firecat

Browser Ponies! (Requires Javascript)

And while I'm at it:
The return of the Flying Toasters

http://www.socialjusticeleague.net/2011/09/how-to-be-a-fan-of-problematic-things/

One could also describe this post as "how to be a fan of things that have problematic elements, without necessarily being a fan of the problematic elements themselves." And/or "how to be a fan of what you're a fan of without attempting to defend it as perfect and without badgering other people to consume it if they have decided they don't want to."

Liking problematic things doesn’t make you an asshole. In fact, you can like really problematic things and still be not only a good person, but a good social justice activist (TM)! After all, most texts have some problematic elements in them, because they’re produced by humans, who are well-known to be imperfect. But it can be surprisingly difficult to own up to the problematic things in the media you like, particularly when you feel strongly about it, as many fans do. We need to find a way to enjoy the media we like without hurting other people and marginalised groups. So with that in mind, here are my suggestions for things we should try our darnedest to do as self-confessed fans of problematic stuff.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111221140627.htm

Excerpt:

In a new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Arne Roets and Alain Van Hiel of Ghent University in Belgium look at what psychological scientists have learned about prejudice....

People who are prejudiced feel a much stronger need to make quick and firm judgments and decisions in order to reduce ambiguity. "Of course, everyone has to make decisions, but some people really hate uncertainty and therefore quickly rely on the most obvious information, often the first information they come across, to reduce it" Roets says....

It's virtually impossible to change the basic way that people think.

I'm very curious about that last statement. At what point does the "basic way" that a person thinks develop? Is it nature or nurture, and in what proportions? If it's true that some people need to reduce ambiguity more than others, do we know what contributes to that? Is it possible to teach people to tolerate more ambiguity, or to tolerate ambiguity in more situations?

I'm obviously assuming here that tolerating ambiguity would generally be a good skill to have (although I think it might lead to problems in situations where immediate action is required). I really dislike prejudice and the damage it causes, so if training in tolerating ambiguity might help diminish it, I would be in favor.

I think I've learned to tolerate ambiguity a lot better over the years, so my personal experience makes me doubt the assertion that it's impossible to change the way people think. It's possible that being on antidepressants is what made the difference for me, though.

Interesting book review.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/books/review/thinking-fast-and-slow-by-daniel-kahneman-book-review.html">"Two Brains Running" by Jim Holt (a review of Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman)

Excerpt (emphasis mine:

What does it mean to be happy? When Kahneman first took up this question, in the mid 1990s, most happiness research relied on asking people how satisfied they were with their life on the whole. But such retrospective assessments depend on memory, which is notoriously unreliable. What if, instead, a person’s actual experience of pleasure or pain could be sampled from moment to moment, and then summed up over time? Kahneman calls this “experienced” well-being, as opposed to the “remembered” well-being that researchers had relied upon. And he found that these two measures of happiness diverge in surprising ways. What makes the “experiencing self” happy is not the same as what makes the “remembering self” happy. In particular, the remembering self does not care about duration—how long a pleasant or unpleasant experience lasts. Rather, it retrospectively rates an experience by the peak level of pain or pleasure in the course of the experience, and by the way the experience ends.
...
Kahneman’s conclusion, radical as it sounds, may not go far enough. There may be no experiencing self at all. Brain-scanning experiments by Rafael Malach and his colleagues at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, for instance, have shown that when subjects are absorbed in an experience, like watching the “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” the parts of the brain associated with self-consciousness are not merely quiet, they’re actually shut down (“inhibited”) by the rest of the brain. The self seems simply to disappear. Then who exactly is enjoying the film? And why should such egoless pleasures enter into the decision calculus of the remembering self?

This intersects in interesting ways with my studies and experiences in Buddhism, especially the notion that the mind constructs the self, and the self isn't some kind of unchanging core. (A metaphor I found useful is that the mind constructs the self the way a hand constructs a fist.)

Also I've known for much of my life that what I want to do in the moment and what I want to have done are different, and I frequently noodle about how to reconcile them or rebalance the amount of energy I spend on each. My behavior tends to mostly toward what I want to do in the moment, and toward habit.

Via moominmuppet

"Mortgage defaults are causing health problems in people over 50" by Annalee Newitz

Excerpt:

The study was led by University of Maryland epidemiologist Dawn E. Alley, who said:

More than a quarter of people in mortgage default or foreclosure are over 50. For an older person with chronic conditions like diabetes or hypertension, the types of health problems we saw are short term consequences of falling behind on a mortgage that could have long-run implications for that person's health.

...
While this information may seem like common sense, this study is one of the only examples where such "common sense" has actually been confirmed scientifically.

Well, I'm glad research like this sometimes sees the light of day.

