The Definition of Insanity and Writing Into a Vacuum; Time for a Reboot

Psychologists say the definition of insanity is to attempt to do the same thing over and over again, but expect different results. I like to think I am not insane.

Friends said one cannot start in 2015 a general news and opinion blog based on rationality and hope to find an audience. I thought I could prove them wrong by attempting to write fairly high-quality pieces that I hoped would find readers and followers. Well, I was wrong and they were right. The numbers I am generating for this site is pitiful. General news and opinion (though with binary biases and slant) can be found on myriad other websites that readers already regularly peruse or subscribe. Niche is really the only way to go. With that in mind, I will be starting this blog and website over from scratch with a narrow theme that will focus like a laser beam. This niche topic is derived from the posts that have received the most views and likes, so it makes sense to serve this audience that is evidently not finding this content elsewhere.

See you here again in a couple weeks with the niche reboot. Thanks.

Revenge Embedded in Culture and Media, Banned by Law

Revenge is popular at the movies. Liam Neeson has practically banked his career on revenge flicks after starting out as a “serious” actor in Schindler’s List, Michael Collins and other Oscar-worthy films. More actors have jumped on the revenge bandwagon such as Sean Penn and others:

Revenge Movies Offer Mythic Middle-Aged Protectors

Revenge is one of the oldest human emotions and drives stories even from ancient times. It is a primal urge to right a wrong and see a villain get his/her comeuppance. In olden days, taking the “law” into one’s hands was the only way to get justice as there was no law nearby or available. But with the advent of the industrial age and the rise of crowded urban areas, governments asserted their power and frowned on revenge as it was extra-legal and out of the control of elites and the powerful. The function of modern law is not necessarily to achieve justice or enforce ethics and morality, but rather to keep a lid on things on society. Keeping the peace and harmony of society is the paramount value, as how else can business and capitalism function? But by removing revenge as a tool of getting justice, many people feel powerless and project onto the film screen to live vicariously through the vengeance-taker.

Revenge can be seen as a moral imperative; that is we must get justice on a wrong-doer otherwise that person will commit wrongs upon others. The psychopath must be taken down a notch to know they cannot get away with their damaging actions with impunity. There are many things that are perfectly legal, but are not ethical, and therefore there is no legal recourse against someone who knows how to skirt those lines (and it’s not hard either). Twitter and other social media can ban revenge porn postings:

Twitter Takes Steps To Combat Stolen Nudes And Revenge Porn

But it’s not going to stop it. Wronged people will find a way to get revenge, and if it’s not through posting nudes of someone on Twitter then they will find other sites or other methods. With no legal outlet for getting justice, don’t be surprised when people become outlaws to get the satisfaction of a balanced and just order. In the meantime, they will continue to flock to revenge movies to satisfy their primal desire vicariously and then manifest motivation to get revenge in their real life.

Are We Near The End of Today’s College and University System?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Long story short, there are powerful, entrenched interests committed to maintaining the currently profitable structure of colleges and universities. Change will not happen until students (and parents) en masse demand accountability and results, and then stop enrolling. Joe Nocera in the New York Times makes some good points about the current problems of American (we can include global, since other countries mimic the American system to a large degree) higher education:

Joe Nocera: College for a New Age

As stated on this site previously, there are only three things that a college/university needs: great teachers, great students and great resources (labs, digital library, art supplies, etc.). The rest is superfluous, yet students pay a fortune for the tremendous waste of administrators and staff assigned to athletics, curriculum assessment, marketing, public relations, diversity, etc. Many of these separate offices and administrative functions could be greatly streamlined and reduced to a faculty service role, saving a ton of money in student tuition. Faculty governance is supposed to be the bedrock of American higher education anyway, so let’s do away with the administrators and stick them back in the classrooms (if they can teach well).

