#if you only abide by science when it comes to defining things then you should probably reconsider how you group most things

[ghostlypawn]

honestly any transphobic ‘science is science’ debate surrounding men/women being defined by any biological features goes straight out the window when you think about how we rarely group things based on their scientific definition but rather how we value them societally. if we talk about fruits, scientifically, they are ovaries of a flowering plant that develop after fertilisation. this makes nuts like chestnuts and hazelnuts fruits (their shell having developed from the ovary wall). but socially we would never call hazelnuts a fruit because they dont occupy the same culinary spaces in society. they dont look the same, they dont eat the same, they dont cook the same, so why would we call them the same thing just because they’re fertilised ovaries. they may be biologically the same but that doesnt mean they are socially the same. we decide to group them based on the value they have for society. similarly, we classify brazil nuts, cashews, peanuts, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, macadamia nuts, pine nuts as ‘nuts’ even though they are all botanically seeds and not nuts. what im trying to get at is that for a lot of things we dont care about what ‘parts’ it has or how it functions on a biological basis but rather what it bring to society and how they hold value in certain circles. so why do some people want to start defining things by ‘strict’ biological definitions when historically we have usually used social definitions as its more benefical for us as a society.

[umbralstars]

Sothis, the Church of Seiros and Byleth: A Pagan Reading

Due to L!Byleth and the minor hyperfixation he caused I decided to make a whole discussion on how I personally view Sothis, the Church of Seiros as a whole, and examine Byleth's role in the story.

So just some ground rules before I begin:

This is just how I personally viewed the story as I played it, and my own perspective on the plot and meaning behind certain things. I am open to discussion in the comments and reblogs, and if you disagree with my opinion that's perfectly fine. Also so much of this is going to read like headcanons/assumptions loosely supported by canon's thin red strings and I am ok with that.

If any in-game quotes are used they will mostly come from the Church Library since it's easy to check but I'll paraphrase important scenes that I can remember.

Also after compiling a timeline of events best I can understand it I have made a few assumptions: worship of Sothis existed before the Church of Seiros (perhaps even going as far back as pre-Calamity times) and thus Church doctrine and beliefs is largely based upon previously established beliefs about the Goddess. This doesn't have too much to do with the analysis itself, but I just wanted to say it as I quote The Book of Seiros parts a few times and the writings in those books I hold to have a basis in that pre-Church faith.

With those in place, allow me to begin.

The Sothis/Church of Seiros Meta:

While there have been many metas comparing Sothis and the Church to medieval Christianity, I have always looked at them both through a distinctly non-Christian, Pagan lense. 

I myself am a syncretic polytheist who has a complicated history with Southern Baptists. These two core aspects of my spiritual life does color my perceptions of the religion presented in this game and I am fully aware of that. Three Houses came at a time in my life where I was finally seperating myself from my latent Christianity, and exercising my Pagan goggles on this was a major step I took towards that. My intention here isn't to say that Christian coding doesn't exist, but to simply give my ideas and perspective on the religion presented in this game.

First, allow me to give the define the Gods through the lense of a Pagan as it's important to the framing of my ideas:

"The Gods are real, sentient, disembodied minds with awesome greatness and powers beyond what we humans can currently explain with science."

This is the simplest, shortest definition of the Gods I can give and Sothis, beyond a shadow of a doubt, hits all of the criteria as she is presented in the game. The Pagan conception of the Gods does not require any pretense of tri-omnism, and I believe it's best to look at Sothis, and many other FE Gods, through this lense. Sothis, when she was alive and even when she is "dead," is capable of amazing feats such as creating life, turning back time in a limited capacity, and restoring entire continents to life after calamity. While she is not tri-omni, she does not need to be so to be a Goddess and one worthy of worship and reverence.  

Church doctrine itself also exhibits other fundamental aspects of Pagan practice and belief that are important to me and many others: animism and the reciprocity cycle. As stated by The Book of Seiros, Part 1,

"The Revelation.The Goddess is all things. She is heaven above and the land below. She is eternity incarnate. She is the present, the past, and the future. Her eyes see all. Her ears hear all. Her hands receive all."

Obvious allusions to omnipresence aside, another reading of this passage is a far more esoteric, and hard to put into words, aspect of Pagan belief about the Gods. In a sense , the Gods are not limited by the physical constraints of the world and their bodies are inherently an aspect of the very universe itself. They are not omnipresent at all times, but they can be wherever they wish to be especially wherever their presence and power is strongest. That is actually the purpose of idols, alters, and temples. The Gods are not idols or are bound by them, those things are simply repositories to allow us humans to connect with and worship them. 

The natural world as well can be the "body" of a God. Places where their spirits decide to dwell. Natural phenomenon one can feel their presence in. They are not limited to these places, but upkeep of them is necessary to maintain their power and spirit. In this way that passage can be read as Fodlan and the Blue Sea Star being the places where Sothis' spirit chooses to reside along with her actual remains needing to be maintained to keep her spirit maintained. Her sacred body likely extends across all of Fodlan and her spirit resides most strongly as the Blue Sea Star.

Gods in FE also, more often than not, have a physical body that is important for their connection to the physical world. FE Gods are not incapable of interacting with or watching over the physical world from the spiritual, but have much more free reign when their physical body is alive. The places where their bodies are buried are where their power is most heavily felt, and their spirits the strongest, as evidenced by the Mila Tree and the Good Ending of Future Past in Awakening. This what I believe the true purpose of the Sealed Forest to be. Given how protective Rhea is of the place, the strange alter and Crest of Flames that is just there, and that being where Byleth awakens and Sothis remembers, either parts or the entire rest of Sothis' physical body must be buried there and not actually in the Holy Tomb.

As an aside, the remains of the Nabateans can also be seen through this lense but to a lesser degree. It's obvious that parts of their souls and power remain with their bodies, and thus, maintaining the Relics, Crestsones, and the other Nabatean remains not fashioned into weapons would be of utmost importance to Rhea. Because, if they were to be lost or damaged her kin's spirits may forever be lost to the physical world. 

Fodlan being the sacred body of Sothis is also why I believe the Church of Seiros to be an ethnic religion and a henotheistic one to the people of Fodlan. The Goddess is only ever credited in the creation story and a lot of other Church doctrines as having created and choosing Fodlan as her sacred ground. The people of Fodlan likewise are seen as her sacred people. Nothing in Church doctrine says that Sothis is the only God to exist and I truly cannot remember a single instance where anyone says other religions outside the Church are false ones. Hence why I say Fodlanders are henotheistic, where they do not deny the existence of other Gods, but Sothis is the most important and only one worshipped by them. To the people of Fodlan as long as foreigners do not deny her existence and those of Fodlandic descent worship her as they should there is no cause for an uproar.

This is not to say other religions can be practiced freely on Sothis' sacred ground, as evidenced by the women in Abyss who says she worships there "because Abyss is where it is allowed." Along with Atheism among Fodlanders to be a taboo in their societies. Whilst I don't see the Church to be a beacon of religious tolerance (or that Fodlanders don't believe their religion to be the best), I also do not believe them to be proselytizers to places outside of Fodlan. 

The reciprocity cycle also has a place within Church doctrine. The Book of Seiros, Part V describes the various commandments Sothis gave to her people and how if they abide by them the Goddess pays the people back with blessings and gifts. Textbook reciprocity is doing something for the Gods, such as sacrifice or ritual, and gaining something back in return or the Gods do something for you and you give back to them in turn. Reciprocity can be as simple as giving thanks for the blessings the Gods give or complex as full ritual, sacrifice, and or prayer to gain a blessing/aid or give thanks for one. The best case of reciprocity I see in game is the restoration quest for the Saint Statues. Whilst the Saints are complicated in how I believe their divinity is handled there is no doubt the player receives blessings from them for restoring their icons. 

(While I would like to devote an entire section to them and the Nabateans in general like 80 - 90% of my ideas are headcanon that I'm still not sure of. I don't think the Nabateans are Gods like Sothis is however immortal or long-lived they may be. I also still don't know whether the Saints would be worshiped or venerated in the Church, as I still don't understand the distinction of those two things myself, so I don't want to make a judgement call).

What about Byleth?

Byleth...is tricky. Now, I must preface, that all of this is my opinion. Some of it may not be supported by the game, but this is how I personally write him and his status regarding everything we see in game.

Byleth is, for all intents and purposes, the 13th potential vessel for Sothis to return to the world as they were given Sothis' Creststone on the request of Sitri. Here's the thing. I personally do not believe that Sothis is truly dead or that Byleth manifested her consciousness on happenstance.  It has been my personal belief ever since playing the game for the first time that Sothis' spirit does indeed reside in the heavens and that the piece of Sothis that resides in Byleth until his awakening is only a fragment. Along with that I believe that Sothis' consciousness and power manifested in Byleth specifically because Sothis wished for it to be so.

My ideas are centered around a few aspects of the game that have always stood out to me as rather strange if kept in line with the larger context.

Why after all this time and Rhea's many attempts did Sothis manifest in a stillborn child?

How was Sothis able to speak to Byleth and wake him after his 5 year coma?

Why does Byleth loose the Goddess' power at the end of Crimson Flower?

How was Sothis able to speak to Byleth if you choose to S-Support her?

How exactly was Byleth able to dream about something that happened long after Sothis' death even if he can access her memories?

These sticking points have always struck as odd given everything that Sothis says before Byleth's awakening. Sothis should not be able to speak to Byleth at all, but still does so only a few chapters later and comments on the war that Byleth was only privy to the very beginning of.

Hence my belief that Sothis' spirit as the Goddess of Fodlan does reside in the heavens, watching over the continent, and only able to interact with it and its people in subtle ways. Some of her spirit and power laid within her Creststone as it passed from vessel to vessel. One way or another, she was able to foresee the coming war that would change Fodlan fundamentally forever and chose to manifest that piece of her consciousness when the opportunity presented itself. It's why Byleth can dream of a battle that happened long after Sothis' death because he's remembering something experienced by the Creststone and knowledge given by the Goddess soul who resides in heaven.

I also believe that Byleth and Sothis as we saw them during the game was a mistake in some way. Byleth as his own entity was likely not supposed to be and the piece of Sothis' soul that was supposed to manifest wasn't supposed to be amnesiatic or at the very least not separate from Byleth. There were a few times pre-time skip where Sothis would be talking and Byleth's model would be moving and his facial expression changing. Almost like their thoughts were so intertwined that they were practically the same even before the awakening. It's very likely to me that Byleth's memory issues, lack of ability to properly express emotions, and other aspects of their character to be directly connected to the fact that Sothis' soul manifested incorrectly.

The Sothis he hears before waking from his coma and the one he speaks to during his S support is likely the full spirit of the Goddess communicating with him through great effort and only able to because he's her avatar. She knows of the pain Fodlan is experiencing because she can see it and feel it even as Byleth slumbers. Same thing for why Byleth would lose her power and soul piece on Crimson Flower, as Sothis may have interpreted siding with Edelgard as a rejection of being her avatar and simply deciding to be human instead (I don't wish to speak too long on a route I don't particularly like, but I felt that strange ending should be addressed).

My experience as someone who follows a Kemetic path leads me to not see Sothis' soul being split in this way as strange. In this particular religion, as I understand it, the soul is encompassed as multiple different parts all combining to make a singular being. Both Gods and humans have multiple parts to their souls, so one residing in the Creststone, later manifesting in Byleth, and another part residing in the heavens is plausible to me. Also if I wanted to compare Byleth to another FE character, his situation reminds me most of Nagi from FE 11 & 12 who is an amnesiac and likely an incarnation of Naga to aid Marth on his quest. Nagi doesn't get much characterization in those games, but it does show that incarnations/avatar of Gods, who aren't the confusing mess of Robin and Grima for instance, isn't a new concept in series for Byleth.

In terms of what happens after Byleth awakens I do believe that Byleth himself becomes a God or at the very least a demi-god in his own right. As it was Byleth absorbing the piece of Sothis' soul into his own, the Goddess' power was inherited by him alone. The inner turmoil caused by two souls sharing one body finally ceased and Byleth was fundamentally changed becoming, well, an Enlightened One. As the game doesn't really explore Sothis and Byleth much post-Time Skip, due to the war taking precedence and Byleth's unfortunate existence as a silent protag, how exactly he changes is up to personal interpretation. I personally believe he gained not only Sothis' power but some of Sothis' memories and insight that the Creststone soul piece had. He also gained greater control and range of emotional expression and probably took on some of the characteristics Sothis had. 

Byleth is both an avatar of the Goddess and his own person at the same time. He is and is not Sothis.

[demoisverysexy]

What is Truth?: A Faltering Mormon Epistemology

So this is my church talk from this past week. I had a lot of fun writing it, so I thought I'd share it here. Do be warned that this is like, full of theology, philosophy, and Christian and Mormon stuff. So if that's not your cup of tea, get out while you still can! But I can say that my takes on religion might be out of the box enough for some people to maybe consider staying longer than the might normally. I hope you enjoy it, or at least can tolerate that I'm posting it. :3

One of my favorite exchanges in all of scripture takes place in John 18. Here, Jesus has been betrayed by Judas, Peter has denied knowing him, and his other disciples have fled, leaving him to be arrested and mocked by the religious leaders of the day. And then, he has this strange conversation with the Roman governor, Pilate:

33 Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews?

34 Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?

35 Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?

36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.

38 Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? … (John 18:33-38)

In this exchange, Jesus articulates brilliantly the difference between how his kingdom operates, and how the nations and kingdoms of the world operate. While the nations of the world legitimize themselves through violence, Christ’s kingdom is legitimized and sustained by truth, and those who seek and witness it. While the nations of the world are marked by division, anyone who is of the truth is a follower of Christ.

Pilate’s reaction to Christ is telling, I think. He doesn’t know what to make of him. Pilate lives in a world of the rulers and the ruled, the conquerors and the conquered. In short, he lives in a world where winning is everything. The kind of world that Jesus posits is incompatible with- incomprehensible to, even - the world in which Pilate lives. In Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” I think there lies a deep, abiding cynical skepticism of the truth Jesus offers. Or any truth, for that matter.

But what is truth? Even if Pilate’s question was delivered cynically, it’s still important to ask. Countless philosophers and theologians throughout the ages have had different ideas on that. In the medieval era, the common idea that truth was centered primarily on God, and his Word in the Bible is the key to accessing his truth. Then came the renaissance, and people began to use human reason and observation to discover truths, which gave birth to science as we know it today. Other philosophers thought truth was reached through competing ideas being synthesized, or that there was no single viewpoint capable of describing every possible truth. I think each of these views has something unique to add to the discussion on what truth is, and - much to the chagrin of anyone who knows me well - I will talk about them at length with anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot.

For this talk, though, I’m going to focus on what truth does. I think that understanding how truth works is essential to understanding what it is, and how to find it. More though, I think looking at truth in this way can help us know how to better hear the voice of Christ, and understand what he is trying to tell us. To help with this, I will be focusing on something of a look at a case study: the events leading up to Joseph Smith’s First Vision.

Joseph Smith grew up during the Second Great Awakening, a time of great religious upheaval. Lots of religious groups were springing up, all passionate in their love for Christ and the pursuit of the truth. But that passion, sadly, quickly turned into strife. As Joseph puts it in Joseph Smith History,

For, notwithstanding the great love which the converts to these different faiths expressed at the time of their conversion, and the great zeal manifested by the respective clergy, who were active in getting up and promoting this extraordinary scene of religious feeling, in order to have everybody converted, as they were pleased to call it, let them join what sect they pleased; yet when the converts began to file off, some to one party and some to another, it was seen that the seemingly good feelings of both the priests and the converts were more pretended than real; for a scene of great confusion and bad feeling ensued—priest contending against priest, and convert against convert; so that all their good feelings one for another, if they ever had any, were entirely lost in a strife of words and a contest about opinions. (JSH 1:6)

These people, in their pursuit for truth, turned against each other, filled with anger and hatred for each other. Each one of them was so convinced of their rightness, and so convinced that the simple fact of having the Correct Information was sufficient to satisfy their own Righteousness, that anyone who did not have enough of the Correct Information was less righteous, and therefore less worthy. And what they were arguing about was the message of Christ’s love! In using the fact of Christ’s love for us as a weapon, they, as Paul puts it, “changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator,” (Rom. 1:25).

And because of the anger, contention, and confusion caused by the dissonance between truth and hatred, Joseph couldn’t find the truth. In his words,

...so great were the confusion and strife among the different denominations, that it was impossible for a person young as I was, and so unacquainted with men and things, to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong. (JSH 1:8)

Whatever these people were doing, it wasn’t spreading messages of truth. Divorced from love, and tethered to anger, hate and disgust, these believers of all backgrounds were incapable of listening to one another, learning from each other, and finding the truth. Worse, their strife made it hard for other seekers of truth to find it themselves.

If strife, hatred, and disgust cause truth to flee to the nearest exit, then I think that it is safe to assume that when love is present, so too is truth. Where there is truth, there is love, and where love resides, so too does truth. This leads me to one of the defining aspects of what truth does: It causes love to increase. To find truth, we must have love, and once found, truth increases the amount of love we have. Paul puts this beautifully in Ephesians 3, where he describes his wish for the saints in Ephesus:

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. (Eph 3:17-19)

Grounded in love, we are more capable of seeing the truth. And seeing the truth, we come to know of the love of Christ, and are thus filled with “the fulness of God.” And as John puts it, “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him,” (1 Jn 4:16). To be rooted in the love is to be rooted in God, and it is only rooted in love that truth can be found.

This love is not thoughtless, and it is not blind, however. If it was, it would be incapable of seeing the truth. The love of which Paul and John are speaking of here is the love that Christ has for us: a love that functions as a form of deep understanding. Animated by the desire to see things as themselves, this understanding makes love possible, by helping us to know how best to address the needs of those around us. I think this understanding of love might help us understand how central to Christ’s atonement was his experience of our suffering, pain and sin. As Alma puts it,

And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities. Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance… (Alma 7:11-13)

On Alma’s account, Christ’s embodied understanding of us was - and is - central to the love and mercy he offers us. Without it, the miracle of his atonement would not be possible.

Understanding and truth as Christ does is central to loving as he does. And loving as Christ does - loving all, even our enemies, radically, fully, and unconditionally - is central to holding truth. More, in loving our enemies, we become more capable of seeing and understanding the truth. Adam S. Miller, my favorite Mormon theologian, puts this idea brilliantly in his book, Future Mormon:

Even sinners love those who love them. Even sinners love those who repeat what they want to hear and confirm what they already know. But such love is thoughtless. Those who hold the truth and are fearless in it will be marked by their confidence that every truth can be thought again-indeed, must be thought again-from the position of the enemy. Their confidence in this extension of the truth will be rooted in God’s promise that the truth must rise on the evil and the good, it must rain down on both the just and the unjust. All truths, in order to be truths, must be thinkable from the position of the enemy. All truths must be thinkable as an act of love for the enemy (71-72).

What if we, as Christ advises, “turn the other cheek?” What if we turn to see what our enemies are looking at? What if we were to try to see what we, from our limited perspectives, are missing? Animated by love, we are humble and fearless enough to know that we do not know everything. We recognize that we are all too shortsighted to know all that we must know, and that it is only through “the least of these, [our] brethren,” that we can hope to more fully see the truth, and in so doing, be filled with the love of God.

I admit now, that this is not really about truth. Or if it is, it is only about truth as much as it is about love. Love is really the central point: Without love, there is no truth. More, as Paul puts it:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not [love], I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not [love], I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not [love], it profiteth me nothing. (1 Cor 13:1-3)

Absent love, knowledge, power, faith, and miracles are nothing. More, without love, we are nothing. Goodness, knowledge, miracles, and faith only gain their power as such through love., and it is only through love that we can be fully ourselves.

[Love] suffereth long, and is kind; [love] envieth not; [love] vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. [Love] never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. (1 Cor 13:4-8)

Animated by love, filled to the brim, we will have everything we need to seek after the truth: humility, patience, joy in the truth, hope, endurance (all traits that the best scientists, philosophers, and other professional truth-seekers share). Even if we don’t have a full understanding of the truth (which is a sure bet), and even if we are wrong (which is also probably the case), if we have love, we can’t go wrong.

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, [love], these three; but the greatest of these is [love]. (1 Cor 13:9-13)

If God is to be believed (and I think we should trust him on this, at the very least), there are “many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God,” that are yet to be revealed (Articles of Faith 1:9). There is so much we don’t know: Things that others have learned but we haven’t figured out yet, things that we’re just on the cusp of figuring out, things that we can’t even begin to comprehend. In the meantime, we must be ready for it. And it is only through love, the greatest and most important virtue, which never faileth, that we can be ready for the challenging truths that God sends our way.

In our own pursuit of truth, if we are guided by love, we will have all the tools we need to find the truth. Alma, talking about faith, outlines how this process plays out in our lives:

Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me. Now behold, would not this increase your faith? I say unto you, Yea; nevertheless it hath not grown up to a perfect knowledge. (Alma 32:28 -29)

Growth isn’t always pleasant. It often hurts quite a bit, to grow physically or as a person. But filled with love for God and the truth, we will be able to tell that the swelling we feel within us is enlarging our souls, and making room within us for an increase of love. Once we give place in our hearts for the truth, even if we do not have a perfect knowledge, we will be filled with the sweetness of the truth, which will in turn fill us with love. Truth fills us with love, and love makes us seek out the truth, hungry for more.

Joseph Smith, when he was seeking for the truth, discovered another resource to find the truth: God himself. In his studies of the scriptures, he stumbled upon one scripture that stuck out to him in particular: 1 John 1:5. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” If our own faltering ability to love is not enough to help us find the truths we cannot see, then God, in his infinite mercy and love for us, is more than happy to provide what we lack. This truth of God’s love and willingness to provide to his children shocks Joseph. He has tasted of this truth, and he becomes hungry for more. As he puts it,

Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; (JSH 1: 12)

But Joseph did know what to do. He had just enough love and truth in him now to know what he needed to do next. And once he did that, the truth and love he received was beyond anything he could previously imagine. That is a story for another time (though I’m pretty confident you all know how that story ends), but I think that this moment shows how the life of a truth seeker appears: as a constant hungering for truth, which in turn leads to an increase in love and understanding, which, once again, leads us to seek more truth. And so it goes.

Returning to the exchange between Pilate and Jesus, I think it’s safe to say that while we might understand truth a little better, we still don’t have an answer to Pilate’s question. But we understand something Pilate doesn’t I think: The truth that the Christ was talking about: “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” The truth that Jesus is speaking of is the truth of his love for us, and by extension, his Father’s love for us. Knowledge fails us, prophecies fail us, our loved ones will fail us, even we will fail ourselves. But God and his love will never fail us. Trusting in his love for us, and loving him in turn, we will be filled with the sweetness of the truths he offers, and a sight clear enough and a heart big enough to seek out the truth ourselves. And when we fail to love, and miss the truth, God and Christ, in their great love for us, will fill us all the more with their love and truth. And thus filled with love, we will have the courage to embrace whatever truths God sends our way.

[adorable-elsanna]

I don't mean to be rude, and I apologize in advance if I am!! But why do you ship this nd WHY does this ship exist? Aren't Elsa and Anna sisters? And blood related at that. I don't want to hate on ships, you can ship washer you want as long as you aren't hurting anybody!! It's just that ships like these with incest startle me a bit. Maybe I'm just confused since I really shipped Kistof and Anna so I'm missing out on this? Ahhh sorry if this is annoying!! -confused anon

 Hi Confused Anon ( aren’t we all? ;) ),

Thanks for your polite ask, lol finally I get to dust off this blog’s ask box! :)) I’d love to respond with a whole essay xDD but I don’t really have time :’( so maybe I’ll just give a quick rundown for now. 

I might not be the most representative person to pose this question to lol because I am an outlier in general, meaning due to my life experiences, my development, my major in college, my deep meditation practice, and more, I do not abide by normative, dominant, hegemonic social structures and social constructs (nor do I actively resist them per se), so I am unfazed by anything. 

I started shipping this after I watched the first movie when it came out in Nov. 2013. One of my first posts on this blog, 7 years ago, was me explaining how I came to ship this (I had made the post private, but now you can read it here. Also this other post, but I wrote it when I was a college student, so it’s a little too analytical for my tastes now. Those were my views at the time). 7 years is a long time, so my mindsets and reasonings have changed, but all the reasons I had for shipping them from before are still with me today. 

I didn’t go into the movie with the intention to ship them, but while watching it, I picked up on a lot of chemistry between them because their interactions and even storyline were infused with strong popular romantic tropes, tropes that were used in other classic Disney movies themselves. I used to watch a lot of romantic comedies so I was very familiar with common romantic tropes. Of course, having came away from the movie having noticed all these romantic notes between them, I was a little confused and thought maybe it was just me. But when I went online to search a bit to see if others saw/felt what I saw, I found out it wasn’t just me! 

So one of the reasons why this ship exists is because people picked up on the romantic tropes that colored some of Elsa and Anna’s interactions, tropes that have usually only appeared between romantic couples, in films and in real life. Even if the creators didn’t intend to and didn’t actively put the tropes there, they are there. 

