It's funny how people who use the word "privileged" in a social context are often among the most privileged themselves. The number of rich liberals is by no means small. Perhaps it's out of a sense of undeserved guilt for their money or the misguided notion that the government is the best means of giving to their communities that some of these upper-class leftists espouse things like high taxes or restrictions on commodities.
The problem is that while these elite liberals are busy attempting to give to the "underprivileged," they miss the fact that as "privileged" people (to use their term), they really don't have a great understanding of what it might mean to those they are attempting to help. In a nutshell, these men and women believe that the rich must provide for the poor and that they know what is best for the poor despite not being poor themselves.
This paternalistic attitude is problematic. The recent example of the debate over gun control provides an excellent example. Many wealthy people believe that guns should be more heavily restricted. Through the generosity of a family that lives in my neighborhood, I live in one of the richest neighborhoods in Philadelphia. A house down the street has a sign that basically advocates "common sense" gun laws (read gun control). They are able to do this without consequence because they live far removed from petty crime, or, in fact, crime of any sort.
In a lower-class neighborhood, advertising that you don't like guns is a very, very unwise move. It's kind of like taking a bucket of red paint and using it to write "rob me" on the side of your house. The reason rich leftists don't have to fear the consequences of being anti-gun is because they are effectively isolated from them. They have no experience with crime, so they assume a simplistic solution (take away guns, gun violence goes down). The problem is that, while these privileged liberals remain generally unaffected by changes in gun law, those who do not live in safe suburban environments do not. Sometimes good people live in less than ideal circumstances because they can't afford not to. Guns provide a cheap and easy means of self-defense in these circumstances, and by disallowing ownership of that means, the rich disarm the honest poor and leave the armed criminal element largely unaffected.
What you have to remember is that Newton wasn't shocking because people were shot to death. That happens every day in inner-city areas. It was shocking because the shooter and victims were upper-middle class white people.
The same phenomenon can be applied to economics. Liberals, especially rich ones, espouse high tax rates. That's because they can afford a hike in taxes. They can survive very comfortably on 50 - 90 percent of their income. To a lower-class individual, however, 10% of a paycheck might mean a difference in the number of meals eaten that week.
One might argue that rich liberals only advocate taxing the rich, but that doesn't make it better, because companies use the money they make to develop cheaper technologies that affect everyone. The difference is that a rich person doesn't care about lowered food prices, whereas a poor person does. If companies can spend what they pay in taxes on developing a cheaper grain, that's worth far more than a set welfare check in the long run.
The disconnect between rich and poor has been heavily debated in the media, but generally the conclusions are different than those drawn here. What has been largely overlooked is that many people funding the 99% movement aren't in the 99%. There's a reason for that. Being liberal doesn't mean you understand what it's like to be poor.
In the spirit of honesty, I don't know what it's like to be poor either. The major difference is that I don't advocate economic coercion on behalf of a group I know little about, preferring to stay out of what I can't understand rather than trying to fix it and potentially making it worse. I'm also a lot closer to poor on a sliding scale than upper-class suburban liberals, and while that's not worth much, I think it's worth something. I can honestly tell you I'd rather have cash in the hands of companies like Intel or Google than in the hands of a bunch of politicians, and while I'm sure that not all poor people agree with me, poor people, like every other group of people, are not homogeneous, and I'm sure some do agree with me. I'm looking at them as individuals with agency, not a block of helpless people or potential votes. If rich liberals wish to learn anything, I think the lesson that people are people regardless of income level is the most important one.
Ultimately, of course, I can't say I have all the answers to the economic problems of this country, but then again, neither to rich liberals. The difference is, I'm not pretending that I do.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
The Tarnished Age
Let's get something out of the way: the past sucked.
As a history major, I see a lot of historical "analysis" that bugs me. It's an occupation hazard. Watching politicians, the media, tourists, or journalists make historical comparisons is cringeworthy in most cases, because it generally totally ignores historical complexity, usually boiling down to ridiculous surface level comparisons. A is like B because both involve C, and let's leave it at that. Never mind that the political and socieoeconomic circumstances were completely different.
One historical fallacy I see a lot is nostalgia. People somehow think that "back then," whether it be the 1940s or 50s or 1800s, was a simpler, more wholesome time. It wasn't.
The problem is that no one in the mainstream wants to envision a past with elements that were just as shitty, or shittier, than today's societal elements. While perusing Facebook, I found this example: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-honig/golden-age-thinking_b_1178176.html.
This is a classic example of older people grumbling about "kids these days." (That happened a lot in the past too.) But the historical bubble this man is living in is one fabricated by the very media that makes up a huge part of his complaint. The reality is that the past featured a lot more death, destruction, hatred, and oppression than we like to acknowledge, and far more than exists today.
Let's examine this author's claim that "life was better" in the past. He is using the 1940s as a reference point, so let's look at what life was like in the 1940s. If you were a woman, you stayed in the house and probably didn't have access to a higher education or a career. You'd get married as a young woman if not as a teenager. You were more or less expected to take care of your husband and kids. Your likelihood of being beaten or raped was far higher than it is today, and you would have less of a chance legal recourse.
Of course, that's only if you were a white woman, because if you were a black woman, you'd have all that and probably a job as a domestic servant for white people.
If you were a black man, you were a second-class citizen, higher only than the black woman.
Those were the good options, of course. If you lived in parts of Europe, you might be either starving or being executed by your national government or the German government. Or both.
Ah the good old days.
What this amateur historian doesn't realize is that the past to which he's referring never existed. The advances in technology he blames for making people "rude" basically help us to do literally everything faster, including cure medical ailments, grow food, transmit information, and travel the globe. But, oh no! Kids are ruder! Ok, I admit, that's bad, but you know what's worse? THE HOLOCAUST.