Original study

via moominmuppet

"How Unpaid Internships Perpetuate Rampant Inequality in the US," by Anna Lekas Miller

Excerpt:

Recent graduates, disturbed by the dearth of job opportunities, began to take internships as a last resort to stay competitive in the labor market. Although an internship used to be akin to an apprenticeship—a temporary stint of unpaid, hands-on labor resulting in an eventual job offer—the explosion of both college students and recent graduates taking internships no longer guarantees a paid position. Instead, as more and more young people demonstrated they were willing to supply an unpaid labor force so long as it was framed as an “internship,” internships have become a means for companies and non-profit organizations to re-package once paying jobs and cut corners in a tight economy.

Internships are the new entry-level job—the same duties and basic experience, only this time without compensation or benefits.

Unpaid internships were common when I was in college in the early 1980s, but I refused to take one. I had an idea that it was important for me to work for a paycheck. Nevertheless, my parents and I paid for my first career job in three ways: (1) I got a bachelor's degree (my parents paid my tuition); (2) I went to the Denver Publishing Institute summer program (my parents paid my tuition); (3) I took an entry level publishing job that paid $10K a year to start, which didn't cover my expenses (and my expenses didn't include student loans). However, the job did have health benefits.

I see that the long and venerable tradition of paying for entry into a career path continues, although it sounds like it's somewhat worse than it used to be. Another excerpt:

It's becoming more and more expected for college students to have had at least one, if not several, internships by the time they graduate. Students that come from a privileged background, with parents who are willing and able to finance sometimes serial internships, are able to survive in internship culture financially unscathed. Eventually, they intern for long enough to make the connections necessary to break into the white-collar world. But students from lower- or even middle-income backgrounds feel financially stressed taking on unpaid work, but many do anyway to compete with their more privileged peers in the job market.

deirdre asked me to signal-boost this article written by Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith, published in Rose Fox's Publisher's Weekly blog. They were moved to write this article when an (unnamed) agent offered to sign them if they removed a gay character from their YA novel.

http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/genreville/?p=1519

Excerpt:

This isn’t about that specific agent; we’d gotten other rewrite requests before this one. Previous agents had also offered to take a second look if we did rewrites… including cutting the viewpoint of Yuki, the gay character. We wondered if that was because of his sexual orientation, but since the agents didn’t say it out loud, we could only wonder. (We were also told that it is absolutely unacceptable in YA for a boy to consensually date two girls, but that it would be okay if he was cheating and lying. And we wonder if some agents were put off because none of our POV characters are white.)
...
We are avoiding names because we don’t want this story to be about one agent who spoke more bluntly than others whose objections were more indirectly expressed. Naming names can make it too easy to target a lone “villain,” who can be blamed and scolded until everyone feels that the matter has been satisfactorily dealt with.

Forcing all major characters in YA novels into a straight white mold is a widespread, systemic problem which requires long-term, consistent action.

When we privately discussed our encounter with the agent, we heard from other writers whose prospective agents made altering a character’s minority identity—sexual orientation, race, disability—a condition of representation. But other than Jessica Verday, who refused to change a character’s gender in a short story on an editor’s request, few writers have come forward for fear of being blacklisted.

The article also includes links to the following annotated lists:

• YA sf/fantasy with main or major LGBTQ characters
  
• An annotated list of YA sf/fantasy with protagonists of color, Part I: Author surnames A – L.
• An annotated list of YA sf/fantasy with protagonists of color,Part II: Author surnames M – Z.

Really interesting article/book review investigating reasons for procrastination.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/10/11/101011crbo_books_surowiecki?currentPage=all

Here is what nisi_la wants. nisi_la is a Wiscon 35 Guest of Honor.

http://nisi-la.livejournal.com/29006.html

Meanwhile, I want everyone who was hurt or offended or puzzled or appalled or angered or infuriated or stymied or worried or threatened or in any way negatively affected by Elizabeth Moon's post to attend WisCon 35. Because when I was asked to be a Guest of Honor for that convention, you were the ones I was expecting to see there. And because I want to dance with you, and sing with you, and talk about smart stuff with you, and admire how beautiful we are, and flaunt it!

That's what I want. You do what's right for you, though. I don't always get what I want. I will miss you if you don't attend, but I love you unconditionally.

I don't know if I'm going to Wiscon, but my attendance or failure to attend isn't likely to have anything to do with Elizabeth Moon's offensive statements about immigrants and Muslims (my post about that is here: http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/688989.html). Basically, I plan to attend if my life circumstances permit.

I will attend because I know people on the concom and I care about them and want to support them. Because I see many friends there I don't see anywhere else. Because there are always interesting conversations (many of which, for me, are in the lobby rather than at the panels or speeches). Because there's so much going on that for me it's possible to ignore some of the stuff and people I don't like or agree with. Because I think the Tiptree Award is cool and important. Because a number of important organizations have been born at Wiscon (including the Carl Brandon Society and Broad Universe) and I want to support an environment that gives birth to such organizations. Because people who make Wiscon happen have been trying hard in a number of ways to increase inclusiveness for oppressed and marginalized people at Wiscon.