If we apply the principles of Buddhism (not the religion. Many ppl mistakenly practice things as devotional worship or for superstitious reasons. But if ppl really want to know everything about the mind, how the world works, the universe, who they are, about themselves and “other” people and why people do what they do, the meaning of life, true happiness, the end of suffering and stress and conflict, and consciousness, then forget psychology [not saying it’s not useful though]. Buddhism, or rather Buddhadharma, is the true science of mind, or at least the much more effective tool), it says that there is the law of cause and effect, the universal law. Everything that is created in the universe and each phenomenon that happens is the result of the momentary coming together of causes and conditions that make that thing happen. There are many many causes and conditions and intricacies and things are interconnected and interdependent, no one person can control something to happen (certain conditions have to be there for something to happen). Something can not come from nothing. If something happens, then certain causes and conditions have been created to bring that result. A seed was planted. If we plant an apple seed, what comes out will be an apple tree (provided the right conditions were met, like water, soil, sunlight, etc.). It will never come out as a banana tree. And so we can understand the underlying principle behind how each situation and phenomenon arises, about existence itself, why each thing exists. 

Now WHY did I go off on that tangent??? LOL All of this is to say that certain causes and conditions have been created to result in the effect of many people shipping Elsa and Anna together and there being a fandom for them. (These principles and explanations might seem very simple and like kindergarten stuff, but despite that, many people can’t accept it. ESPECIALLY when it applies to heavy stuff in their regular everyday life. Or even trivial things tbh lol) The last I checked, there were people from at least 26 different countries shipping Elsa and Anna together. 

Everyone thinks they see reality exactly as it is and takes it for granted, and thus attach strongly to the notion that they’re right. But if that’s the case, then why are there so many fights over who is right? So who is actually right? Even if someone were to follow the majority consensus or some popular, ingrained, long-standing ideas / societal rules, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re right. There are many cases of the blind leading the blind. People used to follow the geocentric model of the universe before they discovered heliocentrism. Ideas are always in flux and keeps changing and transforming, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, sometimes imperceptibly and sometimes conspicuously. If you ask 100 different people why they ship Elsa and Anna, you will get 100 different answers (with a lot of overlap of course) with unique spins on their reasons. Because in the world, each person sees reality through their own color-tinted glasses and filters and adherence to labels, concepts, beliefs, upbringing, etc. And then the person seeing “reality” through red-tinted glasses gets mad at the person seeing with blue-tinted glasses for not seeing the world how they see it (and gets frustrated not understanding why), and vice versa. In this scenario, what is actually best? To realize you’re seeing “reality” through color-tinted glasses, and so you should take them off and truly see reality without any filtered lenses. (This is a little off-topic, but I had to bring some Buddhism into this because first of all, dharma applies to everything lol, and secondly, Buddhism is all about dispelling confusion. There is definitely a way to see reality exactly as it is, it typically involves meditation.) 

Yes, Elsa and Anna are sisters. But I’ve never seen any pair of sisters act like them before (if there are, then that’s great!). I have a sibling myself, and we are very close, but we don’t act like how Elsa and Anna act with each other. With most siblings, I would say there’s a lot more joking around, teasing each other, sarcasm, pranks, and casual relaxed communication than the intense intimacy, deep eye-contact, and soul-bonding that Elsa and Anna share. Disney has portrayed many other sibling relationships before, but it seems like they tried something a little different with Elsa and Anna’s relationship that made it pretty easy for many people to ship them together. 

I ship Elsa and Anna together because their pure true love for each other transcends all labels, concepts, preconceived notions, and time and space. They are completely selfless when it comes to one another and that’s what true love means. They make each other better people and it empowers them to extend this selflessness toward other people. Their sacrificing themselves for each other and selflessness in action is true love exemplified. No one deserves Elsa more than Anna, and no one deserves Anna more than Elsa (speaking from my shipper heart xD). Confining and defining their love as just sisterly seems limiting and not allowing the full potential of their true, expansive, infinite love to manifest. (A sibling relationship is really beautiful, but it still has to be shaped and look a certain way, it has to fit into a particular mold and box and abide by certain conditions. Otherwise, as we have incontrovertibly seen, people will scream bloody murder and be squicked out and all hell will break loose.)  

We can even go one step further to say that the same similarly applies to people’s definitions, notions, concepts, ideas, and beliefs about love. They say this love is like this and that love is like that, this is what love should look like, this person can love this person but only if it’s like this and not like that, this is what it means to love and to be loved, etc. Again, it’s limiting, and placing restrictions on something whose essence is boundless. In Buddhism, with the realization of Enlightenment, one realizes that true love is selfless, unconditional, boundless, free, all-encompassing, nondual, timeless, compassionate, wise, nondiscriminating, infinite, universal, endlessly flowing, non-judgmental, creative, indescribable, and inconceivable. So THIS is the love that I see and ship between Elsa and Anna. I love their relationship as sisters, but their love is so grand that it cannot be contained inside that label, so it transcends and goes beyond any attempts to neatly define and characterize it.

It’s okay if incest ships startle you. Uncomfortable feelings come up whenever the ego experiences anything that challenges its worldview and everything it’s ever known and held to be true, and that prompts it to question and reconsider its mind-constructs. We have a knee-jerk reaction to grasp, hold, and attach to what we like, and to avoid, reject, and push away what we don’t like and what makes us feel uncomfortable. For what it’s worth, Buddhism tells about the cycle of life, death, and rebirth from beginningless time, so we have all lived infinite past lives and been each other’s lovers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, enemies, grandparents, etc. at one point or another. (Deep, but intriguing!, topics for another time.)  

If you really like to ship Krist0ff and Anna, then go ahead and ship happily. First rule of Buddhist meditation: Whatever you do, ONLY DO IT, 100%. ;) And if you don’t do something, then don’t do it, 100%. And then move on to the next moment. Be in the present moment. And remember that everything is changing moment by moment. Mind is changing moment by moment. Don’t need to anticipate the next moment. Who knows where our shipper hearts will take us. 

I like to ship people based on their chemistry and characterization. Elsa and Anna have a great true love story that is theirs and theirs alone. I don’t like to ship relationships that seem contrived, thrown in there for the sake of it, not fleshed out, lacking in substance, trite, and with characters who are underwhelming or underdeveloped. 

Lol no worries, this is not annoying, I’m sorry this is so long and that I took 7 days to get back to you. I wish I could give specific examples from the movies with beautiful gifs to explain why I ship them (I’ve probably written such posts in the past. Maybe I’ll come back to edit this reply one day), but I’ve gotta skedaddle! I’d like to hear your thoughts about my reply if you actually read this, so please send me a message in the ask box again if you can. 

Also I’m a girl if that makes any difference, but yeah anyway, skedaddle time, love you all! 

Oooooh I never finished replying to someone else’s ask box message asking me why I shipped them, it’s from years ago :’(, I started typing my reasons and saved it in my drafts, but it’s incomplete. But here’s what I wrote at the time!

1. I just love everything that Elsa and Anna feel and do for each other. Elsa isolates herself from Anna to keep her safe, and Anna persists in trying to get Elsa to open up to her and goes to find her when she runs away. They’re always thinking of each other and worrying about each other. They act selflessly for one another and their unconditional love is expressed so genuinely. This kind of devotion in any relationship is rare.

2. There was a lot of chemistry between them in the movie. At the coronation ball scene, I get that the creators were trying to depict awkwardness between them since they haven’t spoken in a long time, and Anna wanted reassurance that Elsa didn’t hate her so she was nervous about getting Elsa’s attention and approval, but the scene came off as Elsa being kind of suave and flirty and Anna being flustered because her crush just complimented her. Then Anna gave Elsa a playful smile when she was dipped upside-down as if she only had eyes for Elsa.

When Anna stares admiringly at Elsa as she stands atop the staircase, it was like a scene straight out of A Cinderella Story or Enchanted where the prince stares at his true love like she took his breath away.

[kosei-on]

(the sb anon again) was hesitant to send another... here's the prompt that i wasn't able to fit in the last msg set in the archieverse shadow always had a secret admiration for blues' wayward attitude but chose to abide to his given orders after blues' betrayal, shadow's longing to be free like him begins to surface ahhh i'm sorry if i went overboard and got into specifics, you could also take your own liberties! have a nice day! ヽ(；▽；)ノ

I had to look up what broodish meant in ur the last message, but I agree with it. I end up writing a lot about what characters are thinking because my mind is always just;;; Running... I’m not a huge ShadowBlues fan (I only really ship TempoBlues and since I ship BassRock- BluesBass has become my enemy)  And I feel super inspired by ur message!!! It isn’t perfect for how you asked, but I hope, that you liked it anon!!!

But y’all, send me all the rare pairs!!! I’m so happy to have enthusiastic peeps here, send me everything that is N O T I N C E S T.

____ Shadow has always thought Breakman, Protoman- whatever stupid identity he obsessed over at the moment was a strange conundrum. His past was ruled by dictatorship and orders. To not abide by Terra’s rules, to not believe in Ra Moon and worship him like the deity he was, the great and malevolent ruler, meant death. If he could be honest to himself, he didn’t miss Ra Moon too much. But why he didn’t he wasn’t sure. He should miss him, the last part of his past, he was supposed to help him rule the earth and yet he failed and while it felt horrible, the pain had faded and he was lost and yet not, he still had orders to follow.  Dr. Wily was almost as strange to him as Breakman. He didn’t have much experience with humans, but he was fascinating in ways different from the creation of Dr. Light. It was hard to put into words, words were so fleeting and temporary. So easy to twist and misconstrue. They are held to loose definitions that are interpreted in different ways. Easy to replace with words that mean practically the same thing- actions are much louder. When someone hands you something without asking if you wanted, it spoke to how they thought of you. 

Protoman understood this. Wily did not. Why use 10 words when a 100 would do? He understood he hated Dr. light by the way he wanted him dead, he didn’t need a lecture.  Protoman, Breakman, he understood this. When he wanted to take him back to Dr. Wily, Shadowman deliberately wanted to provoke him into a fight. Just to feel his strength. He could tell, in a brief battle, the tide was turned to him, however, he wasn’t sure about a longer battle. It worried him. He could feel his faith in Wily waning, and if he were to flip, and he couldn’t manage him... 

Well, that’s what happened. It frightened him almost, the poison in his words as he spat to Wily. Unbeknownst to him though, Wily had made precautions to ensure he didn’t flip. Of course, such methods were against his moral standings, but he already knew Wily was not a fair or honest man. So he tried to not let it bother him. In the days leading up to the incident, Dr. Wily was flipping through a dictionary, angrily muttering to himself as he paged through the bounded pages.  “I suppose you wouldn’t know the definition of ‘Susurrus’ would you?” Shadowman stared.  “Chrissake, I can’t use the internet in case someone cracks my identity- God- how did anyone live without the internet?! Oh, finally, here we go, ‘whispering, murmuring, or rustling.’ Why wouldn’t you just say murmuring?!” he threw the science journal against the wall, Shadow didn’t flinch as it banged against his head and fell with a thump.  “These fancy types always use the long and complicated word when the lamens term would work better. It’s monotonous.” Shadow didn’t listen to the rest of his rant. The dictionary had opened to a word, and one stuck out to him.  wan·der·lust/ˈwändərˌləst/ noun: a strong desire to travel. "a man consumed by wanderlust"

He thought of Protoman. He was gone and hadn’t come back. But Wily was so sure of himself he didn’t ask him to leave. Well, that was fine. He had a perfectly fine time entertaining himself. But the word, “Wan-der-lust. Wanderlust. Wanderlust.” toiled around his head. Had he ever had a strong desire to travel? 

That was months ago. Megaman defeated Cossack's robots, and while he knew Wily was alive he had only heard rumors, like whispers of the wind. When he found him, gave him sort of a signal he would return, but for now he was a: vag·a·bond/ˈvaɡəˌbänd/ noun: a person who wanders from place to place without a home or job.

Living the life of wandering mindlessly. Sometimes he stayed in one place for several days, tucked for several days in a tree. Survival wasn’t much of a problem, he didn’t run on the energy canisters the robots of this miserable planet did. He was fine running the way he was, or so he told himself. But his enemy was boredom, and he fought it in an intense struggle. So much so he was most entertained having dreams. He once dreamt he had won a race, and spent the money on buying a ninja house and a red scarf.  The red scarf stuck to him. His silhouette was dark in the full moon as he stood over the house... It was a scene more suited to Protoman... He did betray Wily after all. He was angry at first, mostly at Wily for being so insistent and sure of himself, unable to accept he could have been wrong. But he supposed that it wouldn't matter, and he should be over it now. He had nothing to do now that he was alone. Without his master's orders, until there was a signal, there was a sign, he had to wait. He was growing tired of it.  

Protoman’s words echoed through his head, the last time he saw him. “I might be a coward, I might have betrayed Wily but at least I am beginning to understand who I am! Who are you? Who is Shadowman? All you do is follow orders! if you were without them what would you do?” Oh, he HATED him. Loathed him, of course, he wouldn’t understand.  Actions spoke louder than words, but those words cut deep. He couldn’t begin to understand his line of reasoning. The one who changed names and identities like the phases of the moon- which, tonight was a lovely crescent- understood himself better than someone who was told who he was from the very day he was made. it was ridiculous. 

...Although... He had time to think. He asked himself, when had he ever felt wanderlust. It was that longing in his chest when he stared at the stars, the miles sprawling in front of him. He had seen himself had bright they shined, and how endless space was. Insignificant, but together in an army, he was part of something bigger. That claimed planets and conquered galaxies. 

But he was just a speck. All this time, he wanted to be more than a speck. He tried to hard, but, he was a- “Goddamn fool!” Or was he? The thoughts contradicted and ran away in his head. he did not miss Wily. Not in the slightest.  But he did miss Ra Moon. As much as he said he didn’t miss him as much as he should, Ra Moon was a scary but dominating presence. You could feel how insignificant you were to him, and that was beautiful because when you were beside him, you were part of a being that was just so much more. 

“I want to be free,” he said in a susurrus. 

It felt right. For once words spoke louder than actions. And he would have sat there in the grass surrounded by a limited amount of trees if his instincts had not overridden that. He stood on his feet, shuriken glinting in the moonlight and he stared where the leaves of the tree rustled. 

Protoman stood there, and the silhouette was not perfected, but his visor shined, and scarf rustled perfectly with the wind.  “...Shadowman, put that way, it’s too nice of a night to fight,” he scoffed like he had offended him. Shadowman was so shocked by this he let out a slight “huh” sound. Begrudgingly, he did put it away and crossed his arms. 

“...It was a nice night.” 

“Right. So... Shouldn’t you be with Wily?” “A nice night like this would be better spent without company.” “Yeah? Well... I’m going to assume that means you don’t know where he is.”

“Do you have any idea?” Protoman shook his head and dropped down from the trees. “No. I want to though, so I can kill him,” he added “That’s impossible.” “Hmmm... Maybe.” What does that mean?  “Well, I took your advice. It’s wonderful, being bored all day with nothing to do.”

“You didn’t take my advice then. Who is Shadowman?” “...” the fact that Shadowman didn’t have anything that wasn’t abstract after 30 seconds spoke a lot. Protoman crossed his arms, giving off a smug aura.  “Well. Fine, who is this ‘Protoman?’“ “...Someone who wants to go home but can’t.”  Shadowman stared at the stars for another moment. “...If that is how you define yourself, I suppose we have that in common.” “Really... Huh.” they both gazed at the stars for a long while.  “...If you’re bored, you could come with me.” Shadowman's eyes shifted to him, and then shifted back forward.  Another moment, where words spoke louder than actions. A vagabond to offer company on their wanderlust was not something he expected. He nodded.

[wanderingnork]

10, 12, 23 for dragon age or dishonored! 👀 (or both!)

Salty Asks! Buckle up, kids, I’m having a dumpster fire of a week and I’m Ready To Rant.

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

Dragon Age: you know, I’m really gonna have to go with “handing Fenris over to Danarius” in DA2, though “encouraging Cullen to keep taking lyrium” in DAI comes in a close second. The whole Fenris thing...like, it just makes me nauseous. As much as I dislike both these arguments, you can make a case that Isabela needs to make restitution for her actions against the Qunari, or that Anders needs to be brought to justice for the Chantry Boom. I don’t know how the actual flying fuck you could ever make a case for handing Fenris over. Fenris did NOTHING wrong and you can basically just. Throw him under the fucking bus with zero regrets. Between the Approval Gain From Hell and none of your companions saying a goddamn thing, you also get some of the game’s stupidest writing for your actions. THE ONLY PERSON WHO THINKS YOU DID THE RIGHT THING IS A MURDEROUS SLAVER. WHAT THE FUCK.

Dishonored: fucking HATE “Lady Boyle’s Last Party” in DH1. I don’t like killing targets, but the nonlethal option in that mission is just horrible and makes me feel sick to my stomach. Even the Clockwork Mansion and what you can do to Jindosh in DH2 doesn’t quite compare. Like...the whole thing with Jindosh just breaks my heart and I struggle with why it was written the way it was written , but we do know that after the fact he may have lost his genius but that he does find a certain happiness. He can reach a new equilibrium. People continue to take care of him and rehabilitate him. Lady Boyle, on the other hand? BUDDY. YOU HANDED HER OVER TO HER STALKER, WHO IS GOING TO CERTAINLY DO TERRIBLE THINGS TO HER. WHAT THE FUCK.

12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

Dragon Age: is it too cheesy to say the Mage-Templar War in its entirety??? I have a lot of opinions on political violence in general, thanks to spending years studying political science. The most impactful question I was ever asked in college was to examine myself and to consider what it would take for me to commit an act of (particularly political) violence. I am not a violent person. I oppose war and violence. But through introspection and study of historical and contemporary political movements I have really come to understand that there come moments when violence is necessary as an act of self defense, particularly when acts of aggression start to sound like things detailed in Article II of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, or the things detailed in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

What Anders does not articulate well himself, but what I see as an outside observer, is that the destruction of the Chantry (and the ensuing war, goaded on by Grand Enchanter Fiona and others) was an act of self-defense by mages. They were backed into a corner. The fact that Ser Alrik was in an environment where he even felt comfortable proposing a “Tranquil Solution,” the fact that mages like Cole died in confinement, the fact that the Starkhaven Circle burned down “for unknown reasons” and had its mages shipped off to other places, the fact that even Vivienne (who is an exception to many rules about mages) will acknowledge that there are deep and abiding issues with the Circles...it speaks to a systemic issue that had reached a tipping point. Even with the understanding that our modern international law absolutely does not apply to the frankly bizarre international system in Thedas, it should still be clear that the things described in the Convention and the Rome Statute are TRULY TERRIBLE ACTS. If you want, I can cite chapter and verse on exactly how the Chantry was going about doing at least 8 of the things defined in the Rome Statute. (I can also explain why I consider mages in the main to be a “civilian population.”) In this scenario, the very existence of mages was no longer certain, if it ever was to begin with.

Because here’s where Anders was wrong. He didn’t remove the chance of compromise, because there was never a chance of compromise to start with.

Dishonored: On a lighter note, I know that Death of the Outsider has lots of critics and I respect their viewpoints, but I find the whole DLC to be narratively satisfying in a lot of ways. We get a close-up look at a lot of things Corvo/Emily never get to see due to their goals and position, we get some frankly epic lore and beautiful scenery (I scream every time over the Eye of the Dead God), we get Billie talking to the rats, we get to see some very cool missions. And like...I know people wanted the Outsider to remain this mysterious being, but I really enjoy the narrative that we get about him. He transforms from less of plot device and into a character with an arc of his own. A gray-and-black morality which already pervades Dishonored slides into the Outsider’s sphere and we learn that he’s not exempt from the malaise of the world he watches. Delightful stuff. :3

23. Unpopular character you love?

Dragon Age: waves the Anders Was Right flag

Dishonored: I have a weird level of adoration for Sokolov, specifically in his less-than-popular DH1 iteration when he’s not as much of an Eccentric Science Uncle type. He does some really atrocious things in the name of knowledge, status, and getting the Outsider’s attention, but he’s also...kind of a badass? He’s got a lot of people skills and significant artistic skill, both of which got him patronage from nobles all over the Isles; he traveled to Pandyssia and came back in one piece which is a feat unto itself; he’s a bit of a Renaissance man, demonstrating understanding of engineering, human anatomy, ethical philosophy (even if he ignores that), botany, zoology, magic, psychology, and more. I wouldn’t want to be the man’s friend, but can we get him to make a TED Talk? I’d go see that.

[consul-lightwood-bane]

For those who aren’t able to view the article.

“New York Times-bestselling author Cassandra Clare is something of a pioneer in the realm of LGBTQ-inclusive fantasy YA. Since 2007, her Shadowhunter Chronicles, beginning with The Mortal Instruments (TMI) series, have amassed a huge international following. (The books have even spurred a film adaptation and popular TV series, Shadowhunters, on Freeform.) Her most fiercely beloved fictional couple? Gay demon-fighting warrior Alec Lightwood and his partner Magnus Bane, the openly bisexual High Warlock of Brooklyn.

Now, Clare and her co-author, sci-fi writer (and proud Magnus fan) Wesley Chu, are giving #Malec the royal treatment in The Eldest Curses (TEC) trilogy. The first TEC book, The Red Scrolls of Magic, is due out April 9 from Simon & Schuster. (No worries if you’re behind on TMI books, Clare says: “It would probably enrich your experience if you’ve read the first three TMI books. But if you haven’t, you can still pick up Red Scrolls.)

NewNowNext caught up with Clare for the scoop on Red Scrolls—and an insider look at the state of LGBTQ inclusion in the world of YA publishing.

For those who may be new to the Shadow World, can you give us a crash-course and introduce Alec Lightwood and Magnus Bane?

The books are about Shadowhunters, a race of people who fight demons. They have powers that they get from being part-angel, and they have a mandate to be on this earth and fight demons and protect mundanes, which is what they call regular people. There’s also people who are called Downworlders. They’re supernatural creatures we’re all familiar with from mythology and folklore—faeries, vampires, warlocks, werewolves.

So, Alec is a Shadowhunter. He’s a young man who’s very rule-abiding, very serious about being a Shadowhunter, and not very happy. In City of Bones, he meets Magnus Bane, a warlock who’s really free-spirited, fun, and pretty powerful. Over the course of TMI books, they fall in love with each other and form a relationship. Alec comes out … and Magnus has been openly bisexual since the beginning of the series … By where we’re at in the books now, they’ve been together for years, they’ve adopted two children, and they just got married.

Oh, the Lightwood-Banes are iconic. Total trailblazers. Legendary.

[Laughs] It was so fun to write their wedding!

In the past, you’ve said that YA publishers were initially hesitant to publish TMI series because it contained queer characters and a gay romance. Can you tell me more about that?

When I went out with City of Bones, that was back in 2005. I got push-back from some publishers. It was very coded. … No one actually said, “We won’t publish this book because it has a gay character.” They’d say, “Not all of these characters are ‘likeable’; maybe you could cut Alec.” I got that a lot—the idea that there was a likeability issue, but just with Alec. And then I got, “Maybe there are too many characters. You could cut Alec.” So it was very clear to me that that was what was going on. … I would also say that a lot of the push-back I got was actually after publication.

I think I was a little naïve at the time, even despite the earlier stuff. And there was a presumption, I think, back in 2005—you know, pre-Twilight, pre-a lot of things—that YA was a kid’s realm. It doesn’t make it any better, because the idea that kids shouldn’t read about gay characters is a terrible one. But there was a lot more dependence in the industry on things like book clubs in schools, school library support. … When the books actually came out, I had a meeting with the person who worked for Simon & Schuster in the capacity of selling the book to book clubs around the country. And she said, “You know, we can never sell yours.”

Wow, that’s awful.

And I was like, “Oh. No, I didn’t know that.” And she went on, like, “You know, there are certain stores that won’t take your books; there are certain school libraries that won’t take your book.” I do remember once I was in England. I’d been invited to go to this school and give a talk. I was about to get into a car to go to the school, and my publisher came out of the building and said to me, “Sorry, they found out about Magnus and Alec, and they don’t want you to come.” It was such a shocking feeling.

I feel like the climate in YA has changed so much since 2005 and is a lot more accepting of queer characters. Do you agree?

I do. I had a lot of anxiety leading up to the promotion of [TMI books] because I felt like it was important to have Alec and Magnus in this book. It was important to get these books into the hands of kids, and I felt like I constantly had to walk this line where I had to make sure there was enough Alec and Magnus in the book for them to be fully realized characters that people would care about and love. Yet, I had to be careful. I feel like now, I can be less careful. And I am less careful … There are ways I can express what’s going on—words I can use upfront—that would have been a problem in 2005 in terms of just getting the book on shelves.

I mean, we’re living in a post-marriage equality world. Things are far from perfect, but the cultural conversation at large has shifted dramatically since 2005.

It’s definitely made a huge difference. I mean, it was still the Bush administration [when City of Bones was published!] We had years of progression with Obama; we had marriage equality; and we also have a new generation with different attitudes.

