Posts

Posted on

Intellectual Property and the pursuit of profit

We live in a rapidly changing world, the information era, and, most assuredly, we need to equip ourselves to handle protections for people who create easily copyable digital media. However, the maximizing of profit (aka “greed”) is promoting the very “piracy” that they purport to oppose, in much the same way that US foreign policy promotes terrorism while aggressively denouncing it.

What is going on here? Last year, I got excited about some new digital book technology which could save a lot of environmental costs (trees, transportation, etc.), only to find out that the prices for the books were equivalent to hardcover book prices – even for older books, that you could easily find on paperback or used (even though the reader itself had a reading surface about the size of a single paperback page). And let’s face it, it’ s a lot easier to read a printed book, than to read from some kind of computer monitor. And easier to transport and doesn’t require batteries and you get the picture and blurbs on the cover. Not only is the physical book superior in many ways from a consumer standpoint, but it costs a lot more to produce (cost of materials, cost of printing, cover design/printing and transportation costs), so why couldn’t they pass along some of those significant savings onto the consumers? Greed: They think the technophiles will give them an easy boost for even higher profits than for paper books.

These companies could easily push the envelope by lowering prices and encouraging individuals to go digital, thereby increasing environmental benefits, pushing further technological innovation (due to increased market) and all the while earning a much higher profit percentage than results from the much less efficient physical media production/sales. Continue reading “Intellectual Property and the pursuit of profit”

Posted on

down by the river

I hear there was a big riot by the river in Boston last night. Fires set, roads blocked, lots of noise, smoke and trash (dumped in the river)…

Good times for all. Happy [belated] 4th. 😉

Posted on

Thoughts on Terizm

When I was a young boy, myself and a friend did something really stupid. My street dead-ended in a big dirt area just before a small fenced-in forest and above a small creek. At one point, we decided that something must be living in a big hole there and so we took a big stick and shoved it around in there. Well, the “thing” in the hole was a nest of yellowjackets and boy, were they mad. I was stung hundreds of times and my mom combed yellow jackets out of my aching head which hurt for days afterwards.

People are sort of like those yellow jackets. Go shoving big sticks in their oil wells and they get mighty riled up. Even some of the more easy-going insects of the crowd might get angry when their home is trashed. This should be obvious, but U.S. foreign policy creates an atmosphere that supports terrorists. The real whack-job people find a convenient outlet for their madness and the bad conditions related to occupation foment understandable outrage among normal citizens, helping the extremists to garner both passive and active support. The terrorism backlash is mutually beneficial to both our government and to the terrorists themselves. Our government gains tighter control over the population through strategic fear-mongering and “security measures” while gaining the latitude to expand their powers (with corruption better masked than usual) and the terrorists gain more support from the outrage engendered by the backlash and, they think, closer to success.

Aside from all that yellowjacket business, the definition of terrorism is “the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes”. Revelation: war IS terrorism. There’s state-sponsored terrorism, aka “war” and independent terrorism. Sort of like mainstream and indie movies. They’re all movies. Terrorism cannot be violently fought – fighting engenders terrorism (in both parties). Caution is a reasonable reaction to terrorism, then trying to understand the root causes and address them is a good solution, but fighting the symptoms is useless in terms of eradicating the problem. This is similar to how landlords who have tenants report a mouse problem will react by leaving out poison. That’s a ridiculous “solution” – it only kills one batch of mice, but does nothing to prevent the next batch from moving in and freely traveling through the copious holes in the building.

OK, enough metaphors. The summary: terrorism is not the simple “good vs. evil” “eye for an eye” “you’re either with us or against us” matter that those who guide the media would like you to believe. Peace out.

Posted on

TransGeneration

I recently finished watching a TV series (the DVD version, of course) of “TransGeneration” by the Sundance Film Channel. It’s a series about 4 transgender college students who are all at some stage of transsexuality (several on hormones, one completes SRS during the show). I’m not a big fan of “reality” type TV shows, but this was really moving and felt more like a documentary than a manipulated TV show. Coming from the sidelines of the Trans movement, I felt it was very sincere and had a good variety of realistic experiences by the different people on it.

