My, my - how unimpressive in the morning: (In progress):

I've been having an interesting conversation with my coauthor about how part of the decay in society or its dysfunction surging may stem from the replacement of social values with market (driven?) values and thought a topic as rich as that deserves some fleshing out. 

In the meantime I noticed that perhaps our values are skewed and backwards in that regard but perhaps taken a different way.  Specifically I observed out in the public discourse collective/sphere making fun of individuals seems to be all fine and good but as soon as you start making fun of products sooner or later a brand-loyalist fanboy (who seems to derive an almost sort of tribal sense of self-identity associated with preferring his or her brand of thing A, B, C of choice and how much better he or she thinks it is than all X, Y, Zs) will blow a gasket.

P.S.: The snide sounding title refers not to his conversation I picked up bits and pieces of that stuck with me but to the latter observation where (some) people will go "How dare you suggest my favorite ______[insert blank brand thing] isn't the very best in the world and furthermore, why won't you agree with me on my opinion that everything else that isn't that one sucks mightily?"

The End is Annoying:

Noticed an increase in the number of sandwich board style street preachers outside the college and library.
They like telling us how the Bible should be the only book a person will ever need. I am tempted to ask one if there is a patron saint of calculus. Everything which is not part of their ideology but still exists causes these people to become uncomfortable enough they feel a need to rant and rave in public spaces about how everybody is a sinner and how there are all these debauched depravities they project onto us from their imaginations (uh, a good chunk of people go to colleges to learn and teach things... these guys maybe need to watch a bit less TV).

It is perhaps ironic that the only people who seem to really give a damn about things also come across as stark raving nuts.

The Bible itself has something to say about public preaching.

Matthew 6:1-7 (21st Century King James version):
   1 "Take heed that ye do not your almsgiving before men, to be seen by them; otherwise ye have no reward from your Father who is in Heaven.
   
 2 Therefore when thou givest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.
   
 3 But when thou givest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth,
   
 4 that thine almsgiving may be in secret; and thy Father who seeth in secret, Himself shall reward thee openly.
   
 5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.
   
 6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in secret; and thy Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
   
 7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking."

I'm going to interpret this passage as saying that if you are praying to try to materialistically show off how religious you are to other mortal people then this is probably doing it for the wrong reasons. I believe it to be saying one should strive to be humble and try to keep it between you and God.  It also might be suggesting that it is the quality of spirituality and not the quantity of religiousity that should make up a person's faith?

Then in Matthew 6:8 it goes a bit further by saying:
 "Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him."
 See? The Bible itself is saying you don't need to show off to other people what it is you are praying about because God already knows and He isn't particularly impressed by that. Or at least that's how I'm choosing to interpret it.

Misogyny and Misandry: Misanthropy?

Men and Women can have different socioculturally ingrained ways of thinking about the same things. This doesn't mean that either of them are necessarily always right but also means that neither one is necessarily always wrong.

It is this author's belief that subjecting members of the opposite sex to a battery of increasingly horrific and difficult MINDGAMES and psychological tests is not a good way to try to enjoy each other's company. If you like someone, then say so. If you are okay with just being friends, yes, do that. If you are mature enough to understand that people can still flirt even without being sexually attracted to you then good for you, you get to have a cookie (yes, sometimes this is easier said than done, particularly when it is someone you find yourself possibly attracted to, but it is possible,- everybody just has to be mature, reasonable and civilized adults... which is part of the problem).

Trial and error taught me to never apologize to someone for liking them if you tell them that (yes, even if it turns out they do not like you in return). This, you see, is a compliment. What it means is that you find the other person likable and a worthwhile human being. Do not pester them about liking them however, as this will drive them away and lead to much misery for all parties involved.

In closing: MEANINGFULNESS is a salve to the MEANINGLESSNESS of this SHALLOW AND SUPERFICIAL CESSPOOL. I DON'T RUN FROM MEANINGFULNESS, I EMBRACE IT.

Why Marx was wrong

Corporate Overlord here. Yes I’m a capitalist ideologically… Of sorts anyway. Maybe a reluctant capitalist. I can see where capitalism produces inefficient and non socially optimal outcomes. (I’m an economics student, remember?) When I was younger I was very into Marx. Reading Marx can in fact be enlightening. But Marx was wrong on many points. The biggest point being his labor theory of value. Marx believed that a product has value based on the labor put into it. If one expands on this idea they come to the conclusion that any profit made by the capitalist (Capitalist can mean two things: one who owns capital, and one who holds the view that economically capitalism works the best. I hold that view, but now we are talking about an owner.) must be the result of exploitation, for profit must come when something is sold for greater than its value.

