Working In Theory

This week there was a conference in London on Inclusive Capitalism. The concern is a popular one these days: the sense that economic gain is not evenly spread, there is unpunished corruption, and that only the rich are getting richer.

Usually, this issue is raised by activists on behalf of the poor, but the problem is now big enough that all but the most dogmatic within the business community are starting to consider it a problem. And that was the attitude here: the wealth gap was presented as a threat to capitalism itself. The premise being that if too many people decide that the system doesn't work for them, then they'll push for a different system. Thus there is an incentive for companies to behave more amicably towards people: play nice or the game will be changed.

It's hard to disagree with that logic. But there's a doubt I have about it's ability to change the world: the central tenet of capitalism is that people need a personal incentive to work. That is, it's not enough to tell people that it's the right thing to do, nor is it enough to say that it will be best in the long run to work for society's sake.   And yet, that's what these people expect businesses and their executives to do: make a sacrifice today that will offer no personal or immediate payoff, just for long-run survival or the overall good of society. So as much as I appreciate their goals, I don't think this attitude will change business, any more than I expect people to work without pay.

I Declare This Post Didn't Really Happen

In one of those news stories that a lot of people didn't understand a word of, Disney announced that "the Star Wars Expanded Universe is no longer canon." The translation for non-geeks:

• Star Wars: famous sci-fi movie series.
• Expanded Universe: all the books and videogames and comics based on Star Wars settings and characters.
• Canon: a term used by fans of long-running franchises to refer to which parts are considered "real" parts of the story, and which parts are not. For instance, Doctor Who fans can consider the 1996 movie to be an actual part of the Doctor's history, while this spoof starring Rowan Atkinson is not.

Whether or not something is canon might be decided by consensus of the fans, or it might be determined by the creator.

I first came across the canon concept in university from friends who were into comic books. Canon is complicated for comics, because there may be movie versions with contradictory plot points, but also because there are so many special editions and crossovers. And it gets worse because the comic publishers insist that all their comics take place in the same universe.

I have to admit that I never really got the need for stories set in the same universe. Comic fans seemed to feel a need for overall consistency. If someone did a series where the X-Men play against the Harlem Globetrotters, it's not enough to just think of it as one of many stories; there's a need for it to all fit together.

But I think I understand it now. Even though I never read any of the expanded universe, it still kind of ticked me off. It may be silly to make distinctions of what did and didn't happen in a fictional story, but a lot of people invested a lot of emotions in it, and they're getting ignored for no reason beyond the fact that the hotshot director doesn't want his hands tied.

Maybe it's about time to abandon the canon idea.  With more and more reboots and sequels and re-imagining, not to mention fan fiction, it's getting harder to decide what is fact within the fiction.

V's Are Everywhere You Want To Be

After yesterday's difficult post, I'd like to explore an unimportant and less serious topic: What is with all the superfluous V's in the names of indie rock bands?

Wavves and Chvrches have been around for a few years now. But now I see that there's a band called Alvvays. (I like their sound; they bring back pleasant 90's memories.) While I realize that band name trends come and go, this seems strange.

I could see using strange spellings of words: online promotion is so important these days that the band would want to have their own web site or Twitter handle. It says something that it's more important to know the spellings of band names than the pronunciation. I've heard people pronounce Wavves and Chvrches as "waves" and "churches." But I don't know if Alvvays should be "always" as most English speakers would pronounce it, or as a hack actor impersonating a German interrogator.

And what's so special about V? It's had two TV series. And V For Vendetta has an art/rebellion vibe musicians would appreciate. Though it's not just music: there's also an indie video game called VVVVVV. (Great game, try the online demo. It brings back pleasant 80's memories)  I know I'm not going to complain too much about V's; after over use of iWords and X-things, the rest of the alphabet should get in on the action.

All In All

You probably saw that this weekend, a young man murdered several people in Santa Barbara, California, apparently motivated by anger over his failure with women. That lead to a lot of events on the internet. If you're confused, here's how it happened:

• Violence against women is an obviously emotional issue to begin with, but it's a particularly raw nerve on the Internet, where a number of women have received rape threats as part of online discussions.
• At the same time, there's been a number of men taking up the mantle of Men's Rights Activists (MRA). That's quite a vaguely-defined cause, but it's mostly been men who see their interests as opposed to women's rights, that their rights suffer from the actions of feminists. So there's been a great deal of animosity between women online and MRAs.
• A number of women in online discussions have grown tired of the "not all men" phenomena. That's the situation where they write about some bad experience they've had with men (such as the aforementioned online threats) only to be inundated with men trying to point out that not all men do the thing being complained about. Of course, not many women do believe all men perpetrate violence against women, but it's annoying when that's the first reaction people have to your difficult revelations of personal hardship.
• So in the aftermath of the events in Santa Barbara, there were plenty of women talking about violence against women, which lead to plenty of "not all men" replies. A popular response to the not-all-men response was to point out that not all men mistreat women, but all women are affected by it.
• At some point, someone, somewhere must have said, "surely not all women." And thus was born a hashtag on Twitter, #YesAllWomen. This was full of heart-rending personal examples from women of ways they've suffered from sexism or sexual violence (or its threat.) It also lead to some beyond-tasteless jokes, which provided perhaps the most obvious ever example of Lewis's Law.

I just looked at the tweets with that hashtag, and the bad news is that after four days there are still tweets coming in. But the good news is that they seem to have outlasted the trolls.

