Anarchy X: The Eighth Commandment

Posted: November 21, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Anarchy X, Culture, Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Though shalt not steal.”

When making the case for basing legislation (or even an entire criminal or civil code) on the Ten Commandments, this is usually right behind the Sixth Commandment in being cited as to why it would be a good idea. After all, the reasoning goes, who among us could object to a law that says “don’t steal”? Sure , we might quibble a little about the specifics (there’s a big difference between shoplifting and grand theft: auto, for example), but the basic concept is sound.

And yet… what is theft, exactly?

I believe the Merriam-Webster definition is particularly instructive in this regard: “1. a. the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it; b. an unlawful taking; 2 obsolete : something stolen”. Isn’t it interesting that both current definitions involving personal property include words like ” felonious” and “unlawful”, and it’s an obsolete use to say something as direct and simple as “something stolen”. It becomes even more interesting when you follow that particular line of thought over to the definition of “steal”. I won’t pull every part of the definition I found intriguing and useful, but here’s the very first one: “to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice”.

So where am I going with all of this? It’s an old argument, and one that a lot of folks have written off before as crazy, but pause for a moment and think about it. If someone came to your door and demanded money, and if you didn’t give it to them they would come back with guns and take it by force, would you call that theft? And yet that’s what taxation is, in a nutshell. There may be a few more steps in between the nice ask and the men with guns (they’re called “police”, by the way), but the end result is the same.

So what justifications do people offer for why this isn’t, in fact, theft? First there’s the suggestion that “you owe it to the community”. An interesting thought, and one that I’ve never quite understood. If I offer something for use by “the community” and then demand payment post-facto, that is by definition illegal and immoral; either I state a charge upfront or there is no charge. And yet the oft-cited reasons I “owe it to the community” are for the roads, police, fire department, etc. which I have either never used, never wanted, or never been billed directly for so that I can determine whether I am interested in the service at that cost. As for the schools I attended growing up, what about the taxes my parents paid? And what about the sales taxes I paid on goods I purchased? And again, why was I never given a choice as to whether I was interested in those services in the first place?

But of course, that is often the second argument I hear as to why taxation is not theft; “you had a chance to vote”. I’ve already expressed my opinion on voting, but in this specialized case I’ll narrow it further: this is blaming the victim. If I voted and didn’t get the guy I wanted, I’m being robbed for policies I don’t agree with, except for the ones I do. How is that fair? If I voted and I did get the guy I wanted, I’m being robbed for policies I do agree with, except for the ones I don’t. How is that fair? If I didn’t vote at all, I’m just getting robbed, but I get lectured about how it’s my own fault for not voting, and how is that fair?

Speaking of blaming the victim, there’s another argument that ties into both of the ones above: “You choose to live here.” This is occasionally accompanied by “if you don’t like it here, leave.” This is somewhat akin to saying to someone born into the ghetto that they chose to be born there, and therefore they have nobody but themselves to blame for being there. Show me a country on Earth where I won’t get robbed just for trying to live there, and I might consider living there. As I have yet to find that option, I take the best that’s on the table, but that doesn’t mean I can’t (and won’t) try to make it better, and noting the flaws is the first step.

Having said all this, does this mean I am completely against taxation for all reasons, at all times? No. In all things there must be compromise and balance if we are to live together as a society, and necessary evil is sometimes one of those things. For the common defense, for police and courts and fire departments, the things that we all need and benefit from but nobody wants to pay for until after we need them and it is too late to pay for them, taxation is a necessary evil. But being aware that it is theft, that we are stealing from ourselves and our friends and our neighbors every time we tax, will hopefully keep in check the desire to “do more good”. There is very little good that can be done when the root lies in breaking a Commandment, even though we all know where that paved road leads.

Tuesday Bonus Post: The Dark Side of the Wall

Posted: November 20, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture, Internet | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

For those who might be interested, I’m taking a class on rhetoric and digital media, and as a class project had to create a piece of digital art. I decided to do a digital poem that was a riff on Taroko Gorge by Nick Montfort. It’s my own mash-up of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, rather appropriately titled The Dark Side of the Wall. Fell free to have a look, critique it, love it, hate it, just tell me what you think in the comments.

Silver and Gold

Posted: November 19, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture, Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

There are two approaches we are offered from antiquity, one of which we are all familiar with and one that is less familiar although not completely unknown. The more common is the “Golden Rule”: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The less well known but still famous is the “Silver Rule”: Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you. I believe it is instructive to examine both of these approaches to see how they differ, and how they can guide us in life and in law.