The problem with this notion is that a capitalist must be induced into acting. If one can only make personal profits from one’s own labor, than one will try to avoid contributing capital, for doing so would be at a cost. If ones decisions on capital only lead one to make exactly what one has put in, contributing capital is not at a cost, but not at any profit either. A capitalist MUST therefore purchase labor at a bargain price in order for the expenditure of capital to be justified. Given multiple choices between a little profit, and a large amount of profit, the capitalist will seek the largest amount of profit possible. This means purchasing labor at the greatest discount possible.

Is this exploitation? Truthfully it can be, but it depends. How free are the laborers to refuse work? If they are free to refuse work then it is not exploitation because workers will only seek employment if the marginal product of their labor is greater than the marginal dis-utility of labor. If the marginal dis-utility of labor is greater than the marginal product of labor for workers, workers will only work under coercive circumstances. In some countries such circumstances do in fact exist. Ironically they don’t tend to be capitalist countries. Providing labor when its marginal product is greater than its marginal dis-utility cannot be considered exploitation.

On Disappearing:

Only two reasons I avoid:

Maintaining friendships with some types of people.

I have repeatedly found myself defending why I'm not around, AKA online whenever the person/people in question wanted to talk to me. Over and over and over.

So, two reasons:

1.) If it's somebody who is disrupting my work, trying to distract me from it or basically shitting on the vast majority of my ideas, I may disappear to get away from that.  When you get bombarded too much, it's pretty normal to want to take a breather since this allows you to think a little more clearly.

2.) I'm a STUDENT.  We spend time STUDYING STUFF!  Like, FOR TESTS.  Which are REQUIRED.  It really helps with things like, say, GOOD GRADES.  So in fact, I may actually be doing student things, which can lead to being tied up in research or needing some time to myself.
If it's important, people do know how to reach me.  Seriously, I don't just go AWOL without making allowances for emergencies. Key words here are "important" and "emergencies." 

I have a phone, email, and this page here. This is not exactly a total off-the-grid situation where, I don't know, someone would have to start up a fire and get busy sending smoke signals.

I do remember somebody getting mad that I didn't make a superb effort to talk to her at length every single day.  Well, I didn't mean to upset her, but things do come up.
Another person got mad if they saw me spending any time with other people who weren't them. Then I had to draw a line in the middle of their rant and explain that I was spending time with the other people because those "other people" were folks I was discussing an idea with for a project.  You know, fellow students, teachers, etc?

It bothers me, this notion of being constantly connected and always available, be it through the internet, cell phones, what-have-you.
Sometimes you're trying to talk to specific people about specific stuff, which with me often involves school; and you don't want to be torn away from that to deal with somebody else being mad at you because they think you aren't paying enough attention to them at that exact moment.
Not to mention, sometimes you just don't want to talk to anybody because you need some solitude to work on something that's complicated. These are not evil things, or they weren't before instant gratification via being constantly plugged in resulted in people thinking that not being immersed at all times was wrong, even socially offensive.

I even had one person who couldn't get used to the idea that I wasn't around to chat when I was AT SCHOOL IN CLASSES.  Right, yes, because clearly the student thing is a cover story.  I must really be living in my parents' basement with a Matrix-style jack directly into the back of my skull (btw, would so not want to get a computer virus from one of those).
He got sort of paranoid and kept trying to "prove" that I was signed into my regular IM program as Invisible, when it was really just that I was logged out or not online. The way I'd find out that he was doing that would be when I finally did get out of class or finish work, I'd sign into my email and there'd be yards and yards of increasingly angry "messages that were received while you were offline."
To liken this to something "in RL," think of it as being at work or at school and having people fill up your voicemail and/or your answering machine with increasingly angry messages, all insisting that you must really be home and you need to pick up RIGHT THAT SECOND!!!1!!
This would not be considered socially acceptable behavior--in a way, it's a type of harassment.  So why is it considered OK just because it happens over the internet?  It still involves a type of verbal harassment that escalates in tone.

Sometimes I have to disappear, from anywhere from a few days up to a whole week or more at a time if I get embroiled in something exceedingly complicated. It's one of the perils of being friends with somebody who studies science and research for a living.

