might, in the form of an avatar, but He, Himself, doesn't occupy a space or time within the universe. In that sense, he doesn't exist. (How about them apples? If God created the universe, he doesn't exist. Heh.)
On the other hand, what if God is the universe? He doesn't exist; he is existence. We see him in f=ma and E=MC2. Or at least part of him. In that sense, every scientist is studying God.
And that I believe in.
When someone asks me, "Do you believe in God?" I generally have to reply with "What do you mean by God". Althouse regular cum gadfly Revenant calls me to task by saying:
The most accurate definition of "God" is the one most widely accepted by people.My problem with that is that I don't think people sit down and agree on said definition widely. Er, widely sit down and agree. What I mean is, have you ever asked someone what that is? The definition of "God" is rather incomplete and mismatched person-to-person, which is probably where 90% of the arguments come from.
As a contrast, we could talk about god-with-a-small-g. We could define "god" pretty easily as a being with an innate and significantly greater power over natural events. Greek, Nordic and Egyptian mythologies, for example, are populated by gods that, as terrible as they are, are also very limited in scope. Human, even. With frailties and mortality. These gods directly impacted people and performed specific duties.
Now we can argue very precisely about "gods" in general, or any specific "god", such as Thor. Or, say, Helios by noting that no one has seen his chariot pulling the sun.
I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that "gods", if they ever existed, are hiding pretty well now.
Now, there is a dictionary definition for "God", of course:
A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
But, oh, what arguments you can find in that simple definition. Omnipotent? What about free will? A lot of religions argue that he can't mess with free will. (And, by the way, can't and won't are the same for the purposes of this discussion.)
Ruler of the universe? Yes, there are some who believe that God rules the universe like a king rules his kingdom, but last I checked he's issued no taxation decrees. No bans against trans-fats. No suspensions of gravity on holidays. Yes, there are commandments and prophets and all that, but really, in a lot of the big theologies, this universe is a virtual sandbox, and God doesn't get to the ruling part till after we leave it.
"God", "angels" or "ghosts" are used to explain many things people don't understand. (And who's to say that those explanations aren't correct? If I were God, an angel or a ghost, I probably wouldn't take kindly to microscopes.) There's nothing to rule out the possibility of a "god", either, coming out of hiding to paint a face on a tortilla or make a statue weep blood. (Are the supernatural beings all just practical jokers? Maybe. Gotta be boring being dead.)
Anyway, if you take that ruling part out, and you're left with some guy (heh) who knows everything. And some would say he doesn't know everything--since with free will, that might be problematic--but that he watches everything.
This is probably the biggest bone of contention I have with discussing the matter. A God who is but does not do--you know, what are we talking about? And when the question arises, it's usually not someone who, like Einstein, was looking out at the universe and wondering, but someone who's really asking "Do you agree with my dogma?" No, I don't, but please don't kill me.
Well, okay, let's forget about what He does or doesn't do, but focus on origination. God is the Creator. That works pretty well. We could say He created the universe and all of us as well . That would be a pretty good definition of God.
We could, of course, totally complicate the topic and say God created neither us nor the universe, but that we create the universe with our shared perception of it, and we have no clue about what's going on in reality, an idea that hearkens to Plato and the Hindu concept of maya, but let's assume that, even there, if we're all playing some massive game of D&D, there's a meta-Dungeon Master, and He created the basement we're playing in, and the Doritos we're eating. But we won't.The problem with that, to my mind, is that, well, we're here. The universe is here. Something created the universe (or so it seems) and something created us (unless we were always here).
Would the being that did that be a being that we could, in any sense, understand? Maybe. Maybe he's just a slob like one of us, only super-powered. But maybe the awareness and power comes from a different sort of consciousness altogether. Even the people who are fond of envisioning God as a giant old white-bearded man in flowing robes maintain that we can't fathom the mind or the workings of God.
There's another issue, regarding the word "exist". Years ago I read a website by an atheist who had a FAQ that read "How do you know God doesn't exist?" and his answer was "God told me that he doesn't exist." He had an explanation of how he had come to talk to God, but there was a certain sense there.
God, if he created the universe, isn't really of the universe. He doesn't exist as you and I exist. Or he might, in the form of an avatar, but He, Himself, doesn't occupy a space or time within the universe. In that sense, he doesn't exist. (How about them apples? If God created the universe, he doesn't exist. Heh.)
On the other hand, what if God is the universe? He doesn't exist; he is existence. We see him in f=ma and E=MC2. Or at least part of him. In that sense, every scientist is studying God.
And that I believe in.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Marriage, A Gay Old Time
Actually, I'm on the verge of turning the Bit Maelstrom into a full-on breast blog (possibly with a dissertation about the '80s Afghan revolt against the Russian Invaders) since that's what everyone comes here to see.
So, yeah, I'm pro-breasts (pointy or otherwise). And no, Charlie Wilson's War wasn't historically accurate, though parts were true. Also, all those peak oil guys who say that the world is coming to an end but it's not just a crazy prophecy of some mad cult? They're the crazy prophets of a mad cult.
Anyway, with that aside, the issue of who can marry whom has come up again in this fine state of California. In this case, the California Supreme Court has (once again) overridden the wishes of the people to say that, in fact, same-sex marriage is not only a right, it's always been a right according to the state constitution.
Now, it seems to me that if that were the case, same-sex marriage would have been established by two people of the same sex getting married, the state refusing to acknowledge it, and then the court saying the state has no right to refuse to acknowledge it. But I certainly might have that wrong.
Let me say, first of all, that I have no personal interest in who marries whom. As I understand it, one can arrange almost any sort of domestic situation one wants (hetero, homo or poly) except a bestial or pedophilia relationship (and maybe incestuous) and set up almost any sort of legal arrangement one wants.
Also, as I understand it, domestic partners have all the same rights as married couples, and certainly since palimony it hasn't mattered so much whether a couple is actually married. (California doesn't recognize common law marriage.) These days, it would probably make sense for married couples to create a nuptial contract and revisit it every year. (This might sound horribly clinical, but it actually could be quite romantic.)
If that's true, and it's really just about the word "marriage", well, you know what I call a couple of guys in a permanent committed relationship? "Married." Really. What else you gonna call it?
My preference? Marriage either gets a strict definition by the state that benefits the state, or the state gets its nose out of the union business. The latter being preferable.
So, having established my relative lack of concern over how people bond and what they call it, I'm going to expound a little on my understanding of marriage, and why I'm not entirely unsympathetic to cultural conservatives on the issue.
Despite everything I learned from the '70s, personal happiness actually ranks very low down on the list of societal concerns. No, really! It's true: Society doesn't care if you're happy. Society cares about its own survival and as long as you do your part to continue it, you can be as happy or as miserable as you like. So, the social importance of marriage is that you stick with one person, create the next generation, and raise them in such a way that they go on to continue society.
When you think about it, the idea that billions (or thousands, if you prefer) of years of struggle and hardship is going to come to its end because, you know, some gal wants to pursue a career, or some guy just doesn't care for female company--it's the ultimate in self-centered-ness.