The Golden Rule is what I think of as affirmative guidance. It tells us what we should do. It doesn’t restrict or circumscribe our actions away from things so much as guide us toward things. While this seems good on the surface, I’m always leery of things that look good (too many “candy from strangers” commercials as a kid, I guess). The first caution I would bring to the table is that maybe what I like isn’t what someone else likes. Just because I want you to do it to me, how do I know that’s what you want done to you? I’m not talking anything sick or extreme here, but there’s a lot of human activity that falls in the grey areas between “obviously wrong” and “of course I’d be okay with that”. If you don’t believe me, swing on by house next week. It’s almost time for my annual mohawk, and my wife is going to be out of town; I’ll do your hair first, then you can do mine. It’s the Golden Rule, after all.

Standing in opposition to this is the admonition to not do unto others. While this doesn’t lift nearly as much weight from a moralistic perspective, it does just as much work from another perspective: that of circumscribing negative behavior. Again, if there is objectionable behavior someone would actively enjoy, there’s nothing in this rule that would stop them from doing it to someone else, but then the Golden Rule practically requires them to go out and do it. At least this rule just amounts to “keep your hands to yourself”.

That leads into the other aspect of where I think these two subtly different moral guidelines have major differences in their implications. Many people, some among them being either moralists or lawmakers (and even moralistic lawmakers) like to cite the Golden Rule when debating the merits of different laws. Why? Is there something inherent to the Golden Rule that makes it a superior basis for a legal system? Citing something like Hammurabi’s Code I could at least understand (not that I think that’s a good source mind you), or the Magna Carta. But instead they refer to “the Golden Rule”. Aside from its qualities as a common point of cultural reference, what else does it offer in terms of jurisprudence?

Consider my point from above: the Golden Rule is affirmative. It does not circumscribe behavior as much as compel it. All laws are compulsory by nature, in that they compel us to act a certain way or refrain from acting in a certain way for fear of punishment (if we would have behaved properly without the law then we either don’t need it or can safely ignore it). So laws that are made with the Golden Rule in mind are looking to compel people to take a good action, to “do unto others”. They are not designed from the perspective of refraining from negative action, that of “do not do unto others”.

The essential question then is, what sort of government do we want to live under? What sort of system do we want to have? Do we want a system that determines in advance what actions we should take, and uses the threat of force to compel us to take actions for the benefit of others? I’m pretty sure that’s been tried, and it never seems to work out very well. The alternative is a system that writes laws carefully, narrowly tailored to circumscribe intolerable behavior but otherwise leave open the grey area of noxious but tolerable behavior. It’s perhaps not as pretty in theory, but works much better for a diverse plurality than reaching for fool’s gold.

The War on Christmas

Posted: November 16, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture | Tags: , , , , | 147 Comments

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the next person who mentions Christmas before I taste turkey gets a kick in the jingle bells. It’s not that I’m a Grinch (although my sister, the Christmas Elf, will gladly tell you otherwise). It’s just that my ability to enjoy the Christmas season is inversely proportional to my level of exposure to it. Don’t get me wrong; we have our holiday traditions, and I love them all. The music, the food, the decorations; most of all I will never forget the look on my sister’s face the year I finally slipped the lump of coal into her stocking for a change. But I digress. The point is that these moments are beautiful because they are rare, they are fleeting, and thereby they are magical.

I remember when I was a kid (and I have never felt older than when I typed those words) there seemed to be an understood rule: Christmas didn’t start until after Thanksgiving. Sure, you might see a few commercials about the big sale at your local department store on Black Friday in the week leading up to Thanksgiving, but it was always in the background, like the siren song of savings before the mad rush of commercialism truly began. First came the parade, Dad would yell at the TV while he watched football all day, then the turkey, and you finished off the night with The Wizard of Oz. The next day would come with its marathon of shopping quite soon enough, and Santa’s lap would be waiting all month long for you to whisper your list of impossible desires to be passed on to your long-suffering parents.

In the last twenty years, and particularly I’ve been noticing it in the last yen years, it’s like the stores can’t wait for Christmas to start. They’re worse than the kids. My roommate told me he was in one store, which shall remain nameless (but it rhymes with K-Mart), and they had a Christmas aisle set up already. Oh, I forgot to mention: this was three weeks before Halloween. It was right next to the Halloween aisle; talk about one-stop shopping. I’m surprised they didn’t have chocolate bunnies out, too.