People like this would be laughed out of a 100-level undergrad history class, and for that reason, maybe they should stop with the nostalgia. They're not really qualified to make these kinds of analyses, and when they do, they usually fuck it up. If you want to try, I encourage you to, but please at least read a book or two, because when you start saying things like the 1940s were better because people wore suits to the movies, and ignore things like one of the biggest genocides of all time, you look like a massive, massive moron. The good old days are now. 100 years from now, they will be then. That's how progress works. If you don't like it, Mr. Honig, then fine. Try living without 21st century amenities for a week.
Actually, that's a great idea. Maybe then people who publish columns like this on the Internet, won't. That's something I, and would think the rest of the professional historical community, could really get behind.
As a history major, I see a lot of historical "analysis" that bugs me. It's an occupation hazard. Watching politicians, the media, tourists, or journalists make historical comparisons is cringeworthy in most cases, because it generally totally ignores historical complexity, usually boiling down to ridiculous surface level comparisons. A is like B because both involve C, and let's leave it at that. Never mind that the political and socieoeconomic circumstances were completely different.
One historical fallacy I see a lot is nostalgia. People somehow think that "back then," whether it be the 1940s or 50s or 1800s, was a simpler, more wholesome time. It wasn't.
The problem is that no one in the mainstream wants to envision a past with elements that were just as shitty, or shittier, than today's societal elements. While perusing Facebook, I found this example: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-honig/golden-age-thinking_b_1178176.html.
This is a classic example of older people grumbling about "kids these days." (That happened a lot in the past too.) But the historical bubble this man is living in is one fabricated by the very media that makes up a huge part of his complaint. The reality is that the past featured a lot more death, destruction, hatred, and oppression than we like to acknowledge, and far more than exists today.
Let's examine this author's claim that "life was better" in the past. He is using the 1940s as a reference point, so let's look at what life was like in the 1940s. If you were a woman, you stayed in the house and probably didn't have access to a higher education or a career. You'd get married as a young woman if not as a teenager. You were more or less expected to take care of your husband and kids. Your likelihood of being beaten or raped was far higher than it is today, and you would have less of a chance legal recourse.
Of course, that's only if you were a white woman, because if you were a black woman, you'd have all that and probably a job as a domestic servant for white people.
If you were a black man, you were a second-class citizen, higher only than the black woman.
Those were the good options, of course. If you lived in parts of Europe, you might be either starving or being executed by your national government or the German government. Or both.
Ah the good old days.
What this amateur historian doesn't realize is that the past to which he's referring never existed. The advances in technology he blames for making people "rude" basically help us to do literally everything faster, including cure medical ailments, grow food, transmit information, and travel the globe. But, oh no! Kids are ruder! Ok, I admit, that's bad, but you know what's worse? THE HOLOCAUST.
People like this would be laughed out of a 100-level undergrad history class, and for that reason, maybe they should stop with the nostalgia. They're not really qualified to make these kinds of analyses, and when they do, they usually fuck it up. If you want to try, I encourage you to, but please at least read a book or two, because when you start saying things like the 1940s were better because people wore suits to the movies, and ignore things like one of the biggest genocides of all time, you look like a massive, massive moron. The good old days are now. 100 years from now, they will be then. That's how progress works. If you don't like it, Mr. Honig, then fine. Try living without 21st century amenities for a week.
Actually, that's a great idea. Maybe then people who publish columns like this on the Internet, won't. That's something I, and would think the rest of the professional historical community, could really get behind.
Monday, March 4, 2013
"Tiberius? No, that's the worst!"
With the White House's recent scifi based gaffe, the field is wide open for political criticism of how Obama uses pop culture to make points even when it doesn't really apply and doesn't make his ideas any better. I could go there (because, let's face it, referencing Star Wars every once in a while doesn't make you NOT a murderer anymore) but I won't. You know where I'm going with this?
Why? Because it's Spring Break and I'm at work with nothing better to do. Also because you can't confuse a fantastic show with a racist series of movies (Really? There's only two black dudes in the whole galaxy and one of them dies? Unless you count Jar Jar Binks, but he's not really black; he's just a super-racist caricature of black people) and get away with it.
I previously wrote a review of why Star Trek is and always will be better than Star Wars, but that was on my old blog and that's gone now. I'm probably going to cover very similar points, and frankly, I doubt you'll care. That's fine. Gonna do it anyway, so let's get started.
I started with racism, so let's delve into that a bit, because it's a perfect example of the difference between the two series. Star Trek was aired in the 60s, back when it was totally acceptable to hate black people. Nevertheless, it prominently featured a black woman in a high-level position. That alone would be impressive, but here's the best part: the character is not "the black comm officer." She's just the comm officer. There's no reference made to her skin color. Ever. Because in the twenty-third century, no one gives a shit. Uhura is smart, pretty, and competent. That she is also Swahili has literally almost no impact on her character in the series. That's a view of race we still haven't achieved, and this show was portraying it in the 1960s.
Compare that with Star Wars. In an era where racism is actually not ok, George Lucas decided that he needed what is essentially a blackface actor without the blackface, and stereotypes of Asians and Jews in his movies. I'm still struggling to understand why people paid to see Episodes II and III after that and why there was not a bigger uproar over this. This isn't just Hollywood whitewashing; this is active racism in one of the biggest film franchises of all time.
I use this example because it's a good illustration of what these stories represent and how they're written. Star Trek is a show about social issues, life, and the human condition. Star Wars is largely a standard hero story. Granted, there's nothing wrong with that at all, but there's also not much groundbreaking going on where the plot is concerned.
It's not just the message that makes Star Trek better, though. For one thing, the aliens in Star Trek are way more realistic.
You read that correctly. Before you bring up the scene with the Gorn, let me do it for you. If you've watched that episode, you know that the Gorn aren't just generic lizard creatures: they are people. They have a race and a culture and a set of technology different from that of the United Federation of Planets. Kirk recognizes this and refuses to kill his Gorn adversary, because he respects sentient life in any form. This is a far more complex view of alien races (and assuming they actually exist somewhere, probably a more accurate one) than you find in any Star Wars movie. Given info solely from the movies, describe any race in Star Wars other than humans. The lack of detail about literally any of them may astound you when you actually think about it.