Society's historical answer to the question of personal fulfillment--assuming it entertained the notion at all--was to simply not allow women to do anything but create the next generation, and to force gays to marry and produce offspring.
The other part of the equation was to discourage or disallow divorce, adultery, polygamy and fornication--to say nothing of onanism and homosexual activity. Basically, society figured out the best way to secure its own survival was to get people married pretty quickly, reproducing ASAP, and bonded forever, while outlawing sexual activity that didn't produce offspring.
These are the rules of a highly fragile society, one deeply concerned about its own survival. And it may be a coincidence, but every society that moves away from these principles dies. Will Durant wrote that every society enters stoic and exits epicurean. The Western world has been in full epicurean mode for decades.
Anyway, in the historical context, the definition of marriage is very clear, and very clearly not inclusive of homosexuality. One argument I've heard as an attempt to defend homosexual marriage "What about childless couples?" Well, until recently, the pressure for couples to have children was tremendous, and an inability to have children has historically been grounds for annulment.
It was really the '70s that turned divorce into a casual event, degraded "women's work" and made childlessness into a respectable option. And, also, at that point, made marriage into a word that applies (or should apply) equally to any people seeking to find happiness and fulfillment in long-term committed sexual relationships.
I don't know if anyone will read this, and find it less likely that anyone will care, but it's something I had to learn over many years. And the funky-funny thing is that there is tremendous happiness possible the old way, while allowing people to pursue personal pleasure has probably not resulted in any net gain in happiness for people over all.
So, why would I not personally fight to preserve the definition of marriage? For one thing, because it's long gone, and it's unlikely that heteros are going to be lining up to give marriage back to its original gravity. Secondly, since that is what has to happen--groups of people have to agree to restore the society-serving definition of marriage--it's not something the government can do. It's a social and religious thing, and requires people to look beyond themselves--not something they're generally encouraged to do.
The pendulum may swing back: a lot of victims of the "Do Your Own Thing" '70s (and beyond) are now grown and may take child-rearing and marriage more seriously than their parents did.
As I've said before, a society can be judged on its kindness to outliers, and I don't think it's likely we'll ever go back to the days when assaulting gays was acceptable and women had to put up with abuse because society's prohibitions against divorce were so strong. But it is possible to elevate individual fulfillment above society's survival needs, and this usually results in a barbaric culture where outliers must hide or be destroyed.
As a footnote: Some maintain that the California supreme court just overrode the will of the people in the service of a liberal agenda. Not surprisingly, this pisses off some and pleases others. For me, it just seems like business-as-usual in the Golden State.
So, yeah, I'm pro-breasts (pointy or otherwise). And no, Charlie Wilson's War wasn't historically accurate, though parts were true. Also, all those peak oil guys who say that the world is coming to an end but it's not just a crazy prophecy of some mad cult? They're the crazy prophets of a mad cult.
Anyway, with that aside, the issue of who can marry whom has come up again in this fine state of California. In this case, the California Supreme Court has (once again) overridden the wishes of the people to say that, in fact, same-sex marriage is not only a right, it's always been a right according to the state constitution.
Now, it seems to me that if that were the case, same-sex marriage would have been established by two people of the same sex getting married, the state refusing to acknowledge it, and then the court saying the state has no right to refuse to acknowledge it. But I certainly might have that wrong.
Let me say, first of all, that I have no personal interest in who marries whom. As I understand it, one can arrange almost any sort of domestic situation one wants (hetero, homo or poly) except a bestial or pedophilia relationship (and maybe incestuous) and set up almost any sort of legal arrangement one wants.
Also, as I understand it, domestic partners have all the same rights as married couples, and certainly since palimony it hasn't mattered so much whether a couple is actually married. (California doesn't recognize common law marriage.) These days, it would probably make sense for married couples to create a nuptial contract and revisit it every year. (This might sound horribly clinical, but it actually could be quite romantic.)
If that's true, and it's really just about the word "marriage", well, you know what I call a couple of guys in a permanent committed relationship? "Married." Really. What else you gonna call it?
My preference? Marriage either gets a strict definition by the state that benefits the state, or the state gets its nose out of the union business. The latter being preferable.
So, having established my relative lack of concern over how people bond and what they call it, I'm going to expound a little on my understanding of marriage, and why I'm not entirely unsympathetic to cultural conservatives on the issue.
Despite everything I learned from the '70s, personal happiness actually ranks very low down on the list of societal concerns. No, really! It's true: Society doesn't care if you're happy. Society cares about its own survival and as long as you do your part to continue it, you can be as happy or as miserable as you like. So, the social importance of marriage is that you stick with one person, create the next generation, and raise them in such a way that they go on to continue society.
When you think about it, the idea that billions (or thousands, if you prefer) of years of struggle and hardship is going to come to its end because, you know, some gal wants to pursue a career, or some guy just doesn't care for female company--it's the ultimate in self-centered-ness.
Society's historical answer to the question of personal fulfillment--assuming it entertained the notion at all--was to simply not allow women to do anything but create the next generation, and to force gays to marry and produce offspring.
The other part of the equation was to discourage or disallow divorce, adultery, polygamy and fornication--to say nothing of onanism and homosexual activity. Basically, society figured out the best way to secure its own survival was to get people married pretty quickly, reproducing ASAP, and bonded forever, while outlawing sexual activity that didn't produce offspring.
These are the rules of a highly fragile society, one deeply concerned about its own survival. And it may be a coincidence, but every society that moves away from these principles dies. Will Durant wrote that every society enters stoic and exits epicurean. The Western world has been in full epicurean mode for decades.
Anyway, in the historical context, the definition of marriage is very clear, and very clearly not inclusive of homosexuality. One argument I've heard as an attempt to defend homosexual marriage "What about childless couples?" Well, until recently, the pressure for couples to have children was tremendous, and an inability to have children has historically been grounds for annulment.
It was really the '70s that turned divorce into a casual event, degraded "women's work" and made childlessness into a respectable option. And, also, at that point, made marriage into a word that applies (or should apply) equally to any people seeking to find happiness and fulfillment in long-term committed sexual relationships.
I don't know if anyone will read this, and find it less likely that anyone will care, but it's something I had to learn over many years. And the funky-funny thing is that there is tremendous happiness possible the old way, while allowing people to pursue personal pleasure has probably not resulted in any net gain in happiness for people over all.
So, why would I not personally fight to preserve the definition of marriage? For one thing, because it's long gone, and it's unlikely that heteros are going to be lining up to give marriage back to its original gravity. Secondly, since that is what has to happen--groups of people have to agree to restore the society-serving definition of marriage--it's not something the government can do. It's a social and religious thing, and requires people to look beyond themselves--not something they're generally encouraged to do.
The pendulum may swing back: a lot of victims of the "Do Your Own Thing" '70s (and beyond) are now grown and may take child-rearing and marriage more seriously than their parents did.
As I've said before, a society can be judged on its kindness to outliers, and I don't think it's likely we'll ever go back to the days when assaulting gays was acceptable and women had to put up with abuse because society's prohibitions against divorce were so strong. But it is possible to elevate individual fulfillment above society's survival needs, and this usually results in a barbaric culture where outliers must hide or be destroyed.