So I - like a lot of men - am left wondering, what can I do?  Obviously, don't participate in violence and threats.  But not being part of the problem seems a little weak now.

I've read from some men who have put forward the idea that all men are indeed part of the problem.  The explanation being that no one is perfect, we all - possibly accidentally - perpetuate stereotypes and roles and the status quo.  But I don't buy that.  Although I have a standard of behaviour that some have considered unreasonably high, even I wouldn't claim that a person contributes to rape culture by forgetting to say "salesperson" instead of "salesman."  I suspect this self-blame is done out of the frustration of being powerless over the true perpetrators.

So what can men do? The best points that I have seen are to listen to women's experiences.  Incorporate this perspective into your world view; that is, be conscious that these frustrations and fears are part of the world you live in.  And don't be complacent: Challenge men who disrespect women instead of letting it slide.  Remember women's concerns, and stand up for them when you get the opportunity.  I'll also add the words of Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer:

Thou shall not be a perpetrator; thou shall not be a victim; and thou shall never, but never, be a bystander.

Don't Read This Blog! Look At My Friends And Family!

Today I had one of those careful-what-you-wish-for moments. Last week I praised the telecasts of Australian Rules Football for showing replays and reaction shots in a little picture-in-picture box on the corner of the screen. Today, the broadcasters of the Indianapolis 500 made use of the technique to show the wives and girlfriends of the contending drivers in the final laps of the race. I hated it, and even other sportscasters hated it:

Wonderful finish Indy 500..and TV shows me wife and girlfriends..I don't care..All those in car cameras and that's all they used..terrible
— Vic Rauter (@TSNVicRauter) May 25, 2014

I have to admit that it was not as bad as their usual practice of breaking away to show the significant others full-screen, sometimes in between every camera change. Trouble is, they decided that the facial expressions of the partners - while not worth ignoring the race for - was at least of equal importance to the race. So they showed each shoot side by side. That is, they showed the entire widescreen view of the race, with the widescreen view of the partner beside it. So with the graphics and borders included, we end up seeing the race on less than a quarter of the screen. I assumed that would be temporary, but they held that dual-view all the way around the track for the second-last lap. Fortunately they came to their senses then and at least gave us the final lap fullscreen.

What makes it extra silly is that on a sunny day, everyone at the track is wearing sunglasses, so we have to watch these oh-so-important reaction shots based entirely on mouths. Castroneves loses the lead - and look, his girlfriend is frowning. Oh, but Hunter-Reay's wife is smiling. Aren't you glad we have this human connection instead of just guessing what everyone is feeling during the race?

Things the Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #14

Edited July 18, 2015: I realize this entry is going to be taken rather wrongly now.  See, this was when Caitlyn Jenner's transgender nature was a mere rumour, which, like many things associated with the Kardashians, didn't really get taken too seriously.  So I wanted to note that this post is referring only to reality TV misadventures:

Being in The Village People's movie is no longer even one of the top ten most embarrassing things Bruce Jenner has done.

But let's face it, this joke isn't really going to work any more, now that Jenner has vaulted herself from bit player in a family used as a punchline to a civil rights hero.  There are plenty of other ways to take the joke: "Winning the decathlon gold will turn out to be only the second biggest achievement for the person you know as Bruce Jenner," or, "One day, retroactively talking to yourself about Bruce Jenner will require saying, 'the person you know as Bruce Jenner.'"

Who Are We? Madrid! Who Are We Going To Beat? Madrid!

This Saturday is the final of the Champions League, the top championship of soccer teams in Europe. It has extra interest this year, because for the first time, both teams are from the same city: Real Madrid versus Atletico Madrid.

Having not grown up in or near a city with multiple sports teams, I've always wondered how people in such a city choose their team. Plenty of places do have that choice: Real vs Athletico, Mets vs Yankees, AC vs Inter, Cubs vs White Sox, City vs United, Angels vs Dodgers, Rangers vs Celtic, Jets vs Giants.  In some cases, it's based on areas of the city, that accounts for, say the many soccer teams of London. But what's really odd is that for so many of those pairs of teams, one is historically more successful than the other.

So what sort of person chooses the Mets over the Yankees, given that the Yankees have won twenty-seven World Series, while the Mets have won two, both of which appear to have been by divine intervention? Sure, some people are just drawn to the underdog. And I guess some are turned off of the top team by the many posers who are drawn to them. It says something that so many people far from New York and Madrid choose to be Yankees or Real fans primarily to be associated with the winning team. And really, that seems to be how more people choose their sports teams: they look for a winner, even if it's far from home.  So voluntarily cheering for the lesser local team shows quite a dedication to the disadvantaged, or just a sense of sadism.

And speaking of the disadvantaged, in some cases the choice of team is based not on the part of the city you're from, but the class you're in. In Madrid's case, Real is reported to be the team of the upper class, while Atletico is the team of the working class. That's all too fitting, since Real's on-field success comes from their bigger budget. It's part of the great sporting irony that American sports leagues feature socialist measures like revenue sharing, luxury taxes, and salary caps, while European leagues are highly unregulated, offering a laissez-faire atmosphere that Americans prefer in any area of life except sports. I've always wondered why European sports fans haven't risen up to demand more equal sports. But now that I find out that their teams reflect their real-life situations, I can't believe we haven't seen a revolution. "Real" even means "Royal"; what more promoting do they need to grab the pitchforks and storm the castle/stadium?