I also read that you purposefully left this gap in the chronology hoping you’d get the chance to write this story. What excites you so much about Alec and Magnus’s adventures in Red Scrolls?

Partially, it has something to do with my own life: The first thing I ever did with my first serious boyfriend was take a trip across Europe. [Laughs] So with Magnus and Alec, I thought, Okay, I want to give them that really fun experience that I had. And I’m going to reference it here in this book, and I know that I can come back to this someday and do it. … I also love this category of fiction. It’s almost a rom-com, this book; it has a different tonal feel than the rest of TMI books because it’s a little bit lighter. It’s like a lot of movies I love—Charade, The Bourne Identity—where two people are racing across Europe, trying to escape the police or solve a crime, and they’re falling in love. It’s just a storyline that I adore, and I thought, I would love so much to write this story about these characters. I hoped there’d be a time where I could do that, and I’m so happy that time came.

It’s especially exciting to me as a queer YA lover to see LGBTQ characters not fall prey to the “bury your gays” trope..

Exactly. You know, getting the book that is the indulgence of a wonderful fantasy that’s romantic and fun—and none of characters are suffering simply for who they are—it’s not as common as we’d like it to be. And so, why not? If I’m going to have the one book in this series that is kind of a fun adventure, it should be Magnus and Alec’s story.

I feel like Red Scrolls gives readers a really intimate look into Magnus’s inner psyche—like, beyond his “freewheeling bisexual” exterior . Is he as fun to write as he is to read?

People often ask me if I have a favorite character, and I always say “no.” It would be like picking between your children! So I usually say I don’t have a favorite character, but Magnus is the most fun to write in a lot of ways. His interior and his exterior are … very different. When we first meet Magnus, he’s immensely confident. And one of things I do love about him is that he is willing to put himself out there exactly how he is. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have insecurities—no questions, no shadows in his past. Everyone does. In this book, we see some of the things that have made Magnus the person that he is now, some of the times he passed through when he was younger and wasn’t as confident as he was now.

Speaking of LGBTQ characters, we also get quality time with future wives Aline Penhallow and Helen Blackthorn in Red Scrolls. What was it like diving into the #Heline origin story?

I love them. They’re so much fun! I got to write about them a bit in Queen of Air and Darkness, but again, they’re really secure—they’re married, they’re dealing with outside threats … Because [Red Scrolls] is a book that focuses on romance, I figured it would be so much fun to explore when they first met each other. I love them both—I just love how Aline says everything she’s thinking.

Oh, she’s such a chaotic lesbian. I love it.

And that’s what I love about [Aline and Helen] in Red Scrolls, too—that Aline just tries to cover up how much she likes Helen from the minute she meets her. She’s attracted to her, attracted to her personality; she thinks she’s fantastic and brave and awesome. She’s trying to hide that, but she can’t.

Can you speak on creating LGBTQ characters who aren’t solely defined by their sexuality?

I can only say that when I created Alec, he’s based in part on a friend of mine who I had growing up. We loved science fiction and fantasy books—that was what we loved to read, what we loved to talk about. And he’d tell me, “I never see myself in these books… Just once, I’d love to read about how [a gay character like me] is a sword-wielding badass.” And I was really struck by that. So when I set out to create Alec, I wanted his sexuality to be a part of his life, but not the only or even main part of his story.

I hope this helps. @max--lightwood-bane

[beatyoutothepunchline]

On Art Museums and Irrational Fears

Needles, public speaking, oblivion, and visual art are my greatest fears. Not one is scarier than the other, on a scale of one to ten they are all a ten. They are rotated through in each moment when my demise seems most imminent. When I visit the doctor’s office and I’m told I’m going to need bloodwork done, needles go to the top of my list. Seconds before I have to give a speech or a presentation, I realize just how important the opinions are of thirty people I barely know. Oblivion is inevitable, in life, in work, in art, and I think nothing is quite as beautiful or significant if we aren’t constantly fearing it. As for visual art, well... as I stood outside the Chicago Art Institute a few weeks back, I debated my fear once again before taking a deep breath and walking in. I feel emotionally impaired when looking at things I can’t comprehend. Especially, when those things don’t abide by the rules of logic and fact. Art, for example-- the really good kind, the kind that makes you go creating answers for unanswerable questions--is downright one of the most terrifying things I know. But it’s also the reason that if I’m given the opportunity to look at something that scares me, I will skip a Field Museum or the Adler Planetarium and go to the place with the thing I fear most. Okay, weird way to start an essay, but since this is a paper on curiosity and I'm curious: Why did you decide to bite the bullet on this one and go look at art if it freaks you out so much? And the answer to that is perspective. One thing more frightening than maybe all my stupid fears is this idea I’m trapped in seeing things one way. There’s a great quote in the film Dead Poets Society where John Keating (Robin Williams) says, “I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.” Because as artists it’s true. It’s far too easy to settle into a style. We find our voice, we write in it, live by it and bleed for it, creating something entirely our own in doing so. But I think the reason lots of art students never become "artists" is that we allow ourselves to put that final nail in our coffin the moment we stop trying to find new ways of seeing the world. Because with finding our voice we also find a formula to a momentary success, which is the worlds cheapest drug and shortest high. If we use it too much, we become dependent on our own opinions, drain ourselves of all our blood and we will start to question the point of what we’re doing. Without ever trying to gain a new perspective of the world around us, we’ve allowed ourselves to be consumed by oblivion. So I force myself to do things like take surrealism classes, continuously watch avant-garde films and occasionally make an ass out of myself by going to an art museum. Not so I can go drink wine when I’m older and act as a museum tour guide for people at parties, telling them everything they couldn’t see by reading the caption on the side of a painting, but to challenge my own perspective by indulging my fear and fascination. After wandering around for a while, I decided to go look at the Impressionists. None of the art in the exhibit seemed so abstract I couldn’t understand what I was looking at it, but it also wasn’t something that I could definitely say, “That’s what that’s supposed to mean.” Impressionism is perfect because “it’s an artistic style that seeks to capture a feeling or experience through the shifting effect of light and color.” It is rough and personal. Good Will Hunting, another fantastic Robin Williams movie, shows this idea in a scene where Sean (Williams) and Will (Matt Damon) are sitting on a park bench talking after Will told Sean that his wife’s painting is “shit.” Understandably Sean isn’t happy by the remark but it leads to a discussion between the two bringing them together, “If I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling.”Stephen Asma does a great job of defining this in his piece, 'Monsters on the Brain: An Evolutionary Epistemology of Horror.' “Why does art communicate, explore, and even reprogram values better than science? Because art is a secret language that speaks directly to the limbic system. Art doesn’t just tell us about emotional conflicts or clashes of values, it actually speaks directly to our effective system—bypassing the discursive rationality. Art triggers the emotions in us directly, it doesn’t represent them to us. The story of a novel or a film may be a representation of another place and time, but the emotional content is a direct infection in Tolstoy’s sense ‘powerful art should “infect” the audience with specific emotional content’ it is not a representation of a feeling,” but cognition of that feeling. Jean Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh were the two artists in the exhibit that stuck out to me the most. In a number of paintings featured (‘Waterloo Bridge’ and ‘Sunlight Effect’), the context of the painting was fairly evident upon looking at it. Meaning and emotion are not in the formal analysis, but the contextual. Who was the person who made it and why? In a Writing and Rhetoric class a few weeks back we discussed how words and images tell a story and how often the two are unbalanced. We were asked to analyze two pieces of work. It wasn’t anything big, the first thing we looked at was Kevin Carter's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph from Sudan, showing a small child huddled on the ground in the sun, with a vulture looming over her. At first glance, our class described everything we saw at the moment which the photos was taken, slowly working our way out to the unseen questions like, Who is taking the photo? Was this staged? Where are this child’s parents? The further we asked, the more our perspective shifted. We went from artists to concerned observers, to critics of ethics and humanity, people who were sickened by the idea that no one ever found out what happened to that kid. The photographer, Kevin Carter, ended up killing himself from guilt and the overall and underlying lesson of the day was that we no longer knew what to think. The second piece that we looked at was, oddly enough, Vincent Van Gogh's ‘Wheatfield with Crows’ finished in July 1890. Van Gogh had become obsessed with "the immense plain against the hills, boundless as the sea, delicate yellow.” Captivated by the fields in May when the wheat was young and green. The weather worsened in July, and he wrote to a friend that the "vast fields of wheat under troubled skies," adding that he did not "need to go out on (his) way to try and express sadness and extreme loneliness.” This not only plagued the paintings dark and dreary sky but also Van Gough's mind. It was the last painting he did before killing himself. Okay less about fear and more so about perspective, but why? Fear seems like the easiest thing to draw curiosity from, so why does it change our perception and our constantly changing perspective through impressionism and other forms of art?” I think about how I often have no idea what I’ve written until after I’ve written it. I go into writing with an idea before a theme of it all will kind of come together in the end. I guess that's what I'm curious about. How do we go into writing papers or walking around museums with this idea we know what we're talking about only to end up walking out of these places more uncertain than before? Stephen Asma’s article, 'Monsters on the Brain' gives reasoning behind this. “The point is that these emotional responses are not instincts in the sense of pre-wired or genetically engraved responses. The effective systems are ancient in the sense that they have many homologies with nonhuman animals, but in our individual lives they are idiosyncratically assigned and have significant plasticity. Emotional tendencies and values can help us make fast appropriate responses to environmental challenges, but they can also be retrained or re-educated.” How perspective is developed through our impressions coming into something, gaining information, and our immediate reaction through our emotions is something I never considered as a type of curiosity. Walking out of the Art Institute, I realized I still didn’t fully grasp this idea that our lens is not only used in a form of art but as something that can be manipulated through constant change of what we’re told. Learning. And in that aspect, it is a reassuring sign that my fears, however much I don’t like them, are trivial. Because from a different perspective a needle is something you fix things with, in a crowd of people who are too concerned with their own opinions the person grading you is probably the only one listening, art is a delicate balance of pictures and their context, and oblivion is only inevitable so long as you chose not to see it.

[tingkering-blog]

What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?

Original Article: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/what-is-design-thinking-and-why-is-it-so-popular

Design Thinking is not an exclusive property of designers—all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering, and business have practiced it. So, why call it Design Thinking? What’s special about Design Thinking is that designers’ work processes can help us systematically extract, teach, learn and apply these human-centered techniques to solve problems in a creative and innovative way – in our designs, in our businesses, in our countries, in our lives.

Some of the world’s leading brands, such as Apple, Google, Samsung and GE, have rapidly adopted the Design Thinking approach, and Design Thinking is being taught at leading universities around the world, including d.school, Stanford, Harvard and MIT. But do you know what Design Thinking is? And why it’s so popular? Here, we’ll cut to the chase and tell you what it is and why it’s so in demand.

What is Design Thinking?

Design Thinking is an iterative process in which we seek to understand the user, challenge assumptions, and redefine problems in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding. At the same time, Design Thinking provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It is a way of thinking and working as well as a collection of hands-on methods.

Design Thinking revolves around a deep interest in developing an understanding of the people for whom we’re designing the products or services. It helps us observe and develop empathy with the target user. Design Thinking helps us in the process of questioning: questioning the problem, questioning the assumptions, and questioning the implications. Design Thinking is extremely useful in tackling problems that are ill-defined or unknown, by re-framing the problem in human-centric ways, creating many ideas in brainstorming sessions, and adopting a hands-on approach in prototyping and testing. Design Thinking also involves ongoing experimentation: sketching, prototyping, testing, and trying out concepts and ideas.

Design Thinking’s Phases

There are many variants of the Design Thinking process in use today, and they have from three to seven phases, stages, or modes. However, all variants of Design Thinking are very similar. All variants of Design Thinking embody the same principles, which were first described by Nobel Prize laureate Herbert Simon in The Sciences of the Artificial in 1969. Here, we will focus on the five-phase model proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, which is also known as d.school. We’ve chosen d.school’s approach because they’re at the forefront of applying and teaching Design Thinking. The five phases of Design Thinking, according to d.school, are as follows:

Empathise – with your users

Define – your users’ needs, their problem, and your insights

Ideate – by challenging assumptions and creating ideas for innovative solutions

Prototype – to start creating solutions

Test – solutions

It is important to note that the five phases, stages, or modes are not always sequential. They do not have to follow any specific order and can often occur in parallel and repeat iteratively. Given that, you should not understand the phases as a hierarchal or step-by-step process. Instead, you should look at it as an overview of the modes or phases that contribute to an innovative project, rather than sequential steps.

Author/Copyright holder: Pixabay. Copyright terms and licence: Free to Use

To help you understand Design Thinking, we have broken the process into five phases or modes, which are: 1. Empathise, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype, and 5. Test. What’s special about Design Thinking is that designers’ work processes can help us systematically extract, teach, learn, and apply these human-centered techniques to solve problems in a creative and innovative way – in our designs, in our businesses, in our nations (and eventually, if things go really well, beyond), in our lives. Nevertheless, a great artist like Auguste Rodin, who created this famous sculpture called “The Thinker” and originally “Le Penseur”, would most likely have used the very same innovative processes in his artwork. In the same way, all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering and business have practiced it and still practice it.

The Problem with Ingrained Patterns of Thinking

Sometimes, the easiest way to understand something intangible, such as Design Thinking, is by understanding what it is not.

Humans naturally develop patterns of thinking modeled on repetitive activities and commonly accessed knowledge. These assist us in quickly applying the same actions and knowledge in similar or familiar situations, but they also have the potential to prevent us from quickly and easily accessing or developing new ways of seeing, understanding and solving problems. These patterns of thinking are often referred to as schemas, which are organized sets of information and relationships between things, actions and thoughts that are stimulated and initiated in the human mind when we encounter some environmental stimuli. A single schema can contain a vast amount of information. For example, we have a schema for dogs which encompasses the presence of four legs, fur, sharp teeth, a tail, paws, and a number of other perceptible characteristics. When the environmental stimuli match this schema — even when there is a tenuous link or only a few of the characteristics are present — the same pattern of thought is brought into the mind. As these schemas are stimulated automatically, this can obstruct a more fitting impression of the situation or prevent us from seeing a problem in a way that will enable a new problem-solving strategy. Innovative problem solving is also known as “thinking outside of the box”.

An Example of Problem solving: The Encumbered Vs. The Fresh Mind

Thinking outside of the box can provide an innovative solution to a sticky problem. However, thinking outside of the box can be a real challenge as we naturally develop patterns of thinking that are modeled on the repetitive activities and commonly accessed knowledge we surround ourselves with.

Some years ago, an incident occurred where a truck driver tried to pass under a low bridge. But he failed, and the truck was lodged firmly under the bridge. The driver was unable to continue driving through or reverse out.

The story goes that as the truck became stuck, it caused massive traffic problems, which resulted in emergency personnel, engineers, firefighters and truck drivers gathering to devise and negotiate various solutions for dislodging the trapped vehicle.

Emergency workers were debating whether to dismantle parts of the truck or chip away at parts of the bridge. Each spoke of a solution which fitted within his or her respective level of expertise.

A boy walking by and witnessing the intense debate looked at the truck, at the bridge, then looked at the road and said nonchalantly, "Why not just let the air out of the tires?" to the absolute amazement of all the specialists and experts trying to unpick the problem.

When the solution was tested, the truck was able to drive free with ease, having suffered only the damage caused by its initial attempt to pass underneath the bridge. The story symbolizes the struggles we face where oftentimes the most obvious solutions are the ones hardest to come by because of the self-imposed constraints we work within.

Copyright holder: Wystan, Flickr. Copyright terms and license: CC BY 2.0

It’s often difficult for us humans to challenge our assumptions and everyday knowledge, because we rely on building patterns of thinking in order to not have to learn everything from scratch every time. We rely on doing everyday processes more or less unconsciously — for example, when we get up in the morning, eat, walk, and read — but also when we assess challenges at work and in our private lives. In particular, experts and specialists rely on their solid thought patterns, and it can be very challenging and difficult for experts to start questioning their knowledge.

The Power of Storytelling

Why did we tell you this story? Telling stories can help us inspire opportunities, ideas and solutions. Stories are framed around real people and their lives. Stories are important because they are accounts of specific events, not general statements. They provide us with concrete details that help us imagine solutions to particular problems. While we’re at it, please watch this 1-minute video to help you get started understanding what Design Thinking is about.

Design Thinking is often referred to as ‘outside the box’ thinking. This child shows us why it’s important to challenge our assumptions and find new ways to solve our problems.

Design Thinking or 'Outside the Box' Thinking

Design Thinking is often referred to as ‘outside the box’ thinking, as designers are attempting to develop new ways of thinking that do not abide by the dominant or more common problem-solving methods.

At the heart of Design Thinking is the intention to improve products by analyzing and understanding how users interact with products and investigating the conditions in which they operate. At the heart of Design Thinking lies also the interest and ability to ask significant questions and challenging assumptions. One element of outside the box thinking is to falsify previous assumptions – i.e., to make it possible to prove whether they are valid or not. Once we have questioned and investigated the conditions of a problem, the solution-generation process will help us produce ideas that reflect the genuine constraints and facets of that particular problem. Design Thinking offers us a means of digging that bit deeper; it helps us to do the right kind of research and to prototype and test our products and services so as to uncover new ways of improving the product, service or design.

Grand Old Man of User Experience, Don Norman, who also coined the very term User Experience, explains what Design Thinking is and what’s so special about it:

“…the more I pondered the nature of design and reflected on my recent encounters with engineers, business people and others who blindly solved the problems they thought they were facing without question or further study, I realized that these people could benefit from a good dose of design thinking. Designers have developed a number of techniques to avoid being captured by too facile a solution. They take the original problem as a suggestion, not as a final statement, then think broadly about what the real issues underlying this problem statement might really be (for example by using the "Five Whys" approach to get at root causes). Most important of all, is that the process is iterative and expansive. Designers resist the temptation to jump immediately to a solution to the stated problem. Instead, they first spend time determining what the basic, fundamental (root) issue is that needs to be addressed. They don't try to search for a solution until they have determined the real problem, and even then, instead of solving that problem, they stop to consider a wide range of potential solutions. Only then will they finally converge upon their proposal. This process is called "Design Thinking." – Don Norman, Rethinking Design Thinking

Design Thinking is an Essential Tool – and A Third Way

The design process often involves a number of different groups of people in different departments; for this reason, developing, categorizing, and organizing ideas and problem solutions can be difficult. One way of keeping a design project on track and organizing the core ideas is using a Design Thinking approach.

Tim Brown, CEO of the celebrated innovation and design firm IDEO, shows in his successful book Change by Design that Design Thinking is firmly based on generating a holistic and empathic understanding of the problems that people face, and that it involves ambiguous or inherently subjective concepts such as emotions, needs, motivations, and drivers of behaviors. This contrasts with a solely scientific approach, where there’s more of a distance in the process of understanding and testing the user’s needs and emotions — e.g., via quantitative research. Tim Brown sums up that Design Thinking is a third way: Design Thinking is essentially a problem-solving approach, crystalized in the field of design, which combines a holistic user-centered perspective with rational and analytical research with the goal of creating innovative solutions.

“Design thinking taps into capacities we all have but that are overlooked by more conventional problem-solving practices. It is not only human-centered; it is deeply human in and of itself. Design thinking relies on our ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, to construct ideas that have emotional meaning as well as functionality, to express ourselves in media other than words or symbols. Nobody wants to run a business based on feeling, intuition, and inspiration, but an overreliance on the rational and the analytical can be just as dangerous. The integrated approach at the core of the design process suggests a ‘third way.’ “ – Tim Brown, Change by Design, Introduction

Science and Rationality in Design Thinking

Some of the scientific activities will include analyzing how users interact with products and investigating the conditions in which they operate: researching user needs, pooling experience from previous projects, considering present and future conditions specific to the product, testing the parameters of the problem, and testing the practical application of alternative problem solutions. Unlike a solely scientific approach, where the majority of known qualities, characteristics, etc. of the problem are tested so as to arrive at a problem solution, Design Thinking investigations include ambiguous elements of the problem to reveal previously unknown parameters and uncover alternative strategies.

After arriving at a number of potential problem solutions, the selection process is underpinned by rationality. Designers are encouraged to analyze and falsify these problem solutions so that they can arrive at the best available option for each problem or obstacle identified during each phase of the design process.

With this in mind, it may be more correct to say that Design Thinking is not about thinking outside of the box, but on its edge, its corner, its flap, and under its barcode, as Clint Runge put it.

Copyright holder: Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and license: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Clint Runge is Founder and Managing Director of Archrival, a distinguished youth marketing agency, and adjunct Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Generating Creative Ideas and Solutions by Holistically Understanding Humans

With a solid foundation in science and rationality, Design Thinking seeks to generate a holistic and empathetic understanding of the problems that people face. Design thinking tries to empathize with human beings. That involves ambiguous or inherently subjective concepts such as emotions, needs, motivations, and drivers of behaviors. The nature of generating ideas and solutions in Design Thinking means this approach is typically more sensitive to and interested in the context in which users operate and the problems and obstacles they might face when interacting with a product. The creative element of Design Thinking is found in the methods used to generate problem solutions and insights into the practices, actions, and thoughts of real users.

Design Thinking is an Iterative and Non-linear Process

Copyright holder: Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and license: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Design Thinking is an iterative and non-linear process. This simply means that the design team continuously use their results to review, question and improve their initial assumptions, understandings and results. Results from the final stage of the initial work process inform our understanding of the problem, help us determine the parameters of the problem, enable us to redefine the problem, and, perhaps most importantly, provide us with new insights so we can see any alternative solutions that might not have been available with our previous level of understanding.

Design Thinking is for Everybody

Tim Brown also emphasizes that Design Thinking techniques and strategies of design belong at every level of a business. Design thinking is not only for designers but also for creative employees, freelancers, and leaders who seek to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization, product or service in order to drive new alternatives for business and society.

“Design thinking begins with skills designers have learned over many decades in their quest to match human needs with available technical resources within the practical constraints of business. By integrating what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable, designers have been able to create the products we enjoy today. Design thinking takes the next step, which is to put these tools into the hands of people who may have never thought of themselves as designers and apply them to a vastly greater range of problems.” – Tim Brown, Change by Design, Introduction

Copyright holder: Daniel Lobo, Flickr. Copyright terms and license: CC BY 2.0

Design Thinking is essentially a problem-solving approach, crystallized in the field of design, which combines a user-centered perspective with rational and analytical research with the goal of creating innovative solutions.

The Take Away

Design Thinking is essentially a problem-solving approach specific to design, which involves assessing known aspects of a problem and identifying the more ambiguous or peripheral factors that contribute to the conditions of a problem. This contrasts with a more scientific approach where the concrete and known aspects are tested in order to arrive at a solution. Design Thinking is an iterative process in which knowledge is constantly being questioned and acquired so it can help us redefine a problem in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding. Design Thinking is often referred to as ‘outside the box thinking’, as designers are attempting to develop new ways of thinking that do not abide by the dominant or more common problem-solving methods – just like artists do. At the heart of Design Thinking is the intention to improve products by analyzing how users interact with them and investigating the conditions in which they operate. Design Thinking offers us a means of digging that bit deeper to uncover ways of improving user experiences.

“The ‘Design Thinking’ label is not a myth. It is a description of the application of well-tried design process to new challenges and opportunities, used by people from both design and non-design backgrounds. I welcome the recognition of the term and hope that its use continues to expand and be more universally understood, so that eventually every leader knows how to use design and design thinking for innovation and better results.” – Bill Moggridge, co-founder of IDEO, in Design Thinking: Dear Don

References & Where to Learn More

Hero Image: Copyright holder: Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and license: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Course: Design Thinking - The Beginner's Guide: https://www.interaction-design.org/courses/design-thinking-the-beginner-s-guide

Don Norman. “Rethinking Design Thinking”, 2013: http://www.core77.com/posts/24579/rethinking-design-thinking-24579

Tim Brown, Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation Introduction, 2009

Bill Moggridge, “Design Thinking: Dear Don”, 2010: http://www.core77.com/posts/17042/design-thinking-dear-don-17042

[maesymmonds]

Final

Blog Post 1

The Basis of Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability

In the first chapter of Living in the Environment, Miller discusses the environment and sustainability in general. He talks about some of the key principles of sustainability. Miller discusses how there are three scientific natural factors that play key roles in the long-term stability of the planet’s life. Those three principles are dependence on solar energy, biodiversity, and chemical cycling. Miller states that understanding these principles can help us move toward a more sustainable future. Within sustainability, Miller states that there are also many different components. He touches on three of these important components, namely natural capital, the degradation of natural capital, and creating solutions. He discusses how caring about each of these components will allow people to begin to live more sustainably. Miller then goes on to talk about how other fields of study, such as economics, politics, and ethics can, and do, present three additional principles of sustainability. Those principles are as follows, full-cost pricing, win-win solution, and responsibility to future generations. Miller states that abiding by these principles of sustainability will “help us move toward a future that is more sustainable ecologically, economically, and socially” (Miller 2018, 9). Miller then turns to discussing how our human ecological footprint affects the Earth. Miller shows how the advancement of society can help positively impact our ecological footprint on the Earth by helping us to begin to live more sustainably. One important way of lessening our ecological footprint on the Earth is through using renewable resources. Miller discusses how the ecological footprint model of environmental impact shows that switching to the use of renewable resources and ecosystem services will allow people to live more sustainably, as we will no longer be depleting the Earth of its natural resources. The human ecological footprint heavily affects the Earth and will continue to do so unless large efforts are put forth to begin to live more sustainably. 