As a footnote: Some maintain that the California supreme court just overrode the will of the people in the service of a liberal agenda. Not surprisingly, this pisses off some and pleases others. For me, it just seems like business-as-usual in the Golden State.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Ugly Eyes
At the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (a school/clinic for handling brain-injuries) they have a phrase: "ugly eyes". Many of their kids are savants (what used to be called "idiot savants") but because they have other problems, some people refuse to see their brilliance. They see only the injury and impose their ideas about what that means over the person. The opposite of rose-colored glasses, if you like.
It should be evident that this phrase could apply to racists. They don't see the person, or even if they do, what they see is occluded by what they believe. What should probably be just as obvious is that it applies to those who adopt a "politically correct" mindset.
There's a minor kerfuffle in the feminist blogosphere that Althouse has commented on. The money quote is "It's not that I didn't see it. It's that I didn't see it." This could be rephrased as, "I only saw what was there, not the pre-formed political paradigm that I'm required to filter not only my communication but my actual perception with."
I was working with a friend of mine whose skin melanin content is higher than the local average, and he had hired his buddy's girlfriend to work with us. She would say things about my friend (to his face) about "being one of the good ones" and other phrases which are commonly associated today with racists (or at least racist caricatures).
We laughed, because these are the kinds of things we would say to each other in ironic jesting, but something about the way she said them struck us both as odd. Ultimately it came out that she was dead serious. (The extra added bonus weirdness that she was, herself, a person of color--she just didn't see herself that way.)
My friend is the sort of person who doesn't have ugly eyes. Now, one is always served better by seeing what is actually there, as this woman did cause trouble for him. But he's still light years better off than those who see racism everywhere.
It's worth observing at this point that we are all beneficiaries of those who suffered and laid down their lives so that we could, today, have the luxury of seeing each other as individuals and not just representatives of some group. But it seems to me that those who do frame everything in the context of identity groups are spitting in these brave peoples' faces. They're saying what was fought for can never truly be achieved.
And that's ugly.
It should be evident that this phrase could apply to racists. They don't see the person, or even if they do, what they see is occluded by what they believe. What should probably be just as obvious is that it applies to those who adopt a "politically correct" mindset.
There's a minor kerfuffle in the feminist blogosphere that Althouse has commented on. The money quote is "It's not that I didn't see it. It's that I didn't see it." This could be rephrased as, "I only saw what was there, not the pre-formed political paradigm that I'm required to filter not only my communication but my actual perception with."
I was working with a friend of mine whose skin melanin content is higher than the local average, and he had hired his buddy's girlfriend to work with us. She would say things about my friend (to his face) about "being one of the good ones" and other phrases which are commonly associated today with racists (or at least racist caricatures).
We laughed, because these are the kinds of things we would say to each other in ironic jesting, but something about the way she said them struck us both as odd. Ultimately it came out that she was dead serious. (The extra added bonus weirdness that she was, herself, a person of color--she just didn't see herself that way.)
My friend is the sort of person who doesn't have ugly eyes. Now, one is always served better by seeing what is actually there, as this woman did cause trouble for him. But he's still light years better off than those who see racism everywhere.
It's worth observing at this point that we are all beneficiaries of those who suffered and laid down their lives so that we could, today, have the luxury of seeing each other as individuals and not just representatives of some group. But it seems to me that those who do frame everything in the context of identity groups are spitting in these brave peoples' faces. They're saying what was fought for can never truly be achieved.
And that's ugly.
Monday, April 21, 2008
A fair tax system.
Everyone's opining so I might as well, too.
There is one fair tax system: A per capita tax. A head tax. A poll tax.
Here's my plan:
Step 1: Eliminate all forms of taxations other than the direct tax.
Step 2: Tax each person a fraction of the total amount of monies desired. The fraction is 1/nth of the total budget, with n being the number of taxable persons in the country.
First, why eliminate all forms of taxation? Because this is how they getcha: by hiding taxation at every turn. You know that they take X dollars off your paycheck, probably. You see that every payday. But you don't see the Y dollars that your employer pays. And while you see the Z dollars that you pay in sales tax, you don't see the A, B & C that constitutes all the taxation on all the parts of everything you buy.
It's the hidden parts that lead to corruption. And it's all a big fat lie, anyway: Whenever the government says it's going to tax corporations, imports, etc., that money is always and irrevocably going to come from thee and me.
Even if thee doesn't think thou art paying any taxes.
That's what leads me to believe the per capita tax is the best. No deductions, no reductions, no cost-of-living--nothing. Everyone pays.
Children might be an exception. The problem with taxing children directly is that it discourages reproduction, and we seem to need more of that in first world countries. So children might not be liable, and they might even be exempt between 18-21. This could be acceptable because it wouldn't cause the shenanigans that come with the loopholes the current system creates. Yes, children would be exempt, but there would be no benefit to transferring funds to them, or engaging in any of the shenanigans the current system encourages.
Where would that put us? Well, each adult would have a tax burden of $10-$15K. Let's say $12K, with no deficit spending. (It could be dropped to under $10K just by eliminating Social Security. Remember, under this plan, we're not collecting social security which is, after all, just a tax masquerading as an investment.)
Now, I'm sure you're thinking, "But, Blake, what about the poor? Some people don't even make $12K/year." My response? "Jeez, people, get a real job!" Or, more seriously, "That doesn't keep the current governments from taking out SSI, sales tax, and otherwise jacking up the price on everything they buy." In other words, there are obvious problems with this system, but they're less than those of other systems.
What's more, with this system, they're beholding to no one. They contribute exactly the same as every other citizen. Even on welfare, they're putting back into the system. (This makes a lot more sense if the welfare comes from private organizations, but the government already does dopey things like giving people money that ends up back in their coffers.)
Remember, everything made beyond the tax is pure profit. And each dollar will buy more, with no sales tax and no production tax--which is what the effect of income tax on items manufactured in the USA ultimately is.
Everyone would be strongly stimulated to produce more. The fruits of that production would all go to the citizens. And when the government wanted more money, it would be instantly apparent what the bottom line would be. Need a new war? Well, that's gonna be a $1,000 each. Feel like previous, gray-haired generations should get a stipend for setting up a bad, mandatory Ponzi scheme? That'll be $2000, please.
Stimulus package for the economy? Ha. They'd have to send it to everyone--and then they'd have to collect it right back, which is sorta what they do now.
Pork? That pork-laden bill is going to personally cost you $10.
The craziest part of this idea? People are appalled at the notion that every citizen should shoulder the same financial burden for the government. We're so conditioned to believe in "fairness", that we'll cheat ourselves to death to try to achieve it.
I sat in a seminar this weekend where the speaker explained concepts of generating--and keeping--wealth. Probably half the discussion was how to avoid taxation. The very wealthy--families like the Kennedeys, the Carnegies, the Rockefellers--set up trusts to avoid all the taxation. That's not something poor or middle-class people do very often. (Some upper middle class people do it, though.)
I couldn't help but think that this was all a huge waste of productivity.
