Video games, according to cracked.
Well, we humans play games because there is a basic satisfaction in mastering a skill, even if it’s a pointless one in terms of our overall life goals. It helps us develop our brains (especially as children) and to test ourselves without serious consequences if we fail. This is why our brains reward us with the sensation we call “fun” when we do it. Hell, even dolphins do it.
As shocking as this sounds, a whole lot of the “guy who failed all of his classes because he was playing WoW all the time” horror stories are really just about a dude who simply didn’t like his classes very much. This was never some dystopian mind control scheme by Blizzard. The games just filled a void.
Why do so many of us have that void? Because according to everything expert Malcolm Gladwell, to be satisfied with your job you need three things, and I bet most of you don’t even have two of them:
Autonomy (that is, you have some say in what you do day to day);
Complexity (so it’s not mind-numbing repetition);
Connection Between Effort and Reward (i.e. you actually see the awesome results of your hard work).
Reward me if you’d like to.
UPDATE: oh, yes: read the whole article, if you’d like. Link above.
And we seem be to be in Iraq forever. I have great hope in my president, but not in the bureaucracy that controls him.
My guess is that Ricks’ view will prevail. The military has invested epic quantities of money and blood in Iraq, and U.S. commanders don’t want it to be in vain. Plus, an Iraqi civil war that sucked in its neighbors—as civil wars often do—would be horrendous. Although the Democratic base wants out of Iraq, the lesson of Afghanistan is that the military’s view matters more. “When push comes to shove,” notes Biddle, the Obama administration will “vote for not losing a war.”
It all sounds very sensible, until you remember that the United States is nearly bankrupt. Defense spending, which has grown 9 percent per year over the last decade, now comprises well over 50 percent of U.S. discretionary spending. Unless some president reins that in, there’s no real chance of getting U.S. debt under control, let alone making the domestic investments necessary to compete with China.
Just another problem to hand to the next generation to solve (?)
In which I predict a glorious future. This should not be taken in jest; nonetheless, I cannot give you even a vague idea of a timeline.
I’m going to predict that the “three major religions,” the Judeo-Christian-Muslim world, is going to unite to take on … all other religions. There will be internecine strife, but beside that there will be some grand (albeit very bad, much unwanted when it happens) unification.
Let me run through 2000 years of history.
1st-5th centuries: Christianity hates Judiasm, and the other way around, and Christianity helps create the Jewish Diaspora.
6th-10th centuries: Jews are wandering around Europe aimlessly, sometimes protected, sometime not. (See also Septimania, which was once recognized as the a Jewish Kingdom with a King of the Jews, according to Holy Blood, Holy Grail.) Islam comes into existence and dominates Turkey to the Persia, and west to Morocco. Christianity dominates Europe, and there are the “Dark Ages” because the Church suppressed and burned almost all information that didn’t agree with it.
11th-14th centuries: The Crusades! Muslims and Christians battle for control of the Holy land. Jews either stay out of the battle or engage in crazy mercantile activity. Referencing the same book, Jews slowly gain rights in Europe, especially in England and (oddly) Italy.
15th-18th centuries: America is ‘discovered’ and Christianized. Jews become a norm in Europe, and sometimes people aren’t scared out of their wits by Jews. Muslims have control of most of Serbia, and there were some fairly interesting battles in Austria that could have changed your religion forever. There are, despite Christians and Jews mostly getting along (see especially Jews in England, Denmark, and liberal German states in the 17th century), religious wars.
Let me reemphasize that. From the first century until past the 18th century, most of history is marked by religious wars. While lots of other things happened, those things don’t make it into history textbooks. And, for the moment, the point I wish to make is entirely about religion.
19th century: except for Germany of the 1840’s, where Marx engaged in a philosophical battle with his comrades, Jews and Christians learned to get along in Europe and America. This left them nothing better to do than to emigrate to the Holy Land and continue a thirteen-century-old religious war. Muslims retained good control over everything listed before – from the Magreb to Turkey. The Jews and Christians that lived in the Caliphate mostly did very well.