Miller’s third topic of discussion is the causes and persistence of environmental problems. He states that the main causes of today’s environmental problems are “population growth, wasteful and unsustainable resource use, poverty, omission of the harmful environmental and health costs of goods and services in market prices, increasing isolation from nature, competing environmental worldviews” (Miller 2018, 15). It is important to understand these causes of this environmental degradation in order to deal with current and future environmental problems. Another large component of the up-hill battle against today’s environmental problems is affluence, and the ability to make “more money available for developing technologies to reduce pollution, environmental degradation, and resource waste along with ways to increase our beneficial environmental impacts” (Miller 2018, 16). Miller discusses that a main reason why environmental problems continue to persist is because people have different environmental worldviews, which he defines as “your set of assumptions and values concerning how the natural world works and how you think you should interact with the environment” (Miller 2018, 20). He states that there are three major categories of environmental worldviews, namely human-centered, life-centered, and earth-centered. Lessening our ecological footprint through eliminating environmental problems involves understanding and accepting that people who have different environmental worldviews can also hold some of the same beliefs as you. Miller’s final point of discussion is commenting on environmentally sustainable societies, what they are, and the importance of transitioning to such societies. He states that “an environmentally sustainable society protects natural capital and lives on its income” (Miller 2018, 23). Miller also discusses how “living sustainably means living on natural income, which is the renewable resources such as plants, animals, soil, clean air, and clean water, provided by the earth’s natural capital. By preserving and replenishing the earth’s natural capital that supplies this income, we can reduce our ecological footprints and expand our beneficial environmental impact” (Miller 2018, 23). It is important for society, in general, to make the shift to become environmentally sustainable societies, as it will not only help to reduce our ecological footprint, but it will also help to preserve the Earth for future generations.

Miller touches on how biodiversity “provides ways for species to adapt to changing environmental conditions and replace species wiped out by catastrophic environmental changes with new species” (Miller 2018, 5). He also shows the extreme importance of chemical cycling by stating that “the circulation of chemicals or nutrients needed to sustain life from the environment...through various organisms and back to the environment is” key to the survival of the world (Miller 2018, 5). Biodiversity and chemical cycling are very important to the health of the planet.

Miller argues that around the globe, “life spans are increasing, infant mortality is decreasing, education is on the rise, some diseases are being conquered,...the population growth rate has slowed,” and “we have witnessed the greatest reduction in poverty in human history” (Miller 2018, 10). Food has become safer over time and humans have begun to take more precautions in order to protect endangered species and ecosystems around the globe. These overall positive shifts have come due to the fact that “we are a globally connected species with growing access to information that could help us to shift to a more sustainable path” (Miller 2018, 10). Miller also argues that affluence helps lessen our human ecological footprint while poverty “causes a number of harmful environmental and health effects” (Miller 2018, 17). He is basically saying that if we as humans are going to actively attempt to lessen our ecological footprint, we must focus on lowering the global level of poverty and using affluence accordingly to help fund promising technological advancements. I do not think that this is the best way for Miller to phrase this, as it somewhat blames the people that are impoverished for causing environmental damage when they did not elect to be impoverished.

After taking the Ecological Footprint Quiz and receiving the bad news that if everyone were to live like I do the Earth Overshoot Day would be March 27 and we would need 4.2 Earths in order to survive, I have decided to try to consciously change some of my habits that have the most adverse effects on the Earth. Even with a high number of Earths needed to survive, I am still less than the US average, which comes in at 5.0 Earths. After completing the Ecological Footprint Analysis, I was not surprised to see that, in general, the more developed countries were in what Miller calls an ecological deficit. It also makes sense that countries with large landmasses, such as Canada and Brazil, would have high levels of ecological credit.

Blog Question: How much of an impact would lowering the global level of poverty actually have on the environment?

Word Count: 1112

Blog Post 2

How Ecosystems and their Services Work

Miller begins by discussing how the role of scientists is to “collect data and develop hypotheses, theories, and laws about how nature works” (Miller 2018, 31). These scientists play the largest part in helping the general population of humans to understand the complexities of science and the necessity to understand science. Specifically, Miller discusses the understanding that scientists have of the environment and the way things come together to form the environment. Within the environment, there are different kinds of systems, which Miller defines as “any set of components that function and interact in some regular way” (Miller 2018, 43). One of these types of systems is an ecosystem. Scientists put together case studies, such as the video assigned titled “How Wolves Change Rivers,” that show the importance of having diverse ecosystems. The video discusses how the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park not only changed the population and behavior of animals that are considered prey, but it also changed the behavior of the rivers. This change in river behavior occurred because the wolves were able to control the deer population, which had been over-grazing and roaming freely when there were not as many animals to prey on the deer. This allowed for the regeneration of trees, grasses, and plants across the park, which, through the regeneration of forests, stabilized the riverbanks, so that the rivers were able to stay their course more than before. The reintroduction of one species into an ecosystem had many positive impacts, including positively impacting the aquatic zone of the river. This case study shows how there are many parts to an ecosystem, which are all necessary for the ecosystem to thrive as a whole. 

Miller discusses how there are many different components of an ecosystem. He states that “some organisms produce the nutrients they need, others get the nutrients they need by consuming other organisms, and some recycle nutrients back to producers by decomposing the wastes and remains of other organisms” (Miller 2018, 52). There are organisms that survive through completing photosynthesis, which helps to create energy for other animals in the ecosystem through consumption. There are also producer (autotroph) and consumer (heterotroph) organisms within an ecosystem, and more specifically, there are three different kinds of consumers. There are primary consumers, which are herbivores, secondary consumers, which are carnivores, and tertiary consumers, which are omnivores. There are also decomposers, which are detritivores, within an ecosystem. With all of these different types of consumers and producers in an ecosystem, the ecosystem has the base to run smoothly. Ecosystems participate in feedback loops, which can either be positive or negative. In an ecosystem, a positive feedback loop “causes a system to change further in the same direction” which can lead to the destruction of the ecosystem through the overuse of certain ecosystem services (Miller 2018, 43). A negative, or corrective, feedback loop can also occur in an ecosystem, as it “causes a system to change in the opposite direction,” which allows for the balanced use of ecosystem services (Miller 2018, 44). 

Miller discusses how within an ecosystem there is also a measure of the level of biodiversity present within the ecosystem. According to Miller, biodiversity is “found in genes, species, ecosystems, and ecosystem processes is vital to sustaining the earth’s life” (Miller 2018, 79). Biodiversity has four components, which are species diversity, genetic diversity, ecosystem diversity, and functional diversity. The species diversity is very important, as each species within an ecosystem has an ecological niche. Miller describes an ecological niche as “the role each species plays within an ecosystem” and states that there are generalist species and specialist species (Miller 2018, 82). In a particular ecosystem, the role of a species gets further broken down into fulfilling one of these four roles: native, nonnative, indicator, and keystone. Miller states that “native species normally live and thrive in a particular ecosystem” while nonnative species “migrate into or...are deliberately or accidentally introduced into an ecosystem” and can be “referred to as invasive, alien, and exotic species” (Miller 2018, 82). Indicators are species “that provide early warnings of changes in environmental conditions in an ecosystem” (Miller 2018, 83). A keystone species “has a large effect on the types and abundance of other species in an ecosystem” and “without the keystone species, the ecosystem would be dramatically different or might cease to exist” (Miller 2018, 83). These roles help keep the biodiversity of many ecosystems high, as there is competition between species that have similar ecological niches. This competition also leads to the evolution of many different species, as the species learn and understand that in order to stay alive and keep competing, they must evolve to match other species.

Miller discusses how life on Earth has changed over time through the natural selection of stronger genes in species. Miller states that “populations evolve when genes mutate and give some individuals genetic traits that enhance their abilities to survive and to produce offspring with these traits” (Miller 2018, 85). Natural selection and genetic mutations are both responsible for the positive evolution of species, but can also take part in the negative evolution of a species if they go extinct. Extinction, through evolution, poses a problem for the biodiversity of an ecosystem, as that ecosystem, and the world more generally, could lose many endemic species if they do not evolve to the changing planet. Other factors that affect biodiversity are speciation, artificial selection, and genetic engineering. As seen in the latter two factors, it is not only the natural world that affects biodiversity through destroying or degrading habitats, it is also humans and human activities. Miller states that “human activities are decreasing biodiversity by causing the extinction of many species” and through the development of land for agricultural and commercial purposes (Miller 2018, 89). There are many factors that affect the biodiversity of an ecosystem, with many factors on the list being the result of humans and human action.

Blog Question: Should people still be allowed to have access to some ecosystems that are protected, but might be deteriorating, such as those in National Parks? How do people who want to experience different ecosystems by visiting them keep their visit as low impact as possible?

Word Count: 1036

Blog Post 3

Human History and Sustainability

In reading the Wikipedia article on Big History, I can see the benefit that there is in having an academic discipline, such as Big History, that puts the focus more on universal patterns and trends than humans, like the discipline of conventional history does. As the Wikipedia article says, “if conventional history focuses on human civilization with humankind at the center, Big History focuses on the universe and shows how humankind fits within this framework and places human history in the wider context of the universe's history” (Wikipedia). I think that from examining the wider history of the universe one lesson we, as humans, can learn regarding the environmental history of the universe is that there is so much more to the universe than the humans that inhabit one small planet. As the article mentions, Big History “courses generally do not focus on humans until one-third to halfway through, and, unlike conventional history courses, there is not much focus on kingdoms or civilizations or wars or national borders” (Wikipedia). By way of not focusing on conventional human history, Big History is able to instead seek “to discover repeating patterns during the 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang and explore the core transdisciplinary theme of increasing complexity” (Wikipedia). This means that Big History is able to focus on the many different ways to understand and analyze the complex history of the universe through an interdisciplinary lens, instead of just through a human-focused historical lens, like conventional history. I think that realizing that there is more to the environmental history of the universe is an important lesson for humans to understand, as it has the power to fundamentally change the way that we think about the universe. Instead of thinking that the universe is ours to inhabit, humans can shift their thought process to something more along the lines of coexisting with the universe that has for so long thrived and grown without the help or presence of humans. This is especially true in Big History, as the academic discipline attributes human existence to “the Goldilocks principle, which describes how ‘circumstances must be right for any type of complexity to form or continue to exist,’” with humans being part of Big History’s sixth, of eight, complexity threshold (Wikipedia). 

In reading the Wikipedia articles on the Anthropocene and Collapse: How Societies Chose to Fail or Succeed, I can see the extreme impact, both positive and negative, that humans have had on the Earth since our first appearance some 150,000 years ago. As the Wikipedia article declares, “The Anthropocene...is a proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change” (Wikipedia). Although there is some debate as to when the Anthropocene began, the definition shows that many scholars believe that there has been a significant impact on the environment of the Earth since the first appearance of humans. I think that another lesson we can learn from the environmental history of the Earth is that growth and expansion should not be the main focus of the human race on Earth. Because of human beings' endless need for growth and expansion, the biodiversity of the Earth is diminishing. The Wikipedia article discusses the fact that “researchers have found that the growth of the human population and expansion of human activity has resulted in many species of animals that are normally active during the day, such as elephants, tigers and boars, becoming nocturnal to avoid contact with humans'” (Wikipedia). Human activity has drastically changed not only the behavior of some animals but also the population numbers of others. In this sense, humans have become predators, “with predation of the adults of other apex predators and with widespread impact on food webs worldwide” (Wikipedia). During our short time on Earth, humans have been able to cause irreversible damage to ecosystems and animal populations all around the globe. To quantify our short time on Earth, the Time Chart Planet Earth mentions that for almost 90 percent of the earth’s existence, there was no animal life, let alone no human life to be found on Earth. This shows not only how recent of a species we are but also how destructive of a species we can be in such a short amount of time. In the Wikipedia article about Collapse: How Societies Chose to Fail or Succeed, author Jared Diamond defines collapse as “a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time” (Wikipedia). Diamond then goes on to identify the five factors that contribute to collapse, which he outlines as “climate change, hostile neighbors, collapse of essential trading partners, environmental problems, and the society's response to the foregoing four factors” (Wikipedia). Currently, humans are contributing to the factors of climate change and environmental problems at an alarming rate. These contributions have to do with the over-expansion and growth of the human race at an unsustainable rate. This circles back to the lesson humans can learn from the environmental history of the Earth, which is to stop constantly trying to grow and expand when there are extreme amounts of environmental degradation happening around the globe.

In reading the articles about the US Environmental History, I can see how some strides have been made to preserve nature better than in the past, but I can also see ways in which humans are exploiting nature more than in the past. The US Environmental History 1 discusses the many different preservation acts that have been passed and environmental societies that have been started within the United States. These acts have helped to bring the numbers of an endangered species back up, such as in the case study regarding the American Bison, and they have also helped to protect the land from further extreme exploitation. The US Environmental History 2 outlines a chronology of key events in US environmentalism from 1945 up until 2004. Both of these historical records show the steps that have been made toward better preservation attempts and techniques. I think that a lesson we can learn from the environmental history of the United States is that trying to push an animal towards extinction so as to force a group of humans into distinction is not a good idea.

Blog Question: How much stake should we put into something like Big History? Is it still going to be a big idea in the near future?

Word Count: 1085

Blog Post 4

Philosophical Worldviews, Education, Ethics & Sustainability

In chapter 25 of Living in the Environment, Miller discusses environmental worldviews, ethics, and sustainability, and how all three fit together. Generally, Miller says that the “major environmental worldviews differ on which is more important—human needs and wants, or the overall health of ecosystems and the biosphere” (Miller 2018, 683). He further states that each person’s different environmental worldview is “the assumptions and beliefs that you have about how the natural world works and how you think you should interact with the environment” (Miller 2018, 683). Each person’s environmental worldview is very personal to their beliefs and the ethics that they follow. That is why Miller also states that your specific environmental worldview, which fits under the umbrella of a major environmental worldview, that you follow is also “determined partly by your environmental ethics—what you believe about what is right and what is wrong in our behavior toward the environment” (Miller 2018, 683). From these specifications about what an environmental worldview looks like and means to everyone, Miller shows and discusses some of the major environmental worldviews that people hold. People’s different environmental worldviews generally fall under three different categories: human-centered, life-centered, and earth-centered. 

Miller states that “a human-centered environmental worldview focuses primarily on the needs and wants of people” (Miller 2018, 983). This umbrella worldview contains the specific worldviews of people who believe that humans are here to manage and be in charge of the planet and of people who think that we, as humans, “have an ethical responsibility to be caring and responsible managers, or stewards, of the earth,” among other human-centered worldviews (Miller 2018, 683). He then discusses how “people with a life-centered worldview believe that we have an ethical responsibility to avoid hastening the extinction of species through our activities” (Miller 2018, 685). The inherent difference between human-centered and life-centered worldviews is under the umbrella of human-centered environmental worldviews, not everyone cares about the other species, and their survival, on this planet. Lastly, Miller discusses that “people with an earth-centered worldview believe that we have an ethical responsibility to take a wider view and preserve the earth’s biodiversity, ecosystem services, and the functioning of its life-support systems for the benefit of the earth’s life, now and in the future” (Miller 2018, 685). This worldview is the broadest of them all, as it not only cares about the other species that inhabit the earth, but also the environment of the earth as a whole. Through this worldview come movements such as environmental justice and intergenerational justice. As the authors discuss in Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, “environmental justice, in theory and in practice, addresses a wide range of issues, combining the concerns of social justice and environmentalism” (Figueroa 2009, 341). This definition of environmental justice shows that it fits under the umbrella of earth-centered worldviews, as environmental justice encompasses humans and the environments of the earth. As the authors discuss in Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, “intergenerational justice—or justice between generations—refers to the set of obligations the members of one generation may owe to people of other generations, past or future“ (Wolf 2009, 518). This definition shows how intergenerational justice fits under the umbrella of earth-centered worldviews, as intergenerational justice cares about the future of the human race, and therefore the future of the planet. I think that if more people choose to have/believe in the earth-centered worldview, then bringing about a sustainability revolution would not be a problem, as most people would want it to occur. Overall, environmental worldviews, and the one that each person chooses to follow, are important because they help us to understand how treating the earth better can help us to treat ourselves better, which plays into many people’s inherent human advancement thinking.

Through the adoption of the earth-centered worldview, I think that it would be easier for people to live sustainably, as people would be thinking more about bettering and advancing the earth as a whole, instead of just the human race. Miller discusses how an important step to living sustainably is becoming environmentally literate. He states that there are three ideas that form the foundation of environmental literacy. The first is that “natural capital matters because it supports the earth’s life and our economies,” the second is that “our ecological footprints are immense and are expanding rapidly,” and the third is that “we should not exceed the earth’s planetary boundaries or tipping points...because the resulting harmful consequences could last for hundreds to thousands of years” (Miller 2018, 688). The more environmentally literate a person becomes, the more likely they are to hold an earth-centered worldview over the other worldviews. Besides the foundations, another way to build environmental literacy is through experiencing nature. Miller discusses how the journalist Richard Louv has “coined the term nature-deficit disorder to describe a wide range of problems, including anxiety, depression, and  attention-deficit disorders, that can result from or be intensified by a lack of contact with nature” (Miller 2018, 689). Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods discusses this in more detail. From this book, two movements arose about the importance of environmental education. These movements were called “No Child Left Inside” movement one and movement two. These movements sought to enhance environmental literacy and education by bringing children outdoors and teaching them about the importance of respecting their bodies and the earth, as “the health of children and the health of the Earth are inseparable” (Louv 2008, Children and Nature Movement). These movements also go along with the beliefs of earth-centered philosophers who “say that to be rooted, each of us needs to find a sense of place—a stream, a mountain, a patch of forest, a yard, a neighborhood lot—any piece of the natural world that we know, experience emotionally, and love” (Miller 2018, 690). Experiencing nature through rooting oneself in it will allow people to better understand the importance of caring not only for ourselves, and the human race, but also for the ecosystems and environments that we inhabit as members of this earth. I think that in order to have a sustainability revolution in our generation, it is key to improve environmental literacy across the world through becoming rooted in nature and adopting an earth-centered worldview.

Blog Question: With so many convincing arguments as to why humans should hold an earth-centered worldview, why is it so hard for people to understand and hold this worldview?

Word Count: 1068

Blog Post 5

Economics, Politics, Law, & Sustainability

In chapter 23 of Miller’s Living in the Environment, he discusses how economics, the environment, and sustainability interact. He talks about human economic systems and how most people that are considered to be experts in sustainability see our human economic systems as subsystems of the biosphere. Within our economic systems, Miller states that humans typically use three types of capital to produce goods and services. He lists the three types as natural capital, which “includes resources and ecosystem services produced by the earth’s natural processes, which support all life and all economies,” human capital, which “includes the physical and mental talents of the people who provide labor, organizational and management skills, and innovation,” and manufactured capital, also called built capital, which “includes tools, materials, machinery, factories, roads, and other infrastructure that people create using natural resources” (Miller 2018, 631-632). These three types of capital come together to form all of the goods and services that we as humans have available to us on the planet. As these three types of capital play an important role in human economic systems, they come with a value or price tag attached to them.

Another way to shift the world to more environmentally sustainable economic systems in the future is through the growth of sustainable businesses. Wikipedia defines a sustainable business as “an enterprise that has minimal negative impact, or potentially a positive effect, on the global or local environment, community, society, or economy—a business that strives to meet the triple bottom line” (Wikipedia). Miller describes the principle of the triple bottom line as a “balance of economic, environmental, and social needs when making policy decisions” (Miller 2018, 659). The triple bottom line is important in the development of a sustainable business as it gives the business a strong backbone to build around. The growth, or development, of more sustainable businesses would also help the world shift to more environmentally sustainable economic systems as these sustainable businesses would make the goal of developing “a low-throughput (low-waste) economy—an economic system based on energy efficiency and matter recycling” a more graspable reality (Miller 2018, 647). This new low-throughput economy “would work with nature to reduce inefficient use and excessive throughputs of matter and energy resources and the resulting pollution and wastes” (Miller 2018, 647). Through the valuation of natural capital and the growth of sustainable businesses, I think that the world will be able to shift to more environmentally sustainable economic systems in the future.

In chapter 24, Miller discusses the interactions of politics, the environment, and sustainability. He dives into environmental law, defining it as “a body of laws and treaties that broadly define what acceptable environmental behavior is for individuals, groups, businesses, and nations” (Miller 2018, 664). These laws are set into place “to help control pollution, set safety standards, encourage resource conservation, and protect species and ecosystems” (Miller 2018, 664). Environmental laws are important, as they help to stop the process of environmental degradation, and they also help to improve human welfare, if successful. Setting environmental laws also includes setting environmental standards and goals, not only for businesses and corporations but also for individual humans. Setting these standards forces corporations to find ways to make their products and services more environmentally friendly. From this necessity, came the concept of eco-efficiency, which Miller describes as “finding ways to create more  economic value with less harmful health and environmental impacts” (Miller 2018, 674). Not only does eco-efficiency benefit the environment, but “improving eco-efficiency can also save businesses money and help them to meet their financial responsibilities to stockholders and investors” (Miller 2018, 674). The economic benefit is one of the primary reasons that businesses decide to shift to become more sustainable through the adoption of more eco-efficient products and services. Through government set environmental laws and regulations, economically beneficial green business plans, and an ethical understanding that a sustainable future is what humans need to make happen, the shift to having “more equitable and environmentally sustainable global and national policies” is achievable (Miller 2018, 675). This shift is only possible if economic and political policies take the environment and sustainability into consideration in the future. Miller discusses how important grassroots organizations and lobbying will be for better environmental policy in the future, while Ernest Partridge, in the article “Consumer or Citizen?” discusses the importance of understanding the difference between a consumer and a citizen, and how the future will be better if humans shift from the mindset of consumers to citizens. For the future to have more environmentally friendly economic and political policies, governments, corporations, and citizens will have to actively work together to make the shift to more environmentally sustainable economic systems.

In terms of the three listed, human capital and manufactured capital have been the easiest for humans to see the inherent value in and therefore the easiest for us to put a price tag on, thus forcing us to care about and consider what we are paying for a certain good or service. For natural capital, that has not always been the case. Humans have often taken natural capital for granted, meaning that we have ignored the inherent value of a natural good or service, oftentimes exploiting natural capital for human economic development. As discussed in the article titled “The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital,” I think that humans need to become more aware that “ecosystem services provide an important portion of the total contribution to human welfare on this planet” (Costanza et al. 1997, 259).  In order to ensure the betterment of the welfare of humans in the future, “we must begin to give the natural capital stock that produces these services adequate weight in the decision-making process” (Costanza et. al 1997, 259). Putting a real number on the value of natural capital will help the world shift to more environmentally sustainable economic systems in the future, as humans will be able to better comprehend the vast impact that natural capital has on the welfare of the human race.

Blog Question: At what point will humans understand that exploiting natural resources for human economic growth/development is more harmful than helpful not only to the environment but also to the welfare of the human race?

Word Count: 1038

Blog Post 6

Population, Consumption & Sustainability

In chapter 6 of Living in the Environment, Miller discusses the sustainability of the human population and its current, rapid growth. With increased development all around the world has come increased birth rates and decreased death rates. This has led to a population boom that has started to have a greater impact on natural capital. As Miller says, this “impact on natural capital raises questions about how long the human population can keep growing” until it is forced to crash by the depletion of natural capital (Miller 2018, 121). Because of this, we must consider how many people the world can sustain, by finding out the cultural carrying capacity of the Earth. Miller describes the cultural carrying capacity of the planet as “the maximum number of people who could live in reasonable freedom and comfort indefinitely, without decreasing the ability of the earth to sustain future generations” (Miller 2018, 122-123). People should take this into account when considering how many children they want to have, as each birth brings the world closer to reaching its limit of the cultural carrying capacity. I don’t think that people should have the right to have as many children as they want. It seems a little harsh to say that people cannot have autonomy over the number of members in their family, but some people do not understand how unsustainable it is for the current and future planet to have large families. I think that if people would like to have large families, they should have a right to have a couple of children of their own, if desired, then turn to considering adoption, as this does not add another number to the total population. 