The Vulcans in Star Trek may be only actors with putty on their ears, but the show delves quite deeply into their biology, culture, architecture, philosophy, and more. Their arid desert world and devotion to pure logic make the Vulcans seem way more alien to us than say, the Jawas or Gungans, because we know more about them and the differences between them and Terrans are based on culture, not appearance. So while the special effects in Star Wars are better, the aliens aren't nearly as complex, and are therefore actually less alien. Sure, Wookies are covered in hair, but from the movies we glean nothing about their culture, so we can't see what makes them all that alien, other than their simple physical appearance. Given this shallow level of distinction, it's actually not hard at all to see how racism seeped into George Lucas's pet project. (If you're still not convinced, consider that Vulcan customs are loosely based on ancient Judaic ones, and that an actual Jew had a hand in creating that. Now think of Watto. Enough said.)
Realism is a constant issue in Star Wars, though, especially when it comes to the portrayal of personal relationships. The actors in the old one (especially Rick Dekkard, who played a phenomenal Han Solo after a brief stint retiring replicants in the Temple of Doom) made it work, but the writing just isn't always there. Hell, some of the best lines of the original trilogy were ad-libbed by Indiana Jones, because that guy is just a fantastic actor in addition to being a damn good archeologist.
All joking aside, when you examine Star Wars and the underlying writing, you realize just how much people like Harrison Ford and Carrie Fischer saved the damn movies. Keep in mind that Lucas had far less control over the original trilogy. The newer trilogy is essentially his baby. He had total control over it the whole time. Look how that ended up. The acting is flat, the characters' emotions are often exaggerated to the point of being cartoonish, and the dialogue just sucks. There's really no other way to put it.
I'll give an example. Let's examine how love is portrayed in Star Trek and how it's portrayed in Star Wars. In an early episode of Star Trek, Kirk is betrayed by a woman he's fallen in love with. In fact, he's forced to actually kill her. Naturally, this tears him up pretty considerably, and the complex emotions are portrayed very very well. At the end of the episode, one of the bridge members asks him if he's alright. Instead of responding the question, Kirk brusquely orders the ship ahead at warp. That's how someone might actually react to having to kill a loved one, because it's awful and you probably wouldn't want to talk about it, but you'd still be visibly upset.
Compare this to the love story between Anakin and Padme. It's forced and a little creepy. Anakin is a volatile man with the emotions of a disturbed teenager. He hasn't seen Padme in ten years when he starts hitting on her (extremely badly). Yet somehow Padme falls in love with him based on nothing but a connection they had when he was ten years old and she was 18, even though her entire interaction with him as an adult consists of him being borderline abusive and massively creepy. At one point, he tells her he killed an entire village, including women and children. (Now if that doesn't get a girl hot, I don't know what does.) Yet somehow, Padme falls for this guy even though he's immature, disturbed, and actually a murderer. There's really no indication given, because Padme doesn't talk a whole lot, and when she does, she drones.
Given that Natalie Portman is actually a pretty funny and dynamic person when she interviews on talk shows and such and that she's done at least decent acting in other films, you kind of have to chalk up her terrible performance in Star Wars to bad directing and really bad writing. The love story isn't really all that romantic because Lucas essentially has the writing skills of a thirteen-year old boy.
Even if you took out all the bad writing, racism, and shallow portrayal of alien races, however, you're still left with one huge fundamental difference: Star Trek is based on an attainable and positive future. Star Wars is based on a dark and simplified past. Star Trek is what you want the future to be. Most of Earth's demographic problems are solved, the quality of life is awesome, the government hesitates to ever go to war and when it does it's usually pretty merciful unless directly attacked, and technology is ridiculously helpful, if somewhat quirky and occasionally problematic. The Federation has a past and a real character. It's a generally good organization with decent, skilled people, but still prone to the bickering and political infighting any such organization would have. Compare this to the Star Wars universe, set in a past a long way from us, where a rebel alliance whose origins and organization we don't know about are fighting an Empire that's, you know, bad, because they blow up planets and stuff. Star Trek is about the future of humanity, and it's a big, bright, positive, attainable future. Star Wars is about some stuff that happened "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." Frankly, why should we give a shit?
This is the main reason I strongly, strongly, prefer Star Trek. The future portrayed is a plausible one and you feel like you have stake in what happens. The characters are just so much more engaging and real, people with whom one can emotionally connect. That's why the 2009 iteration of Star Trek, which features TOS characters played by great actors, remains one of only two movies that can make me tear up. When I watch Star Wars, on the other hand, I'm usually wont to pick up a video game or book while I'm watching it, because it simply doesn't engage me the way Star Trek does.
I'll give Star Wars credit where credit is due. It was groundbreaking in the special effects department, and it got people into science fiction in a way Star Trek couldn't. The problem is that that's because Star Wars is essentially pop sci-fi. People who don't fully understand the potential power of the genre and never pick up a real work of science fiction still love Star Wars. And that's fine. But if we judge the series on an objective level, especially including the new trilogy, it's mediocre at best. That's why when Barack Obama confuses them, it hurts my inner geek. (And when I use the term, I mean it. There's a difference between real geekiness and just watching Doctor Who occasionally and calling yourself a nerd. That'll be the subject for another post, I'm sure.)
So no, Barack Obama. The Vulcans and the Jedi are not the same thing. Because while they're both fictional, one is the creation of a man who knew how to write and had more imagination in his pinky toe than most people have in their whole body and one is the daydream of a a man who writes like a thirteen-year old and happens to have a lot of cash. The only thing you have in common with geeks is that both have a tendency to use expensive remote-controlled shit. The difference is that one group doesn't use it to kill people. So please just go back to talking without saying anything, because frankly, that was much much better.
Why? Because it's Spring Break and I'm at work with nothing better to do. Also because you can't confuse a fantastic show with a racist series of movies (Really? There's only two black dudes in the whole galaxy and one of them dies? Unless you count Jar Jar Binks, but he's not really black; he's just a super-racist caricature of black people) and get away with it.
