Category: Uncategorized

Capitalism & Power

The more I think about capitalism, the weirder it feels.
I’m not talking necessarily about some market elements for how we get things. A lot of capitalism works better than other systems that have been tried, blah blah blah.
But re: income inequality, the more I think about how money translates to power, the worse it all gets.
Why do we have people like the Mercers – billionaires backing Trump, or the Koch brothers & Sheldon Adelson, who’ve fueled the GOP for ages? What right do they have to have this *wildly* disproportionate impact on our country & our government & our rights? This is so far removed from any rational definition of a democracy that it’s absurd, and what’s it come down to? Money.
I read about folks like Jennifer Lopez giving a million bucks to the relief efforts in Puerto Rico, and I think, “That’s awfully nice of her, but why does she have the *ability* to give a million bucks to PR, and why should anyone have the power to make a call with that much impact arbitrarily?”
It’s not just the folks I don’t like who are doing things I don’t like. It’s folks that I do like, doing things I do like. Why should so much power rest in the hands of folks like Mark Zuckerberg, or David Benioff? They aren’t humanitarian experts. They aren’t policy folks, or community experts. I’m glad they’ve done some of the things they’ve done, but it’s *insane* to me that we’ve given them the power, effectively, of *millions of people* and concentrated it in the hands of just a few folks.
I keep going back to the idea someone said of, there should just be no way for any person to have more than $X. Where X was floated at 100 million, but I’d suggest could *easily* be lowered to $10 million with almost no practical impact on capitalism other than we cut off the top top top end of concentrated wealth/power *without* disincentivizing say, the materialism that drives folks to amass more and more.
What happens beyond $10M? I dunno. Maybe it’s just taxed at 100%, and it’s all funneled into education or infrastructure. I’m sure there are folks that have better plans and models that show how these things could work.
But what is the *point* of someone having more than $10M? It’s practically-speaking more than most people can spend in their entire lifetimes, and it guarantees a level of indefinite financial security. Particularly if we get to some sort of universal healthcare. And it’s even a fairly absurd number, right? It protects the fantasy that people have that one day they might hit it big, but reins in things that are fundamentally absurd. Can you say, realistically, that boy, cutting me off beyond $10M really negatively impacts my…? Anything? Ability to buy a private island? Great. You shouldn’t be able to have a private island or private beachfront property. Fuck off if you think you should own that shit.
But yeah. I dunno. It’s just weird. Celebs donating giant piles of money to causes – that power shouldn’t rest in the hands of individuals. Jackasses funding bigotry and hate? Why should your ability to say, run a hedge fund let you basically control abortion rights? It’s nuts.

Antimeta

I wanna make a game that is fundamentally un-meta-able, that can’t be spoiled by streaming, that has no balance or competitive value, and yet is still fun and interesting to both play and watch.
Basically, I hate what “competitive gaming” in a world where everyone has instant access to maximum information has done to game, and what streaming has essentially done to make single-player narrative games … more or less valueless. Sure, I get that the arguments about Twitch expanding the base, etc. whatever – I’m just saying *personally* I want to make a game you can’t ruin either through streaming or competition, or specifically, if you can make these things *better* by doing so.
Where competition & metagame adherence evolves the metagame in unpredictable ways – so the more you find someone “meta-ing” if part of the core-game system changes the overall balance or goals, or what have you, and where if a player is streaming, that streaming itself changes the narrative in a way that maximizes entertainment value *for streaming* the way that stuff like the newest Tomb Raider did, but in a more extreme way.