Miller discusses how population size “increases through births and immigration, and decreases through deaths and emigration” (Miller 2018, 123). He further goes on to say that the key factor that affects the size of the human population “is the average number of children born to the women in the population (total fertility rate)” (Miller 2018, 123). With the total fertility rate being an important factor in the size of the human population, it is important to find the places and classes with the highest total fertility rates. There are many factors that play into how many children a typical woman of various social classes is going to have during her lifetime, and poverty is one of these factors. Miller states that “we can slow human population growth by reducing poverty through economic development, elevating the status of women, and encouraging family planning” (Miller 2018, 130). Continuing to combat poverty, with increased education, in the future will be a very important factor in stabilizing the human population, as women of lower socioeconomic statuses typically have more children than women of higher socioeconomic statuses. Miller believes that the rapid growth rate of the human population may soon bump up against environmental limits. He states that “the combination of population growth and the increasing rate of resource use per person is expanding the overall human ecological footprint and putting a strain on the earth’s natural capital” (Miller 2018, 134). With an increased population comes an increased overall human ecological footprint. This strain on natural capital can only be controlled by stabilizing the population so that natural resources have more time to replenish before they are wiped out completely by the growing human population.

In chapter 22 of Living in the Environment, Miller discusses the link between urbanization and sustainability, and how urbanization needs to be more sustainable in the future. In more-developed countries, such as the United States, there are many important factors to take into consideration when discussing how to deal with urban growth and sustainability. One of those factors is tackling and controlling urban sprawl. Miller describes urban sprawl as “the growth of low-density development on the edges of cities and towns” (Miller 2018, 608). With urban sprawl comes higher levels of natural capital degradation in areas such as land and biodiversity, water, energy, air, and climate, and economic efforts. With the control of urban sprawl comes the second important factor for dealing with urban growth and sustainability, which is decreasing the number of cars on the road. The US and other developed countries rely heavily on cars as the primary mode of transportation for people, especially those in rural areas. Through this, people expand their ecological footprints. Miller discusses smart growth and how it “is a set of policies and tools that encourage more environmentally sustainable urban development with less dependence on cars” (Miller 2018, 618). Smart growth needs to be the future of the development of the planet in order to combat natural capital and overall environmental degradation. The third factor to take into consideration is poverty. Miller states that “most urban areas are unsustainable with their large and growing ecological footprints and high levels of poverty” (Miller 2018, 624). In more-developed countries that have already actively began to have high amounts of urban growth, poverty is still an issue, as it has become urbanized.

In less-developed countries, such as some in Africa, there are many important factors to take into consideration when discussing how to deal with urban growth and sustainability. The first important factor is stabilizing current urbanization rates. By stabilizing urbanization rates, it would be easier to confirm that future urbanization rates would also be sustainable. A second important factor is taking poverty into consideration. It is important for less-developed countries to think about how they can combat the environmental degradations of urbanized poverty before they have high levels of it. The third important factor to consider is investing in urban planning. Miller discusses how “urban land-use planning can help to reduce uncontrolled sprawl and slow the resulting degradation of air, water, land, biodiversity, and other natural resources” (Miller 2018, 618). Smart growth will be very important for less-developed countries, as it will prove to be the most sustainable form of growth. Investing in smart growth and urban planning will allow less-developed countries to avoid a future urban sustainability crisis that more-developed countries are facing today.

Blog Question: Do you think we will actually be able to stabilize the world population before it has more adverse effects on the environment?

Word Count: 1035

Blog Post 7

SUSTAINING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: Particular Environmental Problems & Sustainability Solutions – Approaches to Biodiversity Loss and Extinction

In chapter 9 of Living in the Environment, Miller discusses the important role of species and ecosystem services to the human population. He talks about the rapidly rising extinction rate and those species that are most vulnerable to becoming extinct. The video titled “Global Wildlife Population Declined by 50% In Last 40 Years” also touches on how the extinction rate is rising because of human behavior and activity. There are many reasons why people should stop and think about certain behaviors that are causing species to become extinct, but the ecosystem and economic services that humans derive from all sorts of species is something that the general population often does not consider. Miller touches on the importance of biodiversity to the planet and humans, and how one of the greatest direct threats to biodiversity is human population growth, along with other threats that humans help magnify including climate change, pollution, and the intentional or unintentional introduction of invasive species. There have been many attempts to help slow the extinction of species through treaties and laws such as the United States Endangered Species Act of 1973. Miller shows how policies have often been the government’s answers to issues regarding the extinction of species and the loss of biodiversity, with the instatement of wildlife sanctuaries.

In chapter 10 of Living in the Environment, Miller discusses the importance of sustaining biodiversity through preserving and saving ecosystems and their services. He begins by talking about the major economic and human health benefits that forest ecosystems have. There are a couple different types of forests due to the natural and human-caused environmental degradation that forests endure around the world. Miller touches on the ways in which we as humans can lessen our impact on forest destruction by emphasizing the economic value that their ecosystem services provide to humans. He then goes on to discuss other ecosystems including grasslands, which oftentimes are subject to overgrazing and thus are degraded. There are policies being put in place to help curve the degradation of forests. These policies establish and protect the wildlife and wilderness in the area in order to promote and sustain the biodiversity of the area. Protecting biodiversity hotspots protects important ecosystem services which in turn allows for both the biodiversity of the ecosystem and the services from the ecosystem to flourish. Miller shows how protecting ecosystems is very important not only because of the intrinsic value that the ecosystems have but also because of the economic value that these ecosystems have in the eyes of humans.

With the extinction rate of species only rising due to both human and natural causes, I think that people need to think more seriously about how their actions not only affect other people, but also other species and the planet as a whole. I agree with Miller when he states that “we are hastening the extinction of wild species and degrading the ecosystem services they provide by destroying and degrading natural habitats, introducing harmful invasive species, and increasing human population growth, pollution, climate change, and overexploitation” (Miller 2018, 216). I think that humans, and the somewhat general mentality that everything in the world is ours to own and conquer, do not realize how beneficial and necessary most other species are to our survival. Like Miller discusses in the core case study of chapter 9, honey bees play an integral role on the planet through providing the ecosystem service of pollination. Up until recently, most people saw honey bees as pests, who are out to harm humans through stinging them, instead of the essential pollinators that they are. Because people saw honey bees as harmful pests, they were keen to kill the honey bees off if they came into contact with one, or a swarm, going as far as eliminating hives to kill off the bees. With the sharp decline in the population of honey bees came the sharp decline of other populations that rely on the honey bees ecosystem services to survive. After people came to the realization that honey bees are very necessary for human survival, as they pollinate lots of food that we consume, some farmers began to industrialize the ecosystem services of the honey bee by having concentrations of honey bees on their farms. This industrialization has led to a major dependence on honey bees, whose population is still currently unstable. This kind of human behavior causes or hastens the extinction of certain wild species, which we should avoid, as Miller says, “because of the  ecosystem and economic services they provide and because their existence should not depend primarily on their usefulness to us” (Miller 2018, 216). I do not think that the primary concern for considering whether or not it is considered alright for a species to go extinct should be the ecosystem and economic services that they provide, but I do think that educating the masses about all the things that species and ecosystems provide for us is necessary.

Since most people on the planet either do not see the inherent value of ecosystems and their services or choose to ignore this value completely in favor of human development, I think that it is necessary to educate these people about this cause through showing them the economic value of an ecosystem and its services. It is also important for those that do see the value in an ecosystem to lead the charge of sustaining and protecting biodiversity and ecosystems. I think that by educating people on why certain ecosystems should not be disturbed because of the ecosystem services that they provide, people may be more inclined to listen if they want to be able to use those ecosystem services in the future. As Miller discusses, “we can sustain terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem services and increase our beneficial environmental impact by protecting severely threatened areas and ecosystem services, restoring damaged ecosystems, and sharing with other species much of the land that we dominate” (Miller 2018, 248). We, as humans, need to become more conscientious about how our actions affect the planet and more specifically the ecosystems and species with which we closely coexist. It is important for humans to think about the fact that many, if not all species would still be around without the existence of humans, but humans would not be around with many of the species that we threaten everyday with our actions.

Blog Question: At what point are policies, laws, and treaties not enough to protect wildlife and the wilderness from the threat of humans? What other actions can be taken to protect species and areas?

Word Count: 1095

Blog Post 8

Particular Problems and Solutions (cont.): Aquatic Biodiversity, Extinction, Soil, Agriculture, and Food

In chapter 11 of Living in the Environment, Miller discusses the importance of sustaining aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem services. He describes how humans are making it harder and harder to sustain both aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem services. He states that “aquatic species and the ecosystem and economic services they provide are threatened by habitat loss, invasive species, pollution, climate change, and overexploitation—all made worse by the growth of the human population and resource use” (Miller 2018, 255). Most of the things that Miller discusses—habitat loss, invasive species, pollution, climate change, and overexploitation—happen naturally in nature, but when humans are brought into the picture, become far worse. Miller then goes on to discuss how humans “can help to sustain marine biodiversity by using laws and economic incentives to protect species, setting aside marine reserves to protect ecosystems and ecosystem services, and using community-based integrated coastal management” (Miller 2018, 267). Although humans have the tendency to make matters worse for many ecosystems and the services that they provide, Miller lays out ways in which we can help to preserve and sustain marine life. He then goes on to discuss how exactly humans can play a part in helping to sustain marine ecosystems. He states that “sustaining marine fisheries will require improved monitoring of fish and shellfish populations, cooperative fisheries management among communities and nations, reduction of fishing subsidies, and careful consumer choices in buying seafood” (Miller 2018, 271). Here, Miller lays out ways in which general human action can help to sustain marine life, moving most of the responsibility onto corporations and companies that take part in farming and harming marine life. Miller then moves into discussing the marine life areas that humans most often come into contact with, which are the wetlands. Miller states that “we can maintain the ecosystem and economic services of wetlands by protecting remaining wetlands and restoring degraded wetlands” (Miller 2018, 272). While it is a pretty simple statement, there is still lots that needs to be done in order to protect and restore the remaining wetlands. Along with wetlands, Miller discusses how freshwater ecosystems are also threatened by human activities. Miller states that “freshwater ecosystems are strongly affected by human activities on adjacent lands, and protection of these ecosystems must include protection of their watersheds” (Miller 2018, 275). Human activities have a far more reaching effect than what humans see, as Miller states human activities on lands near freshwater ecosystems have direct effects on these ecosystems. Miller concludes his discussion of the importance of sustaining aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem services by discussing the human actions that need to be taken to sustain these ecosystems. Miller states that “sustaining the world’s aquatic biodiversity requires mapping it, protecting aquatic hotspots, creating large and fully protected marine reserves, protecting freshwater ecosystems, and restoring degraded coastal and inland wetlands” (Miller 2018, 278). Here, Miller discusses the ways in which humans can help to sustain aquatic biodiversity around the world. The ways in which humans are currently harming the aquatic biodiversity around the world can also be seen in the “Great Pacific Plastic Garbage Patch” film about how the mass amounts of plastic in the oceans are affecting the bird populations that rely on marine life for sustenance. 

In chapter 12 of Living in the Environment, Miller discusses the importance of food production, and how it interacts with the environment. He discusses how the environment that people live in oftentimes determines the food that they have access to. Miller shows how this often leads to disparaging health levels across countries. He states that “many people in less-developed countries have health problems from not getting enough food, while many people in more-developed countries have health problems from eating too much food” (Miller 2018, 285). Here, Miller shows that health problems can occur in countries of all development levels, be it health problems from over or under consumption. Consumption levels are contingent upon food production and availability, which can be affected at times. As Miller states, “the greatest obstacles to providing enough food for everyone are poverty, war, bad weather, and climate change” (Miller 2018, 285). At times when these things are happening, health problems are likely to be more prevalent. Miller shifts his focus to discussing the physical production of food. He details how we, as humans, “have used high-input industrialized agriculture and lower-input traditional agriculture to greatly increase food supplies” (Miller 2018, 287). Without industrialized agriculture, the human population would not be able to grow at its current rate, as there would not be enough food to sustain it, since there barely is now. Since the human population is growing at such a rapid rate, future food production is something that needs to constantly be considered. Miller states that “future food production may be limited by soil erosion and degradation, desertification, irrigation water shortages, air and water pollution, climate change, and loss of biodiversity” (Miller 2018, 294). Lots of these issues that Miller brings up as being potential roadblocks for future food production, may occur because of human activities. Miller shows how humans can make future food safer, while keeping production levels high, “by using a mix of cultivation techniques, biological pest controls, and small amounts of selected chemical pesticides as a last resort (integrated pest management)” (Miller 2018, 303). Eliminating pesticides will not only make food safer for human consumption, but it will also make food production more sustainable, which is important for the future. Miller states that humans “can produce food more sustainably by using resources more efficiently, sharply decreasing the harmful environmental effects of industrialized food production, and eliminating government subsidies that promote such harmful impacts” (Miller 2018, 308). Miller states that humans “can improve food security by reducing poverty and chronic malnutrition, producing food more sustainably, relying more on locally grown food, and cutting food waste” (Miller 2018, 316). Food production, the environment, sustainability, and food security are all closely linked, as they rely on each other to become better for future generations.

Blog Question: Do you think that switching to a system of personal farming would be better for the future? Would it be more sustainable or more wasteful?

Word Count: 1023

Blog Post 9

Particular Problems and Solutions (cont.): Food & Soil

Symphony in the Soil is a film by Deborah Koons Garcia that discusses the importance of healthy soil to the Earth and the humans that inhabit the Earth. In the film, scientists and farmers explore the miraculous substance that is soil. The film discusses the complex and elaborate relationships and mutuality that exist between soil, water, the atmosphere, plants and animals. Through these relationships, the scientists and farmers involved in the making of the film show the viewers how complicated and dynamic the nature of soil is, specifically pertaining to how humans should view soil as a precious resource. The film’s website states that the film examines the relationship that humans have “with soil, the use and misuse of soil in agriculture, deforestation and development, and the latest scientific research on soil’s key role in ameliorating the most challenging environmental issues of our time” (symphonyofthesoil.com). The beginning of the film focuses on providing the audience with sufficient background information regarding the fundamentals of soil science. Garcia achieves this through bringing viewers to Norway to introduce viewers to the three main components that comprise a healthy soil: clay, peat, and sand. By doing this introduction, Garcia is able not only to highlight the science behind the soil, but she is also able to allow her audience to become informed of the actual meaning of the science. This willingness to have others understand the science shows Garcia’s concern not only for getting a message across to the public, but also a real desire for the message to be understood by the viewer. The film then brings us to Hawaii and Washington to explain how soil is made, what it is made of, and what it produces. Through these trips around the world, Garcia is able to keep viewers intrigued by showing what it is like to be in the field. She not only informs the viewers about soil science, but also allows the viewers to actually see this soil science at work. The film then moves from a discussion of soil science to a discussion of agriculture, which relies heavily on healthy soil. Garcia brings the viewers to places including the Palouse in Washington state, where the highly productive loess soils exist, India, England, Oregon, New York, and Pennsylvania where she introduces viewers to professionals from a variety of backgrounds: farmers, soil scientists, sustainable agriculture advocates, and environmental advocates. Through this inclusion of professionals from a wide array of backgrounds, Garcia is able to address many different fields that have some ties to soil science. For example, she not only addresses the harmful effects of chemicals on the soil but also the role that soil has played in the rise and fall of ancient civilizations. Garcia’s does well in that it stresses the importance of caring for soil. It also rightfully showcases the many ways in which having healthy soil impacts aspects of human life that the viewers would not necessarily think of. Symphony of the Soil educates its viewers in matters regarding the wide reach of soil science.

Food Inc. is a film by Robert Kenner that examines the corporate farming industry in the United States. Kenner shows how giant corporations have completely taken over all aspects of the food chain in the United States, from owning and operating the farms where the food is grown to controlling the restaurants and supermarkets where the food is sold. The film begins with Kenner examining the industrial production of meat, specifically chicken, beef, and pork, in the United States. Kenner calls the processes used to produce this meat inhumane and environmentally and economically unsustainable. The film then transitions into looking at the industrial production of grains and vegetables, specifically corn and soybeans. Like the industrial production of meat in the United States, Kenner also calls the process used to produce these grains and vegetables environmentally and economically unsustainable. The film then transitions to a discussion about the economic and legal power of the major food companies. Kenner showcases how many of these mammoth food production corporations have been able to gain massive legal and economic power through their profits, which are based on supplying cheap but contaminated food, the heavy use of petroleum-based chemicals, specifically harmful pesticides and chemicals, and the promotion of unhealthy food consumption habits by the American public. The film comes to a conclusion by showing how many large companies, including those like Wal-Mart, are transitioning to selling more organic foods in their stores as a response to the growing health movement, which was a newer idea in 2008. The filmmakers do well to show how the points that Kenner makes about the industrial production of meat is inhumane and environmentally and economically unsustainable by taking the viewer inside these industrial production plants. By using unsettling footage shot inside large-scale animal processing plants as part of the film, the filmmakers are not only able to tell their viewers about the unsustainable and inhumane activities occurring, but also show their viewers. The filmmakers also make the important decision of including feature interviews with average Americans about their dietary habits. These interviews help the filmmakers to qualify what Americans eat on a daily basis, information that they then use to curate their large scale discussion of industrial production. I think that this film is a comprehensible way of informing the average American about the impacts of their diet. I also think that since this film has come out, people have become more cognizant of their diets for multiple reasons including caring more about their own health and about how the meat, grains, and vegetables that they consume are produced. With many Americans shifting to the use of more organic, sustainable, and humane products, and therefore driving demand for quality products up over cheaply produced products, companies have begun to make their production processes more sustainable and humane.

Blog Question: What kinds of farming techniques should countries and companies be transitioning to in the coming years? Is it too late to save some farmlands because of degraded soil quality?

Word Count: 1007

Blog Post 10

Particular Problems and Solutions (cont.): Hazards, Waste, Human Health

In chapter 17 of Living in the Environment, Miller discusses the relationship between environmental hazards and human health. Miller dives into this topic by stating the major health hazards that most people face. He says that as humans, “we face health hazards from biological, chemical, physical, and cultural factors, and from the lifestyle choices we make” (Miller 2018, 443). This shows how there are many different ways that the earth, other humans, and ourselves affect our own well-being. Miller then transitions into specifically discussing the health hazards that humans face from a biological standpoint. He states that “the most serious biological hazards we face are infectious diseases such as flu, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), tuberculosis, diarrheal diseases, and malaria” (Miller 2018, 443). This shows how many health hazards to humans are spreadable diseases that people oftentimes do not have a say in getting. After his discussion of biological hazards, Miller moves on to the chemical hazards that we face as humans. Miller talks about how “certain chemicals in the environment can cause cancers and birth defects and disrupt the human immune, nervous, and endocrine systems” (Miller 2018, 452). This shows how there are certain naturally and non-naturally occurring chemicals found on earth that also pose a health hazard to humans. Miller moves into a discussion of how we should evaluate the risks posed to humans from chemical hazards. He states that “scientists use live laboratory animals, case reports of poisonings, and epidemiological studies to estimate the toxicity of chemicals, but these methods have limitations” (Miller 2018, 456). It is important for scientists to figure out which chemicals have adverse effects on human lives so that people can lessen their encounters with these chemicals. For instance, Miller talks about how “many health scientists call for much greater emphasis on pollution prevention to reduce our exposure to potentially harmful chemicals” (Miller 2018, 456). This shows how science is shifting to have a greater focus on the prevention of pollution, as scientists have recognized the extreme negative impacts that pollution not only has on the well-being of humans, but also on the planet. Miller finishes the chapter by telling readers the ways in which they can steer clear of potential health hazards. Miller states that “we can reduce the major risks we face by becoming informed, thinking critically about risks, and making careful choices” (Miller 2018, 462). This shows that reducing the health hazards that we face as humans rests for the most part on our own shoulders, with improvements from science taking some of the load off. It is important for people to take responsibility for improving their own health in any ways that they can.

In chapter 21 of Living in the Environment, Miller discusses the relationship between solid and hazardous waste and the environment. Miller begins his discussion of this topic by showing the ways in which “solid waste contributes to pollution and includes valuable resources that could be reused or recycled” (Miller 2018, 575).  He also states that “hazardous waste contributes to pollution, as well as to natural capital degradation, health problems, and premature deaths” (Miller 2018, 575). Both solid and hazardous waste contribute to the problem of pollution due to the sheer amount of waste that we produce as humans. After pointing out the ways in which solid waste can harm the environment, Miller shifts to discussing how solid waste can become more sustainable. Miller states that “a sustainable approach to solid waste is first to produce less of it, then to reuse or recycle it, and finally to safely dispose of what is left” (Miller 2018, 578). This approach showcases how solid waste can become more than just waste: it can become new products through upcycling. Miller furthers this sustainable vision by showing how we can reduce our carbon footprint even more. He shows that “by refusing and reducing resource use and by reusing and recycling what we use, we [can] decrease our consumption of matter and energy resources, reduce pollution and natural capital degradation, and save money” (Miller 2018, 580). Here, Miller shows the benefits that can come from transitioning to a more sustainable lifestyle. I think that a great emphasis on these benefits is what will help people to see the need to switch to sustainable living. An important step toward more sustainable living is the development of technologies that will help make this possible. Miller states that “technologies for burning and burying solid wastes are well developed, but burning can contribute to air and water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and buried wastes can contribute to water pollution” (Miller 2018, 586). This shows how it is important to develop technologies that help reduce waste without causing the waste to shift into another form of pollution. Technology development for the future should focus on helping humans to reduce their resource use and waste production. Miller then shifts his discussion to hazardous waste and how it can become more sustainable. He states that “a more sustainable approach to hazardous waste is first to produce less of it, then to reuse or recycle it, then to convert it to less-hazardous materials, and finally to safely store what is left” (Miller 2018, 589). Similar to the problem of solid waste, the most sustainable solution to the problem of hazardous waste is to produce less of it, and then try to find a way to upcycle the waste, if possible. If humans were to commit to more sustainable solutions for both solid and hazardous waste, we would find that our health and well-being, along with that of the environment, would improve. Miller finishes the chapter by discussing the involvement needed to achieve a sustainable future, such as the one he has presented. He states that “shifting to a low-waste economy will require individuals and businesses to reduce resource use and to reuse and recycle most solid and hazardous wastes at local, national, and global levels” (Miller 2018, 594). This shows how the quality of life in the future legitimately depends on the actions of every person, meaning that the reduction of resource use and the upcycling of waste is something that needs to be taken seriously from the level of individuals to that of countries.

Blog Question: What kind of impact does an event such as the pandemic we are living through right now have on the levels of waste that humans produce? Has it increased, decreased, or remained the same?

Word Count: 1070

Blog Post 11

Particular Problems and Solutions (cont.): Water

In chapter 13 of Living in the Environment, Miller discusses water resources and the need for water in the environment. Miller begins the chapter by discussing the importance and use of freshwater in ecosystems around the world. Miller states that humans “are using available freshwater unsustainably by extracting it faster than nature can replace it, and by wasting, polluting, and underpricing this irreplaceable natural resource” (Miller 2018, 325). This iterates the extreme importance of using freshwater sustainably, as it is an irreplaceable natural resource. Miller also discusses the uneven distribution of freshwater, stating that “1 of every 10 people on the planet does not have adequate access to clean water” (Miller 2018, 325). Through showcasing this statistic, Miller is able to point out how this uneven distribution not only affects the people that do not have access to freshwater but also the ecosystems in general, as there are lots of people using freshwater unsustainably. Miller then goes on to discuss groundwater as a resource and humans are also overusing it. He states that “groundwater used to supply cities and grow food is being pumped from many aquifers faster than it is renewed by precipitation” (Miller 2018, 331). Much like freshwater, groundwater is another essential resource for both humans and the ecosystem that is being overused by the humans that need it most. Miller next goes on to discuss the ways in which humans try to expand freshwater and create more freshwater for human use. He states that “large dam-and-reservoir systems and water transfer projects have greatly expanded water supplies in some areas, but have also disrupted ecosystems and displaced people” (Miller 2018, 335). This shows how humans have developed ways to expand freshwater supply that have a positive impact on ourselves over the environment that we inhabit. Miller details another way in which humans have developed ways to produce more freshwater that positively impacts humans, but negatively impacts the environment through his discussion of desalination. He states that scientists “can convert salty ocean water to freshwater, but the energy and other costs are high, and the resulting salty brine must be disposed of without harming aquatic or terrestrial ecosystems” (Miller 2018, 335). It is important for humans to monitor our freshwater and groundwater usage so that resources are not overdrawn and ecosystems are not harmed from the processes used to create and distribute more of these pivotal resources. Through the development of large dam-and-reservoir systems and water transfer projects, water supplies in some areas have increased, but Miller discusses how these systems have disrupted the ecosystems that they are supposed to service. Miller goes on to discuss how there are ways in which humans “can use freshwater more sustainably by cutting water waste, raising water prices, slowing population growth, and protecting aquifers, forests, and other ecosystems that store freshwater” (Miller 2018, 342). In the future, using freshwater more sustainably will become more important, as the resource supply is currently being used up at very high rates. Another significant overuse of resources such as freshwater and groundwater when flooding occurs. Floods cause all sorts of damage that affect humans and the environment alike. Miller discusses how we, as humans, can combat “the threat of flooding by protecting more wetlands and natural vegetation in watersheds, and by not building in areas subject to  frequent flooding” (Miller 2018, 348). In order to preserve precious resources, such as the freshwater and groundwater supply, humans need to continually reflect on how their habits and needs affect the level of water that they demand in a day. A reduction in the overall level of groundwater and freshwater use by humans will be necessary for future environmental stability.

