Apply for the position as head of government

It's summer. It's vacation time. It is almost, but not quite, even warm outside.

For those who at last can enjoy a break from their hard work, these are good times. After many moons of sweat and toil, there's finally a slim chance for something as mythological as a sleep-in. A slow afternoon. An evening not haunted by the fast approaching workmorning after.

It's that time of year. For those who work.

For those unemployed, on the other hand, it's business as usual. This time of year is like any other time of year: still unemployed. Vacation is, after all, defined in opposition to being at work, and just like any dichotomy it becomes brutally pointless to reduce it to one word. Without workdays no vacation days, and without vacation days no workdays.

There are only noworkdays.

In an ambition to give everyone the opportunity to enjoy going on vacation, unemployed are encouraged by unemployment agencies to apply for jobs. Not just the one job, but many, to increase the odds. Ideally as many as possible, for the same reason.

Which makes sense on an individual level. A person applying for one (1) job has half the chance compared to a person who applies for two (2) jobs. Even less of a chance compared to a person who applied for three (3). It becomes strange, however, when this same strategy is used by a large number of people, as the number of jobs don't increase at the same rate as the number of applications. Seen on a systemic level, this paradoxically leads to more work for those who are already employed, as more applications has to be administered. The more unemployed applying for more jobs they for reasons of pure arithmetics can't get, the more workhours wasted on wasted work applications.

Which, to be sure, is wasted effort on the part of everyone involved.

Since you are an attentive reader, you have already noticed the title of this post. you probably already know where this is going. It is wasteful to waste energy on nothing, after all, and it's even more wasteful to write applications that won't be read by anyone. It is, by definition, be better to do things that have effect than to do things than don't, and thus I encourage you to do just that:

Apply for the position as head of government.

Now, at this point you might want to object that it is impossible to get that job by applying for it, since it's not a job following the ordinary rules of employment, and that the social spheres from which potential heads of government are chosen are rather hard to get into. Two objections that are completely true. However, it's not about one individual here, but about many of them. It's a numbers game. One particular person applying for the job won't do any particular difference. But if many people do it many times, the sheer number of applications becomes a message hard to ignore. Whether or not if anyone actually reads them or not.

Which has a greater effect than writing an application for a job that is just as impossible to get.

Thus, if you are not enjoying your summer vacation this summer, and find yourself in the paradoxical situation of working very hard at being unemployed - apply for the position as head of government. One time, two times, three times - for as long as your are encouraged to write as many applications as possible.

It's never a bad thing to show initiative, forwardness and innovativeness in the competitive modern job market, after all. -

Originally published June 24, 2014

Emotional pylons

Recently, I've been thinking about the notion of emotional pylons. Partly because I like the words, but mostly because I like the notions. Emotional pylons. What is it? And what could it be?

The latter question is, as always, more interesting than the former.

They could be a great many things. Over at my other blog - you know, the one with strange standalone nonsensical pieces of almost-fiction - I imagine them being some sort of disembodied system that caters to a towns emotional needs. It's just metaphysical enough to almost be theological, and just technological enough to almost be magical. It's almost fiction.

Another imagining is that they are social spaces. Social spaces where people get together, share their stories and experiences, discuss current events and difficulties, build shared values and generally support each other in various ways. Including in the ever important but also ever invisible emotional dimension, the one that underlies all others due to the human conditions. We are all human beings, human feelers, and these feels need to be attended to from time to time. And place.

There's a marked lack of places where people go in order to feel genuinely better when they leave. Where people can recharge emotionally, both themselves and others.

Another image is of memetics/semiotics. Sort of like pictures of kittens, only more so. Pictures, sayings, phrases, gestures - small everyday things that confirm and reaffirm that you (yes, you) still have a place in the order of things, that you are an accepted part of this here group of people. The nods and grunts and elaborate rituals that marks members as members, and that marks you as such, embracing you as you reciprocate. Or don't, as the case might be, depending on just how tired you are.

Another image:

This could keep going for a while. I'm not too terribly interested in defining what an emotional pylon is. I am, however, deep into thinking about what they might be, and how they might be implemented in a world near us.