It can’t be the economy, or trying to lure in the “early shoppers”, because they were doing it before the economy tanked, and there have always been early shoppers (my mother is still finding gifts she “hid” back in August… of 1998). It’s like someone decided to hell with the unspoken rule, and once one person crosses that neutral zone and gets away with it, everyone else jumps on board, and I for one think it’s time we all take a stand. We mock people who leave their Christmas lights up on their homes more than a few weeks into the new year; isn’t it time we boycott stores that put theirs up more than a few weeks before the holiday? Don’t we deserve a chance to celebrate one holiday at a time?

Am I the only one who has seen Mame? Does no one else know the song “We Need a Little Christmas”? There’s a reason that song resonates, and it’s because Christmas is supposed to be a special time, a time of magic and joy. But to be special, it has to be rare. When Christmas gets pushed back so far that it literally becomes “Christmas in July” as the marketing campaigns of my youth used to say, where’s the magic? Doesn’t Santa deserve a few months off?

WTFMMOFPS?

Posted: November 9, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture, Internet | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

It’s not like I’m some sort of newb: my first gaming console was an Atari 2600. I’ve played most of the consoles since then, and I’ve owned every iteration of Playstation and Xbox that has ever existed, as well as most of the Nintendo consoles. I’ve had a computer since x86 was even a designation, and “baud” was a word. I get gaming. Believe me. I’ve loved it, hated it, and been thrilled and frustrated by it. I just don’t think gaming gets me anymore.

For those of you who only started playing video games in the mid to late nineties (or heaven forbid, since Facebook and cell phones made video games acceptable), let me describe to you what gaming used to be like. You would sit in a room, usually by yourself, and you would put the game in. It would start up, you would play for anywhere from a few minutes to a few days (depending on your endurance and the size of your bladder), and then you would pass out. If you were really lucky and you were playing the right kind of game, you might have a friend to play with. If you were unlucky, you had a sibling you had to share with (hi, Jen). That was about it.

Somewhere along the line somebody got the idea of creating multiplayer games in a very real way. I’m not clear on exactly when this happened (I blame Doom), because they didn’t dominate the world of gaming for a long time. They coexisted, out there but not overshadowing traditional gaming. At least to the best of my knowledge not before Everquest came along (colloquially known as Evercrack). I lost a lot of good friends to Evercrack, mostly because I just never saw the appeal. It seemed more like a job than a game, spending all of your time “grinding” (that would be doing senseless and boring tasks for in-game currency to buy in-game items or achieve other in-game objectives) so you could get to a point where you could, I dunno, play the game. And it was always a matter of keeping up with the Joneses.

Then I discovered City of Heroes. This is a massively mutiplayer online game in which you get to play a super hero, and it was tailor made for me. My wife became a gaming widow for about a year. She finally got me back when she lured me into World of Warcraft, which had taken over from Everquest as the fantasy MMO equivalent of crack. She got tired of it; I didn’t. At least, not for a long time. It took a lot of grinding, foul language, and downright immaturity that I would be shocked to hear from an 11-year old boy to finally get me to quit. Two years of that later I finally went cold turkey. I’ve been clean for about six months now, and I’ve discovered something: there’s no games left for me.

See, here’s the problem. I never liked first person shooters (Doom, I’m looking at you again). I just never got the whole “twitch-twitch-flinch-twitch-this is fun!” thing. And I’m done with MMOs. It’s not the games; it’s the players. I just can’t tolerate their bullshit. For the right game I’ll pay every month (although that did grate on me, I won’t lie), but as City of Heroes found out, the free to play model isn’t enough to keep you going when the content isn’t there and the jerk-to-fun ratio is jacked up to 11.

But when I go to look for a nice, simple game, something like the games of my youth, they all seem to be gone. Note I didn’t say “easy”. Anyone who wants to claim that Metroid or even Super Mario World was easy has either a short memory or way too much time or their hands. But I don’t want to have to invest three days learning the control scheme. I don’t want to have to do mental and physical gymnastics to control my character (Wii, Kinnect, I’m looking at you this time). Even the franchises I used to love have confused added complexity for improvement. I loved Civilization. Civilization II may well have been the pinnacle of game making. Civ III was so convoluted and confusing I couldn’t even finish a game on the easiest setting. I hear they’re up to 5 now. Good for them. I wouldn’t even give them 5 bucks for it.