Now, Great American Experiment-wise, the Federal Government shouldn't be collecting taxes from anyone, and we'd have to pass an amendment to make this possible, presumably one that repealed the previous taxation amendment.
Or the Federal government could apportion taxes to the states based on their population, and leave it to the states to collect from the citizens. But then, very few would have the wisdom to actually impose a head tax. And we need more states anyway.... (I think Arnold Kling suggests 250, but I think 300 would be better....)
There is one fair tax system: A per capita tax. A head tax. A poll tax.
Here's my plan:
Step 1: Eliminate all forms of taxations other than the direct tax.
Step 2: Tax each person a fraction of the total amount of monies desired. The fraction is 1/nth of the total budget, with n being the number of taxable persons in the country.
First, why eliminate all forms of taxation? Because this is how they getcha: by hiding taxation at every turn. You know that they take X dollars off your paycheck, probably. You see that every payday. But you don't see the Y dollars that your employer pays. And while you see the Z dollars that you pay in sales tax, you don't see the A, B & C that constitutes all the taxation on all the parts of everything you buy.
It's the hidden parts that lead to corruption. And it's all a big fat lie, anyway: Whenever the government says it's going to tax corporations, imports, etc., that money is always and irrevocably going to come from thee and me.
Even if thee doesn't think thou art paying any taxes.
That's what leads me to believe the per capita tax is the best. No deductions, no reductions, no cost-of-living--nothing. Everyone pays.
Children might be an exception. The problem with taxing children directly is that it discourages reproduction, and we seem to need more of that in first world countries. So children might not be liable, and they might even be exempt between 18-21. This could be acceptable because it wouldn't cause the shenanigans that come with the loopholes the current system creates. Yes, children would be exempt, but there would be no benefit to transferring funds to them, or engaging in any of the shenanigans the current system encourages.
Where would that put us? Well, each adult would have a tax burden of $10-$15K. Let's say $12K, with no deficit spending. (It could be dropped to under $10K just by eliminating Social Security. Remember, under this plan, we're not collecting social security which is, after all, just a tax masquerading as an investment.)
Because I'm ornery, I'd encourage this amount to be levied on tourists, as well, divided by the length of stay. Tourists burden the infrastructure as much as anyone else. They'd be charged about $30/day tax for being here. That's probably a wash.
Now, I'm sure you're thinking, "But, Blake, what about the poor? Some people don't even make $12K/year." My response? "Jeez, people, get a real job!" Or, more seriously, "That doesn't keep the current governments from taking out SSI, sales tax, and otherwise jacking up the price on everything they buy." In other words, there are obvious problems with this system, but they're less than those of other systems.
What's more, with this system, they're beholding to no one. They contribute exactly the same as every other citizen. Even on welfare, they're putting back into the system. (This makes a lot more sense if the welfare comes from private organizations, but the government already does dopey things like giving people money that ends up back in their coffers.)
Remember, everything made beyond the tax is pure profit. And each dollar will buy more, with no sales tax and no production tax--which is what the effect of income tax on items manufactured in the USA ultimately is.
Everyone would be strongly stimulated to produce more. The fruits of that production would all go to the citizens. And when the government wanted more money, it would be instantly apparent what the bottom line would be. Need a new war? Well, that's gonna be a $1,000 each. Feel like previous, gray-haired generations should get a stipend for setting up a bad, mandatory Ponzi scheme? That'll be $2000, please.
Stimulus package for the economy? Ha. They'd have to send it to everyone--and then they'd have to collect it right back, which is sorta what they do now.
Pork? That pork-laden bill is going to personally cost you $10.
The craziest part of this idea? People are appalled at the notion that every citizen should shoulder the same financial burden for the government. We're so conditioned to believe in "fairness", that we'll cheat ourselves to death to try to achieve it.
I sat in a seminar this weekend where the speaker explained concepts of generating--and keeping--wealth. Probably half the discussion was how to avoid taxation. The very wealthy--families like the Kennedeys, the Carnegies, the Rockefellers--set up trusts to avoid all the taxation. That's not something poor or middle-class people do very often. (Some upper middle class people do it, though.)
I couldn't help but think that this was all a huge waste of productivity.
Now, Great American Experiment-wise, the Federal Government shouldn't be collecting taxes from anyone, and we'd have to pass an amendment to make this possible, presumably one that repealed the previous taxation amendment.
Or the Federal government could apportion taxes to the states based on their population, and leave it to the states to collect from the citizens. But then, very few would have the wisdom to actually impose a head tax. And we need more states anyway.... (I think Arnold Kling suggests 250, but I think 300 would be better....)
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Gutfeld On Games
I watch "Red Eye".
There, I feel better with that off my conscience.
I find it amusing most times. I'm a big Dr. Baden fan, and I love him on that show. I love that host Greg Gutfeld manages to get the hottest women imaginable--who are almost, to a one, able to demonstrate a high degree of wit, humor and quick thinking. And then there are the women like Michelle Collins, Kerry Howley and Amy Schumer who manage to do the whole smart, sexy and first-class funny.
While it's usually on the level of a blunt instrument, I also like Gutfeld's Swift-meets-Bozo-style rants as it teeters on the border of seriousness and absurdity. But last week he aired (and Sunday repeated) a rant against Guitar Hero. I think it was Thursday's show, but the "gregalog" for the day was on Bridget Bardot according to the site, so maybe it was just a news item and not a rant.
Gutfeld objects to "Guitar Hero" and a similar upcoming game where you conduct an orchestra, apparently on the basis of inflating people's self-esteem. You learn no real skill, but the game leaves you with the impression you have, I guess, accomplished something.
This is a surprisingly puritanical argument from the former bodybuilder, whose schtick as a hedonistic perv (with a taste for young, easily dispatched houseboys) belies his generally conservative message. But perhaps it's just his inner jock coming to the fore.
I'm a gamer (though sadly out of play in recent months) and a game designer, as well as an educator. These things have taught me that a game-any game--teaches you nothing except how to play the game. Sometimes--rarely--games overlap with real skills. (In the larger sense, of course, all human activity is a game, but I'm speaking here of formally designed games.)
Even games designed to teach, while they can hone certain skills, the mechanics of playing the game will be the skills most honed. The more abstract the skill, the closer a game can mimic that skill, and the better it can teach. But even then, in almost every case, the game mechanics will burden the player to the extent that it will be those that are mastered.
Chess, for example, teaches virtually nothing about war or courtly intrigue (whichever it was initially abstracted from). To the extent that playing or studying chess teaches anything about anything else, it's only in the concepts of patience and vision (the great chess players being sort-of pattern matchers, from what I can tell, more than strategic geniuses).
And what's more, you can become the greatest chess player in the world without ever learning how to apply those skills to real life.
Or, let's take football. A representation of a military skirmish, right? Maybe. If you had a military goal of "if even one guy gets all the way over here, his side wins, no matter how cut off from supply lines or communication."