On a street near us, as it were. -

Suddenly, identity politics

It is fashionable to argue against identity politics these days. Which is interesting, in that it is always interesting to see that certain issues tend to return at certain times, rather than at others. One cannot but ask: why now, and why with such unexpected intensity?

These questions will not be answered in this post. Instead, things will take a very liberal turn. Just like that.

One of the cornerstones of a liberal democracy is legal equality. Any one citizen is equal to any other citizen, and no one has greater status than any other. There are no estates (ie nobility, clergy and commoners), and no classes. That is to say, there is one set of laws that apply equally to everyone, and is applied equally on everyone. Crimes lead to the same punishment no matter who commits the deed; taxes are levied in the same ways no matter who's taxed; government agencies act and communicate in predictable and standardised ways - and so on and so forth. Everyone is equal before the law.

Everyone. No exceptions.

At this point, someone might object that this isn't true. An objection to which I respond both yes and no: yes, it is true that legal equality is a cornerstone of liberal democracy, and no, this is not true to the everyday experience of most people. It would not be hard to find examples of citizens being treated unequally, regardless if this is due to class, gender, ethnicity, ability or what have you. In fact, it would be far easier than it really ought to be.

If we, hypothetically, were to gather a sufficient amount of these examples to find systematic differences in how the law is applied, and that a specific group of citizens were thus systematically treated differently - what would happen if this group got together and formed some sort of organization in order to demand their rights as citizens? To, in the true spirit of liberal democracy, demand to be treated as full citizens of their polity?

Would that be identity politics?

That, too, is a question that will not be answered in this post. -

Originally published December 6, 2014

The implications of #shirtstorm for space exploration

It is imperative to create robust incentive structures in order to secure continual innovation. Innovation is a gradual process, and it requires a constant effort from start to finish. Thus, it is important to keep people motivated for the long haul - to sustain the required levels of efforts for as long as it takes.

Even when it takes longer than planned.

This means that it is sometimes both appropriate and necessary to relax some of the traditional strictures of project management and workplace culture. Nothing kills creativity and innovation as effectively as rules and regulations, and many a project has failed due to participants becoming dispirited by what they perceive as arbitrary rules enforced for no reason. Keeping these key people motivated is of vital importance, and in the grander scheme of things the bottom line is the bottom line.

Getting things done is what matters.

Seen in this light, the shirt in the aforementioned #shirtstorm is easy to understand. Landing a robot on a comet is a hard thing, requiring massive attention to minute details and immense efforts to ensure that every decimal point is where is should be. Calculations have to be made, and then remade, and then remade, and then double checked, and then correlated, and then adjusted for new information. It's hard work, and it's repetitious hard work, and it's repetitious hard work sustained over a long period of time. Giving the workers a break is only fair - even if this break takes the form of relaxing the routines regarding workplace attire.

The comet does not care what you wear, so why should we?

To reiterate: getting things done is what matters.

There are signs, however, that this is not enough. That innovation is still unnecessarily stifled by workplace and social conventions. That we need to promote robuster incentive structures in order to secure further innovation. Thus, we have considered to propose this as a possible next step:

Let those who accomplish the next great feat of space exploration be as sexist as they want for a whole year, without comment or repercussions.

It is our belief that this will serve as a very palpable incentive to those innovators who feel constricted by the strictures of contemporary society, and that unleashing their creative potential would serve mankind in the years to come.

Innovation is hard work, and it is vital to keep it up.

An economy of bottle caps

Copyright is confusing. So confusing, in fact, that the only way to explain it is to turn to the bottle.

Or, rather, the humble bottle opener.

If at this point you're slightly confused as to what kind of bottle opener I'm referring to, seeing as there's quite a variety of mechanisms that can be used in the process of bottle opening, therefore deserving the name "bottle opener" - you're on point. There's more than one way to open a bottle, and there's more than one way to construct a bottle opener. The general principle being that if it opens bottles, it's a bottle opener.

Enter copyright.

The prevailing paradigm when it comes to enforcing copyright is to ensure that everyone uses a particular kind of bottle opener. No matter that there are many kinds of openers, many ways of opening a bottle and many bottle standards across the world - one solution fits all. And you have to use this particular opener in order to open the bottles you want to open.