How about a basic platformer with some deep story? I’d love to see a great RPG that I can sit down and play for hours, not sit down and watch for hours a la Final Fantasy 13, which was so painful I couldn’t get through the first two hours, which translated to roughly fifteen minutes of actual gameplay. How about instead of adding bad multiplayer, you take the time to program the game such that I can choose between playing it FPS or strategic (Fallout 3, I’m talking to you).  How about just once, you deliver a game experience that maybe isn’t all about the hottest graphics and coolest sound, and instead rewards me with gameplay so compelling, so rich, so intuitive and fun that I want to come back again and again, and I’m actually willing to pay twenty dollars more for extra content, because the original game was JUST THAT GOOD?

Oh, and how about not forcing me to be online just to play a single player game, Blizzard? ‘Cause, yeah, that’s bullshit.

Anarchy X: The Sixth Commandment

Posted: November 7, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Anarchy X, Culture, Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

“Thou shalt not kill.”

Of all the Commandments, I personally would have put this one at the top. Maybe I’m funny that way, or maybe I’m just not quite the omniscient being and there are other factors in play I’m not aware of, but it does seem to be a rather important one. Setting all of that aside however, it is at least straightforward. “Thou shalt not kill.” It has also been translated as “Thou shall not commit murder”, which is a very different thing entirely, and it makes a big difference which is the correct statement when looking at this from a public policy perspective. There are two distinct yet equally important reasons for this, one of which I can come down in agreement with the “not commit murder” version, and the other I come down on the “shalt not kill” side, so I’m a bit torn.

For the first reason, there’s the question of “what exactly is murder?” I know that sounds like a silly question to some, maybe most, but it is an important question, not just in jurisprudence but in society. Is murder any time you shorten another person’s time on Earth? If so, I can’t agree with that definition. Put bluntly, if you threaten me or mine, I will not hesitate to use any and all necessary force to affect our defense and escape. That’s not to say I prefer to use force nor do I look forward to the day, but I reserve the right, and while I may regret the necessity of the act I will never regret the act itself.

Likewise, I am a great proponent of the idea that a person’s life is their own, to live as they see fit and only so long as they wish to. If they require assistance in leaving a life they no longer find tolerable, I will not hold someone liable for providing that assistance. Maybe that makes me a bad person in the eyes of some, but that’s what I believe and I stand by it.

So having ruled out those definitive cases, what about the questionable ones? What about the issues of negligence, unintentional action, and incitement? Those I am comfortable at least putting in the custody of the judicial system, as they are questionable, and are worthy of being weighed by a jury. While I can see in each one of those without stretching a case of either vindication or at least a far lesser crime, I can also easily see a case of murder. That is why we have an adversarial judicial system, to sort out such murky cases, and to (ideally) ensure the innocent are not punished along with the guilty.

But the truth is that the judicial system is also something we have to look at when we consider this Commandment, because it is a part of the government, and at least in America the government represents us all. The actions the government takes are, if not literally than at least symbolically, the actions we all take, and if we do not at least raise our voices against the immoral actions than we are equally culpable of them.

I have made my feelings on the death penalty clear before, but here we have another consideration to make. If the State is, collectively speaking, all of us, then every action taken by the State is an action taken by us. That includes every execution carried out by the State. If you believe that the proper interpretation of this Commandment is “Thou shall not commit murder”, you cannot in good conscience ever question any execution carried out, or else you must oppose all of them, and as I have pointed out before the inherent imperfection of man is such that the latter is inevitable. Even if you believe the death penalty is just and can be (and is) applied justly, and therefore it is not murder, do you believe the proper translation is “thou shalt not kill”? If so, you must oppose the death penalty on those grounds alone. As a wise man once wrote, “you can’t eat meat and look down your nose at the butcher.”

It may seem odd that I would have no problem with killing in my own person, or even with someone ending their own life, and I have as much as said I would help someone to end theirs if asked, yet I am opposed to the State taking life in the form of the death penalty. Like most things, it is contextual. I would not kill except as a last resort; I believe that a person has a right to make their own choices about their own life, including when to end it; and if it came down to it, I am willing to assist someone I care about to do what they feel they must even when they don’t have the strength to do it themselves. That does not mean I enjoy it, nor does that mean I prefer it. And when there is another option, I will always take it. For me, that is the heart and soul of this Commandment. There is almost always another option, and it is incumbent upon us to find it.