I studied martial arts for years. When I started, my school trained in the "point fighting" that was common in the day. (It superficially resembles the sort of fighting seen in The Karate Kid, which communicated the conceit that one could learn martial arts by performing janitorial tasks.) In point fighting, you never hit the other guy hard. That's grounds for disqualification. Especially if you struck to the head. You were responsible for not hurting the other guy. You'd strike, and if a judge thought you hit, he'd raise a flag. Then you'd stop, everything would reset and you go on.
This makes sense from a game standpoint, i.e., a game you want to be able to play over and over again without getting sued. But it's actually contra the skill of learning to defend yourself. Scoring a point isn't going to stop someone who wants to kill you. In fact, point fighting encouraged the sort of goofy maneuver that puts your hand or foot in the vicinity of someone else's body, regardless of whether you could've actually hurt that person.
We later moved into a full kickboxing mode, where body armor was used. You could hit a lot harder but, of course, the really effective techniques--breaking knees, gouging eyes, throws--were off limits. It was more realistic and trained skills that were parallel with self-defense, like endurance and pain tolerance, but it was by no means real. And you could suffer from learning to fight that way. The hope would be that you'd be able to flip a switch and fight for real if you needed to.
Hand-to-hand combat is an ugly, sweaty and barbaric thing, by the way, and most people don't really want to learn it. They'd rather have the false sense of confidence, or less harmfully, they'd just rather play around for fun.
Which brings us back to Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero is played by more than a few rock stars who, by Gutfeld's criteria, shouldn't need to play it. They can play the real thing. So are they being given a false sense of accomplishment?
No, because they know they're not actually playing guitar. Hell, that's one of the reasons they're playing it. It's a break. And that's why most people play it--because it's fun. It's completely unconnected to whatever musical desires they have, being a slightly more aggressive form of listening to the radio.
Are there a few people out there who probably believe that playing GH is indicative of a real or potentially great musical talent? Sure, but they'll all be destroyed when my zergling army conquers the earth.
There, I feel better with that off my conscience.
I find it amusing most times. I'm a big Dr. Baden fan, and I love him on that show. I love that host Greg Gutfeld manages to get the hottest women imaginable--who are almost, to a one, able to demonstrate a high degree of wit, humor and quick thinking. And then there are the women like Michelle Collins, Kerry Howley and Amy Schumer who manage to do the whole smart, sexy and first-class funny.
While it's usually on the level of a blunt instrument, I also like Gutfeld's Swift-meets-Bozo-style rants as it teeters on the border of seriousness and absurdity. But last week he aired (and Sunday repeated) a rant against Guitar Hero. I think it was Thursday's show, but the "gregalog" for the day was on Bridget Bardot according to the site, so maybe it was just a news item and not a rant.
Gutfeld objects to "Guitar Hero" and a similar upcoming game where you conduct an orchestra, apparently on the basis of inflating people's self-esteem. You learn no real skill, but the game leaves you with the impression you have, I guess, accomplished something.
This is a surprisingly puritanical argument from the former bodybuilder, whose schtick as a hedonistic perv (with a taste for young, easily dispatched houseboys) belies his generally conservative message. But perhaps it's just his inner jock coming to the fore.
I'm a gamer (though sadly out of play in recent months) and a game designer, as well as an educator. These things have taught me that a game-any game--teaches you nothing except how to play the game. Sometimes--rarely--games overlap with real skills. (In the larger sense, of course, all human activity is a game, but I'm speaking here of formally designed games.)
Even games designed to teach, while they can hone certain skills, the mechanics of playing the game will be the skills most honed. The more abstract the skill, the closer a game can mimic that skill, and the better it can teach. But even then, in almost every case, the game mechanics will burden the player to the extent that it will be those that are mastered.
Chess, for example, teaches virtually nothing about war or courtly intrigue (whichever it was initially abstracted from). To the extent that playing or studying chess teaches anything about anything else, it's only in the concepts of patience and vision (the great chess players being sort-of pattern matchers, from what I can tell, more than strategic geniuses).
And what's more, you can become the greatest chess player in the world without ever learning how to apply those skills to real life.
Or, let's take football. A representation of a military skirmish, right? Maybe. If you had a military goal of "if even one guy gets all the way over here, his side wins, no matter how cut off from supply lines or communication."
I studied martial arts for years. When I started, my school trained in the "point fighting" that was common in the day. (It superficially resembles the sort of fighting seen in The Karate Kid, which communicated the conceit that one could learn martial arts by performing janitorial tasks.) In point fighting, you never hit the other guy hard. That's grounds for disqualification. Especially if you struck to the head. You were responsible for not hurting the other guy. You'd strike, and if a judge thought you hit, he'd raise a flag. Then you'd stop, everything would reset and you go on.
This makes sense from a game standpoint, i.e., a game you want to be able to play over and over again without getting sued. But it's actually contra the skill of learning to defend yourself. Scoring a point isn't going to stop someone who wants to kill you. In fact, point fighting encouraged the sort of goofy maneuver that puts your hand or foot in the vicinity of someone else's body, regardless of whether you could've actually hurt that person.
We later moved into a full kickboxing mode, where body armor was used. You could hit a lot harder but, of course, the really effective techniques--breaking knees, gouging eyes, throws--were off limits. It was more realistic and trained skills that were parallel with self-defense, like endurance and pain tolerance, but it was by no means real. And you could suffer from learning to fight that way. The hope would be that you'd be able to flip a switch and fight for real if you needed to.
Hand-to-hand combat is an ugly, sweaty and barbaric thing, by the way, and most people don't really want to learn it. They'd rather have the false sense of confidence, or less harmfully, they'd just rather play around for fun.
Which brings us back to Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero is played by more than a few rock stars who, by Gutfeld's criteria, shouldn't need to play it. They can play the real thing. So are they being given a false sense of accomplishment?
No, because they know they're not actually playing guitar. Hell, that's one of the reasons they're playing it. It's a break. And that's why most people play it--because it's fun. It's completely unconnected to whatever musical desires they have, being a slightly more aggressive form of listening to the radio.
Are there a few people out there who probably believe that playing GH is indicative of a real or potentially great musical talent? Sure, but they'll all be destroyed when my zergling army conquers the earth.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Democracy, Whisky, Screwy...
Even though by now it should apparent that global warming is a hoax, the religious fanatics are determined to push this narrative through, presumably until they, I dunno, they destroy the earth, or whatever their real agenda is.
In the meantime, they serve as an excellent example of the limits of democracy.
Wikipedia was founded on democratic principles. The idea was that everyone would contribute what they knew, and--well, I admit to being fuzzy on this part, but I think the idea is that a democratically-enforced meritocracy would arise. In other words, the group would agree on who the experts were and viewpoints that were sufficiently controversial would be addressed from various sides.
Anarchy reared its ugly head, of course. Some people are incompetent, for example, and they're probably a minor part of the problem. Others are vandals. They're a more serious problem since they look to cause harm and not get caught. The most dangerous--the reason democracy (and anarchy) doesn't work--is the zealot.
This zealot believes he is justified in whatever he does to forward his cause. Lying to achieve a goal means nothing compared to the grandeur of the goal. Indeed, the zealot himself is there because he's believed a sufficient number of lies.
Environmental causes generate these in numbers the 11th century Catholic Church could only dream about.