Nocera hits at the usual suspects:
1) Bloated and wasteful athletic programs that have nothing to do with the educational mission of a college/university. Replace them with intramural athletic programs that are great for students, faculty and staff to interact and exercise. There is no reason to maintain the myriad number of teams, coaches, staff, travel expenses, scholarships and facilities required for NCAA sports. Athletics is the single biggest waste of money on campus, and should be cut down to intramural programs that benefit the entire community socially and physically.
2) Universities (and colleges to a lesser degree) emphasize research over teaching, but what students really want is great teachers that inspire, educate and mentor them. Most students care little (if at all) if their professor publishes in a first-rate journal; they just want a great communicator who cares about their learning, and knows how to teach. Yet teaching is devalued by the university, and professors who concentrate on teaching are looked upon with suspicion as intellectual dilettantes who only want to be popular with students.

Where Nocera misses the plot is believing online classes and degrees will replace “real life” classes and institutions. A big part of the college experience is the social community that is formed with fellow students, and sometimes professors. It’s just not the same sitting at home behind a computer to get this invaluable experience and contacts. Steve Ballmer became President of Microsoft by hanging out with Bill Gates at Harvard playing poker late at night. Unless telepresence makes huge technological breakthroughs in the near future, these kinds of friendships and networks just won’t form in online classes. Colleges and universities are about more than hitting the books. Friendships, experiences and interests are made that can last a lifetime. Learning face-to-face with peers and professors is a more effective learning environment than posting comments in a discussion board and reading assigned texts alone. The virtual cannot replace the real in education.

As for those powerful, entrenched interests preventing any meaningful change in higher education, that will be the subject of another post…

Will We Enter a Digital Dark Age?

One of the ‘founding fathers’ of the Internet, Vint Cerf (co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocols), warns that most of the data being saved today in the cloud, USB drives, hard drives, discs, etc. will be inaccessible in 100 years due to advanced technology of the 22nd century making today’s technology obsolete. The 21st century will become a dark age due to all the data being lost.

Vint Cerf Warns of Digital Dark Age

Certainly a lot of data was lost during the transition from 3.5 inch floppies to CD-ROMs, and, yes, I know this from personal experience. But many of us learned that lesson and have become better stewards of our digital files, regularly backing them up and transitioning them from one new technology to the next. Surely some data will be lost along the way like a crumbling cookie, but it will be mostly the careless and ill-planned who will lose their digital past. Yes, technology available 100 years from now will be completely unusable with today’s ports and drives, but most of us who are responsible will make the necessary transfers along the way.

As for public data on the web, the Way Back Machine at Archive.org already copies and stores most well-known websites today. Researchers in the 22nd century will be able to see how Yahoo! looked in 1996 until its inevitable demise this century. On the marco level, so much is being archived that little will be lost. On the micro level, many individuals will lose their digital history but that will be their own fault for not preserving their past. And, in a sense, this is no different as it has ever been with failure to store film photographs and/or paintings in cool places and out of direct sunlight. The method of preservation changes, but ultimately it’s the human will and foresight that determines whether it will be saved for posterity.

Originally posted: http://www.mccarthyism.com/2015/20150218_Vint-Cerf-Warns-of-Digital-Dark-Age.htm

One Gaffe on Social Media Will Cost You Your Job

Modern life is unforgiving, and social media only exacerbates this harsh reality. People have always said stupid things, but now that one stupid thing can cost you your job:

Justine Sacco’s One Stupid Tweet

What Sacco said was stupid, insenstive and offensive, but the question should be asked whether this one tweet was truly reflective of who she was as a person. Was this part of a pattern of stupid, insensitive things she said, or was it a one (or two) off, shot from the hip, while waiting in the airport. We are under constant pressure to sling snark because others find it funny and will like and follow us more. Sometimes the line of public proprietary gets crossed, and then a person is pilloried for bad taste, insensitivty, racism, etc. If you haven’t realized it by now, this site positions itself as reasoned argumentation in irony to the connotative meaning of the site’s address moniker. But at some point, no matter how careful, something will end up getting written that will offend someone in some way that not have been anticipated. And then jobs will be lost because of it. One of the most horrendous examples from the article is the guy making an off-color sexual joke about dongles at a tech conference, and then a woman takes it upon herself to take his photo without permission and outed him as a misogynist to the planet. He promptly lost his job, and then so did she. Companies are wimps that fire employees who stray even a bit off the line into the slightest whiff of controversy. These companies should be boycotted as they are chilling the speech of everyone who works in them by firing employees who make one mistake in their private life.