I previously wrote a review of why Star Trek is and always will be better than Star Wars, but that was on my old blog and that's gone now. I'm probably going to cover very similar points, and frankly, I doubt you'll care. That's fine. Gonna do it anyway, so let's get started.
I started with racism, so let's delve into that a bit, because it's a perfect example of the difference between the two series. Star Trek was aired in the 60s, back when it was totally acceptable to hate black people. Nevertheless, it prominently featured a black woman in a high-level position. That alone would be impressive, but here's the best part: the character is not "the black comm officer." She's just the comm officer. There's no reference made to her skin color. Ever. Because in the twenty-third century, no one gives a shit. Uhura is smart, pretty, and competent. That she is also Swahili has literally almost no impact on her character in the series. That's a view of race we still haven't achieved, and this show was portraying it in the 1960s.
Compare that with Star Wars. In an era where racism is actually not ok, George Lucas decided that he needed what is essentially a blackface actor without the blackface, and stereotypes of Asians and Jews in his movies. I'm still struggling to understand why people paid to see Episodes II and III after that and why there was not a bigger uproar over this. This isn't just Hollywood whitewashing; this is active racism in one of the biggest film franchises of all time.
I use this example because it's a good illustration of what these stories represent and how they're written. Star Trek is a show about social issues, life, and the human condition. Star Wars is largely a standard hero story. Granted, there's nothing wrong with that at all, but there's also not much groundbreaking going on where the plot is concerned.
It's not just the message that makes Star Trek better, though. For one thing, the aliens in Star Trek are way more realistic.
You read that correctly. Before you bring up the scene with the Gorn, let me do it for you. If you've watched that episode, you know that the Gorn aren't just generic lizard creatures: they are people. They have a race and a culture and a set of technology different from that of the United Federation of Planets. Kirk recognizes this and refuses to kill his Gorn adversary, because he respects sentient life in any form. This is a far more complex view of alien races (and assuming they actually exist somewhere, probably a more accurate one) than you find in any Star Wars movie. Given info solely from the movies, describe any race in Star Wars other than humans. The lack of detail about literally any of them may astound you when you actually think about it.
The Vulcans in Star Trek may be only actors with putty on their ears, but the show delves quite deeply into their biology, culture, architecture, philosophy, and more. Their arid desert world and devotion to pure logic make the Vulcans seem way more alien to us than say, the Jawas or Gungans, because we know more about them and the differences between them and Terrans are based on culture, not appearance. So while the special effects in Star Wars are better, the aliens aren't nearly as complex, and are therefore actually less alien. Sure, Wookies are covered in hair, but from the movies we glean nothing about their culture, so we can't see what makes them all that alien, other than their simple physical appearance. Given this shallow level of distinction, it's actually not hard at all to see how racism seeped into George Lucas's pet project. (If you're still not convinced, consider that Vulcan customs are loosely based on ancient Judaic ones, and that an actual Jew had a hand in creating that. Now think of Watto. Enough said.)
Realism is a constant issue in Star Wars, though, especially when it comes to the portrayal of personal relationships. The actors in the old one (especially Rick Dekkard, who played a phenomenal Han Solo after a brief stint retiring replicants in the Temple of Doom) made it work, but the writing just isn't always there. Hell, some of the best lines of the original trilogy were ad-libbed by Indiana Jones, because that guy is just a fantastic actor in addition to being a damn good archeologist.
All joking aside, when you examine Star Wars and the underlying writing, you realize just how much people like Harrison Ford and Carrie Fischer saved the damn movies. Keep in mind that Lucas had far less control over the original trilogy. The newer trilogy is essentially his baby. He had total control over it the whole time. Look how that ended up. The acting is flat, the characters' emotions are often exaggerated to the point of being cartoonish, and the dialogue just sucks. There's really no other way to put it.
I'll give an example. Let's examine how love is portrayed in Star Trek and how it's portrayed in Star Wars. In an early episode of Star Trek, Kirk is betrayed by a woman he's fallen in love with. In fact, he's forced to actually kill her. Naturally, this tears him up pretty considerably, and the complex emotions are portrayed very very well. At the end of the episode, one of the bridge members asks him if he's alright. Instead of responding the question, Kirk brusquely orders the ship ahead at warp. That's how someone might actually react to having to kill a loved one, because it's awful and you probably wouldn't want to talk about it, but you'd still be visibly upset.
Compare this to the love story between Anakin and Padme. It's forced and a little creepy. Anakin is a volatile man with the emotions of a disturbed teenager. He hasn't seen Padme in ten years when he starts hitting on her (extremely badly). Yet somehow Padme falls in love with him based on nothing but a connection they had when he was ten years old and she was 18, even though her entire interaction with him as an adult consists of him being borderline abusive and massively creepy. At one point, he tells her he killed an entire village, including women and children. (Now if that doesn't get a girl hot, I don't know what does.) Yet somehow, Padme falls for this guy even though he's immature, disturbed, and actually a murderer. There's really no indication given, because Padme doesn't talk a whole lot, and when she does, she drones.
Given that Natalie Portman is actually a pretty funny and dynamic person when she interviews on talk shows and such and that she's done at least decent acting in other films, you kind of have to chalk up her terrible performance in Star Wars to bad directing and really bad writing. The love story isn't really all that romantic because Lucas essentially has the writing skills of a thirteen-year old boy.
Even if you took out all the bad writing, racism, and shallow portrayal of alien races, however, you're still left with one huge fundamental difference: Star Trek is based on an attainable and positive future. Star Wars is based on a dark and simplified past. Star Trek is what you want the future to be. Most of Earth's demographic problems are solved, the quality of life is awesome, the government hesitates to ever go to war and when it does it's usually pretty merciful unless directly attacked, and technology is ridiculously helpful, if somewhat quirky and occasionally problematic. The Federation has a past and a real character. It's a generally good organization with decent, skilled people, but still prone to the bickering and political infighting any such organization would have. Compare this to the Star Wars universe, set in a past a long way from us, where a rebel alliance whose origins and organization we don't know about are fighting an Empire that's, you know, bad, because they blow up planets and stuff. Star Trek is about the future of humanity, and it's a big, bright, positive, attainable future. Star Wars is about some stuff that happened "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." Frankly, why should we give a shit?