It was surprisingly emotional for me on a number of levels. I could definitely empathize with presenting as an “opposite” gender and the reactions of family and friends to this situation. The struggle for acceptance was particularly touching. In a very personal way, I also understand being raised as a gender that you never felt was a good fit. However, I was also frustrated as my biggest problem with the Trans movement is the struggle to fit into predefined gender roles. They frame the debate like so: I was born in the wrong body; I’m a man trapped in a woman’s body or I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body. Though this is far from normal or accepted, it’s a very limited viewpoint and buys into the societal gender dichotomy completely – that is, one can only be man OR woman and if one doesn’t feel one’s internal mental state matches the assigned body in terms of gender, then the solution is to switch the body. Continue reading “TransGeneration”

Posted on

global luke-warming

First off, let me say that I am absolutely opposed to the excessive pollution and apathy of major industry towards the effects of their production on our environment. I love nature and animals and prize efficiency (which is certainly not intrinsic to our consumerist society). That said, I think the whole “global warming” thing is a bit exaggerated.

Take the earth in perspective of time. For the earth, a few million years is no big deal. An ice age might last that long. Now, take the science of climatology – we only have data on temperatures (in select spots) for about 100 years going back. Not only that, but if you examine the year-to-year temperatures, they don’t go up consistently every year, but over that hundred years in some spots, if you map a chart and use very small increments, you can see an upward trend. Over 100 years an inconsistent and small increase. Out of a few billion years of earth time.

Did you know that according to scientific measurements and best guesses, the earth’s ocean levels have risen about an inch and the temperature about one degree centigrade over the last hundred years? Take this in perspective of the earth’s billions and it’s practically meaningless. OK, the earth may be warming slightly overall and maybe, even probably, some of that warming is due to humankind’s pollution and resource squandering, but if you think millions of species will go extinct or that all coastal cities will be flooded in your lifetime, you’re buying into populist paranoia. Continue reading “global luke-warming”

Posted on

wedding bells – personal hells

Weddings freak me out, on a number of levels. In a society that’s become increasingly permissive for gender expression, they’re a throwback to the strictly enforced gender roles. The men with long hair must cut or contain it and wear suits and the punk women must wear something “feminine” – a dress or nice blouse and skirt. Then there is the sexism inherent in the term “man and wife” (instead of “husband and wife”) and of course the occasional sexist remark (men are like children) during toasts which everyone laughs at because we all believe in those gender stereotypes.

I’ve managed to build myself a little alterna-world where a little androgyne like me doesn’t often get placed in these uncomfortable situations. Of course, there’s always the “which bathroom to use” question when I’m out and the bathrooms are gender-specific, but otherwise, I’ve built a friend and location-base that doesn’t push me to be a “man”. It’s a bit of a shock to then be confronted with stark tradition where I don’t seem to have a place. As you may have surmised, I recently attended a friend’s wedding and though I was very happy for the couple (they both wept during the ceremony – it was sweet), it brought up a myriad of issues for me. Continue reading “wedding bells – personal hells”

Posted on

land ownership is a myth

One of the funniest things about humans is that they think that because they’re standing on something or that they got there “first” (i.e., they were first to make the preposterous claim in their language), they “own” it. Some chunk of rocky minerals, millions of years old topped by some decaying organic matter and because you have a piece of paper with your name on it (probably because you traded baskets of other generic paper for that paper with your name), you have exclusive rights to that chunk of planet? I don’t think so. Human monkeys like to play games and pretend that they’re really in control of nature and that they can bend the earth to their individual wills, but every once in a while a hurricane, tornado or earthquake comes and shows them who’s really boss.

Posted on

corporations aren’t engaging

News bulletin: greed is not an easily satisfied emotion, nor a fulfilling pursuit.

So why is it hard to understand that public corporations (whose only responsibility nowadays is to maximize profit for the shareholders) are vacuous entities, with many “non-engaged” employees? After all, treating your employees like human beings with fulfilling personal lives isn’t any way to maximize profits, now is it?