The problem is that all our different selves at home, work, shopping, school, have become conflated for everyone to know every single facet. The joke Sacco told was meant for her good friends, but it spread globally because it is much more difficult to keep our private self under close wraps.

Originally posted: http://www.mccarthyism.com/2015/20150215.htm

The Other Side of Revenge Porn

Most debate on revenge porn (when an ex posts nudes of a former significant other, usually a girlfriend) centers around the guys who do it being jerks and the women who consent to have their picture being taken and/or sending selfies being foolish and getting just desserts. But there are a couple other ways to look at the issue.

First, revenge is one of the oldest human motivational needs, and today a plethora of Hollywood movies are based on this ancient thirst. It is no surprise in a culture steeped in revenge-storytelling that many people would like to get even as well. One reason people seek revenge is they have no discourse within the framework of the legal system. If you buy a $10,000 diamond ring for a woman as an engagement promise, she doesn’t legally have to give it back if she breaks it off since it was a gift. Ethically she should return it since she’s not keeping her promise, but she is under no legal obligation to do so. When a relationship goes sour, the one leaving can oftentimes make out like a bandit with money and items milked from the victim over the years, and they do not have to be returned or remunerated. And this says nothing of cheating and adultery, which are both legal but judged as unethical (and even immoral) by most. There is simply no legal remedy for those who come out on the wronged side of an ended relationship. This is one of the primary reasons why revenge porn exists.

Second, revenge can be seen as a moral imperative. If someone wrongs you, then you must seek retribution. To do otherwise, would make you a weakling who meekly got abused and never stood up for oneself. In addition revenge serves a deterrent effect. That is, if a psychopath goes one relationship after another abusing others by cheating, lying and theiving, he/she may think twice if one of the victims gets sweet revenge. It is morally imperative to punish the transgressor since failure to do so will mean the psychopath will accrue more victims until someone stands up to him/her.

Revenge porn may seem tacky and even abhorrent, but it might also be the only way for some to get a measure of justice not available in the legal system. Pass laws against it if you like, but it won’t be going away anytime soon unless you want to make cheating and adultery punishable under criminal law again.

Originally posted: http://www.mccarthyism.com/2015/20150207.htm

Wikipedia Should Not Depict Prophet Muhammad (but not for the reason you think)

Interesting article on Gawker about the background, history and tussle over the depiction of Prophet Muhammad in the Wikipedia entry:

Should Wikipedia Depict Muhammad?

Most of the debate has posited free speech versus sensitivity to religious teachings (particularly of the other), but there is a third way (most debates are not the false binary presented by politicians and media). Newspapers, journalistic organizations, universities, encyclopedias, history books, etc. all strive to present facts. A fact is something that is verifiably true. If it cannot be proven true, then it should not be presented as true. Yet, these same fact-reporting entities use illustrations, paintings and other artistic representations as a placeholder for an unknowable truth. One obvious example is the blue-eyed, blond-haired Jesus that has been portrayed as such in countless media representations through the centuries. But let’s move away from depictions of religious figures for the moment to a momentous historical one.

Christopher Columbus is one of the most well-known figures of history, yet we have no idea how he truly appeared. The paintings we see of him in books and news media were made after his death. If you check history textbooks in Spain, he appears in illustration as a Spanish caballero, and in Italy as a Genoan noble. The truth is absolutely nobody knows what he truly looked like, yet his image is ostensibly and tacitly posted as fact such as Wikipedia, history texts, newspapers, etc. (Not only do we not know what Columbus looked like, we do not even know if he was Italian, or really much of his life. Most of the myth of Columbus was fabricated by the American author Washington Irving in the 19th century to sell his books). It would be fine to put these images into entries and discussions of artistic representation of historic figures, but it is wholly inaccurate to put them into any document that purports to be truth. And that is why Wikipedia and other media organizations that purportedly pursue truth should not publish images of Muhammad or any religious/historical figure for which we have no accurate visual depiction. To do otherwise is simply wrong (not necessarily in the ethical or moral sense, but in the sense of simply being flat-out wrong).

Originally posted: http://www.mccarthyism.com/2015/20150127.htm