This is the main reason I strongly, strongly, prefer Star Trek. The future portrayed is a plausible one and you feel like you have stake in what happens. The characters are just so much more engaging and real, people with whom one can emotionally connect. That's why the 2009 iteration of Star Trek, which features TOS characters played by great actors, remains one of only two movies that can make me tear up. When I watch Star Wars, on the other hand, I'm usually wont to pick up a video game or book while I'm watching it, because it simply doesn't engage me the way Star Trek does.
I'll give Star Wars credit where credit is due. It was groundbreaking in the special effects department, and it got people into science fiction in a way Star Trek couldn't. The problem is that that's because Star Wars is essentially pop sci-fi. People who don't fully understand the potential power of the genre and never pick up a real work of science fiction still love Star Wars. And that's fine. But if we judge the series on an objective level, especially including the new trilogy, it's mediocre at best. That's why when Barack Obama confuses them, it hurts my inner geek. (And when I use the term, I mean it. There's a difference between real geekiness and just watching Doctor Who occasionally and calling yourself a nerd. That'll be the subject for another post, I'm sure.)
So no, Barack Obama. The Vulcans and the Jedi are not the same thing. Because while they're both fictional, one is the creation of a man who knew how to write and had more imagination in his pinky toe than most people have in their whole body and one is the daydream of a a man who writes like a thirteen-year old and happens to have a lot of cash. The only thing you have in common with geeks is that both have a tendency to use expensive remote-controlled shit. The difference is that one group doesn't use it to kill people. So please just go back to talking without saying anything, because frankly, that was much much better.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
The Marketing of the "Mac"
Let's get something straight. There is no Mac-PC debate.
Some might read this with confusion. After all, if they're like me, they remember these commercials from way back when:
Of course, these commercials are just that: commercials. They're designed to sell a product. Like most commercials, they are extraordinarily misleading.
The first thing you have to understand about the "Mac vs. PC" debate is that what most people call a "Mac" is a PC. PC simply stands for "personal computer." Desktops, laptops, and even all-in-ones can be considered PCs.
So what makes a "Mac" different? This is where the second important distinction comes in. Mac actually isn't a computer brand. Mac is an Operating System.
In case you're lost, let's take a step back. A prebuilt, commercial computer is created by something called the OEM, or Original Equipment Manufacturer. Dell, HP, Toshiba, Apple, and Acer are all examples of OEMs. This is simply the company which builds the physical computer from parts.
Mac is an Operating System, or OS. This is simply the software that goes on the computer. Windows is also an Operating System. Windows is perfectly capable of running on a computer manufactured by Apple, just as Mac is capable of running (albeit illegally) on a computer built by Dell or Toshiba. This is because computers all utilize the same basic parts. What software you load on it only changes how you interact with these parts.
So what makes an Apple computer (colloquially or incorrectly called a "Mac" by some) different than a Dell or Toshiba computer? Apple tightly controls distribution of its OS, so that it can only be run (legally) on Apple built computers. Microsoft, however, sells its OS (now generally Windows 8) to any OEM, or maker of computers. This is the primary reason why Windows is run on most personal computers.
So what do all these acronyms boil down to? Essentially this: an Apple computer has the same parts as you would find in a Toshiba or Dell. The only difference is the casing the computer comes in and the OS. That's it. When people refer to the "Mac-PC" debate, they actually mean the Mac-Windows debate. Apple builds PCs too, but by loading a different OS and pretending they somehow sell a different product, they create a clear, if false, distinction between their product and everyone else's. In reality, there is a massive difference between a $2,000 Toshiba and a $400 Dell. However, they both run Windows, and by tricking people into thinking that the two computers, which will perform at vastly different speeds, are the same by linking the computer to the OS, Apple can claim that all "PCs" are slow, based on the performance of lower-end computers, with which most people are familiar.
Of course, most people do have trouble with Windows, and there's two reasons for that. The first is what we in IT call PEBCAK. Windows is a very open OS which allows for a huge amount of tweaking. If you don't know what you're doing, you can and will fuck it up. The second reason is that Windows is prone to virus and malware attacks. While Apple likes to claim that this is due to the inherent superiority of their OS, the truth is that most crackers won't bother writing malware for Mac OS, because most people are running Windows. Yes, a UNIX based OS (like Mac OS) will be more resistant to viruses and other forms of harmful software, but if the market shares were reversed, Windows would be virtually virus-free.
So are there differences between "Macs" and "PCs" as the average user understands them? Yes. Are those differences as black and white as Apple would have them believe? Not even close.
I've used my fair share of OSes. I've used XP, Vista, Win7, Win8, Lion, Mountain Lion, Ubuntu, and Fedora. They're all good for different things. My personal PC runs Windows 7, Windows 8, and Ubuntu. It's faster than any Apple computer in existence and has never had a virus. That's because the parts are way way more powerful than anything Apple puts in their machines and I keep my copies of Windows extremely secure. (Oh, and did I mention that my rig will smoke a Macbook Pro in every benchmark and cost the exact same price to put together?)
The Mac-PC debate is a debate of marketing, not reality. Mac OS X is a phenomenal operating system. But so is Windows 8. Neither is inherently "faster" or "better." I use Windows 7 for gaming, but prefer Mountain Lion for everyday browsing (though since installing Win8, that's definitely changed, let me tell you). Those familiar with computers generally won't pick a "side" because there's no side to pick. You don't debate about whether a pickup or a Ferrari is better because they're completely different vehicles built for completely different purposes. Militant Windows or Mac fanboys are looked down upon in the power user community because they're arguing about distinctions that don't really exist. Computers running Mac OS can be just as slow as computers running Windows. Trust me, I've seen it. The difference between any two systems is largely in the hardware used. Yes, Mac or Linux is less intensive - all things being equal. But plug a better processor or more RAM into one box and it will run faster, regardless of the installed OS.