The Dangers of Giving Advice

Posted: November 5, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture | Tags: , , , | 9 Comments

I made the mistake recently of giving someone advice, specifically unsolicited advice. It was a rookie move, and one I used to make a lot. I’ve avoided it for a long time, and for the very reason that seems to have befallen me now: I think it may have cost me a friend. To those of you who believe that giving advice, even well-intentioned advice, is a good thing or a noble act, I would like to take this opportunity to caution you against it and explain why exactly it’s a very, very bad idea.

First, chances are that the person you are speaking with is not looking for advice. They want to vent. This is a perfectly normal human need, and one that friends are supposed to fill. The desire to make things better is a strong one for a lot of us, maybe even most of us, but it is an egotistical, maybe even arrogant one. Consider: you are asserting that, given your limited knowledge of the situation, you can offer a solution that will make things better that they have not tried, that they can and will implement, and that won’t cost more than they are willing to invest. Looking at it that way, even if they are asking for advice, are you really qualified to give it?

Second, if they aren’t asking for advice and you try to offer it anyway, you’ve just communicated (either directly or indirectly) that you are not really interested in them, you are interested in yourself. I know that sounds backwards, but it goes back to what I said above. You’re more focused on how you would handle the situation they are in, not in how the situation is affecting them. Your focus is on satisfying your emotional needs in this situation, not theirs. Not the best message to send when someone has made themselves vulnerable to you.

Third, and this is the big one, there’s no win here for either of you. Let me lay some basic game theory on you. I see eight possible outcomes in this situation:

  1. They take your advice, things work out, and they give you no credit. You resent them for not acknowledging your part.
  2. They take your advice, things work out, and they give you all the credit. Now they start to rely on you to fix their problems in the future.
  3. They take your advice, things don’t work out, and they give you the blame. Suddenly it’s your fault.
  4. They take your advice, things don’t work out, but they don’t blame you. You still feel like an ass.
  5. They don’t take your advice, things work out. You feel like an idiot for giving bad advice, but no harm done.
  6. They don’t take your advice, things don’t work out, and they wish they had taken your advice. See #2.
  7. They don’t take your advice, things don’t work out, and they somehow blame you. Don’t ask me how this works, but I’ve seen it happen. You’re still at fault.
  8. They don’t take your advice, things work out. You have enough self-confidence to shrug it off and say “looks like I was wrong.” No harm, no foul.

Maybe I’m overlooking some possibilities, but the way I see it there’s a 1-in-8 chance of a desirable outcome, and that one outcome can be more easily achieved by not giving advice in the first place. All of the undesirable outcomes can be avoided by… why look at that: not giving advice in the first place.

This is compounded by the fact that most advice comes in the form of blatantly banal and pointless platitudes that are only useful to the people who don’t need them. Things like “be yourself”, “fight for what you believe in”, or “never be afraid to speak your mind”. Here’s the advice that should accompany all of those that nobody ever seems to give and everyone needs to internalize: actions have consequences. Feel free to “be yourself”, but if that means having multiple body piercings, visible tattoos, and a blue mohawk, you need to know that will limit your job opportunities. You can “fight for what you believe in”, but be aware that reasonable people can disagree vociferously about issues they feel passionately about, and that doesn’t make them evil or wrong; it simply means they disagree, and a refusal to compromise will get you nowhere. You can “speak your mind” as much as you want, but that doesn’t mean people will like what you have to say, nor does it mean you won’t be held accountable for having said it.

Which brings me back to where I started. I was myself; I spoke my mind; I gave advice; and those actions have had very real consequences. Once upon a time that friend read this column, and maybe still does. If so, I hope there’s still room for forgiveness. If not, I’ll live with the consequences. Because that’s who I am, and I’m not afraid to be myself.

The Value of Tradition (And Challenging It)

Posted: November 1, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture | Tags: , , , , , | 3 Comments

I believe it was F. A. Hayek who defined tradition (and I may be paraphrasing here) as those concepts, ideas, or behaviors that have survived undisturbed because they are not sufficiently contra-survival to have died out. The point he was getting at was that even though we may not understand why we do a certain thing, or why we do things a certain way, things evolved that way over time for a reason, and to simply throw it all away because we don’t understand the reason behind it is very foolish indeed.