Not Without Incident

I don’t know why it was the Harvey Weinstein thing that finally tipped the scales for me, but I figured maybe it’s worth writing about, because hey, it’s something worth talking about.
There was a point where I thought, “Christ, are all men in power just fucking awful?”
Whether it’s Weinstein, or Cosby, or Louis CK (dammit), or half the staff (probably more) at Fox News, or 45, or blah blah blah – let’s face it, at some point it’s going to be nearly *every single man in power* before the scales finally tipped and harassment finally became not ok – it seems like no man who wields a significant amount of power is safe from accusation. And not because “money-hungry accusers” are coming forward, but because when given unlimited power to use people, powerful people *use people*.
Whether it’s Terry Crews (!!!) or any number of the thousands upon thousands of women whose accusations get ignored, or shoved under the table, or publicly mocked and humiliated, there’s some moment where the accusations start to gain momentum, where it’s *obvious* they’re true (listen to the Weinstein audio tapes), and that it’s clearly just an extension of unchecked power, where you’re faced with the reality that if these accusations are true, it extends to almost *everyone*, and the realization isn’t that the accusations must not be all true but that instead they almost all ARE true and the reality is that this kind of abuse and harassment are everywhere, *particularly* among the rich and powerful and then two conclusions become clear:
1.) It makes a LOT more sense why 45 is President
2.) Just like BLM & systemic racism, there’s a fucking huge-ass culture problem that’s about to start turning over (finally) because it’s becoming *inescapable*. You’re either going to have to start believing the accusers and accepting that there’s a massive, pervasive, systemic abuse of power, or you’re a willfully oblivious *asshole*.
In general, I’ve believed women who have come forward with accusations of abuse. But I don’t believe them all, because so often the narrative of “powerful person is target of false allegations for $$$” makes *sense*. But I think it’s high time what we say makes *more sense* is “rich and powerful person thinks they can get away with whatever the fuck they want without consequence.” Because at some point, without that shift in narrative, everything’s really starting to get absurd.

Blade Runner 2049

Interesting. Seeing some stuff about how Blade Runner 2049 is misogynist, for a whole variety of reasons. (Spoilers ahead – if you haven’t seen the movie, if you liked the original BR, you should.)
And I’m not gonna say if it is or isn’t, because I can’t say with any authority whether it is or isn’t. But what I do think is that a.) it’s a logical extrapolation of an existing universe which was a story about whether androids that were primarily used as heavy labor & sex-bots were human, and b.) the characters aren’t all saints, and it’s never implied that they are.
I mean, K is a Blade Runner. Which means fundamentally, if you agree with the core themes of the original movie, means he’s a murderer. Of course, there are other elements, like the fact that he can’t say no. So is his relationship with Joi meant to be aspirational? I certainly didn’t think so. I thought it was meant to show how sad his existence was, but then also evolve into an echo of the “more human than human” theme. Is their relationship a facade? We certainly get clues that it is an illusion (the giant holo ad referring to “Joe”, for instance) and not something real – but at the same time, it certainly feels like a real emotional connection, and we feel real emotion over Joi’s fate.
Then there’s the whole thing with Luv, and whether showing K strangling her was “over the line” or not. Maybe? Certainly it’s questionable to show this kind of violence against women in our current society. My interpretation of it in the moment was that she was *relentless* and how *hard* it was to kill her, but it was definitely a kill-or-be-killed situation, and the slowness of it was meant to be counterbalanced by whether Deckard was also drowning or not. Misogynist? I dunno. Kind of depends on the context one brings to it? Maybe? Also felt like part of the point was that Joi, who was *less* human, was more human than the human-ish Luv.
Maybe I’m missing things (I genuinely believe I’m blind to some). But yes, women were objectified. To me that was a direct extension of the 1st film. Then you’ve got Robin Wright’s character, who’s framed somewhat villainously, but at the same time, from what perspective? From the perspective that Replicants are humans. Which is not what she believes – and from her vantage point, her job is to protect humanity (more narrowly defined), and she does that vigilantly. Is her character misogynist? I dunno – I didn’t think so. I thought she was the hero in her mind, in a situation where the morality is really ambiguous, even if the perspective of the movie frames her in a particular light.
Curious what others’ perceptions are.