If you're still confused, buy a "Mac." It will make your life so much simpler. If you're following so far, get Windows OR Mac; your choice. If you knew all of this before you started this post, good for you. Go install both with a side of Linux.
Some might read this with confusion. After all, if they're like me, they remember these commercials from way back when:
The first thing you have to understand about the "Mac vs. PC" debate is that what most people call a "Mac" is a PC. PC simply stands for "personal computer." Desktops, laptops, and even all-in-ones can be considered PCs.
So what makes a "Mac" different? This is where the second important distinction comes in. Mac actually isn't a computer brand. Mac is an Operating System.
In case you're lost, let's take a step back. A prebuilt, commercial computer is created by something called the OEM, or Original Equipment Manufacturer. Dell, HP, Toshiba, Apple, and Acer are all examples of OEMs. This is simply the company which builds the physical computer from parts.
Mac is an Operating System, or OS. This is simply the software that goes on the computer. Windows is also an Operating System. Windows is perfectly capable of running on a computer manufactured by Apple, just as Mac is capable of running (albeit illegally) on a computer built by Dell or Toshiba. This is because computers all utilize the same basic parts. What software you load on it only changes how you interact with these parts.
So what makes an Apple computer (colloquially or incorrectly called a "Mac" by some) different than a Dell or Toshiba computer? Apple tightly controls distribution of its OS, so that it can only be run (legally) on Apple built computers. Microsoft, however, sells its OS (now generally Windows 8) to any OEM, or maker of computers. This is the primary reason why Windows is run on most personal computers.
So what do all these acronyms boil down to? Essentially this: an Apple computer has the same parts as you would find in a Toshiba or Dell. The only difference is the casing the computer comes in and the OS. That's it. When people refer to the "Mac-PC" debate, they actually mean the Mac-Windows debate. Apple builds PCs too, but by loading a different OS and pretending they somehow sell a different product, they create a clear, if false, distinction between their product and everyone else's. In reality, there is a massive difference between a $2,000 Toshiba and a $400 Dell. However, they both run Windows, and by tricking people into thinking that the two computers, which will perform at vastly different speeds, are the same by linking the computer to the OS, Apple can claim that all "PCs" are slow, based on the performance of lower-end computers, with which most people are familiar.
Of course, most people do have trouble with Windows, and there's two reasons for that. The first is what we in IT call PEBCAK. Windows is a very open OS which allows for a huge amount of tweaking. If you don't know what you're doing, you can and will fuck it up. The second reason is that Windows is prone to virus and malware attacks. While Apple likes to claim that this is due to the inherent superiority of their OS, the truth is that most crackers won't bother writing malware for Mac OS, because most people are running Windows. Yes, a UNIX based OS (like Mac OS) will be more resistant to viruses and other forms of harmful software, but if the market shares were reversed, Windows would be virtually virus-free.
So are there differences between "Macs" and "PCs" as the average user understands them? Yes. Are those differences as black and white as Apple would have them believe? Not even close.
I've used my fair share of OSes. I've used XP, Vista, Win7, Win8, Lion, Mountain Lion, Ubuntu, and Fedora. They're all good for different things. My personal PC runs Windows 7, Windows 8, and Ubuntu. It's faster than any Apple computer in existence and has never had a virus. That's because the parts are way way more powerful than anything Apple puts in their machines and I keep my copies of Windows extremely secure. (Oh, and did I mention that my rig will smoke a Macbook Pro in every benchmark and cost the exact same price to put together?)
The Mac-PC debate is a debate of marketing, not reality. Mac OS X is a phenomenal operating system. But so is Windows 8. Neither is inherently "faster" or "better." I use Windows 7 for gaming, but prefer Mountain Lion for everyday browsing (though since installing Win8, that's definitely changed, let me tell you). Those familiar with computers generally won't pick a "side" because there's no side to pick. You don't debate about whether a pickup or a Ferrari is better because they're completely different vehicles built for completely different purposes. Militant Windows or Mac fanboys are looked down upon in the power user community because they're arguing about distinctions that don't really exist. Computers running Mac OS can be just as slow as computers running Windows. Trust me, I've seen it. The difference between any two systems is largely in the hardware used. Yes, Mac or Linux is less intensive - all things being equal. But plug a better processor or more RAM into one box and it will run faster, regardless of the installed OS.
If you're still confused, buy a "Mac." It will make your life so much simpler. If you're following so far, get Windows OR Mac; your choice. If you knew all of this before you started this post, good for you. Go install both with a side of Linux.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
The Supporters of Death
Even though most Americans have probably forgotten, the debate over firearms rages on in the legislature. Attempts to disarm innocent civilians continue in the wake of a streak of deadly shootings.
Interestingly, no such debate is being held over whether police or other government thugs officials should be allowed to carry guns, despite the deaths of two innocent women at the hands of the state.
A whole blog entry could be written about the media's tireless efforts to find shootings across the US - as long as they aren't good guys shooting bad guys or bad cops shooting good civilians - but that's not why I sat down at my keyboard today. No, today, I wanted to share with you, reader, this.
It's not the most tasteful thing in the world, is it? But it speaks to a very clear distinction between those who support the 2nd Amendment, and those who do not.
As a gun owner, and supporter of the right to bear arms, I detest gun violence, not only because violence sucks, but also because gun violence leads to circumstances which I do not like. If you're a gun owner, you don't want anyone shooting anyone else, because it leads to legislation such as currently is being debated in Congress. If you love guns, then gun violence is the worst thing that could happen for you in this country. If you're a supporter of gun control, however... well, like I said: gun violence does nothing to support my agenda.
Perhaps it's not fair to say that people like Adam Lanza should be considered heroes for those who support gun control, but I'm going to say it anyway; people like him have done far more for the anti-gun agenda than grassroots gun banners ever have.