Look at the great Carl Sagan, a man who explained science in a way that made it accessible to the average joe. Yet he sold his soul for nuclear winter.
Hell, Al Gore used to be sane, and probably was one of the few politicians the US has had to date with an understanding of technology.
I could mention some other groups here but I don't want to, you know, stir up any controversy.
The Republic exists not really to serve us. When we look to it to do so, we invite trouble. The Republic exists to prevent some other, worse form of government from taking hold. And to date, they're all worse.
In the meantime, they serve as an excellent example of the limits of democracy.
Wikipedia was founded on democratic principles. The idea was that everyone would contribute what they knew, and--well, I admit to being fuzzy on this part, but I think the idea is that a democratically-enforced meritocracy would arise. In other words, the group would agree on who the experts were and viewpoints that were sufficiently controversial would be addressed from various sides.
Anarchy reared its ugly head, of course. Some people are incompetent, for example, and they're probably a minor part of the problem. Others are vandals. They're a more serious problem since they look to cause harm and not get caught. The most dangerous--the reason democracy (and anarchy) doesn't work--is the zealot.
This zealot believes he is justified in whatever he does to forward his cause. Lying to achieve a goal means nothing compared to the grandeur of the goal. Indeed, the zealot himself is there because he's believed a sufficient number of lies.
Environmental causes generate these in numbers the 11th century Catholic Church could only dream about.
Look at the great Carl Sagan, a man who explained science in a way that made it accessible to the average joe. Yet he sold his soul for nuclear winter.
Hell, Al Gore used to be sane, and probably was one of the few politicians the US has had to date with an understanding of technology.
I could mention some other groups here but I don't want to, you know, stir up any controversy.
The Republic exists not really to serve us. When we look to it to do so, we invite trouble. The Republic exists to prevent some other, worse form of government from taking hold. And to date, they're all worse.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
In which I defend the past and future.
I am not, generally, the sort of person who reviews the past looking to catalogue glories, either on a personal or cultural level. I just tend to forget, until somebody brings it up. Now, you want to talk broad historical swaths, I'm there. The trends that led to the American Republic, for example. Or, one cultural trend in my lifetime, the reduction in black ghettos (which was something I got to watch in progress, through demographic data work).
But this thread over at Althouse--on the (one hopes) exhausted topic of Presidential candidate Barack Obama's momentary honesty--had me defending the past 25 years of progress from Freder Frederson (who takes his name from the socialist fantasy classic Metropolis) who insists that the standard of living is worse now than it was 25 years ago.
This caused me to call up all the things that have improved over the past 25 years. And there have been a lot. Computers and the Internet are the area of the most obvious improvement, but it's important to remember that those two features enhance every other facet of life: education, work, social, love, spiritual, health, etc.
Frederson pointed to weakened purchasing power (unsupportable, I think), uncertain employment (probably true, but job security can be the foe of progress), and the state of health insurance.
Now, if we set aside the advances in medicine, and cheap alternatives that have emerged over the years, he has a point. The monster that is the medical-legal bureaucracy has only grown over the past 25 years, because that's what bureaucracies do. The eat and grow at the expense of actual productive industries.
Of course, Freder's solution is to ... establish a giant new bureaucracy.
However, what's really important about this is not interfering with what seems to be natural growth and technological progress so that 25 years from now we can look back and laugh at our bygone primitiveness.
Ever-widening bureaucracies are probably the only thing that can stop us, apart from a giant asteroid.
But this thread over at Althouse--on the (one hopes) exhausted topic of Presidential candidate Barack Obama's momentary honesty--had me defending the past 25 years of progress from Freder Frederson (who takes his name from the socialist fantasy classic Metropolis) who insists that the standard of living is worse now than it was 25 years ago.
This caused me to call up all the things that have improved over the past 25 years. And there have been a lot. Computers and the Internet are the area of the most obvious improvement, but it's important to remember that those two features enhance every other facet of life: education, work, social, love, spiritual, health, etc.
Frederson pointed to weakened purchasing power (unsupportable, I think), uncertain employment (probably true, but job security can be the foe of progress), and the state of health insurance.
Now, if we set aside the advances in medicine, and cheap alternatives that have emerged over the years, he has a point. The monster that is the medical-legal bureaucracy has only grown over the past 25 years, because that's what bureaucracies do. The eat and grow at the expense of actual productive industries.
Of course, Freder's solution is to ... establish a giant new bureaucracy.
However, what's really important about this is not interfering with what seems to be natural growth and technological progress so that 25 years from now we can look back and laugh at our bygone primitiveness.
Ever-widening bureaucracies are probably the only thing that can stop us, apart from a giant asteroid.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Gasoline Fan Cub
You know, I'm getting sick of all this gasoline bashing.
Gasoline replaced millions of beasts of burden. Unimaginable tons of crap do not lie festering in our streets. Gasoline even smells better than the combination of horse sweat, manure, etc., that it replaced.
It's got a great energy-return-to-energy-expended. I think you have to go to fissile material to get better.
I love gasoline. I'll go all Chris Crocker on you. "LEAVE GASOLINE ALONE!"
Gasoline replaced millions of beasts of burden. Unimaginable tons of crap do not lie festering in our streets. Gasoline even smells better than the combination of horse sweat, manure, etc., that it replaced.
It's got a great energy-return-to-energy-expended. I think you have to go to fissile material to get better.
I love gasoline. I'll go all Chris Crocker on you. "LEAVE GASOLINE ALONE!"
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Another Day, Another Dumb-ass List
Here's a list from Popular Mechanics of the 10 Most Prophetic Science Fiction Movies Ever (via Instapundit).
I really need to get me one of them jobs where you get paid to write crap. (I do get paid to write crap for tech 'zines from time-to-time, but it's crap that takes a whole lot of research and time.)
The best thing about this list is that a great many of the ones that he picks are simply movies that reinforce his current prejudices. His #1 pick is GATTACA.
In other words, it's still science-fiction. Just like Minority Report's cumbersome user interface.
Santana would be rolling over in his grave with his pick of Soylent Green. Climate Change is a reality, while overpopulation isn't? But we had computer models of overpopulation proving there would be 40 million people in New York! SCIENCE!!
In fact, the big irony is the use of today's junk science to proclaim the hits and misses of yesterday's junk science. Blade Runner gets high marks for the constant rain, apparently. (It's going to make New York a perpetual summer but L.A. a perpetual rain forest or something.)
Once again: Bah.
I really need to get me one of them jobs where you get paid to write crap. (I do get paid to write crap for tech 'zines from time-to-time, but it's crap that takes a whole lot of research and time.)
The best thing about this list is that a great many of the ones that he picks are simply movies that reinforce his current prejudices. His #1 pick is GATTACA.
Genetic engineering is still centuries away, but the opportunity to decimate free will, by way of well-intentioned genetic early warnings, has already arrived.Proposals to intern "likely criminals" go back long before GATTACA. Genetic analysis is just the latest in the series of excuses used. And genetics, of course, was the justification behind Hitler's happy fun-time camps. What's different now? Oh, right, we have the science to actually identify genetic markers. Except of course, we don't really.