In chapter 20 of Living in the Environment, Miller discusses water pollution and the major impact that it has on the environment. Miller begins his discussion on water pollution by naming the major contributors to the problem. He states that “the chief sources of water pollution are agricultural activities, industrial facilities, mining, and untreated wastewater” (Miller 2018, 543). Water pollution is a problem that is caused by humans but has effects that reach beyond the human sphere. Miller states that “water pollution causes illness and death in humans and other species, and disrupts ecosystems” (Miller 2018, 543). Water is polluted worldwide, with Miller stating that “many of the world’s streams and rivers are polluted, but they can cleanse themselves of biodegradable wastes if we do not overload them or reduce their flows” (Miller 2018, 546). This shows how ecosystems can cleanse themselves of pollutants deposited into them by humans, so long as humans leave them alone to do it. Miller also discusses how costly water pollution is to humans. He states that “adding excessive nutrients to lakes from human activities can disrupt their ecosystems, and preventing such pollution is more effective and less costly than cleaning it up” (Miller 2018, 546). While a main reason for humans not to pollute water should not necessarily be the economic impact it has, it is a good way to get the attention of those who pollute and overuse without thinking about the impacts that water pollution has on anything but humans. Miller discusses how groundwater becomes polluted and undrinkable when “chemicals used in agriculture, industry, transportation, and homes...spill and leak” (Miller 2018, 551). Although purifying groundwater is possible, “protecting it through pollution prevention is the least expensive and most effective strategy” (Miller 2018, 551). Pollution of the ocean most often “originates on land and includes oil and other toxic chemicals and solid waste, which threaten fish and wildlife and disrupt marine ecosystems” (Miller 2018, 557). Protecting oceans from the impacts of water pollution is very important to the future health of the environment and can be done by reducing the flow of pollution from land and air and from streams emptying into ocean waters” (Miller 2018, 557). Lastly, Miller touches on how “reducing water pollution requires that we prevent it, work with nature to treat sewage, and use natural resources more efficiently” (Miller 2018, 562). Finding a solution to the problem of water pollution is very important for the future of the Earth. Not only will it improve the well being of humans around the globe, but it will also improve the well-being of the Earth itself, which is currently not being as highly valued as it should be.

I calculated my water footprint to be 1372 meters cubed per year. I think that most of it comes from the fact that I consume meat on an almost daily basis, as I know it takes a lot of water to raise livestock.

Blog Question: Have there been systems developed to minimize the pollutants that industries, such as agriculture and mining, disperse into water? If so, why are they not being used properly so that this pollution no longer occurs?

Word Count: 1101

Blog Post 12

Futures of Climate Change

In the final chapter of The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene, Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin discuss the future of humans. Denoting humans as Homo dominatus, Lewis and Maslin strive to answer the question of “Can Homo dominatus Become Wise?”, which is the title of the final chapter. The authors begin their discussion by detailing the three possible futures for humankind, which are “continued development of the consumer capitalist mode of living towards greater complexity; a collapse; or a new mode of living” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 369). The outcome of the first future would entail containing our current “environmental and other problems sufficiently to stave off collapse and avoid a switch to a new mode of living” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 369). The authors consider this approach to the future as a business-as-usual approach, which currently seems probable, but is not the ideal future outcome. They also consider this outcome to be unsustainable for the future. The outcome of the second future “suggests that the ever-escalating environmental costs or other contradictions of today’s global mega-civilization will cause its downfall” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 369). Much like the first outcome, the authors denote the seemingly current probability of this outcome occurring. They also show how this outcome is undesirable. The outcome of the third and final future entails “a series of positive feedback loops that bring about a new, sixth mode of living operating at a higher energy and replacing the industrial capitalist mode” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 370). This scenario would change a lot of ways of current life. While it is intended to have a positive outcome, the authors point out how the changes that would need to be made could have an alternative result ending in the development of “a social system that is detrimental to much of humanity and which also creates new and serious environmental problems” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 370). This third future outcome hopes avoid this negative result and produce an outcome that includes wise relations between all humans and our home planet. The authors view this as the best option for a viable future.

Throughout the chapter, Lewis and Maslin attribute most of the past and current conundrums of humans to the “progress trap” of fossil fuel use and accompanying climate change (Lewis and Masling 2018, 378). They state that “the central, pressing, existential threat to human civilization results from a core contradiction in today’s mode of living: it is powered by energy sources that are undermining the ability of today’s globally integrated network of cultures to persist” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 379). This shows how the authors believe that the best way toward producing a positive future outcome is through rethinking and reevaluating our current energy sources and beginning to stray from fossil fuel use in order to combat future climate change. While the authors do hold climate change and our detrimental depletion of earth’s natural resources, such as fossil fuels, to be some of the main causes of impending collapse, they also include the substantially troubling issue that life in the Anthropocene makes prominent, which is high levels of global inequality. In their discussion of global inequality, Lewis and Maslin include explorations of gender inequality and income disparity as probable reasons for a potential future collapse.

In order to achieve the above mentioned most viable future outcome of an innovation towards a new mode of living, Lewis and Maslin drum up some concepts that will help to make this future more accomplishable. One of the concepts is Universal Basic Income, which “is a policy whereby a financial payment” … “set at a level above which subsistence needs are met and would cover healthcare insurance in countries that do not already provide this for free” … “is made to every citizen, without any obligation to work” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 406). Another concept that they introduce is Half-Earth and the associated concept of ‘rewilding’. Half-Earth is an idea originated by celebrated biologist E.O. Wilson that allocates “half the Earth’s surface primarily for the benefit of other species” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 409). The authors describe the associated concept of ‘rewilding’ as “the idea that large areas should be left to allow natural processes to run,” which the hope that “important species that are missing from the landscapes, often predators, are returned so a fuller suite of natural process can work, with less interference from humans” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 410-411). The authors recognize that moving “towards quality within and between countries … without undermining the environmental conditions necessary for a flourishing network of cultures around the world” … would imply “the need for a fundamental shift to a redistributive economy, … one that is close to steady-state in terms of resource consumption” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 412). Lewis and Maslin admit that these proposals are “anathema to almost all contemporary mainstream economic and political thinking” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 412). Although most people are opposed to such shifts in economic and political thinking, these shifts are necessary to achieve this viable, third future outcome. Their prodding ideas expand upon the geological considerations of the Anthropocene and provide the space for humans to apply “ourselves to minimize human suffering and the loss of species by making every effort to limit the coming chaos under rapid climate change” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 414). While the Anthropocene epoch has only just begun, it is important for humans to consider what life will look like after it is over. This forward thinking will allow us to become more prepared to bring about a better and brighter future than the one that is anticipated today. I think that Lewis and Maslin’s ideas of the importance of global equality will stand strong in the future, as the current inequality gap continues to rise. I also think that the concept of Half-Earth has already begun to be adopted by some present thinkers. Although it may not be up to the standards that the authors have laid out in this chapter, the adoption of the idea of Half-Earth can be seen through the expansion of green spaces, wildlife preserves, and protected land across the globe. 

Blog Question: If we are in the Anthropocene now, what comes after that? Or will we only know when we are in it?

Word Count: 1052

[dearworldnews]

A Mathematician’s Self-Referential Take on “The Black Swan” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Dear World, You can stop asking me what I think of "The Black Swan." I've written it all down.

Being a former academic mathematician with a background in developing fintech software, I am often asked about my opinion of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book "The Black Swan." My answer used to be that I hadn't read it, although that wasn't quite true. I had starting reading it but soon found myself bored, switching from reading to scanning and then scanning faster and faster. I didn't want to give an opinion on something to which I hadn't been paying much attention, hence the white lie. And then it got worse. People seemed to think that reading this book would change my life or something. They wouldn't stop pestering me about it, giving me copies of it for birthday gifts, things like that. So I decided I had to come clean. I thought the best way to do that would be to take another look at the "The Black Swan" (referred to as TBS in the sequel) and explain why it bores me. So here goes.

As far as prerequisites are concerned, I will not assume that you have read TBS. For mathematical expertise, it suffices to have a decent idea of what a probability distribution is, what the normal distribution is, and the like. If you have some familiarity with the central limit theorem, that's good, but if not, it's just as well.

You will find that reading this review is a somewhat tedious and laborious affair. I am quite confident that this is not my shortcoming, but a reflection of a certain elusiveness of the book's lines of argument. It is perhaps noteworthy that despite the book's enormous popularity, nobody seems to have attempted a passionless mathematically oriented review.

I. Definition of Black Swan Events II. The Fluff III. The Central Distinction: Mild vs. Wild Randomness IV. The Central Thesis: Blindness to the Black Swan V. Predicting the Future VI. The Gaussian Strawman VII. The Lowdown

I. Definition of Black Swan Events Paraphrasing and condensing from pages xvii and xviii of the Prologue to TBS, we can say that Nassim Nicholas Taleb (referred to by the initials NNT in the sequel) defines the central term of his book as follows:

Black swan events are events that are rare, have extreme impact, and are retrospectively, but not prospectively predictable.

The third part, retrospective, but not prospective predictability, bears some explanation. The "prospective" part means of course that we didn't and couldn't predict the event before it happened. The "retrospective" part, as defined by NNT, means that

human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.

The use of the word "concoct" indicates that we're kidding ourselves into thinking that the event really was predictable when it wasn't. There is of course an enormous amount of truth in that: hindsight bias, the infamous 20/20 hindsight, has been extensively studied. But it also seems to me that part of our evolutionary process has always been to perform perfectly rational post-mortem analyses of these events, thereby indeed, over time, improving our ability to predict them or lower their impact. I have to admit that not mentioning this at all makes me suspect a case of confirmation bias. But we're still in the prologue, so we'll just put a pin in that for now and continue.

II. The Fluff TBS is sprinkled with stories from NNT's personal life. My interest in those is zero. That's all I can tell you, except to say that I just did the same thing, telling a personal anecdote, in the opening paragraph above. Therefore, my criticism is self-referential. That's bad, because in a more formal setting, self-referential criticism is valid if and only if it is not valid. But as I said in my personal anecdote (!) above, I never wanted to talk about TBS in the first place…

TBS contains some amount of fiction. Chapter Two in its entirety is fiction, as NNT informs us in a footnote on the first page of Chapter Three. It's not quality fiction in my opinion, and I was bored by it. Other opinions may be possible, but by no stretch of the imagination does the fiction contribute anything to making TBS a recommendable book.

TBS also contains numerous historical and biographical references and anecdotes. This is indicative of a well-read and well-educated author, which is good. For me, however, these references and anecdotes were too scattered and disconnected to be of much value. Different opinions are possible, of course, in this regard. But it seems clear to me that none of this warrants anything close to a must-read recommendation.

A small part of TBS, mostly in Chapter Five, is devoted to explaining and correcting some trivial logical errors that people tend to make, like this one:

[…] if you tell people that the key to success is not always skills, they think that you are telling them that it is never skills, always luck.

That's very commendable, and as a former teacher of mathematics and computer science, I'm all for it. But you wanted my opinion as a mathematician, and the one group that is not in need of these explanations is mathematicians and mathematically inclined people, so I'm still bored. Also, these explanations, while correct and well-written, are not in any way so numerous or extraordinary as to justify a special recommendation for the book.

Some statements and explanations in TBS are such gross simplifications that their informative and illustrative value tends to zero, to the extent that one cannot help but consider them fluff:

The Apple technology is vastly better [than Microsoft], yet the inferior software won the day. How? Luck.

You may argue that referring to the things that I have mentioned so far as fluff is unfair or even inappropriate. Under different circumstances, I would agree. But this critique is written against the backdrop of some acquaintances of mine—and some journalists and pundits as well, for that matter—calling the book a masterpiece, insightful, a must-read for a mathematician like myself, and the like. Measured by those standards, everything I've mentioned thus far is fluff. [1]

As a matter of fairness, I should mention that on page xxvii of the Prologue to TBS, NNT gives a justification for the extensive use of stories and anecdotes in the book:

You need a story to displace a story. Metaphors and stories are far more potent (alas) than ideas; they are also easier to remember and more fun to read. […] Ideas come and go, stories stay.

I like a story as much as the next guy, but I assure you that the above does not apply in the realm of mathematics and statistics. At this point, I am quite comfortable with the prediction that TBS won't be a mathematically relevant book. But then it doesn't have to be. Let us not be deterred from reading on with an open mind.

III. The Central Distinction: Mild vs. Wild Randomness Chapter Three of TBS sets up what NNT calls the central distinction of TBS, the grouping of all matters that are subject to randomness into two categories, charaterized by mild randomness and wild randomness. The table on p. 36 nicely summarizes the distinction.

Given the fact that TBS is dedicated to Benoît Mandelbrot, and moreover, NNT and Mandelbrot have co-authored an article [2], we may assume that NNT was familiar with Mandelbrot's concept of seven states of randomness. In his early work, Mandelbrot actually started out with the three states mild, slow and wild. He later refined those into seven states, the first of which is mild and the sixth of which is wild. It is clear that NNT's two categories of mild and wild randomness are much inspired by Mandelbrot's three or seven states. There is of course nothing wrong with such an adaptation and simplification. If it serves the purpose of the book, why not. However, I have two comments, one regarding ethical rigor and another regarding mathematical rigor.

Ethical Rigor: In a scientific publication, such an adaptation is permissible only if the original work is discussed and credit is given to its author(s). Failing to do so would not pass scholarly review. NNT does not state that his two categories are an adaptation of Mandelbrot's work. The number of occurrences of the string "seven states" in TBS is zero. Therefore, TBS does not qualify as a scientific publication. Fine, it doesn't have to. So what about failing to give credit in a non-scientific publication? I personally find it unethical. Others may be more lenient, but the minimal verdict that I am willing to accept is "not great." Giving credit would also have been an opportunity to explain Mandelbrot's concept of "states of randomness" to the uninitiated, as it has not received all the attention that it perhaps deserves. An uncredited simplification from three or seven to two states does not do that for me.

Mathematical Rigor: You will have to excuse the laboriousness of the following discussion, but remember, I never wanted to talk about TBS in the first place. I was goaded into it. So here we go.

Needless to say, the author of a book like TBS is under no obligation to adhere to any standards of mathematical rigor. However, if you use a mathematical term to define and argue a thesis, then you must use that term in a mathematically rigorous and meaningful way. More generally, if you use a technical term from a scientific discipline, then you must abide by the prior definition of that term and the standards of that discipline. I posit that this is a prerequisite of meaningful intellectual debate.

In the last line of the table on p. 36, where the concepts of mild and wild randomness are summarized, NNT says the following about mild randomness:

Events are distributed \(^*\) according to the "bell curve" (the GIF) or its varia­tions.

The acronym GIF has been defined earlier in the book as "Great Intellectual Fraud." That's opinion, so we'll ignore it for the discussion at hand. The star refers us to this footnote:

What I call "probability distribution" here is the model used to calculate the odds of different events, how they are distributed. When I say that an event is distributed according to the "bell curve," I mean that the Gaussian bell curve (after C. F. Gauss; more on him later) can help provide probabilities of various occurrences.

Using the term "bell curve" as a synonym for "Gaussian bell curve," and thus for "normal distribution," is in line with common usage. [3] So that part is a valid and helpful clarification. Substituting synonyms, the last sentence of the footnote becomes

When I say that an event is distributed according to the normal distribution, I mean that the normal distribution can help provide probabilities of various occurrences.

First off, it's not events, but random variables that may or not be normally distributed. Ok, we're not pedants, so we'll let that go. But what does it mean that the normal distribution "can help provide probabilities"? If something is normally distributed, then the normal distribution provides the probabilities. Is this being redefined here as something weaker, as in "can help provide, but doesn't really without additional information"? I find myself unable to make sense of this. We'll have to file it under "use of a term (probability distribution in this case) from a scientific discipline (mathematics in this case) that does not meet the standards of that discipline." As a working hypothesis, I will assume that what NNT really means by "being distributed according to the normal distribution" is exactly what everybody else means by it.

Omitting the reference to the footnote and the GIF reference and substituting a synonym, the characterization of mild randomness in terms of distributions now becomes:

Events are distributed according to the normal distribution or its varia­tions.

So what are "the variations of the normal distribution"? I haven't heard the term before. As we all know, the normal distribution has parameters, so strictly speaking, there is no such thing as the normal distribution. It's a family of infinitely many that are all variations of each other in the sense that they are obtained by varying the parameters. But that's not what could possibly be meant here, because it says "the normal distribution or its variations." So the sentence must be referring to distributions that are variations of the normal distribution but not normal themselves. Since I don't know what those are, I did a web search for "variations of the normal distribution." It turns out that one website, the top hit, actually uses "variations of the normal distribution" to mean the different instances of the normal distribution that are obtained by varying the parameters. That's it.

So now what? I could try to make an intelligent guess as to what's meant by "variations of the normal distribution." Exponential families would be a good guess. But nobody calls these "variations of the normal distribution," so we can't really know. [4] We have no choice but to mark this down as the second use of a term (normal distribution in this case) from a scientific discipline (mathematics in this case) that does not meet the standards of that discipline. That's not good, considering that this is happening in what NNT calls "the central distinction" in TBS.

At this point, my boredom has given way to mild annoyance. But we're only on page 36, so let's not jump to conclusions.

IV. The Central Thesis: Blindness to the Black Swan At the end of Chapter Four on p. 50, NNT lays out the main thesis of TBS: the blindness of humans to the black swan. The thesis is then broken up into five themes, of which I quote the third here, as it is probably the most poignant, and somewhat representative of all of them:

We behave as if the Black Swan does not exist: human nature is not programmed for Black Swans.

The ensuing five chapters then discuss the five themes each in turn. There isn't really anything specifically mathematical in those five chapters, so my opinion as a mathematician—and remember, that's what this critique is all about—is not particularly relevant here. However, I said earlier that I was suspecting a case of confirmation bias in TBS, and this part of the book confirmed my suspicion. NNT gives an eloquent presentation of all the fallacies, biases, logic errors, and other weaknesses that prevent us humans from dealing rationally and efficiently with black swan events and the threats they pose. That's good, as these weaknesses are very real. But what about the other side of the coin? There is ample evidence of humans dealing incrediby well with rare events of extreme impact. If there weren't, we probably wouldn't be here. Actually, perhaps a better way of saying that humans deal well with black swan events is to say that those who don't aren't with us anymore.

Now that I've said it I suppose I have to give an example of humans dealing well with rare events of extreme impact, although that almost feels silly as there appears to be an infinitude of examples. [5] Take the example of rattlesnake bite in the American outdoors. It's grotesquely rare, but when it happens, it's painful in the extreme and potentially lethal. Clearly, it happens to people as a consequence of some fallacy or other, as in, "Me and my family have been coming here for years, and we've never even seen a rattlesnake! The heck I'm going to watch my step when gathering wood in the underbrush!" But that's the relatively small crowd of Darwin Award winners in waiting. Pick up any book or magazine from the outdoor literature section, go to any park visitor center, talk to the locals, I mean can you even get into the outdoors without being educated on how to minimize the risk of snake bite? And perhaps even more importantly, you can take with you into the outdoors a device that weighs five ounces, fits into the palm of your hand, and has a button which when you push it gets you airlifted to the nearest hospital where they have doctors and nurses and antidotes and painkillers and what not to deal with your mishap. That's how far humanity has come dealing with this particular black swan. That's more than impressive. It's darn near a miracle.

Someone to whom I presented this example argued that snake bite is not really a black swan. It's more like a grey swan since we are aware of its existence and know roughly where and when to expect it. Correct, but what do you want me to do about the truly black swans? Sit around and mull over things which I don't even know what they are, while others are hard at work lowering the risk or impact of snake bites, car wrecks, household accidents, natural disasters, terminal illnesses, you name it? Now there's a way of dealing poorly with rare catastrophic events.

V. Predicting the Future Part 2 of TBS, consisting of Chapters Ten through Thirteen, pp. 137–211, elaborates on the fact that humans are not good at predicting the future. For example, nobody knew we were going to have the Internet. Ok. [6]

VI. The Gaussian Strawman At the end of Part 2 of TBS, NNT leads into Part 3 with the words

Some readers may see it as an appendix; others may consider it the heart of the book.

Since some portion of Part 3 is dedicated to the discussion of probability distributions, I will go for the second option and consider it the heart of the book. First off, there is a remark on p. 213, at the very beginning of Part 3, that gave me pause:

[…] for an event to be a Black Swan, it does not just have to be rare, or just wild; it has to be unexpected, has to lie outside our tunnel of possibilities.

Isn't that a modification of the original definition given in the Prologue? Stock market crashes and severe earthquakes, for example, would certainly be black swan events according to the original definition. But they are not outside our tunnel of possibilities: the vast majority of people are lucidly aware of the fact that they do happen. So now I don't really know anymore what a black swan is, and thus, I don't really know anymore what this book is about. I'll just have to let that go for now and concentrate on the upcoming discussion of probability distributions.

Chapter Fifteen in Part 3 is entitled, "The Bell Curve, That Great Intellectual Fraud." As we saw earlier, NNT follows convention by using the term "bell curve" as a synonym for "normal distribution", so what's being said here is that the normal distribution is fraudulent, in a sense that is yet to be determined. The first few pages of Chapter Fifteen are devoted to some numerical examples, and there is no hint of fraud here. Six pages into the chapter, there is a small section entitled "What to Remember," which reads,

Remember this: the Gaussian-bell curve variations face a headwind that makes probabilities drop at a faster and faster rate as you move away from the mean, while "scalables," or Mandelbrotian variations, do not have such a restriction. That's pretty much most of what you need to know.

The statement on probability drop in the normal distribution is correct. I don't see anything fraudulent in that. So if that's "pretty much most of what I need to know," then I don't know what the "Great Intellectual Fraud" in the chapter's title is referring to. There are 18 more pages in this chapter, but I couldn't find an argument that begins with anything resembling "here's why the normal distribution is fraudulent," or ends with anything resembling, "and this is why the normal distribution is a fraud." I could find only two sentences that hint at how and why NNT considers the normal distribution a fraud. The first of these, on p. 236, contains the expression

The traditional Gaussian way of looking at the world […]

This suggests that there is a traditional school of thought whose belief it is that random variables occurring in real life are by default normally distributed. This belief is most certainly false, and thus the normal distribution would in a certain sense be a fraud. The second statement is on p. 252, near the end of the chapter:

One of the problems I face in life is that whenever I tell people that the Gaussian bell curve is not ubiquitous in real life, only in the minds of statisticians, […]

Again, this suggests that statisticians believe that random variables are by default normally distributed, which is false, and hence it is justifiable to call the normal distribution a fraud. Notice that I just did a bit of speculating here, but I couldn't find any other place where the normal distribution is exposed as "fraudulent," so I have no choice but to assume that this is it.

As a mathematician—and one with a decent scholarly record, if you must know—I assure you on the honor of my professional ethics that there is no school of thought among mathematicians or mathematically literate people that is called, calls itself, or could legitimately be called "the Gaussian way of looking at the world." With equal confidence, I assure you that there are no statisticians, mathematicians, or mathematically literate people in whose minds the Gaussian bell curve is ubiquitous, i.e., who believe that random variables should be assumed to be normally distributed by default. NNT's argument is an instance of the strawman fallacy.

To understand this a little better, it helps to do a Web search for "normal distribution ubiquitous." You'll see that indeed, the normal distribution is often called "ubiquitous in statistics," or "ubiquitous in statistical analysis." That's because—and I'm saying this for the mathematical layperson—the normal distribution pops up in a lot of places in the theory of probability where one would not expect it. The mathematically literate reader of course knows that what we're talking about is, first and foremost, the central limit theorem, and also some lesser results like the one that says that under certain circumstances, the binomial distribution can be approximated by a normal distribution with a continuity correction. Personally, I would not describe this situation by saying that the normal distribution is "ubiquitous in statistics," but then I wouldn't argue with people who do. The bottom line is, what NNT does is to misrepresent this collection of mathematical theorems as a "Gaussian way of looking at the world," a position that is then easily exposed as false or, if you wish, "fraudulent." And that's the definition of the strawman fallacy: misrepresenting someone's position so it can be refuted.

VII. The Lowdown To emphasize again, I never wanted to voice an opinion about TBS. But some of my acquaintances insisted, so here it is: I don't think TBS is an interesting book. Too much fluff, not enough semantic precision, and too much confirmation bias. From a mathematician's point of view, it's actually a bad book, because the attack that it launches on Carl Friedrich Gauss and the distribution named after him falls flat on account of the strawman fallacy.

Nothing that I saw in TBS went into my treasure trove of quotes. My biggest frustration was, "What, you're writing a book about randomness, chance, luck, the unexpected, the futility of predicting and planning, you're telling us that you're proud of your Lebanese Christian heritage, and you never once mention Ecclesiastes 9:11? Oh come on."