20th century: after a great bloodbath that ended the Caliphate and devolved the Middle East into a great number of arbitrarily-drawn states emigration – mostly of Jews (who, despite the not complete intolerance in Europe, were seen as a ‘problem’) to Jerusalem increased, so did support of European countries to send settlers there. While this didn’t go unsuccessfully, from the point of view of the settlers, the 1930’s and ’40s saw the death of fifty million Europeans. World War II could be considered a religious war. Indeed, WWII so decimated the Jews, and all of Europe, that not only did it lead to the creation of a Jewish state, but the Christian West has wholeheartedly supported that state. So, sometime after 1948 there was a great unification of Christians and Jews, and America saw the rise of the neocon right, many of whom are Jews. And Muslims?
This unification of Christians and Jews, which took nineteen hundred years to reach, appears some what solid. While there is anti-Semitism, there is not state-sponsored anti-Semitism in the West. The conflict now appears to be between the Judeo-Christian ‘world’ and the Muslim ‘world.’ Now, I have made a prediction about the future, and all that history was necessary to explain my prediction. I didn’t include any theology, assuming that you (my reader) would know that Jews, Christians, and Muslims all look to the same God (by a different name) and revere the same past. So, now we have come to a great unification of Jews and Christians.
I cannot tell you how or when, but I say that there will be a great triumvirate of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. And there shall be nothing worth fighting against.
Anti-gay rights California legislator Roy Ashburn told local news,
“I am gay. And so, those are the words that have been so difficult for me for so long,” Ashburn told radio host Inga Banks on her show on the KERN station in Bakersfield.
And my first thought was, Good For Him. Yes, really, good for him. He said something difficult to say, about himself. He fought against his own identity his entire career.
SF Gate – the news in general – claims that, “he defended his voting record, saying he cast votes that his constituents wanted. Ashburn represents the 18th Senate District, which covers a huge swath of the central and southern part of the state.”
And so, again, good for him. The idea of a representative democracy is to have legislators who act on behalf of the needs their constituents, insofar as those needs can be understood. And so if Ashburn votes against his self-interest because he is voting for the views of his constituents, good for him.
I would very much like to see our government, with all its chest-thumping, we-are-the-best-nation-on-Earthing, attitude to have many more legislators who act as representatives.
The first time I read Oakeshott was the first time I realized that conservatism did not equal Rush Limbaugh.
It seems that conservatism, as the media portrays it (now), has for the past ten to thirty years (take your pick) has been equivalent to what we used to call fascism. Make no mistake; the media does not call conservatism by the name of fascism, but that’s just in an effort to be fair and balanced.
But conservatism isn’t really a bad thing – and I mean conservatism, not the just-mentioned but usually not-uttered fascism. Take, for instance, Andrew Sullivan, who calls himself a conservative. I sometimes have my doubts about that, but perhaps that is due to the corruption of conservatism he discusses:
From the green shoots of Hayek and Oakeshott and Friedman to the final blooming of Thatcher and Reagan, this regenerated conservatism really did restore the balance between state and society toward society and away from the state. It harnessed traditional impulses – nationalism in Britain, evangelicalism in America – but it never fully gave into them. Its pragmatism remained in the Reagan tax hikes, Thatcher’s retention of socialized medicine, their mutual outreach to Gorbachev, and Thatcher’s insistence on international law. In some ways, I believe, the pinnacle of this conservative achievement came in the presidency of George H W Bush and the premiership of John Major.
I have never been convinced of the goodness of Reagan. Then again, I haven’t liked almost any policy since the creation of the National Security state. However, if you want to look for conservatism in government, I suppose Reagan is your best choice. A good article on conservatism, by Freddie DeBoer, said,
In any event, the slow-change conservative is dismissed as an out-of-touch dissident, and the slow-change conservative movement is no more. What we have, instead, is the People’s Revolutionary Party of Conservatism. The temperate conservative victory of the second Clinton administration, restraining a president and Congress somewhat inclined towards broader and deeper change than they achieved, has been replaced as a basic template for success by the large-scale conquests (both attempted and achieved) of the Bush years. That these large measures seem to have led to short-term disaster for the Republican party is generally regarded as a consequence of Bushism, and not symptomatic of the drastic but unheralded changes in the right’s tactical regime. Lurching from fight to fight and election to election, the Republican Party is not always sure of where it wants to go, but it is certainly in a hurry to get there. This is part of what makes internecine battles within the American right so shockingly angry; decisions made within the policy apparatus no longer lead to small steps and modest goals but rather to the vast expenditure of money, political capital and man hours. Conservatism is on the march.