It's time we took a good, hard look at what those who ban weapons actually support. A weapon, especially one like the AR-15 rifle, has a very specific purpose: to protect your life and the lives of your loved ones. Weapons are the ultimate symbol of brains and skill over brawn and brute force. Is it really a surprise that those who wish to take away the means to protect human life would also mock a soldier's death?
Despite their rhetoric, it is not those who produce what is only a grouping of metal and plastic parts who are bringers of death and violence to America; if anyone, it is those who wish to prohibit ordinary Americans from the means of defending themselves against those who do not respect human life or property, let alone bans on firearms. In this context, from this viewpoint, the above cartoon, or rather the circumstances in which is was created, make perfect sense.
Gun owners do not mock the dead. We do not exploit misery. We do not take a sick, perverted glee in those who die at the barrel of a gun. We, those of us who know what a gun is actually capable of (not shooting down planes, or blowing up railroads, thank you, Reverend Jackson), do not relish the prospect of gun violence. Those who know nothing about guns, and wish to ban them, waving their ignorance like a banner, do.
Argue if you will that you wish to ban guns to save lives. It's not true. If you believe it, however, I will admit that you are justified - in your own mind only; not in reality - but you are justified as far as you can be. However, know that there are many on your side who, even if they do not support death and suffering, take a sick pleasure in it at the worst, and at best will only foolishly deliver innocent Americans into it.
Friday, February 8, 2013
Human Professions: History as a Legitimate Field
Most people don't like to be lied to. That's too bad, because you get lied to all the time. Don't think so? Do you watch the news? Then you're being lied to. Read any sections of mainstream news in which you have a skill set (in my case "technology") and you start to notice that they're actually either wrong on have dumbed the information down to a point where the story or advice becomes misleading. One of the major places where mass lying occurs is in public (and probably a lot of private) high schools.
Sadly, there is a job in this country whose members usually think they can do everyone's jobs. Those people are called politicians: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/23/tea-party-tennessee-textbooks-slavery_n_1224157.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false.
This egregious act by legislators is not only disgusting. It's also 100% wrong. Take this quote by a spokesman for the group trying to pass this bill: "[there's] an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another."
"Made-up?" Were the founding fathers the ones "making it up?" Because anyone who knows anything about Jefferson or Washington knows that these men were slaveholders. You know why? Because it's in their fucking records. You know, the ones they kept themselves.
Think you have a good grasp of history with your high school education? Please. Even a general AP U.S. class is full of enough errors, omissions, and shallow analysis to get you into trouble should you attempt to write real history.
There's nothing wrong with this of course; we can't all be experts in everything. Fuck, I still use a calculator to figure out the tip in restaurants. If you ask me how mitosis works I might be able to provide you with an answer, but probably not a good or fully accurate one. That's why we specialize and focus in our respective fields. Everyone does this. Talk to your janitor next time you're in the office. That guy knows his shit when it comes to cleaning (and usually when it comes to wiring and plumbing too). That isn't sarcasm. I have no animosity towards those with menial jobs - as long as they're good at those jobs. That's all I ask for. I don't pretend I could do my janitor's job any more than the janitor could do mine.
This egregious act by legislators is not only disgusting. It's also 100% wrong. Take this quote by a spokesman for the group trying to pass this bill: "[there's] an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another."
"Made-up?" Were the founding fathers the ones "making it up?" Because anyone who knows anything about Jefferson or Washington knows that these men were slaveholders. You know why? Because it's in their fucking records. You know, the ones they kept themselves.
Sadly, morons like this get to influence what your kids learn. The feel-good, apologist historiography mostly died out in professional history in the mid-sixties. No one in the field (or at least no one who expects to be taken seriously) thinks that such a simple view of complex men can exist in history, because the founding fathers were humans and humans are complex. Sadly, hero worship of the founders destroys their usefulness as historical figures, because it paints them as Greek-esque demi-gods with one-dimensional personalities, and their achievements as unreachable by mere mortals. Furthermore, it maligns their vast achievements, making it seem as though they did what they did because they were somehow different, instead of being what they were - human. What they accomplished wasn't easy, and pretending that the success of the Revolution was inevitable because the founders were basically superheroes takes away from their ridiculously difficult-to-achieve successes.
The problem here is that we're treating history like just another profession but without the respect a profession should rightly garner. Reading a few books on medicine and visiting Johns Hopkins doesn't make you a doctor. Yet every year tourists who have read McPherson or Foote rush to Gettysburg, PA (site of my Alma Mater not incidentally) and tell everyone who will listen about their take on "the war." Which is nice, except they aren't really qualified to do that. Some of them are right in what they say. Some aren't. Even the correct analyses tends to be simplistic and focus on facts only, rather than facts and concepts. Again, we stopped doing this in professional history 50 years ago.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not ruling out a "Good Will Hunting" scenario here, but that sort of thing is rare because history is, again, a profession, and most people don't find the right books or do the right kind of analysis just like that. It takes a lot of reading in a lot of different sources, some of which are extremely difficult or expensive to obtain outside of professional history. There's a reason for that. Libraries and archives have to maintain their sources and pay for their upkeep. It's one thing to let a professional historian in for free, especially when his access has been paid for by the institution supporting him, but it's quite another to let in someone who may not really have any idea what he's doing so that he can go write a book vindicating his great granddaddy by cherry-picking his sources.
Speaking of cherry-picking, we have a thing in history called "peer review." That means that if you write a book that used some questionable practices, the rest of the community is going to make sure you're called out on it. We won't be mean (unless you really suck), but yeah, people are gonna know what you did.
This shouldn't surprise anyone. The same thing happens in science. That's why you don't get scientific papers about creationism. It's also why, in my field, you don't get a lot of papers that espouse the Lost Cause mythology or the ultra-simplistic view of the founders as saints. That stuff stays where it belongs: in pop and amateur culture, just like books on creationism or how to survive the coming apocalypse.
I won't pretend that there's no political wrangling in my field, but no more or less than in other fields, such as medicine and law. Yet we still trust doctors and... uh... well, we trust doctors.