My company, decrying flagging employee survey scores, seeks to increase employee engagement, in any way possible other than enhancing benefits or work life balance (i.e., without decreasing profits). Although I like my job and the people I work with, I’m just not motivated to make my job my life, no matter how many profit-contingent bonuses they wave in my face.

Posted on

let the dead go

It is healthy to grieve when someone you know and love dies. However, death is a part of life, and it only makes sense to accept that fact. People die, their bodies decay and fall apart and the world moves on. What is up with our [Western] obsession with keeping dead people around forever? I don’t understand why such an obvious psychological problem permeates our culture. Paying thousands of dollars for a thick wood or metal container to hold the decaying remains? Dressing it up in some nice clothes to be buried in? Assigning a parcel of land for permanent residence of this bunch of decaying matter and, worse, lining the grave with concrete as if placing the coffin in some ill-conceived studio condominium?

Cemeteries are a complete waste of resources. I like cemeteries, mind you: they’re peaceful places to visit or picnic, but I just don’t think we should be memorializing and forever keeping the dead. The land could be better used for farming or housing for our growing populations or for much nicer public parks (without the tripping hazards of stones and markers). Also, it’s not healthy to obsess so much. I think the Vikings had that part right, send the remains out to sea on a burning boat. You can let the fire and the floating away symbolize your grief and get it out of your system.

Wakes are a good idea – very important to confront the death and the grief and to share with others who cared. Fixing the dead up to look like mannequin versions of their living selves seems a little twisted, but I don’t mind that too much as long as it helps people to grieve and move on. But death is not an unnatural part of life – we will all know people who die and we must deal with death when (not if) it comes.

I don’t much care what happens to my body after I die. I hope it wouldn’t be incarcerated in a concrete tomb/grave and waste thousands of dollars from the people who deal with my remains (better to be eaten by wild animals and worms) and I really hope that those who care for me wouldn’t keep my remains around (not in a jar or in some cemetery plot), but I really won’t care, I’ll be dead. Religion-wise, I tend to waver between atheism and agnosticism (not really believing in an afterlife, but not always sure), but even if there is an afterlife, then my “spirit” would be in that afterlife, not in or hovering around some decaying organic matter. Likewise, my spirit doesn’t live in the millions of skin cells I keep shedding or fingernail and hair clippings.

Posted on

animal testing mythology

It is often the case that relatively compassionate people, who readily admit that factory farms (which tightly confine and mutilate animals long before slaughter) are cruel and unnecessary, will, when it comes to the issue of non-human animal testing for medical research, unequivocally state that it is necessary and that they support it. I find this to be problematic because animal-based medical research is fallible, morally inconsistent and non-essential.

First, let me outline the basic argument for animal testing (comprising three parts):

A. Non-human animals are so much like humans that testing chemicals (drugs, vaccines, toxic substances, etc.) and actions (radiation, surgery, etc.) are accurately predictive of the reactions that would be experienced by humans.

B. Non-human animals are so dissimilar to humans that they are completely disposable (can be confined, poisoned, dissected, etc., without them experiencing pain or concern for their own well being in ways similar to humans).

C. Medical science requires biological study of living organisms to achieve medical advancements, without which we would suffer unduly, live shorter lives and ultimately go extinct as a species.

To summarize: Part A – it’s useful; Part B – it’s harmless; Part C – it’s necessary. Animal testing advocates will argue for all of these points, but this is a flawed argument; let me explain.

Parts A and B together in combination present a logical inconsistency. We know that the human being experiences pain and deep concern for its own well being due to biological factors (central nervous system, etc.). Therefore, if another animal species were to have a similar enough biology to experience substance sensitivity, overall health and sickness similar to the human being, then it logically follows that same animal will experience pain and concern for its own well being similar to the human being, in roughly equal measure. If A is true, then B is untrue, but if B is true, then A is untrue – the two are mutually exclusive. Continue reading “animal testing mythology”