The prevailing paradigm is circumvented every day. As you might imagine.

The key to making this enforcement strategy work is to design bottles in such a way that they can only be opened by a particular opener. Which is as hard to do in regards to bottles as it is to anything else, be it physical or digital objects. But, hard or not, the design efforts continue. Those who have the know-how to find other means of opening the bottles do so; those who do not, are left with the hope that the bottle/opener works well together.

And have to trust the ever so helpful customer services when they don't.

One example of this is libraries and ebooks. Especially university libraries. If you're a student, you most likely have access to a large number of ebooks through your library card. However, to actually use this access, you have to jump through some hoops. One of them being to log in with whatever student login is required. Another being that you are limited to using whatever format they are providing. Regardless if those formats actually work on the devices you use. Or the software you use.

Things only working in Internet Explorer, not working on mobile devices, only working for a limited time - there's a lot of demands and limitations to take into account. And it is up to you to adapt yourself to these demands and limitations, rather than the other way around.

Copyright demands that you use the prescribed opener. Which, in the library case, means that things are not as accessible and readable as the library ethos would want them to be. But they have to use these systems, because otherwise they wouldn't have access to these ebooks at all.

Copyright demands. Copyright limits.

It could be as simple as the book being there, available to everyone who'd want to read it, the world being a richer place for people having read it. It could be. But it isn't.

That's the most confusing part.

Propahate this

There's a simple propaganda test. It can be used to test if someone has been subjected to propaganda. It is very simple. It is this statement:

If you feel allowed to hate someone, you've been subjected to propaganda.

That's the extent of it. There's nothing more to it. It's as simple as that, and it is an effective test because of that.

Why would such a test be effective?

Thing is, most readers have strong feelings about either propaganda or hate, or both. There's an immediate impetus to try to refute this statement, or modify it in some way. And it is in this very act of refutation that makes the test an effective one.

It gets people to talk. And they talk propaganda. Either by reaching for those justifications that allow them to hate some particular someones (this staple of propaganda), or by trying to invalidate the test in some other way. It doesn't really matter in what particular way - the act speaks for itself, as it were. However the response is phrased, it finds itself trying to justify hate in some form. Usually because at some level, there's some hate that is perceived to be in need of justification.

It's a simple test. It is also slightly unethical. And, to be sure, it is in itself a nice piece of propaganda.

Not unlike the propaganda that you are subjected to on a daily basis. -

Let's play 20 questions

Some of the more vocal supporters of #gamergate have suggested that critical assessment of games are, in a word, colonialist. Which suggests that games are in some way a sacred space, whose sovereign integrity is not to be violated by outside interlopers.

This is a premise. Let's run with it.

Or, rather, let's gradually nibble at it. By asking this one question: how much assessment is too much?

It should be safe to assume that a critical analysis regarding how gender, ethnicity and ideology are represented and reproduced within the narrative framework of a game is clearly over the line. More so a discussion about which kind of subjectivity a particular game suggests and normalizes. There are lines of inquiry that can be safely assumed to be on the colonialist side of things.

This is a given.

One approach might be to gradually decrease the complexity of analysis until we reach a non-invasive form. At some point, even outsiders are allowed to witness sacred spaces, given that they are quiet enough.

But.

That approach would take an inordinate amount of time, and include a lot of effort. To be sure, no efforts to reduce complexity are ever wasted, but there is a faster way. And that way is to approach it from the other side.

Start from something that is considered within the allowed bounds. Something that even the believers themselves claim to be on the right and proper side. And then slowly and gradually add analytical concepts to it, until we reach the limit. No leaps and bounds, just one nuance or aspect at a time, as incrementally as possible. Ever so slowly nibble our way to clarity.

Given enough subtle nibbling, the boundary should eventually make itself known. Some questions are allowed, others are not, and by carefully cataloging which is which a reasonable picture should emerge. Some questions are within the framework of the believers preexisting lifeworld, and others are imposed by outside colonialists. Knowing which is which should enable us to communicate with the believers in a non-confrontational way.

That was a premise. I've ran with it.

Possibly with scissors.