I cannot join call myself a conservative, but I can understand that the idea is not a bad idea. Oakeshott, Burke, and all classical conservatives will tell you that it is the desire to keep things as they are – or to not change to the unknown – is the central tenet of conservatism’s ideology.
With that, I can take philosophical issue. And I do.
I remember, sometime around the age of twelve – I know it was before I moved away from home at fourteen – a conversation ’round the dinner table. My dad, in a fatherly sort of way, gave me advice. He said to me, said he, that he expected me to be a better man than him. Not an idle challenge, to a young child! It is not bad to wish one generation to exceed another; indeed, we must leave this place better than we found it, or there seems to be some failure.
But to command a child to better his father? And what a father! How shall I exceed you, sir? You, you of the proudest of families, and the best-educated. You, you were among the first of the Green Beret. You, you gave your career to public service, and though you may have thought otherwise many-a-time, still you did your duty as best befit you. What! What shall I better? I cannot exceed your knowledge, for you may as easily assemble a car engine as you may build a house as you may mitigate the fate of some character in the court of law. Shall I better that? At present, I cannot.
You did right. A father should never tell his son, ‘son, be worse at things than me.’ But what do I better you at? What do I pursue to make your many-rounded abilities something which I can equal? You did not tell me that. You enjoin me to do one, and not the other. Well then … you mistake me, for I am your son, and my style of comprehension is frighteningly close to yours, minus a generation.
And you shall exceed me always, and I bear no grudge for that.
Although there’s a British Tea Party movement, I’m thinking of the American Tea Party. Frankly, as a name, I preferred the Mugwumps, or the Know-Nothings, or several other awesome parties. But, I didn’t create the Tea Party. Or, if you need something more, go for the Coffee Party.
I haven’t seen any advertisements marketing the Tea Party as young and glorious. Either I read too much news, and see mostly raging grannies (but the pessimistic ones, not the ones with a sense of humor), or I don’t read enough news, and haven’t stumbled upon any young Tea Party-ists. Anyhow, I see the Tea Party as a political coalition of old people. I don’t mind that at all, except that they seem to be trying to sell themselves as young and modern.
Benjamin Barber seems to think that the Tea Party won’t last because people die. The people least likely to die first, despite all the poisons in the air and the food, and despite the rotting of the stem of wheat that could affect more then ten percent of the world population, are the members of the millennial generation. I’ve read that the age of that generation is 13-29, but that can’t be right; it would make me a member of the millennials, and I’m pretty sure I belong to the The Greatest Generation, or Gen Y, or something that is not the millennial generation. Be that as it may, Barber thinks us young people might outlive the average Tea Partier, based on age and whatnot.
Let me diverge for a moment from the Tea Party, because I don’t understand them. They say that it is
“common-sense solutions we’re asking for: fiscal responsibility, free markets, limited government and lower taxes.”
Their methods leave something to be desired.
The Pew study that Barber mentions, but doesn’t site, lists a whole bunch of things millennials are good at, according to Barber. They “celebrate [diversity].” That shouldn’t be surprising. I’ve always thought it’s really weird that there are people who don’t. I grew up with my parents, who are definitely older than me, and they had a respect for diverse people. There’s also something about a young generation’s lack of religiosity: “far less religious than their elders — the least religiously observant generation Pew ever surveyed.” And the most important part, and here’s where I get back to the Caffeine Party.
Most significantly from the point of view of the Tea Party attack on Washington, the Millennials are more comfortable with institutions generally and with government in particular, than their democracy-distrusting elders, and are far more progressive than any previous generation. They went 66% to 32% for Obama in last year’s election, while 53% actually say government should do more to deal with our problems rather than less, as if government might actually belong to us (it’s called democracy)!
Right. So please, please, don’t take your government hand off my medicare. I’ll be wanting that someday.
Last night, standing around at Northlight, in a light rain, waiting for things that never happened, I was able to make an argument about the merits and follies of education in a way I have never before so well elucidated.
If you think of education, generally the thought is K-12, and perhaps public university as well. … So then, we were standing around bemoaning I-remember-which-not-fact, but assuredly agreeing (as would nearly everyone) that public education leaves something to be desired, through very little fault of the teachers. Rather, the problem is that the point, the ability, of education, is never correctly explained in a classroom. For, if you figured out the conclusion I reached, what need of there is a classroom, and why would a classroom or teacher ever expound its insignificance?