Truthfully, I am not known for being a very traditional sort of person, at least not in the common parlance of the word. I don’t abide by most of the cultural mores I find around me, and I am the first one to buck the trend if I find that it inhibits me from getting something I want or doing something I want to do. But those who know me well also know that I am a sentimentalist at heart, and I have a fondness for tradition that goes well past nostalgia. I suppose it would be the height of hypocrisy to suggest that when I flaunt tradition it’s for the common weal and when others do so it’s a danger to the commonwealth, but I’ve been accused of hypocrisy before.

Most of our structures, our society, everything we do and live by and with, exists for a reason. We may not understand why or what that reason is, but that doesn’t mean that reason isn’t there. Even something as basic and structural as language is an evolved form of tradition handed down from one generation to the next, and while it is certainly mutable within a few standard deviations of the norm, it is not simply something we can dispose of without regard for what comes next. This is not to suggest we should never challenge tradition; a society that refuses to challenge its traditions stagnates, becomes rotten in the core, and inevitably dies under its own weight. But the challenge should be constructive, with some idea of what will replace those defunct traditions, not a simplistic, nihilistic destruction.

The fact is, most of the time when I see people making a break from tradition these days I see them doing it with lack of foresight. They are not trying to strive toward something, rather than are simply running away from something. Likewise, they are never willing to pay the price for their rebellion; too often the expectation is that there should be no price, that what they want should be the proper order of things, and that they should be rewarded for demanding change rather than being asked to sacrifice to make that change happen. “Gimme, gimme, gimme!” is the cry of a child, not a rational adult, and should be treated in much the same way: ignored at first, and with a time-out if it continues. If and when they decide to grow up and be a part of the broader community, to bring something to the table, to add to the civilized discourse, then we can engage and see what we have to offer each other. The drive to blindly challenge everything without a sense of purpose is simply being a douchebag.

I do have one caveat: teenagers. It is their right, their privilege, and their duty to be douchebags in this fashion. You cannot offer something of value until you know what you have to offer, and to do that you need to know who you are. It is only by striving against anything and everything, by pushing against all that society has and being blasted back in response, that we develop our true sense of self. When that societal pushback comes and scours away everything else, whatever remains and refuses to let go, the part of you that stands defiant against everything and everyone that would change you, that’s what you know is the real you. It is through this process of rebellion that teenagers come out of their parents’ shadow and find their own identity.

The benefit for society is that there are some things that do occasionally, occasionally, need to be challenged on the merits and not be replaced by something new. There are traditions and ideas that have outlived their usefulness (if they were ever useful at all), and it is the responsibility of each new generation to challenge those ideas. It is this sort of pruning that allows our society to continue to grow and brings each generation more fully into the fold.

It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I’m Not a Zombie)

Posted: October 31, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I had an interesting conversation the other day with a friend at work that later spread (rather ironically) to some fellow coworkers. It was on a topic of grave (pardon the pun) importance in this day and age: if it was the zombie apocalypse, would you want to be the first person turned into a zombie or the last person left on Earth after everyone else had been turned into a zombie? Think about that one for a second. Go watch a few episodes of The Walking Dead if you think it would be instructive.

Got your answer? Here’s the ones that came up: almost universally the decision was be the first. The reasons given ranged from the maudlin (“I would hate to watch my entire family and all of my friends die”) to the perverse (“I’ve always enjoyed an all-you-can-eat buffet…”), but there was solid agreement on this point; as usual I was the lone dissenter. I said, unequivocally, I would invest my entire fortune in canned food and shotgun shells and ride this one out. My reasoning may sound flip at first, perhaps even grotesque, but I ask you to bear with me.

To start, answer this perhaps indelicate but I promise serious and on-point question: have you made love enough in your lifetime?

No need to answer out loud; feel free to keep it to yourself. Regardless of your answer, let me take it a step further. Have you read every book you would ever want to read? Seen every film? Have you experienced every great or wonderful moment you could ever want to experience? If nothing else, have you seen every sunset or sunrise you ever need see again?

Answer me every one of those questions, and then answer this one again: would you be the first zombie, or the last?

I also pointed out that, if you remove the element of the fantastic from it, the question becomes one of the essential nature of humanity. Death, in all of its forms, is unpleasant at least and gruesome at worst. It is rarely desirable, and it is always final. Change the question even slightly: “if every person on Earth were going to die in a car crash, would you prefer to be the first or the last?” Does your answer change?