In all seriousness, however, you trust professionals, because they are just that: professionals. They went to school and learned their shit. They studied and discussed with other aspiring experts and they understand the technical and theoretical necessities of their jobs. If you don't think you can be the pitcher for the New York Yankees or perform open-heart surgery, what makes you think you can tell Ira Berlin that he's full of shit? (Spoiler: he's not.)
Sadly, lack of regard for history, and a variety of other humanities, as a real profession is what leads to Tennessee wanting to teach your kids that people who openly admitted to holding slaves didn't own slaves. Because they assume that they can legislate what did or did not occur in our history. We might not know for sure, but we have a better idea than you do, and let me tell you something: Jefferson was a massive hypocrite and even back then, people knew it. I know that because, unlike Tennessee, I read a variety of letters and other primary sources that indicate this pretty heavily and I do know what I'm talking about.
So you know what, Tennessee? Shove it up your ass. It's one thing to espouse a Wood-esque take on history. It's another to openly lie to children. If you can't do history right, at least do me a favor and leave it to the professionals.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Firearms 101
As Americans, we should be wary whenever we hear of the government attempting to "control" something. I live in PA. As someone who enjoys good beer, a drink every bit as complex and dynamic as wine, I spend a lot of money to try new craft beers. I could spend less if I lived somewhere else, but the state of PA has extremely outdated laws regarding alcoholic beverages. In PA, it is rare to be able to buy a six-pack in a supermarket. When you are able, you have to buy a limited amount of alcohol and you can only buy it in one specially proscribed area of the store. It must then be bagged in order for you to exit the area.
These laws might be called "liquor control," and they don't work. Most people in the state find them incredibly silly. (Derisive references to 19th century blue laws are common.) Obviously they don't stop drunkenness. I went to Gettysburg College, a little private school near the state line. I can tell you for a fact that people wishing to buy a lot of beer and get very drunk simply drove to Maryland and bought entire kegs of a very low-quality beer called Natural Light. (From the taste, I imagine it's a combination of rice water and human urine.) PA's laws certainly didn't prevent frat bros and other students from getting extremely wasted. Yet these laws exist and they drive up the cost of beer and other drinks for responsible users of alcohol statewide.
It's interesting that many of the same Americans who believe (rightly) that control of alcohol or marijuana have zero effect of consumption on those products nevertheless believe that prohibition could be applied to certain types of firearms, especially since alcohol has killed more people, far more, than guns ever have.
If you read one thing from this post, read this. It's a great website, and it points out one of the many many problems with gun control: that most gun control advocates don't know .223 Remington from 5.56 NATO. The people who wish to take the property of their fellow Americans, or restrict access to certain types of property, know next to nothing about that property. This is odd. I wouldn't allow a garbage man to tell my doctor what to do (or vice versa), yet it's the people who have never fired a gun who get to dictate what shooters can and cannot own.
Of course, any appeal to reason is useless, because it is predicated on the idea that politicians, or even some members of the public, make decisions based on reason. Politicians, despite their job descriptions, are concerned only with themselves. What matters isn't issues; it's elections. There are exceptions, but they are rare. Look at any politician's career: he didn't get where he is now by doing what he thought was right; he did it by doing what the majority thought was right. Members of Congress like Dianne Feinstein aren't stupid. They know that rifles like the AR-15 aren't used in the majority of gun crimes in this country. But bills like Feinstein's have nothing to do with preventing gun crime and have everything to do with people like Dianne Feinstein.
Let's take a look at a practical example of one bill which was passed in 1994: the Assault Weapons Ban. Under said ban, which sunset in 2004, the following weapon was illegal:
This one, however, was not:
In reality, these weapons are the same model: the Ruger Mini-14, featured in the above link. They fire the same cartridge at the same rate. Under the ban, they would also both be limited to the same magazine size. The only difference is the furniture.
Even a gun control advocate has to wonder about a law like this. If, as was stated, the '94 ban was about protecting people, why exactly was a gun like the Mini-14 allowed in one configuration, but not the other? Republican opposition? Maybe, but unlikely, since Republicans at the time didn't want the first model banned at all. Confusion? Possible, but Feinstein, the author of the bill, isn't an idiot. It's not unreasonable to assume that she knew enough about guns to realize that these weapons are equally deadly.
I'll offer an explanation: Feinstein and her cronies don't care even slightly for the safety of Americans.
The Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 was pure politics. Feinstein got to be famous at very little cost. She didn't really do anything; "assault weapons" were still very legal. But she got her name in the papers and got reelected. Even if you support gun control, your own people in Congress are lying to you, and they are using your lack of knowledge about firearms to do it.
One might ask why I would tell people this, since I am very obviously against gun control. The truth is, I'm not a politician. I'm not going to lie about how weak the AWB was and how weak future laws will be. Some might use this information to try and create laws that actually do ban guns. But I have a theory about gun control advocates. This theory states that the most anti-gun person on the planet can be turned by a little information and a fun and educational trip to the nearest shooting range. Guns aren't evil. They're tools. They're the embodiment of mind over muscle. They're a useful item for protecting your family from potential threats. They're capable of putting food on the table. They're plain fun. Some people misuse them, it's true. But some people misuse cars too, and we don't ban them because they are extraordinarily useful. Like guns, they are not designed for killing (you read that correctly), and the vast majority of people use them responsibly. That is why they remain legal. Are there limits? Yes. Similar limits to those which already exist on firearms.
The best weapon against evil and coercion are not AR-15s and AKs (though these are also effective tools against certain kinds of evil), but knowledge. Educate yourself. Understand firearms and respect them as tools, which, in fact, they are. Will it change the outcome of the legislation in Congress? No. Congress does not reason; it uses force and takes what it wants. (Let's be honest: if it didn't, you wouldn't be paying your tax bills every year.) But that doesn't mean you should accept it at that. They can pass laws, but they should not ever be allowed to get away with fooling the American people. That, unlike restrictions on magazine size or which stock to put on your AR, is something on which Americans may actually agree.
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