As I say, I remember not the course subject. It doesn’t matter, for the point is valid for all subjects. Here is what education does not teach you. Learning/education/putting information in the mind, is not primarily a classroom activity. The classroom, with all the under-paid teachers, only exists so that we (all of us) can learn to educate ourselves (and, as in previous thoughts, I cannot vouch for the excellence of education, merely that it seems to be what we ‘require’. That may make my entire thought moot, and if it does, well…every argument has two sides). The point of fourth grade isn’t to read The Hobbit aloud to students; the point is to teach them, and only if they so desire to learn (how often we forget that), how to read The Hobbit well, and to visualize, if we want, the world of Tolkien.
…As with all other education. However, I have heard from perhaps only one teacher in nigh-on twenty years of education that the point is to put things into our own heads, not to have facts expounded to us. Of course, only a very bad (I make that judgment) teacher tries to tell us, the members of the classroom to be automatons. Most teachers, professors, educators, never explain what to take away from the classroom.
So the point, and I explained it much better last night, is that education/knowledge (again, for better or for worse, we stick lots of information into our heads) in a classroom setting forgets to explain that the receiver of that knowledge is an independent person who can – should – be able to expand their own knowledge, in whatever way is most fitting to them.
War is supposed to be the last resort; after all diplomacy and negotiations have failed future course of action is decided by war. And symbols come with war. Ah, what sybols! – how great they are! To the victor go the spoils. And what use are the symbols? Why, they stand for all eternity. Glorious, but passing in a single moment; though they may last forever. How much use is there of that shiny diamond now that you possess it? Is it more beautiful to look at now that it is yours?
Once, men did trample great and mighty fields by the tens of thousands, in search of glory, everlasting fame, and symbols of war. They would mount their steeds and charge in great fury, anxious for a piece of land, for a name ever-writ in stone. And what force would win? The one that gained – that gained land, that gained a city. Hoist your flag o’er the conquer-ed territory and it is yours. What grandness!
How simple these wars were. No less terrible for their own time than war is now terrible for us. But look – see the Hundred Years War, the Thirty Years War, the War of the Roses, The Napoleonic Wars – yea, see them all through Europe and all Asia, and that is war. Your city is mine; now I profit from it.
Now observe these wars two. We call it Revolutionary. Indeed, it was. It changed the modus operandi of war – now, the army that can take cities, that has land – they do not win. And the Civil War, the war of a great misnomer. How did that war begin? With a fight for symbols – capitols, land, they mattered very much. How did that war end? Grant, Sherman, Sheridan; they ended it with fights a-twixt fights, battles that led to battles, with no interest in immediate holding of land. Oh, how that has changed war.
And now? We have war now, too. And still, we fight for symbols. Now the symbols may be captured soldiers; now they may be men ten thousand miles yonder. We fight for symbols.
And what great permanent gain shall come of this?
It is unfortunate that Americans so roundly denounce Communism (with a capital ‘C’). We are so hesitant to shift from our 1950’s not-accurate-even-then mindset that Communism, as an idea, would destroy us all. I write this knowing – knowing full well – that should I ever run for elected office my lack-of-hatred of Communism could be used against me. But what I write is an opinion, and we all must wield opinions. What is Communism based on? The Marxist dialectic. Which says,
History is nothing but the succession of the separate generations, each of which exploits the materials, the capital funds, the productive forces handed down to it by all preceding generations, and thus, on the one hand, continues the traditional activity in completely changed circumstances, and, on the other, modifies the old circumstances with a completely changed activity. This can be speculatively distorted so that later history is made the goal of earlier history, e.g., the goal ascribed to the discovery of America is to further the eruption of the French Revolution. Thereby history receives its own special aim and becomes “a person ranking with other persons” (to wit: “Self-Consciousness, Criticism, the Unique,” etc.), while what is designated with the words “destiny,” goal,” “germ,” or “ideal” of earlier history is nothing more than an abstraction formed from later history, from the active influence which earlier history exercises on later history.
That’s it. That’s the Marxist Communist dialectic in a single paragraph. Nothing more than “earlier history (cause) produces later history (effect).” I’m not quite sure why it’s so difficult for the independent (or Independent, in a political sense), Capitalist, track-and-project market pattern histories American to grasp that Communism is a workable conception of the market.
The Dole Blog 