Life is for the living. It’s easy to forget that as we go through the motions of job and school, get trapped in the daily grind of wake up, commute, work, commute, sleep, rinse and repeat. There are joys to be had, great and small, victories and triumphs and losses and tears and great walloping gobs of life to live. And when the zombie apocalypse comes, I’m going to ride that sucker out in style. Feel free to stop by; I’ll have plenty of canned food and shotgun shells to go around.

I know it’s just a game, a thought experiment, and perhaps I take it a bit too seriously, but I think sometimes games are worth taking a little seriously just to see where they take us. If this game takes you to a place where you appreciate life a bit more, perhaps enjoy a sunset, kiss your spouse one more time, pet your dog, or just give an extra piece of candy to the kids who knock on your door tonight, then it was a game well played.

Happy Halloween, everyone.

Why Can’t Johnny Read a Job Listing?

Posted: October 29, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture, Internet | Tags: , , , , , | 3 Comments

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in hiring lately, and I feel it is my job, nay, my calling to bring it to the attention of you, my faithful readers. I believe that this is a challenge that we need to address as a nation, else we will never be able to rise out of the economic mire we find ourselves in. That challenge is the apparent inability of our working age youth to actually read a job listing.

What leads me to this conclusion is the never-ending wave of applicants I have been getting lately who are under the impression that they can (a) work remotely or (b) work in a full-time position while attending school full-time. While I admit the latter has been done before and will be done again, the fact is that none of the people who I have interviewed thus far have been looking to attend classes at night, on the weekend, or in any other capacity than the way they always have, during the day and on their campus. Let me note, for the record, that the job listings in question have two commonalities: they are for PAID internships, and they explicitly state that they require the candidate to be present during normal business hours. (Yes, we do list the address of our business on our website. In several places. On every page, in fact.)

So can someone please explain to me why it is that almost every applicant makes a point of the fact that they want to work remotely, and almost every one of them seems to want to work in this role while attending school full-time on the same schedule they always have? I understand the world is moving toward “telecommuting”; point of fact, it has been doing so since I first started college… twenty years ago (I just recently had my high school reunion). There are some things that have not yet changed, are not likely to ever change, and if they do change that change is not going to start with an intern, especially if I’m paying them. If you happen to know someone, or even ARE someone looking for an internship or other entry-level position, please share the following tips about why telecommuting isn’t in the cards in the near future.

  • Sometimes things come up that I need you physically present for. Even in jobs that deal with “teh interwebs” there are things like meetings, strategy sessions, or even just the occasional random task that I will need you to be present for. Yes, I have heard of Skype. I’ve even used it a few times. Perhaps you’ve heard of “limited bandwidth”. We pay for what we have, and I don’t want to spend it on you.
  • Showing up every day proves I can trust you. Right now I have no reason to, because I don’t know you, and I’m taking a risk on you. This is the case with any new hire, from the CEO on down. The difference between the CEO and you is somewhere in the vicinity of twenty years of work experience and a few pages of references. And she shows up every day, usually before you do.
  • In the same vein, when you show up, I get a sense of your behavior and demeanor. I am entrusting you with tasks that I expect you to handle in a professional manner. In order to build confidence in your ability to do so, your professional dress and behavior go a long way toward that. Showing up on time and staying all day also help. When you work remotely, it is a sign of trust; for all I know you’re sitting around in your bathrobe playing “Angry Birds” all day.
  • Finally, and I can’t emphasize this enough, it doesn’t matter why I want you to show up. I am hiring you, not the other way around. Even if this were an unpaid internship, if you want the job, you get it on my terms. If you like what you are getting out of it, you take it; if not, you don’t. That logic is the same whether you are a cashier at a grocery store or the president of a Fortune 500 company. And quite frankly, in this economy I really don’t see someone going out for an internship being in a position to negotiate, especially not on this essential point.

Maybe I’m being too unforgiving, maybe I’m expecting too much. Certainly if I can’t find someone to take the job as offered I’ll have to re-evaluate my expectations and decide if I need to change the offer, or if I even need an intern that badly. But that’s for me to decide, not you. Until I do, you’re not doing yourself any favors asking for a job I’m not offering; you’re just getting yourself a one-way ticket to Trashcan Town, population: your resume.

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