Sincerely Yours, The Fool on the Hill

Notes

[1] Given the book's remarkable popularity, perhaps someone can find the time, or find someone to pay him or her for the time, to copy and paste all the fluff from TBS into a separate document and then count words. I'd be interested to see what the percentage of fluff is.

[2] Mandelbrot, Benoît; Taleb, Nassim. "A focus on the exceptions that prove the rule". Financial Times, 23 March 2006.

[3] Strictly speaking, the bell curve is of course the graph of the normal distribution. But this degree of semantic precision is not very helpful, not even in mathematics.

[4] Much later in the book, on p. 239 and again on p. 275, NNT uses the term "Gaussian family of distributions," and he mentions that the Poisson distribution belongs to that family. That leads me to believe that indeed, what he means is exponential families. But "Gaussian family of distributions" is not a term for which mathematicians have a definition, and NNT never once says "exponential families." Therefore, we cannot know what he means.

[5] Come to think of it, I wonder if there is a book that looks at the history and evolution of the human race as the process of improving our skill of preparing for, avoiding, and dealing with rare catastrophic events. I bet it would be interesting, although probably not nearly as much fun as reading about the fallacies, biases, and logic errors that TBS is all about. TBS vs. that other book may end up being like Jackass vs. a video on pivot tables in MS Excel.

[6] A lot of things that NNT says in this part of TBS sound an awful lot like he's mocking people who make plans, implying they are so foolish as to think they can predict the future. Here's a prediction. I predict that in some distant future we'll be able to make computer simulations of alternate universes with properties of our choice. I would then make one that's just like ours, except that humans don't make plans, knowing that that's futile because of their inability to predict. That'll be fun to watch. Of course NNT is completely missing the point here. The stunning success of human civilization has something to do with the fact that humans have become good at planning in the face of uncertainty.

[vorpalmusings]

Wonder Woman: The Movie

Rebirth has brought the Amazing Amazon back to her roots, but this would only be a partial victory had the Wonder Woman movie been a failure along the lines of Dawn of Justice.

The Movie

We had nothing to fear. Not only was Patty Jenkins’ vision perfectly true to Diana, but Gal Gadot surprised everybody by being the perfect casting for Wonder Woman. At its current standing, the movie is the leggiest superhero movie, holding up better than other superhero movies in the past fifteen years.

Wonder Woman is a tremendous success, easily Warner Brother’s third-highest earning superhero movie. We all remember, several years ago, how Diane Nelson told us over and over again that the public would find Diana difficult to understand, that the movie with all of her mythical elements would be problematic.

People love Wonder Woman all over again, and they love her movie. A lot.

I said I would write a review of the movie, but I don’t want to do a play by play. Rather, I think that a full review would go over territory that has been already tread by many, and it would be pointless. What I think is important is to pause and reflect on the reasons why Wonder Woman has inspired viewers, why it has made them cry at moments like the No Man’s Land (guilty as charged), and why they keep coming back for more.

Of course, the themes of empowerment and sisterhood, and the total lack of sexualization of the female hero in a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster movie are two huge points in the movie’s favor. While we have seen some tremendously heroic women in the realm of Science Fiction (Ellen Ripley, we love you), the genre of superhero movies is a whole different thing: it is pure, idealized heroic fantasy comparable to the sagas that Wagner drew upon (minus, you know, the incest and other things.) 

In this genre it is customary to see the powerful bodies of male superheroes highlighted dramatically as a source of inspiration and empowerment, whereas the female heroes who fight alongside them have their bodies leered at by the camera, with a special fixation on their backsides and cleavage. Whether it is Elektra walking away from the camera that is perfectly poised to catch her derriere and hips swaying, to Harley Quinn’s daisy dukes being almost pornographically ogled by the camera, to Black Widow being the only Avenger to have a movie poster designed to show off those assets, the female superhero body seems to exist purely to be sexy, not powerful or inspiring. 

And then came Wonder Woman- the first female protagonist in the superhero live-action movie genre to shatter this trope. There are plenty of examples throughout the movie, but I will stick with one of the prominent ones seen in the trailer. Diana shatters an enemy rifle using nothing but her biceps and her back. It is a moment of sheer, inspirational power that highlights the Amazon’s physique, but it isn’t done as an excuse to sexualize her- this moment (among many in the movie) sees her treated exactly as a male superhero would be treated.  It isn’t material for titillation, it’s as awe-inspiring as is the crossing of the No Man’s Land and all of Diana’s feats. 

But the glory isn’t solely showered on one Amazon, but all of them: the Amazons are treated with the same reverence, and seeing Hippolyta jumping into battle with her army is a joy.

However, feats of strength and martial prowess only go so far. Without the right heart, it all becomes so much empty bombast. What is special about Wonder Woman is the very same thing that made her special when she first touched down on the shores of Man’s World 75 years ago, guided by the typewriter of the brilliant and eccentric William Moulton Marston. 

[SPOILER WARNING: IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE, THIS IS THE PLACE WHERE YOU SHOULD STOP READING AND COME BACK AFTER YOU HAVE SEEN IT... REALLY, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? THIS MOVIE IS AMAZING, GO. NOW.]

Diana of Themyscira is an excellent example of the principle of ἀρετή (Arete, pronounced /a.re.tɛ̌ː/), a Greek term that Aristotle (among others) identified with  moral virtue:

"Virtue (arete) then is a settled disposition of the mind determining the choice of actions and emotions, consisting essentially in the observance of the mean relative to us, this being determined by principle, that is, as the prudent man would determine it." Aristotle,  Nicomachean Ethics, II vi 15

In Aristotle’s conception of virtue, the virtuous action is always found in the intermediate state between deficiency and excess: too much and too little are always wrong, with  the right kind of action in the right kind of measure being defined as the golden mean, contextually appropriate to both the situation and the individual in question.

So, what does this mean for Diana? When Diana learns of the terrible things that are happening on Man’s World, she feels incapable of obeying her mother’s orders to do nothing while innocents die. Her compassion is fueled by her sense of justice- can she truly stay behind in her idyllic world while innocents are slaughtered, when she knows she is an Amazon and, according to legend, especially trained for such an occasion along with the rest of her sisters? 

Diana comes to the world, even if it means turning her back on her mother. She could have sent Steve back by himself, but that would have been too little, and convincing the entire Amazon army to leave Themyscira and thus leave it undefended would have been too much. One single, albeit extraordinary, Amazon coming to Man’s World to fight Ares was clearly the right choice.

Throughout Diana’s journey, she finds herself faced with the quest for the right action- she cannot abide the paralysis in the trenches and thus crosses No Man’s Land, everywhere she goes she seeks to enact the right action because she ultimately loves humanity and wants to help. Unlike the cinematic incarnations of her fellow Trinity members, she does not agonize about whether she has the right to take action or whether she is capable of knowing what is the right course to take. Diana embarks on her quest with the certitude that she will find the right actions, even if she has to correct her course to account for new knowledge. Her sense of justice will simply not allow her to consider inaction.

It is rather fitting, then, that Arete was occasionally personified as a deity in Ancient Greece and portrayed as the daughter of Justice herself: Praxidike, whose other daughter and Arete's sister was the goddess Homonoia, the goddess of concord.

At the end of her journey, Diana is faced with the knowledge that man’s nature was not entirely what she thought it was, that man was not wholly good... that is, that humanity is not exactly the pure race that the myths painted, incapable of  atrocities unless influenced by outside forces. She has grown up believing in the sole goodness of humanity, and Ares then tries to expose her to his cynical view of humanity, which is that of utterly corrupt and irredeemable creatures. And for a moment, it almost seems possible that she will embrace this belief.

But, just as before, when caught in the pull between two extremes, Diana always returns to her center. With her new realization of humanity’s nature, she says to the sneering Ares:

“They are everything you say. But so much more.” 

Diana’s knowledge has expanded. Humanity is neither a demon awash in corruption nor a perfect being incapable of evil, but a people perpetually poised on the edge of possibility armed with nothing but choice. Each individual holds different measures of Elysium or Tartarus within them, unleashed by the choices they make- with those falling outside of the range of the golden mean bringing about terrible consequences. The golden mean-which might as well have as a physical representation Wonder Woman’s lasso of Hestia, which seeks to remove falsehood in the quest for the truth-  and  it is knowledge of true things that informs the correct action.

“It’s about what you believe. And I believe in love.”

Diana’s next line may puzzle some, and some have dismissed it as a platitude or a cliché, but this is one of the truest statements about the character of Wonder Woman, and she means it in a different way than the lazy interpretation some might ascribe to it.

From a philosophical point of view, especially from an Aristotelian perspective, the idea of ‘love’ is tied to virtue and the notion of ‘the good’. Virtue does not, as some would have you believe, exist for its own sake, but rather it is the right action aimed at attaining that which is valued and loved.  It is impossible to enact virtue without being capable of loving. Diana loves Truth and therefore seeks to act honestly in order to uncover it, she cannot abide tyranny and therefore seek to enact Justice to bring freedom. She loves humanity as a whole and wishes to see it prosper, and thus seeks to uphold Peace- even if she must fight to achieve it. 

(Aside: That last example is not a contradiction in her standards, because one must never allow one’s virtues to be turned towards one’s own destruction. If Diana embraced complete pacifism, then those who initiate violence against the innocent would easily be able to exterminate those who are not violent, if no-one were to defend themselves.) 

Therefore, everything that Diana does, and the force that carries her truly through the end of her journey is her intense ability to value and to love, intensely. 

Her final realization in the movie is also one that many superheroes do not seem to achieve- Diana is very aware that only humanity- individuals themselves- can truly make a better world for themselves through the choices that they make. She is also aware that, as long as there is such a thing as freedom of will the struggle between good and evil choices will go on. She now knows that her mission in Man’s World is to protect ( others against violence) and to teach (her values), but she is not here to ‘fix the world’ in the way that some authoritarian dictator might, by imposing a conduct through force. She lets the world make its own choices, and is the advocate of everything mankind can be- and which some individuals achieve in varying measures. 

 Even though she is a ‘child of fate’, she is completely unaware of it and chooses the path for herself long before knowing she was born as the only being capable of destroying Ares. She takes the trope of the ‘chosen one’ and turns it upside down. Wonder Woman, essentially, disregards deontological ethics and places virtue ethics at the fore.  And this is what makes Wonder Woman as a movie, and a character, stand apart from her male colleagues in the Trinity. Whereas Batman’s tragic orphan-hood shaped his thirst for justice and Superman is marked by the loss of a world and people he never knew, Wonder Woman’s origin story is unmarked by tragedy: she was born from a mother’s love, and she is moved by a love of people and of the world. 

And this, even if it is only dimly perceived as a vague undercurrent by some, is the core reason for why Wonder Woman has been such a smashing success. The Amazon’s incredible fortune is reminiscent of the impact she had when she first made her debut in All-Star Comics #8 in 1941. Back then, the world embraced the champion of Themyscira as a unique hero with a unique message. 

It has been a long time coming, but she has finally come home again, and many are embracing her as others did, way back when.

Here’s to  Warner Brothers for finally giving us what we’ve been asking for all these decades. And here’s to Wonder Woman 2.

[derkastellan]

Review: The Outer Worlds

Seems like I can’t review this Epic Games Store exclusive on Steam yet, nor on gog.com, nor even on Epic itself (though I might have missed something). So let’s do it here.

I played in “Story Mode” (combat easier) and it took me 41 hours to finish the game, including solving all the side quests (”tasks”) I could find to do.

Let me emphasize this is the most bug-free title on release I’ve played in a long, long time. Not a single CTD, no quests I couldn’t complete. Runs smooth on my mid-range gaming rag, no fancy uber-graphics card required. Looking your way, RDR2...

It ain’t as great as “Fallout: New Vegas” (FO:NV from now on) but it is a funny, quirky title and I enjoyed my time in Halcyon.

There will be spoilers.

The game’s loading times are exemplary, fast, and most building interiors have been integrated into the larger game world. Both starting up the game in the first place and

The graphics are nice, colorful, and given that some see these to be the kickoff to something to replace the Fallout series and lure its fans, something new. While a lot of what we see has the mark of decay and failure on it, it is not an almost entirely dystopian wasteland.

Because in “The Outer Worlds” (TOW) there is Hope. Both literally (the name of the missing colony ship you derive from) and implicitly. The vibe of “the world died” is - for good and bad. It is good to not have this hang above your head all the time! I mean, there’s villains, corruption, evil, but the big bad hasn’t already happened. But I noticed one thing... When I play FO:NV or “Fallout 4″ (FO4) little touches can evoke a lot. You find these carefully arranged little scenes that level designers made - two skeletons on a dirty mattress in a bunker, some booze bottles, and maybe one gun, and you get this hunch that somebody didn’t want to face this grim reality of a world that died anymore. And to me, this is missing from TOW. Somehow it’s less emotionally impactful.

What isn’t missing is superb, witty, funny dialogue. In fact, the satirical elements of the game world are top notch, and frankly, the red tape and greed corporate world it depicts is not as far from where we are now than you might wish. Obsidian simply envisioned a world where companies do not have to abide with elections at all or do lobby work, just crank out the propaganda and brainwash them from cradle to grave - chilling, for sure.

You can follow dialogue trees and obtain a lot of information, open up new options through skills. Optimizing for certain builds - like stealth/hacker and personable smooth-talker - will change how the game plays, bypass combat, and give you new options of how to finish missions.

You are usually given choices that range from “I’m the do-gooder”, ”Come the revolution”, “Leave everything as it is”, “What’s in it for me”, to “Fuck you all, I love to mess with you”. Similarly I can easily imagine that the game might tolerate killing pretty much everyone. I didn’t try but I see many quests do not so much depend on people but getting key items and info, I think you could get by by looting the items, using consoles, and solely trading with vending machines. Not my thing but seems at least largely possible.

Choice

Choice is a tricky thing with TOW. You see, this being an Obsidian game, they couldn’t leave choice out. It’s just... clumsy at times, forced.

In FO:NV you start the game in Good Springs (IIRC) and get to side with the villagers or with the Powder Gangers. You get to do various things to beef yourself and your allies up and end up with the showdown with your choices impacting how it goes. You can even walk away and ignore it, shoot everyone, whatever.

This video sums the game design choices regarding, well, choice up very well in the first round about seven minutes when it comes to FO:NV and FO4. It’s the difference between “hey, you chose your path” and “you shoot dese guys, dey be bad” pretty much.

TOW falls clumsily in between. In the end, the game is propelled by its missions. It’s not per se a “wander around” game. There are few optional locations that only feature in side quests. I think Fallbrook on Monarch you don’t have to visit, for example. Well, that’s a bit unfair, I guess. If you wanted to skip through the game you probably can ignore almost everything on the Monarch moon colony. And I think you could solve your “I have no energy coupling” problem in the Emerald Vale probably by going in, taking it, and shooting the opposition? Not entirely sure. At the least you go straight to the Geothermal plant and back and you’re done.

So, how much you meander and what tasks you take on and how you chose to solve them is mostly on you. You get to chose which factions you side with and which ones you chose to piss off.

And yet...

Switch off one colony, you must

The first mission or first part of your main mission forces “choice” down your throat. You have to shit on one faction. Period. And it seemed forced. To repair one space ship you have to disable one of two colonies? Really? It is both a weak choice and weak writing. I mean ships are seen in the sky over Edgewater. Why can’t I loot their power MacGuffin?

And it is largely a no-choice as well. Spacer’s Choice is running the colony into the ground, why leave them in charge? They realized this - and let Parvati offset this with a purely emotional plea. So they add this additional hurdle you have to pass over to essentially do the right thing. In a way. Because you cannot do anything about the hard-headed heartlessness of the woman leading the Deserters. So you have the choice between two assholes, essentially. The endgame titles for this choice are especially galling. People will die because of your choice - or else your mission never starts. It has a bit of a negadungeon feel about it...

Of course this makes for some “edgy” choice, right? No easy rights and wrongs? Fair enough. Except the choice is forced by nothing else but your own need to get out of there. The stakes of the two parties in the end do not matter. I find it fair that no ideal choice exists - this is what makes it one of the true dilemma choices of the game - but maybe it should not have been under such a weak, flimsy pretense to begin with.

Phineas

Another choice you can make several times during the game and eventually have to make is whether to turn Phineas in. I cannot imagine why you would do it, but it is a choice, right? Even if you try not to turn it in, he gets captured in the end. It becomes a choice of no consequence because the plot is on rails. It might change how Phineas feels about you and some epilogue, I guess, but it is largely without impact.

They also paint Phineas increasingly grey to justify this. He let people die - horribly - to save you. Ironically you are offered the same choice - you can let the suspended colonists in the Board labs die to get as much MacGuffin gas as you can to save the others, making you equivalent to Phineas and his “the end justifies the means” choice. But again, an empty choice. I doubt you would end up reviving all the colonists if you took that option, so besides making you feel bad: no consequence.

Since Phineas is so central to the plot he is the only character, I think, with true and literal plot armor. He only talks to you from behind bulletproof glass. I guess they wanted to avoid that trigger-happy psycho players can’t finish the game.

One world at a time

The game never truly turns into open world (but also was never advertised as such by the devs, to be fair). You unlock one location after another. I only missed out on one of them - the landing pad of the Board stooge I ended up shooting later.

You go from Emerald Value to the Groundbraker to Rosewater to Monarch to Byzantium to the Hope to Tartarus. (Schedule some visits in Phineas’ lab on the way.) You unlock optionally Scylla and two space stations. You might bypass Amber Heights and Fallbrook in terms of major settlements. And that is the game. (I think people put the main quest at 20 hours and given I did all I could conceive of in 41 that seems reasonable.)

The unfolding of the world is on rails. (Again, it was not advertised as open world.) FO:NV also had a “recommended” order. But you could rush past most of it. It was just gated behind danger, not impossible. Here you get no choice. You will see roughly 50% of the game by default - which is fair, but not terribly big. TOW, the planets themselves, seem small. You can deviate from the main path, but not much.

Again, nothing else was promised, but we all know this game is here to capture the Fallout fans - made by the FO:NV studio and with Fallout creators as leads... you can’t ignore that when evaluating the game. It was in the ads. And I never triggered the endgame in FO:NV because I was busy exploring its world (though it seemed good) and I never triggered the endgame in FO4 because frankly it seemed stupid to begin with and I was busy exploring its world.

Not so in TOW. I ran out of stuff to do. This is where choice is in chosing to explore. Exploration involves being lured off the beaten path or chosing to do out of curiosity. The game encourages small exploration by hiding stuff in every nook and cranny possible. Also, since monsters don’t wander, you have all the time in the world to explore those nooks and crannies once you’ve killed the area monsters...

Are there major things to be gained by chosing to explore? I would say no, unless you define “exploring” as “doing all the sidequests” - which it is not. Did I find interesting story details by walking around beyond quests? Not really. I found a dead miner and an excavation robot on Scylla. But no real info. No story. I have found a remote location beyond Cascadia on Monarch, but my reward for slaughtering myself past the biggest beasties? A meaningless location marker that I cannot fast-travel to, no explanation, and some free ammo. Basically enough to replace the one I spent.

All the hidden science weapons are quests. I did not find them valuable in spite of putting science in them, but you can “easily” seek them out should you chose to. The one on the Groundbreaker was the hardest to get to and I fell to death twice in getting another one - the only in-game deaths I ever had.

TOW does not expand on story through exploration, simply not. You can miss out on story by not reading all datapads that are in your way, though.

Killer lottery

Now there is another mission that lacks any real choice and has a weak design, wasting its impact needlessly. There is an “Early Retirement” lottery where it is almost instantly clear that this is some dystopian BS. My only question was if they would be turned to Soylent Green or not.

You end up entering a room where people who are “winners” end up being shot by killer drones. Given my own body count at this time in the story hardly shocking, more like lazy and shoddy. No impact.

And then you get to do nothing about it! You can tell a person about it or you can fool somebody out of spite to also get killed, but not a single line of dialogue appears anywhere to apply a consequence to having done the quest. You cannot shut it down - unless shooting the drones count - and you cannot hunt down the people responsible. You do not learn whodunnit and you do not get the satisfaction to avenge these people. It is just a mood piece, and a badly made one.

You could reason you ultimately get the responsibles in the end, but the game does not facilitate you here.

Oh, and if you leave Dr Chartrand alive, you are supposed to talk to Phineas, but no impact on the epilogue, no dialogue line with Phineas. Somebody got to code that?

No (real) consequences

If you opt to thaw up the Hope’s crew you solve all of the colony’s problems. So simply going through with everything Phineas suggested yields a happy end. You can walk the straight path with the default choice and end up none the worse.

What good points are there then to joining with the Board, giving in to your doubts, etc? The colony will slowly prosper and no price is being paid for chosing the most common part. Can I improve on this by playing differently? I don’t feel so.

Let’s see how FO:NV compares - you can hand the Mojave to different factions and the endgame outcomes are really different. There is no by-default good choice. Even if you paint Phineas as grey he is the good guy. A flawed good guy but the person that keeps events in motion.

Do I really care enough about the other options to see them played out? Probably not. Definitely not. I can watch that on YouTube eventually.

There were some consequences to my actions, though. The factions I helped that were not in bed with the Board ended up helping me in the endgame confrontation. Due to the poor handling of friendly fire when it comes to NPC allies I had to reload because I accidentally shot an ally and now had double as many enemies against me. Thanks for helping. Really.

But I liked the touch - Groundbreaker Mardets, Iconoclasts, and MSI troopers all joined me at some point. I felt the faction reputation made at least some sense. I was worried it was only good for discounts at this point...

So, the choices you make will influence the epilogue somewhat, rebates you get, close off some quests, and generate some help in endgame. I guess this is fair but not excellent.

Fridge logic and verisimilitude

In order to justify the whole second half of the plot the colony will starve if things are left as they are. There is a major plot hole here, several actually.

First of all - the colony did not starve in 70 years. How can you not starve in 70 years if there is a problem with the nutrients? Are we to assume that for 70 years actual starvation was held off by supplementing with foods from Earth and other colonies? If this were true, people would need to be near-death and starving already, emaciated. Or is it a matter of a certain stockpile running out?

The whole thing seems weak. It justifies why nobody thawed up the additional mouths but creates more problems than it solves.

But most of the game time what irked me more was nonsensical asset reuse. Why are there weak-ass marauders on Monarch? They should be eaten in no time. Same for canids. The planet is supposedly a hellhole and admittedly full of Mantiqueens and Raptisaurs. So who are these people camping out somewhere in the hellscape without resorting at least to the safety of some buildings? Buildings in comparison where almost always safe spots with no enemies in them. You won’t surprise marauders having lunch - they’re too busy hanging out at intersections!

I also don’t get how Primals came to Scylla. They give the planetoid a distinct feel but what do they eat? Where did they come from? Maybe I missed that...

Short on Western

And finally almost all of the settlements and outposts I came across failed. No sturdy settlers sticking it out, no siree! (Except for the cannibal family.) They all huddle together in the few main places. No distant shack with a crazy coot. No (alive) hunters camping out on Monarch. No small places where we stick it out even if it’s bad idea because we do have gumption.

Also, you don’t get to roam. A western would be about roaming - like in RDR2. (Haven’t played it yet but this quality of just going out and riding around is attracting me to it. That was the damn best thing in “GTA: San Andreas”: Getting on a harley and riding the land once you unlock it.)  Here you turn a corner and find a collection of enemies. There is no freedom. The world looks and sounds like steampunk scifi western but the underlying archetypes of westerns are missing, except for some hick accents.

Things look like in a western but the world itself... is basically a series of failed and near-failed settlements. Even if you can improve on all that ultimately and there is hope you encounter a dystopia while you try to do so. Westerns aren’t usually dystopian. Scifi sure often is! But even a Scifi western like the original Star Wars was full of people, outposts, and what not. People in TOW are not eking out an existence on the frontier. They all clearly have already failed so:

Edgewater: All outposts failed, even the hunting camp needed to feed the “Saltuna” factory has been abandoned. The only other settled location is the - “abandoned” - Botany Station.

The Groundbreaker: You can prevent it from collapsing altogether.

Rosewater: Well, the labs went all to shit and the place is overrun by raptisaurs. They just fought off an attack that might have killed them all.

Scylla: Major settlement eradicated.

Monarch: People in Stellar Bay are scared. Amber Heights is failing. Only Fallbrook thrives. Cascadia ended up completely eradicated.

Byzantium: Rich town, facade breaking down, though. Can’t even keep their maintenance up.

So, where do people actually live? You never get to know. But you sure do your part in breaking down one of the last settlements to survive...

The charm, the wit, the warmth

Now, I ranted a lot about what threw me off. But the game is full of characters you end up liking, dialogue that makes you laugh, things you end up caring about. I mean, you even start to collect little stuff that begins to decorate your ship, gradually changing it as you progress. The experience is not sterile and your ship becomes a home where your small family hangs out.

I even did a hard pass on one of the six available companions because I did not want him around. I didn’t know I could have them all but frankly I did like him. It’s hard to gauge how big the game will be when you play it, and I would have wanted more of it to be sure.