The inclusiveness efforts that affect me personally are: Wiscon people have acted to oppose fat hatred and promote fat acceptance. Wiscon people have tried to accommodate people with mobility difficulties. Wiscon people have tried to accommodate people who have social interaction limits. Wiscon people have not done a perfect job of implementing/supporting these things, but they've tried hard and have made real improvements, from my point of view.

I've tried to form an opinion about whether the Wiscon concom should (have) ch(o)ose(n) to rescind Elizabeth Moon's guest of honor status. I haven't settled on an opinion. I'm aware that my circumstances—as a white person, born in the US to parents born in the US, with a flexible religious affiliation (atheist Buddhist)—afford me the privilege of not having to form an opinion.

Following are some of my thoughts that didn't coalesce into an opinion:

She said something that's deeply contrary to Wiscon's policies of inclusiveness, and she has not shown in public any inclination to change her mind or apologize for hurting people by making these statements. As such it's contradictory for Wiscon to be sending the message that it honors her.

She said it after she was chosen as GOH. To what extent is Wiscon responsible for things that GOHs say after they are chosen as GOHs?

She has said similar things before, although they didn't garner the same amount of attention. To what extent is Wiscon responsible for researching the prior public statements of prospective GOHs to find out whether they've said stuff that's contradictory to Wiscon's policies?

I value the idea of responding to speech that we don't agree with, with more speech.

I value having events that are dedicated to certain viewpoints, at which people can discuss the finer aspects of those viewpoints (events with some room for non-"viewpoint-101" conversations, if you will). When people attending those events feel obligated to spend time defending and explaining the most basic elements of our viewpoints, that space loses some of its value.

When someone we invited to our event says something so threatening and hateful that people we want to be part of our event no longer want to attend or feel unsafe to attend, our community is weakened.

Subject line is a quote from Animal Farm by George Orwell. I'm referencing the "but some...are more equal" part, not attempting to insult any humans or any subset of humans by comparing them to animals.

I find this post upsetting: http://e-moon60.livejournal.com/335480.html
There was a lot of excellent critique in the comments to that post, but now the comments have been deleted, so I want to make my critique public. I'm only addressing a couple of bits.

Moon writes:
the business of a citizen is the welfare of the nation

I think the business of a human being is the welfare of other human beings and nonhuman life and the planet in general. (Other parts of the universe seem relatively protected from harm by us, so far.)

Insofar as the concepts of "citizen" and "nation" conflict with the above (for example, by encouraging the attitude "WE are good and THEY are bad, therefore THEIR welfare isn't worth our consideration"), I'm not in favor of those concepts.

Moon writes:
A group must grasp that if its non-immigrant members somewhere else are causing people a lot of grief (hijacking planes and cruise ships, blowing up embassies, etc.) it is going to have a harder row to hoe for awhile, and it would be prudent (another citizenly virtue) to a) speak out against such things without making excuses for them and b) otherwise avoid doing those things likely to cause offence.

How does "a group" get defined? Moon is arguing that the proposed Park51 development is "likely to cause offence" due to the terrorist attacks in New York on 9/11/01. She defines a group called "Muslims" that includes both the developers and the terrorists. But I would guess that a lot of Muslims don't think they should be lumped into the same group as the terrorists.

The group "monotheists" also includes both those developers and those terrorists. So would it be prudent of Christians to scrap their plans for monotheist cultural centers in case the plans offend people? Is it incumbent upon them all to say "As a monotheist, I think it's wrong for monotheists to attack the WTC"? If they aren't expected to do this, why not?

Then there's the phrase "likely to cause offence." To me the wording implies that offense is an independent entity or thing. It's not. It's a human mental/emotional state, based on beliefs. Wherever you have offendedness, you have some humans who believe certain things. But note that the phrase doesn't mention which humans are offended and doesn't mention what their beliefs are.

Moon writes:
they should have been able to predict that this would upset a lot of people.

So Moon is creating a set of people and labeling them as "other," as "immigrants," and associating them with the acts of a terrorist organization. Then she is arguing that the people so labeled have the following civic responsibilities: (a) understand that some people in the country they live in lump them in with terrorists and mistakenly consider them all immigrants; (b) come to an agreement about which of those people to avoid offending; (c) come to an agreement about what behaviors will "upset a lot of people"; and (d) all avoid those behaviors.

I think those are unreasonable expectations. Especially when they are NOT paired with the expectation that other citizens have a duty either to educate themselves about the groups they consider "other," or to leave them alone.

I don't expect everyone to agree with my opinion, but since this is a sensitive subject, I expect civility in the comments to this post. I reserve the right to moderate/delete/freeze comments/threads if I think there's trouble brewing.

The following is excellent collection of quotes criticizing the concept that trans people need to "disclose" their gender history to people they are dating or thinking of dating.

http://dglenn.dreamwidth.org/1722095.html


(Hm, I need a gender icon.)