Nerds

You know, I don’t think there’s a group of people I dislike more than modern “nerds”. The kinds of folks who stage giant asshole riots over a cartoon-related dipping sauce. The kinds who build out rampant misogynist movements and target women game developers.
What happened? The nerds finally came into power, and it turns out that they’re complete fucking assholes.
Someone said the other day that the nerds turned out to be scumbags and the jocks are fighting for social justice. It’s fucking weird, but whatever.
For a very brief moment, it was cool to be a nerd, and it felt like things would be better.
Now, I want as little to do with this toxic, entitled mass of raging assholes with no sense of perspective as possible.
I almost can’t believe it. But then I read about the Rick & Morty/McDonalds thing, and it was really clear. Fuck this shit.

Suicide, Guns, Transience

One thing I used to think, long ago, was that suicidal people were constantly suicidal. Or that people who murdered would always be on the knife-edge of murdering someone.
One of the biggest reasons I want it to be really hard to get a gun is that over the years, it’s become really clear that my conception of suicidal/murderous people was wrong.
I think it’s significantly *more correct* to say that these things are highly context-dependent. A suicidal person may be contemplating ending their life for a long time. Let’s call that a low-energy state. But the moment where they *do* it is a point where their thoughts cross a threshold where it’s worth whatever difficulty to do the job. A high-energy state. Same, perhaps, with murder.
The problem with a gun is it makes these things so trivial, it lowers the amount of “energy” required to a point where basically anyone can cross that line at any time.
An argument can cross that line in the heat of the moment, even if at *no other point in their life* they’ve crossed that line, and instantaneously, you’ve got a dead person and a ruined life. And it’s *wildly* harder to cross the line if the tool is a knife, or a bat, or your fists, because the amount of energy required to actually do the deed is *so* much higher. Same goes with murder. Particularly mass-murder.
I want gun control because I want that line to be harder to cross. I acknowledge that it’ll be an extraordinarily unlikely event to be able to make that line uncrossable. And I still think it’d be massively valuable to make it *as hard as possible* to cross.

‘merica

Welp. America continues to be America.
And by that, you know, I don’t feel anything really about the Vegas shooting. It’s what we brought on ourselves. The logical conclusions of the policies we implement. Give guns to everyone, and some nutcases who want to murder a bunch of people will have trivial access to guns.
Oh, but if you make guns illegal, only criminals will have guns! I know someone’s gonna say it, because someone says it every time. Two points. One, Australia did it, and we have data that this is not the case. America isn’t so different. Two, yes, you make stupid things illegal. Sometimes criminals then circumvent that. That happens when we make stuff illegal. But the reason we do it is that we establish the kind of country we want to be. So if you’re unwilling to take even the most basic step towards saving *literally thousands* of lives every year, pardon me if I don’t give a shit about your supposed moralizing. You have nothing to stand on.
But yeah – do I feel outrage? No. Why would I? This is exactly what we’re constantly asking for. Do I feel anger? Of course – but I felt that years ago when folks did nothing after fucking *Sandy Hook*. So the anger’s just a dull disappointment that America has to constantly remind me that it’s worse than I hope, and more gutless than I expected.
The thing I keep wondering is, “What if?” What if my kids are one day murdered by some idiot with a gun? I *choose* to live here. In this country, where psychopaths and idiots can arm themselves to the teeth. If one of my kids is gunned down, I *have* to hold some responsibility for that.
And how is that going to feel? Will I be able to live with myself?

Kid Book

I want a kids’ book about a kid with a pet ankylosaurus. They can ride it around, it sits outside their school and waits for them (though it keeps eating the plants, which infuriates the groundskeeper). It’s a given the entire time that this is the only kid who’s ever had a dinosaur pet. On the last page, they’re trundling down the street, and over the crest of the road, they meet another kid riding a T-Rex.

Short Story

Short story about a teen whose parents are significantly older than his peers. They’re quirky and sometimes very distant, with a melancholy that pervades everything they do. But the one thing he always knows is they love him very much. Late in the story, his parents tell him he is a clone of their first son, and today he is as old as their first son was when he died.