But you cannot stuff just more in. More would inevitably at some point lessen it. At some point quantity inevitably replaces quality. And the companions I had I cared about. I wanted to help Parvati even though I question somebody needing several thousand bits and a visit to three different difficult-to-reach locations to just have a date in a world gone mad, but in the end I was glad to have done it. Her bubbling, quirky personality was believable and charming.

Similarly, I never did a mission without Ellie as soon as I got her. No matter who you talk to, no matter who else is there, Ellie brings out quality quips and wit all the time, even to whoever else is in the party. She’s too cool to be true and that’s fine with me. Shame she didn’t get more of a second mission to herself. She remains closed off as her character seems to be. 

Nyoka is also memorable though her companion quest suffers from cheap emotional impact. Why two expert hunters who can survive on Monarch would die near Edgewater is a mystery, but hey, but five graves and Nyoka surviving them all is what the simple heartstrings narrative wanted. We never get to really challenge her on her alcoholism, which is lame, and she never limits her intake, but maybe that’s actually realistic. And I can abide with that.

Now Felix and SAM obviously can’t keep up with that but they round out the choices. I was very surprised to end up with a crew of three interesting females, Felix was almost an afterthought. They all end up distinct with lots dialogues. You may guess whom the devs liked best by seeing how Felix essentially got only one spaceship mood scene to himself where there’s plenty of interaction with the girls and among each other.

Conclusion

TOW asks valid questions. It has a good story, it has great NPCs, and I love the party. It falls short on other counts, mostly to do with choice, verisimilitude, and exploration. It is a solid game, it is bug free, it was fun to play. I doubt it offers much replay value.

Thing is... these qualities. Good dialogue, good voice-acting, being essentially bug-free... these go down the drain the more content you produce. I never finished “Torment: Tides of Numenera” because I got bored with it. It was big and seemingly dragging on. And in places it simply showed that some of the level designers did not get the memo. (The memo being: “There are no combat XP in Numenera.”)

Not so in TOW. It seems to be made out of one piece, solid, consistent in what it does. A few quests seem kinda unfinished or loose in Byzantium, ending rather abruptly, but you never stand somewhere and say “This doesn’t fit with the rest.” It does reveal a lot of stuff on terminals and datapads, but I guess this way they could get quality voice acting where it mattered and fill out the background blanks elsewhere. The balance works. It sometimes does a tiny bit of “Fallout 76″ in that you often end up chasing datapads and consoles to piece together stories about all the dead people. But since you enact with plenty of varied NPCs it doesn’t matter so much. It not only has some, it has plenty!

It’s also a decent RPG shooter. Choices of weapon matter. You can sneak, in fact it gets so easy with a modest skill in the end that I accidentally walked into enemies without engaging sneak mode because they did not notice me or stay asleep. It will probably not register as a great stealth game even by far, but it does some of it. I somehow finished the game without triggering a companion ability, I have to say. Wish you could set them to do it on their own, actually.

Will this be remembered as a classic? Probably not. Maybe it will. But it puts forward enough stuff to maybe establish a new series. If so, the next installment will have to be more substantial.

Liked it, sometimes loved it.

PS - In watching some reviews now that I finished it I must say I seem overly critical of the game. I enjoyed it but at the latest on Monarch the game kind of wore on me. Long stretches of wilderness that vary the same enemies. There’s often no empty places, no interesting interactions with alien flora and fauna. Just stuff to kill, destroyed sites to explore. 

There’s some variation, there’s some cool moments when you look up and see spaceships passing before the gas giant in the sky. But since most of the time you have your nose to the ground it doesn’t seem all the spacey to me. Might go for a real space game next.

All in all I have waited for a long time for this one to get out. I feel like I finished it too soon and yet it was also good to be done because it had played out what it would like to play out. There were no big mid-game surprises, really. From Byzantium onward the story was clear and also quality slowly went down. It seems like from there on there were less ideas and the rails became narrower. At least Byzantium required some non-violent challenges to reach your goals, so did the Hope. They ended up being repetitive as well.

All in all, my interest in TOW started to fade after the first week, and I noticed that and was annoyed by it. It is a quality game, I won’t fault it for going a long way towards providing a good experience. But mid- and endgame the pace suffers and the game goes on about how difficult and impossible things are that really aren’t. I cake-walked over Monarch most of the time but was thrown off by the game’s attempts to insist stuff is hard. (Yes, I was in story mode but the game’s insistence on talking up stuff that actually is a regular challenge in midgame is annyoing.)

Tons of cool stuff in this one, but also missed chances. I want me some exploration and some deeper choices. That was so cool about FO:NV. You don’t need to save everybody from a catastrophy. You fix the winner of a major world-changing battle, and it can even be you! That was a game about choice. TOW is a game that emulates choice at times. All rails lead to the endgame, everywhere. But TOW’s are too visible for my taste.

Yes, I am spoiled. I complain about good games like “Disco Elysium” or TOW that I actually enjoyed. But come on, industry! Impress me, hook me! I’m waiting...

[gabolange]

A few thoughts on writing.

There's a sign that's been making the rounds at recent marches in support of women's rights and climate science: I can't believe we're still protesting this shit.  It means: God, I thought we'd gotten past this.

That sense of dumbfounded disappointment has been my primary response to the kerfuffle about smut these last few days--a conversation I have stayed out of primarily because it's about my writing or at least writing like mine.  It seems a little bit strange to join an argument that sits so close to home.  It isn't really my nature to comment, either; these last few weeks, I have insisted over and over that my preferred way of engaging with fandom is to write my stories and let the chips fall where they may.  

But...God, I thought we'd gotten past this.

**

Some background: I've been writing in online fandom since about 1998.  In all that time, I have only once before written anything rated M or higher and, to be honest, it wasn't very good.  My purview has always been complex canon-compliant character studies.  Mercy of the Fallen (four conversations set in 6.04, rated PG) is much more my usual style.  Indeed, given the makeup of most fandoms, my character studies filled a rare niche--the stuff I wanted to read that no one else was writing.

But then I found myself falling madly in love with the Turners and, in lifelong fandom fashion, reading all the fic.  The thing that no one else was writing was the stuff there had always been a glut of: smut.  So, when @pellucidthings gave me a challenge to write something different, I figured hey, why not?

And here we are.

**

A caveat before I go on. The tenet of fandom I most abide and most appreciate is "Don't Like, Don't Read," which means two things: first, no one is ever obliged to read or write things they don't like. And second, no one is entitled to tell other people what they should like, read, or write.

I will never ever tell you what to like, read, or write.

But some of the critiques floating around right now transcend what we like or don’t.  Some of them make arguments that feel really contrary to the things I love most about the broader fandom experience and this show in particular: creativity, feminism, and women’s agency.  So I want to talk about that.

**

There have been a couple themes in the responses to all of this, so I will attempt to tackle them as such.  

The first and least interesting is the idea that within fic we should protect the characters or maintain the image their creator intended.  On one hand, one of the fun challenges of writing fanfic is to see if we can maintain the characters' voices, build on their settings, or extrapolate from what we see on screen to write bigger or different stories.  

On the other hand, fanfiction comes from a place of transformative play and the desire to answer the question what happens if?  If you want to answer the question What happens if Shelagh leaves the convent for Trixie instead of Patrick? it is no more concerning than if you ask What happens if you extend the scene for another five minutes? or What happens if Poplar is invaded by aliens?  The answers to these questions can be equally transformative and provide equal insight into the characters, which is to say a great deal or none at all; the details are in the execution.  

The second theme is that of the ability to separate the characters from the actors.  When I was a young thing, I learned that Carrie Fisher had struggled with hard drugs while filming The Empire Strikes Back and I was utterly heartbroken. Princess Leia was my hero and in my eyes, the actions of the actress diminished the character.  

But as I grew up, I came to love Carrie Fisher as an important spokesperson for mental illness awareness and for the need for young women to not give a fuck about what other people think of them.  Princess Leia is still my childhood hero; Carrie Fisher is one of my adult ones. They are different entities that occupy different--and equally beloved--places in my life.  

If the actors and characters run too close in your head for you to be comfortable with fanfic that puts the characters in mature situations, that's yours to deal with.  I choose to leave the fourth wall in place because my experience has shown me just how different the actors and their characters can be and why keeping them separate matters so much.

The last theme is what I have struggled most with and the thing that has left me astonished and voiceless.

And that is the idea that these characters are too pure to write smut about and that if we do we are tainting or disrespecting them (and, perhaps, ourselves).  It is deeply problematic in the context of modern feminism and it is deeply problematic in the context of Call the Midwife.  

Call the Midwife is a show that we all love because it gives agency to a diverse set of women in a time and place where women often lacked agency.  The show's strongest episodes highlight the value of female agency even in the face of cultural criticism and the dire consequences when women's agency is suppressed.  Shelagh's story--especially the parts where she stops being Sister Bernadette to marry a man and then later decides that the family life she wanted is inadequate for her to be fulfilled and so goes back to work--is one of my favorite demonstrations of the theme of agency.  But there are so many others: we see the need for women to control their own health care, the need for women to have access to safe divorce, the need for women to respect other women's choices even when they don't understand them (in the S6 FGM episode, among countless examples).

We see the importance of women's sexual agency more and more.  Women who have babies out of wedlock are shunned; they lose their jobs, they lose their homes, they lose their standing in the community.  The men don't.  Women who want not to have children are finally, by the end of 1962, allowed to seek birth control without their partners' consent.  The men have been buying it at the barber for years.

This is a show about all the ways women gain the opportunity to control their destinies, including their sexual destinies.  Implying that Shelagh is somehow lessened as a character because she might have sexual desires or that we might want to explore them in our writing is fundamentally contrary to the ethos and point of the show.  

And more than that, the idea that any woman can be judged on the basis of her sexuality flies in the face of the feminism that this show is built on.  Shelagh is not better or more as a character or a woman because she waited until she was married to have sex.  Did she wait?  Oh, probably.  But the notion of purity or chastity as a defining characteristic in what makes a woman desirable is, candidly, really gross.  We have been fighting for years to ensure we and our daughters are defined by and loved for our values, our character, our accomplishments, our humor, our loves.  How, when, and whether a woman has sex can tell you about her choices and motivations, but it doesn't tell you a damn thing about her desirability or her value.

This line of criticism implies--or says outright--that we shouldn't write stories about Patrick and Shelagh having sex (in wedlock or not) because it's disrespectful and disrupts the purity of the characters.  They are too good, too moral to be besmirched by explicit sex.  But that argument only holds if you think sex is immoral or if discussion of sex or sexuality is somehow condemning.

If that’s the point anyone is trying to make, if we are here to debate whether women should express their sexuality or if we should be writing about these topics, the only thing I have to say is: God, I thought we'd gotten past this.

**

Your mileage may vary, as we used to say.  I still think you should write, read, and love the things that make you happy--because that’s the whole point of this beautiful, diverse fandom endeavor.  I know I will.  

[bluewatsons]

Carmen Petaccio, Universal Basic Bullshit, The New Inquiry (November 14, 2017)

By providing the working class with the absolute bare minimum, universal basic income becomes doomsday prep for the tech billionaire

In the spring of 1968, a full-page letter addressed to Congress appeared in the Sunday edition of the New York Times, written by five prominent liberal economists. The letter’s chief author, John Kenneth Galbraith, argued that a country as wealthy as the United States should, for reasons both ethical and financial, “give everybody the assurance of a basic income.” Having observed that the free market tends to constrain freedom for most, Galbraith advocated for “a national system of income guarantees and supplements”—that is, payments that would ensure the poorest Americans could still purchase basic needs like food, water, and shelter. (What an idea.) The letter was cosigned by 1200 of Galbraith’s fellow professional economists, and likely served as motivation for the proposal of Richard Nixon’s 1969 Family Assistance Plan. That bill, had it passed, would have given the current equivalent of $10,000 per year to the poorest of America’s families, but due to bipartisan opposition—conservatives deemed the legislation too generous, while liberals thought it not generous enough—the legislation died on the floor of the Senate.

In the decades since, the question of a universal basic income has remained on the margins of economic debate, though two distinct camps are presently trying to resurrect it. The first camp is dominated by progressive economic populists, like Matt Bruenig of the People’s Policy Project. The second camp, of course, is billionaires.

“Momentum for universal basic income is growing,” the billionaire Richard Branson concluded in a recent podcast ad / blog post. Titled “Experimenting with Universal Basic Income,” Branson’s native advertisement frames itself around his meeting with “The Elders,” a bafflingly real super-team of global leaders whose ranks include Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, and the ghost of Nelson Mandela. At The Elders’ remote headquarters in Finland, Branson learns of the nascent UBI programs being implemented in cities across the Western world, as well as the ethical paragons who have already voiced support for basic income programs: “Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and senior Vatican members are among those who have raised the idea too.” Add to that list of illustrious names the likes of Slack’s Stewart Butterfield, Y Combinator’s Sam Altman, and failed New Republic steward Chris Hughes, and the support for UBI among Silicon Valley’s billionaire class becomes distressingly widespread. Today’s basic income programs are often pitched by the elite as measures to offset income losses from automation, yet their greatest advocates are the principal drivers and profiteers of the phenomenon. Why, fifty years after economists like Galbraith foresaw the divergence of productivity and wage growth, has this populist concept taken sudden hold of the elite? What has disrupted the disruptors?

In 2016, another billionaire proffered a workable model for mobilizing populist forces to his own personal gain, conning millions of economically precarious Americans into supporting policies—tax breaks for corporatists, a hostile disregard for climate science, healthcare revocations positioned as reforms—that would profoundly worsen their quality of life. In his successful election bid, this billionaire proved both the transformative potential of simplistic rhetoric and the masses’ eagerness to accept vacuous assurances rather than confront uncomfortable realities. As defined by the American philosopher Harry Frankfurt, the word for this deceitful enterprise is bullshit. It’s bullshit in the rhetorical sense, as it persuades without any regard for truth, and it’s bullshit in the ethical sense, as it ruins people’s lives.

The 2016 American presidential election was the high-water mark in bullshit artistry, a swindle on a national scale with apocalyptic global implications. Now, with universal basic income, the liberal-leaning billionaires have thrown their hats into the bullshit circus ring, ready to determine precisely how little will pacify the working class. Like Branson’s inane blog post, the liberal elite promotion of UBI is transparent self-interest posing as benevolence, a shadow play by the powerful for the disempowered. To call the billionaires on their bullshit: Universal basic income is a promise to make America great again.

There will soon come a time, a bright, new future that doubles as a second dark age, when a majority of the world economy’s jobs will be either fully automated or altogether eliminated. Neither high-skilled nor low-skilled work will be spared from obliteration: Touch-screen stations will completely replace retail cashiers, as multilimbed robotic hydras perform brain surgeries. As the machines occupy an ever greater slice of the economy, the capital that they generate will flow into fewer and fewer pockets; namely, into those of the tech moguls currently advocating for a universal basic income. For them, exploratory UBI programs aren’t practice runs for a protosocialism that could counteract the woes of late capitalism. Rather, they are beta tests for deceptive public policy that could sustain late capitalism forever.

The aim is pacification, not liberation. A universal basic income is, in the most cynical sense, a subtle kind of doomsday prep for the tech billionaire, a means to diffuse the revolutionary potential of the working class by supplying them with the absolute bare minimum, just enough to keep them almost happy, fat in the apps. An Alexa or a Home. Three Blue Apron meals a day. A Casper mattress in a tiny house. Why work when you have this basic heaven to gain?

Just as the ostensible simplicity of UBI obscures its harmful latent potential, the concept’s promised universality would likely be anything but. Presumably, eligibility for a universal basic income program would require official citizenship status, a distinction denied to tens of millions of undocumented immigrants, many of them poor, in the United States and abroad. Without concomitant changes to immigration legislation and policy, UBI could worsen the disadvantages that undocumented immigrants already face, enriching and empowering those with whom they already compete for jobs, housing, and social services. It’s difficult to imagine a factually realized universal basic income without attendant exclusions, the inflexible rules and language dictating who may or may not enroll in the program. No one can say where, exactly, the dividing line would fall, but it’s safe to assume that felons, who cannot vote under present law, would, alongside everyone else deemed unworthy, find themselves on the outside looking in. Meanwhile, those citizens lucky enough to gain access to the program would be submitting to governmental surveillance of untold invasiveness, where everything from purchase histories to biometric data could be used to determine eligibility.

The American government has an extensive history of denying its most vulnerable citizens access to the programs they need the most, so why would such a generous, plainly redistributive program be any exception? In all likelihood, a bill proposing a universal basic income would only pass as hodgepodge legislation, a bundle of counterposed policies that undercuts the original purpose it was drafted to serve, a UBI that bypasses the destitute to deliver funds to those who need them least. And when those inefficiencies result, wealthy private interests will be there to monetize them, to remake the social service in their own mercenary image.

This is all a way of saying that the specifics of a universal basic income system cannot be left to the billionaire entrepreneurs and millionaire politicians—Republican and Democrat—whose destructive influence necessitated a UBI in the first place. The lower-class people who stand to benefit from a universal basic income should be the primary, if not sole, architects of the program. If charged with a task that rightfully belongs to the government, plutocrats will find a way to reroute power and money into their own hands, an outcome that cannot be abided considering the monumental constructive transformations that a UBI stands bring about. Billionaires and politicians already possess everything that a UBI would provide for their customers and constituents: exemplary healthcare, comfortable housing, an income many times greater than the cost of living. Since they’re primarily responsible for driving up those costs, they shouldn’t obstruct this rare opportunity for the rest of society to receive the basest compensation.

The great tragedy of the universal income debate is that the program could be implemented tomorrow and, despite all the possible complications outlined above, millions of lives would be radically, gloriously improved. If, for instance, 2018’s proposed $700 billion budget for military spending were distributed to the 45 million Americans living under the federal poverty line, each individual would receive an outlay of more than $15,500; for a low-income family of four, their annual income would nearly quadruple overnight. The positive effects of this influx cannot be quantified—such a windfall belongs foremost to the spirit—and it seems a national sickness that tax dollars are instead allocated on infinite war and imaginary walls. This is why the debate over universal basic income must be wrested away from the automators, the innovators, the bomb builders, and the billionaires. In the face of material poverty, they have delivered unto society the one thing we have in superabundance: Its fucking bullshit.

[frankmiller1]

The Evolving Language of Data Science 

…or Grokking the Bokeh of Scarse Meaning Increasement

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” — Dr. Inigo Montoya

I’m a technical writer at Indeed. One of the many great things about my job is that I get to work with smart people every day. A fair amount of that work involves translating between them. They will all be speaking English, but still might not understand each other. This is a natural consequence of how knowledge advances in general, and how English develops in particular. 

As disciplines evolve, alternate meanings and new words develop to match. That can extend to creating new phrases to name the disciplines themselves (for example, what is a data scientist?). English’s adoption of such new words and meanings has always been pragmatic. Other Western languages have more formal approval processes, such as French’s Académie française and German’s reliance on a single prestigious dictionary. The closest to formal authorities for correct English are popular dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary, the American Heritage Dictionary, and Merriam-Webster. None of them reign supreme.

This informal adoption of new words and meanings can lead to entire conversations in which people don’t realize they’re discussing different things. For example, consider another recently adopted word: “bokeh.” This started as a term in the dialect of professional photography, for the aesthetically pleasing blurred look that strong depth of field can give a picture. “Bokeh” is also the name for a specific python data visualization package. So “bokeh” may already be headed for a new meaning within the realm of data science.

As a further example of the fluid nature of English, “bokeh” comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ). In its original form it meant “intentional blurring,” as well as sometimes “mental haze,” i.e., confusion.

  Bokeh of flowers

Photo by Sergei Akulich on Unsplash

Data science bokeh

https://bokeh.pydata.org/ 

The clouded meaning of “data”

A data scientist told me that when she hears “the data” she tends to think of a large amount of information, a set large enough to be comprehensive. She was surprised to see another team’s presentation of  “the data” turn out to be a small table inside a spreadsheet that listed a few numbers. 

This term can also cause confusion between technical fields. Data scientists often interpret “data” as quantitative, while UX researchers interpret “data” as qualitative.

Exploring evolving language with Ngram Viewer

A product science colleague introduced me to the Google Books Ngram Viewer. It’s a search engine that shows how often a word or phrase occurs in the mass of print books Google has scanned. Google’s collection contains most books published in English from AD 1500 to 2008.

I entered some new words that I had come across, and screened out occurrences that weren’t relevant, such as place or person names and abbreviations. I also set the search to start from 1800. Medieval data science could be interesting, but I expect it to be “scarse.” (That’s not a typo.)

Features

When I first came across this newer meaning of “features,” I wasn’t even aware that it had changed. From previous work with software development and UX, I took “features” to mean “aspects of a product that a user will hopefully find useful.” But in data science, a “feature” relates to covariates in a model. In less technical English, a measurable property or characteristic of a phenomenon being observed. 

This dual meaning led me to a fair amount of head-scratching when I was documenting an internal data science application. The application had software features for defining and manipulating data features. 

The following graph indicates this emerging meaning for “feature” by tracking the emergence of a related phrase, “model feature.” 

Diving into Ngram’s specific citations, the earliest mention I can find that’s near this meaning is in 1954. Interestingly, it’s from a book on management science:

The next use that seems exact turns up in 1969, in the Digest Record from Association for Computing Machinery, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Leaving aside the intervening comma, the example is so dead-on that I wonder if we’re looking at near the exact moment this new meaning was fully born:

To grok

“Grok” is an example of English going so far as to steal words from languages that don’t even exist. Robert A. Heinlein coined the word in his 1961 science fiction classic Stranger in a Strange Land. In the novel, the Martian phrase “grok” literally means “drink” and metaphorically means “understanding something so completely that you and it are one.” 

Like many other aspects of science fiction and fantasy, computer programming culture absorbed the term. The Jargon File from 1983 shares an early defined example:

GROK (grahk) verb.   To understand, usually in a global sense especially, to understand all the implications and consequences of making a change. Example: “JONL is the only one who groks the MACLISP compiler.”

Since then, computer jargon has absorbed “grok” and applied it in many different ways. One immediate example is the source code and reference engine OpenGrok. It’s intended to let users “grok (profoundly understand) source code and is developed in the open.”

Salt

Salt is an example of a common word that has gone through two steps of technical change. First it gained a meaning relating to information security, and then an additional one in data science. 

As a verb and noun, “salt” originally meant what it sounds like – adding the substance chemically known as NaCl to food for flavoring and preservation. It gained what is perhaps its better-known technical meaning in information security. Adding “salt” to password hashing makes encrypted passwords more difficult to crack. In the word’s further and more recent permutations in data science, “salt” and “resalt” mean to partly randomize the results of an experiment by shuffling them. The following ngram graph tracks the association of “salt” and “resalt” over time. 

This was hard to parse out, and required diving deeply into Ngram’s options. I ended up graphing the different times “salt” modifies the words “food,” “password,” or “data.” Google stopped scanning in new books in 2008 – you can see the barest beginning of this new usage in 2007.

Pickling

Traditionally “pickling” refers to another way to treat food, this one almost entirely for preservation. In Python, this refers to the object serialization method made possible by the Pickle module. Data scientists have found increasing use for this term, in ways too recent to find on Ngram.

The bleeding edge of language?

Here are some words that may just be in the sprouting stage of wider usage.

Scarse

This came from an accidental jumble of words in a meeting, and has remained in use since. It describes situations where data is both scarce (there’s not a lot of it) and sparse (even when there is some, it’s pretty thin). 

This meaning for “scarse” doesn’t appear in the Ngram graph. So it appears we’re seeing mutation and evolution in word form in the wild. Will it take root and prosper, continuing to evolve? Only time will tell.

Increasement

“We should look for the source of that error message increasement.”

I’ve observed this word once in the wild–from me. “Increasement” came to me in a meeting, as a word for the amount of an increase over time. I had never used the word before. It just seemed like a word that could exist. It had meaning similar to other words, and fit those other words’ rules of word construction.

In the context I used, its meaning isn’t exactly the same as “increment.” Increment refers to a specific numeric increase. One wouldn’t refer, for example, to an increasing amount of users as an increment. You might, however, refer to it as an increasement.

Searching for increasement revealed that this word previously existed but fell out of common usage, as shown on the following graph.

Previous examples:

The Fathers of the English Church

Paul was, that he should return again to these Philippians, and abide, and continue amongst them, and that to their profit; both to the increasement of their faith

The Harleian miscellany; or, A collection of … pamphlets and tracts … in the late earl of Oxford’s library

….when she saw the man grown settled and staid, gave him an assistance, and advanced him to the treasurership, where he made amends to his house, for his mis-spent time, both in the increasement of his estate and honour…

Perhaps it’s time for “increasement” to be rebooted into common use?

Bottom line

Language is likely to continue evolving as long as we use language. Words in general, and English words in particular, and words in English technical dialects above all, are in a constant state of flux. Just like the many fields of knowledge they discuss.

So if you’re in a technical discussion and others’ responses aren’t quite what you expect, consider re-examining the technical phrases you’re using. 

The people you’re talking with might grok those words quite differently.

 

from Engineering https://engineering.indeedblog.com/blog/2019/08/the-evolving-language-of-data-science/