These people who would get mad would always choose right near my finals week or if I was doing a term paper to do their blowups. It's the damnedest thing. It would consistently happen, whether I had repeatedly told them that I was trying to study or not. If I said that I was trying to study, they'd insist that studying was irrelevant, or try to make it my fault for not signing out.  Of course, if I had signed out, then I would have gotten a ton of offline messages demanding to know why I wasn't online.  Lose-lose situation.
I do try to be patient and explain at first, but at this point it's like, YOU DON'T OWN ME. Get back to where proper boundaries are or eff off.

The other ugly thing about arguing online is when the other person insists what they are doing (religion, school, career, hobby, etc) is real, but what you're doing...well, it just isn't important on any level, according to them. And then, satisfied that they've made their points, the person goes "I'm going to bed!" and then signs out leaving you to puzzle out just what the hell they were mad at you about in the first place--that, or unable to explain your side of things because you'd be just talking to yourself.
(Because, well, talking to someone through your computer who's offline is pointless.  BECAUSE THEY ARE OFFLINE.)

One last creepy thing that sometimes people do is  passive-aggressively wait and stalk you in your IM list on stealth the whole day.  Essentially, they wait until you sign in unawares to check your inbox, flip to online, and blast you away about whatever it is that they are mad at you about (sometimes in caps--only ever had that happen twice but it's a surefire way to a quick block and delete and never being spoken to again ).

Here's a thought--if you can't behave like a decent, rational human being in public, you probably can't behave like one online.  Not to mention, some people have way too much time on their hands to spend stalking and harassing others-- and maybe they shouldn't be given a computer...

(Edited by Mary this week who is made of awesome... Go see her blog The PMS Project. DO IT).

Update 10/23/11: It said you can't use the icons from the other site externally without permission, so I removed them.

The Battle for Relevancy:

One of the ongoing difficulties in persuasive writing and education and a common complaint among professionals is trying to work with an increasingly apathetic and lazy audience. One that seems to be getting shorter and shorter attention spans as time goes on.

We are experiencing a cultural shift, a push toward increasingly visual and less textual communication. Literacy is going down! Or so they say...

People like being spoon fed why things matter more than having to piece together for themselves how and why different things are important.

Oh politics and proletariat dictatorship:

How you never fail to behave predictably and amuse.

For expressing the counter-mainstream opinion that gee, maybe I find it a bit disturbing that the only thing all parties can seem to agree on is cutting funding for programs I get called in this order: A commie, UnAmerican, a bleeding heart liberal, and an out of touch academic who needs to go GET A JOB or is wishing doom upon the United States.

For suggesting that you need to spend money in order to make money so maybe controlled spending in investments in key growth areas is still good for the economy, yes even during a recession, I get branded some sort of a scumbag and the above.

SO saying you want everything to self-destruct by there being no gov't spending and that nobody should invest in anything privately either (which btw is guaranteed to affect the economy negatively) makes for folk wisdom, and saying that trying to spur job growth is a good idea... becomes the folk blasphemy of a minor folk devil. Interesting. Oh wait, you mean we had a debacle with speculative real estate again? Really? Where have I heard that one before?... oh yes, American History. Florida. Some time around between the 1930s and the 1950s-ish, ballpark figure?

It is but all the more water off a duck's back. Let them argue and reaffirm the beliefs they have faith in that they were fed in such a way as to continue one sided conversations and stalemate arguments...

Ugh, enough politics for awhile...

Update: 8/5/11: So... they say the USA lost it's AAA credit rating. S&P got honked off and bumped it down to AA+. And still, lots of Republicans and Democrats are apparently blaming each other rather than trying to come up with ways to go about rebuilding the US economy. I keep hearing more of the same. Spending cuts on programs, tax cuts for the rich, extensions of entitlement programs... ugh. I don't think "use a bigger hammer" is going to fix it. Now, I know, in politics we take pride on being stubborn and "sticking to our guns" so to speak but this is stuff that affects the livelihoods of the American citizenry we're talking about here so doing stuff to create more jobs should not be considered such anathema. Why don't we agree that everybody is a shithead and set aside our differences and get to nation-building at home. I've been watching the infrastructure decay. I know people would howl bloody murder if somebody were to impose tariffs and issue penalties for outsourcing but I think SOMEBODY needs to address these neglected ingredients that are part of what's gotten us into this mess. We seem to import more than we export and be trying to self-destruct internally. Yuck.