Drums & Learning

After many years of small upgrades here and there, the ION drum kit I’d originally gotten for Rock Band is about where I want it to be. First, the bass drum pedal got replaced with a pedal with an actual beater, that was wired up with a little switch for RB. I think Ei-Nyung got that for me as a gift.
Second, I picked up the third cymbal “expansion” for the set.
A few years later, I picked up a Roland V-Drum snare off of Craigslist. I remember driving out to some trailer park in the South Bay, but it was worth it. Got a full-sized mesh snare for something like $100.
That was great, until RB finally kind of “fell off”, and I decided I wanted to maybe try learning how to play the drums, instead of just playing souped-up Rock Band. So I picked up a cheap Roland TB-3 “drum brain” off of eBay for $45, I think. Was way cheaper than it might have been otherwise.
The things that became obvious from having something that made actual drum sounds was that the hi-hat was the “least normal” part of this. I’d been using the original RB bass drum pedal as the hi-hat trigger, and it was both really loud (the pedal made a ton of noise) and it was a binary switch, instead of a gradient, so you couldn’t have the hi-hat half open. So that got swapped out with a Roland hi-hat trigger on eBay. Maybe another $45, I think.
Then I picked up a new hi-hat, because the single-zone cymbal that came with the ION kit was a.) fairly loud when you hit it, and b.) didn’t sound right anymore, because it was clear it wasn’t doing what a real hi-hat would have. So off to eBay again for a used CY-5, which cost about $40. It was good, though, because the ION cymbal got used as a 2nd crash, since the drum brain had a spare input that I wasn’t using. 😃
Last, I picked up a kick drum pad. I’d been using the bass drum pedal to hit the pad that the snare replaced, which was just sitting on the ground. It didn’t “bounce” the way a normal bass drum would have, and periodically it’d just “wander off” while playing. So that got replaced with something proper. HUGE upgrade in how things feel.
So now, save *maybe* a CY-8 to replace the single-zone ride cymbal, I’m done! At least I’ve got a kit that is definitely not skill-limited, and won’t be for the foreseeable future, and probably will never be a limiting factor for me. Maybe the kids if they get into it, ever, but that’s a long way off.
The ION tom pads are kind of … dull, when you hit them, but that’s fine. I looked around, just on a lark, and even getting up to kits that are in the $$$$$$$ range, the only thing I’d really want is a hi-hat trigger that has more of a real action – with a pedal, stand, and both “sides” of the hi-hat, rather than just simulating it. But I certainly don’t need it, and couldn’t justify the expense.
So yeah – for less than half the cost of what I think of as a competitive kit (plus a bunch of searching on the internet), I think I’m done! Scratched the upgrade itch. 🙂
—
I also took another lesson with Wes Carroll, and man – again – if you ever want to learn … something. Basically anything he’s willing to teach you, you should talk to him. Every single time I’ve had a lesson with him, the process has gone something like this.
Wes: Do this thing. It’ll be difficult.
Me: *tries to do it*, but can’t.
The thing is, at this point, the thing he’s asking me to do is easy to understand, but *impossible* to execute. I get cognitively overloaded to the point where I literally can’t think, or talk, or whatever. Trying to keep track of where to skip a beat, or what have you – I just can’t do it, at all.
Wes: Okay, now let’s try this adjustment.
Me: *tries to do it*, sort of starts to approach something, but much less static-brain than before.
Wes: Okay, now let’s try this adjustment.
Me: *tries to do it*, and can do it. After a minute or two, can do it *automatically*, in a way that seemed incomprehensible five minutes ago. But not only that, by walking through the adjustments he was making, which weren’t to the *task*, but were to *how to think about the task*, I’ve now got a new tool I can try to apply to all manner of similar things.
—
I can’t tell you how mindbending it is – I think you’ve gotta experience it. But it’s really … cool. If I’d been learning like this since I was younger – if I’d had a teacher that could help me understand the mental hangups I was running into this well, I honestly believe that this would be the difference between “powering through” learning, and hating it, and *loving to learn*.
So yeah – if you’ve got a kid who needs math tutoring & test prep, or anything you can find here: http://www.wescarroll.com I’d HUGELY recommend you give him a shot.
And look – I know not everyone’s into drums. But I think honestly, it’d be worth calling him up & doing a drum lesson *JUST* to have the experience of going through this process, whether you want to learn drums specifically or not.