In other words, it's still science-fiction. Just like Minority Report's cumbersome user interface.
Santana would be rolling over in his grave with his pick of Soylent Green. Climate Change is a reality, while overpopulation isn't? But we had computer models of overpopulation proving there would be 40 million people in New York! SCIENCE!!
In fact, the big irony is the use of today's junk science to proclaim the hits and misses of yesterday's junk science. Blade Runner gets high marks for the constant rain, apparently. (It's going to make New York a perpetual summer but L.A. a perpetual rain forest or something.)
Once again: Bah.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Based On A True Story
The "Based On A True Story" scam is an old one. Ed Wood used to figure it would give his films "gravitas", I'm sure, having Criswell speak in sonorous tones of how "future events such as these may affect you in the future". (I prefer Futurama's tag line: "You can't prove it won't happen!")
Lately, though, these have been taking a particularly scuzzy turn, as with Wolf Creek. The "meat" of Wolf Creek is, essentially, torture porn (and not the good kind). But the "true story" it was based on had one survivor, who isn't around when the torture is going on, and the bodies of girls were never found. (To the point where the lone survivor was a suspect.)
WTF? So, the producers just made up the middle stuff?
Possibly worse is Open Water, where the entirety of the movie takes place between two dead people. I'm sorry but how is this "based on a true story"? It's, like, "two people drowned and this is how we imagine they spent their final hours".
Worse still is the sequel, which I mention below, because it features six people, and dramatizes all sorts of little scenes between them. Once again: No survivors. (Or at least none that can talk.) I'm guessing this one is "based on a true story" like Plan 9 From Outer Space was based on the sworn affidavits of the poor souls who survived it.
Bah, I say!
Lately, though, these have been taking a particularly scuzzy turn, as with Wolf Creek. The "meat" of Wolf Creek is, essentially, torture porn (and not the good kind). But the "true story" it was based on had one survivor, who isn't around when the torture is going on, and the bodies of girls were never found. (To the point where the lone survivor was a suspect.)
WTF? So, the producers just made up the middle stuff?
Possibly worse is Open Water, where the entirety of the movie takes place between two dead people. I'm sorry but how is this "based on a true story"? It's, like, "two people drowned and this is how we imagine they spent their final hours".
Worse still is the sequel, which I mention below, because it features six people, and dramatizes all sorts of little scenes between them. Once again: No survivors. (Or at least none that can talk.) I'm guessing this one is "based on a true story" like Plan 9 From Outer Space was based on the sworn affidavits of the poor souls who survived it.
Bah, I say!
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Page fillers and the horror movie
Long before blogging became popular (or even possible), there were magazines and newspapers. (Unless you're eight, this should not come as a surprise to you.) Anyway, these printed materials were constrained by certain physical limitations. On the good side, they forced writers to be concise, to not ramble, to get the point across quickly. On the bad side, they forced writers to leave important information out.
On the really bad side, they mandated numbers of pages to be filled. You can't have an odd number of pages. And you really wanted to keep the runs to the same size to avoid certain costs. And if you went over X pages, it cost a whole lot more, but if you were under Y pages, well, that was bad, too.
In this environment, the filler was invented. The filler seems to say things, but doesn't, in fact, say anything that isn't bleedingly obvious--unless it was wrong. Actually, most printed content probably falls into this category.
The filler has survived the physical, tragically, and carried on into the virtual.
I bring this up because of this Times Online article on horror movies. subhed is just awful:
What? You have to begin by wondering who the hell considers Blair Witch and Exorcist part of the same tradition. And who thinks that the years from, what, about 1973 to 1997 were devoid of any quality horror. And who thinks Blair Witch was comparable to Exorcist in terms of social impact. (The last is at least debatable.)
The article begins by positing that what scared you as a kid probably still does.
Nah. Sorry. I saw Nosferatu at a pretty young age but I have gotten over it. It seems true that people remember old scares fondly and forget the cheesiness often associated with same. It's probably also true that we perceive things a lot more quickly than we used to: A lot of modern films (horror and otherwise) would probably look like soup to our great-grandparents. Whereas the "short glimpses"--like the technique used to show Pazuzu in The Exorcist--are way, way too long for today's audiences. I mean, it's a chick in some fairly innocuous makeup. (Reminds me of "the brain guy" from the last seasons of MST3K.)
The Boy was positively bored during The Exorcist. He thought Alien was pretty good but he was by no means scared.
All right. We'll cut the author some slack here. But then he gets real stupid:
Besides, nobody cares about "fresh ideas" but jaded film critics. Halloween spawned, I feel comfortable saying, thousands of movies about slashers killing young adults. And they all had the opportunity to be profitable. (I assume most were, in fact, and that's what kept them coming.) He then goes on to suggest that his thesis is proven by the appearance of two foreign-language films in the market. (The Orphanage and Rec.)
Huh. So, does the appearance of, say, two foreign-language dramas, war movies or comedies suggest the same thing of those genres? Or is it really just that some distributor thinks enough people will turn out to see these particular foreign-language films and therefore ponies up the money to send some cans around?
I suspect the latter.
I haven't seen Rec, but The Orphanage isn't particularly novel. (If the article is to be believed, it's novel for a Spanish film, since there is no horror tradition in Spain.) It's pretty standard haunted house/obsession fare, with considerable similarities to the recently discussed Crazy Eights, The Others and the Japanese Dark Water.
Rec is about a group of people locked in a tenement with a flesh-eating virus on the loose. It sounds thematically similar to David Cronenberg's early work (like Rabid and Shivers) but one only has to go back a couple years to Eli Roth's Cabin Fever to realize, it's just not very original.
This is not an insult, mind you. It's just a fact of life: There aren't a lot of fresh ideas anywhere. It's part and parcel of having a 4.5 billion year old planet.
Usually, around the mid-point of a filler article, the author will say something that completely undermines his entire premise. In this case, the money quote comes from Scottish movie producer Hamish McAlpine:
Translation: "People are going to see crappy horror movies other people are making rather than the crappy horror movies I'm producing! This suggests something fundamentally wrong with society!" In fairness to McAlpine (shouldn't that be MacAlpine?) I don't know if his horror movies are crap since I've never seen or heard of any of them.
A quick look at IMDB, however, reveals that three of the ten movies in his credit listing are about real-life serial killers (Ted Bundy, Ed Gein and the Hillside Strangler), while a fourth is a remake of a home-invasion type movie of the sort that were so popular back in the '70s.
So, maybe not your go-to guy for complaining about a paucity of "fresh ideas".
But here's the real thing about that quote: "It does well at the box office...." OK, so, if the movies are "doing well" at the box office, whence the supposed crisis? I don't wonder if critics in the '50s looked at the Hammer studios Dracula movies and said, "Bah! Kids today! Give me Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff over Lee and Cushing any day."
But the Hammer movies offered color, including blood, cleavage (and ultimately nudity when they wound up in the early '70s), and modernization. On top of that, some of them were quite good! (The 1958 version of Dracula is well-regarded, for example.)
