Some random crap

A few miscellaneous things:

I saw a car with a license plate of “Keanu” at best buy. Could Mr. Reeves himself be in Pineville with a NC plate? Is it a fan? Someone else with the same name? I struggle to think of the thought process the person must have gone through. Maybe it was some kind of prank?

Probably my favorite comment from 2008 was when McIntyre said to me “you don’t look like you would be educated”. I’m not entirely sure what he meant, but I don’t think he meant to be insulting. It’s sort of the opposite of the time I was accused of being a “white collar worker”.

One day at work this week I wore a white shirt and tie, which is an upgrade from my usual colored dress shirt sans tie. It could be my imagination, but I could swear that I got more attention from women, better service, and people called me “sir” and actually seemed concerned that I had a quality experience. The opposite of this is when I went furniture shopping while looking grungy, couldn’t get anyone’s attention even though I was ready to drop several thousand dollars on couches, chairs, etc. I imagine this is a very small taste of what racial discrimination must feel like. When you really have the money, you just want to throw it down and say “in your face”. Speaking of which…

The top facebook status of 2009 so far goes to Joe Jackson, who had “Joe is going to the dentist today. Yes! In your face! In my face, actually”. He is the first recipient this year of the Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence award.

I was playing a game with some friends where everyone writes an answer to a question, and the guesser has to try to determine which answer goes to which person. One question was “if you could ask the current president one question, what would it be?”. I said “What does Vladimir Putin’s soul look like?”. Only Christina appreciated it, but that is probably the best thing I have come up with so far this year.

A close second: if you ever have a drink that mixed gin and tequila, it needs to be called “The Gila Monster”. I have yet to make the proper impression on anyone with this, but I assure you it is hilarious. GIn + tequiLA = GILA. At conception I had mixed up the komodo dragon and the gila monster, so the actual creature is less impressive than I first imagined, but the overall idea is top notch. It would be helpful if anyone who agrees with me would speak up…

About a week ago there was a nasty lightning storm at 4am, and it was so close that the light flashed so bright I could see it with my eyes closed, and the thunder literally shook my headboard. This was not a normal storm, and being asleep I didn’t quite know what was going on. Might it be that we were being bombed? I figured that if it were nuclear, being close enough to see the light and feel the shockwaves would have meant that I was already dead. It could be conventional though, maybe china or russia was bombing us? I thought about what it would mean if we were at war… would I still go to work? What would happen if the ATMs and credit card readers went out? I bet 99.9% of the country has no idea what to do if disaster like that strikes. Makes me want to build a fallout shelter. This country is pretty fragile…

I read a thing about teens taking virginity pledges, and how as a group they were no less likely to have sex than their peers. The tone of the article was almost one of disappointment that the technique didn’t work… isn’t the thinking here backward? Don’t parents want their kids to avoid sex because of the kid’s personal convictions? It was presented as “the pledges don’t work, back to the drawing board for some new techniques”. Isn’t a greater concern here that a pledge from these kids is more or less worthless? If they swear up and down they won’t do something, and then do it anyway, don’t you have a more fundamental problem? I can’t be too hard on the kids, as hormones are strong and they were likely pretty heavily coerced into taking the pledge. But I really wish there would be more concern about character than outward behavior. Gotta have our whitewashed tombs…

What is up with paper towels, I just bought a 12 pack and it was 17 bucks. They assure me, however, that my 12 rolls are REALLY 18 regular rolls, so I suppose it is a bargain. Maybe Vince was right about the value of the Sham-wow.

Somebody just recently did a replication of the classic “Milgram study”, and unsurprisingly got the same results. If you aren’t familiar with it, basically the had an “authority figure” in a lab coat tell subjects that they needed to keep giving electric shocks to a victim in another room, even though the voice on the other end was screaming in pain and eventually went silent (there wasn’t another person, the voices were faked). The lessons are often related to the Nazis, kind of explaining why people went along with the horrible things done by that regime. This finding raises interesting questions about human responsibility. If it is basically in human nature to “do what we’re told” (there is a Peter Gabriel song about this study), is it really fair to treat someone as a war criminal who was merely following orders, no matter how horrible? I mean, most of us would have done the same thing in those circumstances; can we really punish people for not exhibiting heroic bravery? But at the same time, the acts are so horrible, they can’t go unpunished. It is quite a dilemma. Anyway, the article I read that talked about the replication of the study focused on the ethics of doing the study itself, and they seemed genuinely surprised that the results were consistent with what Milgram found originally. Why would they think anything had changed? And while I appreciate that people are upset when they realize they are capable of killing an innocent just because someone in a lab coat told them to, isn’t that very fact PROOF that they need a deeper knowledge of themselves? Most of psychology is rather boring; individual differences get washed out and most findings are generic and uninteresting. But to find something like this, that is both horrible AND universally applicable, warrants attention from all corners. We can’t just bury this.

Hierarchy of Condescension:
There are a variety of terms that one can use when addressing another to convey their inferior status. This is guy addressing guy; the dynamic radically changes on some of these when said by a woman. I hope this can be a collaborative effort, but here is an initial hierarchy, in order of least to most condescending:

Sir
Man
Dude
Bro
Chief
Bucko
Kid
Tiger
Son
Champ
Lil’ Buddy 

When I look at my soul, I find that I have an untapped core of rage. It isn’t huge, and certainly isn’t out of control or anything like that. In fact, I think of it as something of an asset; were I to be jumped in the street, I could tap into this, let loose, and pound the guy into the pavement without realizing it. Sort of like being on PCP or something. At the same time, I doubt it is healthy to carry something like this around, and as part of maturing, growth and development, it will need to be defused. It isn’t associated with anything specific, just an accumulation of all the shitty things that accrue over a lifetime. Some reflect real wrongs and injustices, others are just wounded pride and occasional shame. I can feel the power of this thing; is it really safe to give it up? There must be a cost to carrying it, but would life truly be better without it?

Social theory: people are <50% good/interesting/useful/anything positive. The percent isn’t 0, so you can easily find quality in individuals, probably in ALL individuals. But in aggregate, you are betting against the house. In Vegas, the house only wins 51-60ish percent of the time… it is not at all uncommon for people to come out having won more money than they put in. But you run enough people through the system, or have any individual play long enough, and in aggregate you lose all your money. Practical application: the larger the group, the more likely things are to go to hell (colloquially speaking). Forget about trying to help “humanity”, because they are a bunch of ingrates and you will just get depressed. Help individuals. Bring out the good in particular people. Change specific lives. Love and caring don’t scale.