I liked the 1979 version of Dracula--which isn't generally well-regarded--but which seemed less cheesy at the time (and had top-notch acting, good effects, and a great John Williams score) than earlier versions of the film. But kids in the '80s didn't turn out to see it, and therefore we didn't get a run of "Dracula" movies like we did in the '40s and the '60s.
The piece just gets goofier from here on out. Here's another priceless quote (Sean Hogan, one credit wonder on IMDB, is being quoted):
This article's cred isn't really bolstered by The Orphanage, which is a solid, well-made film, but not going to set the horror world ablaze. Nor that it references, e.g., the disastrous One Missed Call at the end--but that's probably just a heads-up, not an endorsement.
The takeaway from this article is that horror movies are mostly crap (true), that this is a new-ish thing (false), that new ideas are needed (false: execution trumps ideas), that the only new ideas in horror over 25 years were The Exorcist and The Blair Witch Project (which really defeats the notion that the author's discontent is new), and that the horror genre is danger of going bust but this will not mean that horror movies stop getting made or making money.
Is that about it?
On the really bad side, they mandated numbers of pages to be filled. You can't have an odd number of pages. And you really wanted to keep the runs to the same size to avoid certain costs. And if you went over X pages, it cost a whole lot more, but if you were under Y pages, well, that was bad, too.
In this environment, the filler was invented. The filler seems to say things, but doesn't, in fact, say anything that isn't bleedingly obvious--unless it was wrong. Actually, most printed content probably falls into this category.
The filler has survived the physical, tragically, and carried on into the virtual.
I bring this up because of this Times Online article on horror movies. subhed is just awful:
The glory days of Blair Witch and The Exorcist are behind us. Who can save the horror film, asks our chief film critic
What? You have to begin by wondering who the hell considers Blair Witch and Exorcist part of the same tradition. And who thinks that the years from, what, about 1973 to 1997 were devoid of any quality horror. And who thinks Blair Witch was comparable to Exorcist in terms of social impact. (The last is at least debatable.)The article begins by positing that what scared you as a kid probably still does.
Nah. Sorry. I saw Nosferatu at a pretty young age but I have gotten over it. It seems true that people remember old scares fondly and forget the cheesiness often associated with same. It's probably also true that we perceive things a lot more quickly than we used to: A lot of modern films (horror and otherwise) would probably look like soup to our great-grandparents. Whereas the "short glimpses"--like the technique used to show Pazuzu in The Exorcist--are way, way too long for today's audiences. I mean, it's a chick in some fairly innocuous makeup. (Reminds me of "the brain guy" from the last seasons of MST3K.)
The Boy was positively bored during The Exorcist. He thought Alien was pretty good but he was by no means scared.
All right. We'll cut the author some slack here. But then he gets real stupid:
But the paucity of fresh ideas in the horror genre is now a genuine issue.No, it's not. Or, at least not any more than the paucity of fresh ideas in any genre. And for any time period. IMDB lists three versions of Frankenstein between 1910 and 1921, just for example.
Besides, nobody cares about "fresh ideas" but jaded film critics. Halloween spawned, I feel comfortable saying, thousands of movies about slashers killing young adults. And they all had the opportunity to be profitable. (I assume most were, in fact, and that's what kept them coming.) He then goes on to suggest that his thesis is proven by the appearance of two foreign-language films in the market. (The Orphanage and Rec.)
Huh. So, does the appearance of, say, two foreign-language dramas, war movies or comedies suggest the same thing of those genres? Or is it really just that some distributor thinks enough people will turn out to see these particular foreign-language films and therefore ponies up the money to send some cans around?
I suspect the latter.
I haven't seen Rec, but The Orphanage isn't particularly novel. (If the article is to be believed, it's novel for a Spanish film, since there is no horror tradition in Spain.) It's pretty standard haunted house/obsession fare, with considerable similarities to the recently discussed Crazy Eights, The Others and the Japanese Dark Water.
Rec is about a group of people locked in a tenement with a flesh-eating virus on the loose. It sounds thematically similar to David Cronenberg's early work (like Rabid and Shivers) but one only has to go back a couple years to Eli Roth's Cabin Fever to realize, it's just not very original.
This is not an insult, mind you. It's just a fact of life: There aren't a lot of fresh ideas anywhere. It's part and parcel of having a 4.5 billion year old planet.
Usually, around the mid-point of a filler article, the author will say something that completely undermines his entire premise. In this case, the money quote comes from Scottish movie producer Hamish McAlpine:
“Horror has basically run out of track. It is repetitive, boring and profoundly unimaginative. It does well at the box office because a lot of kids have not seen the recycled horrors first time around.”
Translation: "People are going to see crappy horror movies other people are making rather than the crappy horror movies I'm producing! This suggests something fundamentally wrong with society!" In fairness to McAlpine (shouldn't that be MacAlpine?) I don't know if his horror movies are crap since I've never seen or heard of any of them.
A quick look at IMDB, however, reveals that three of the ten movies in his credit listing are about real-life serial killers (Ted Bundy, Ed Gein and the Hillside Strangler), while a fourth is a remake of a home-invasion type movie of the sort that were so popular back in the '70s.
So, maybe not your go-to guy for complaining about a paucity of "fresh ideas".
But here's the real thing about that quote: "It does well at the box office...." OK, so, if the movies are "doing well" at the box office, whence the supposed crisis? I don't wonder if critics in the '50s looked at the Hammer studios Dracula movies and said, "Bah! Kids today! Give me Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff over Lee and Cushing any day."
But the Hammer movies offered color, including blood, cleavage (and ultimately nudity when they wound up in the early '70s), and modernization. On top of that, some of them were quite good! (The 1958 version of Dracula is well-regarded, for example.)
I liked the 1979 version of Dracula--which isn't generally well-regarded--but which seemed less cheesy at the time (and had top-notch acting, good effects, and a great John Williams score) than earlier versions of the film. But kids in the '80s didn't turn out to see it, and therefore we didn't get a run of "Dracula" movies like we did in the '40s and the '60s.
The piece just gets goofier from here on out. Here's another priceless quote (Sean Hogan, one credit wonder on IMDB, is being quoted):
“But if the industry does goes bust it's not going to stop the horror,” Hogan continues. “They are dirt-cheap to make. You don't need famous actors. The only difference is that there will be infinitely more crap.”Forgive me if I scratch my head trying to figure out what industry is going to be producing the horror movies after the industry goes bust. "Infinitely more crap?" Oh, I don't think so, I imagine Sturgeon's Law will hold at around 90%, as always.
This article's cred isn't really bolstered by The Orphanage, which is a solid, well-made film, but not going to set the horror world ablaze. Nor that it references, e.g., the disastrous One Missed Call at the end--but that's probably just a heads-up, not an endorsement.
The takeaway from this article is that horror movies are mostly crap (true), that this is a new-ish thing (false), that new ideas are needed (false: execution trumps ideas), that the only new ideas in horror over 25 years were The Exorcist and The Blair Witch Project (which really defeats the notion that the author's discontent is new), and that the horror genre is danger of going bust but this will not mean that horror movies stop getting made or making money.
Is that about it?
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