Confirmation Bias

Okay, having gotten that pathetic rant off my chest, it's time for me to post something a little more serious.  If you're not particularly interested in Harry Potter, please bear with me; I have a larger point to make.

     As I noted in my previous post, Pottermore's sorting algorithm sorted me into Ravenclaw, choosing that House for me over the other three Houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin.  These are the four Hogwarts Houses in the Harry Potter series.  The story goes that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was founded by four people, each with very different perspectives on what traits are most desirable in students.  Godric Gryffindor thought that courage, chivalry and loyalty were most important.  Helga Hufflepuff also valued loyalty, along with tenacity and hard work.  Rowena Ravenclaw preferred students with great intelligence, creativity, and wit.  Finally, Salazar Slytherin expected ambition, cunning, and resourcefulness.
     I have always self-identified as a Ravenclaw - those are the traits I value most in myself - and so I was very pleased when Pottermore placed me in that House.
     Why?
     Well, I suppose I was pleased because I felt that Pottermore - coming to me from the august hand of J.K. Rowling - was somehow confirming my identity.  Looking back on it a few months later, of course that's silly.  The sorting algorithm selected one out of four choices, based on my answers to seven multiple-choice questions (some of which were apparently meaningless).  None of the questions actually tested my intelligence, creativity, or wit - they were all usual personality-quiz stuff.
     So what if Pottermore had sorted me into, say, Gryffindor?
     Well, of course it would be flat-out wrong.  I have absolutely no semblance of courage whatsoever.  I would be completely stunned.  When I recovered from the initial shock, I would tell myself that the computer algorithm was badly written by programmers from "TH_NK" who either had never read the Harry Potter books, or had absolutely no idea how to create a personality quiz, and its answer had nothing to do with me.  The next stage would be to spout long, angry rants to my friends about how ridiculous the sorting quiz was.  I might try to bargain with myself, wondering if perhaps I had somehow answered a question incorrectly.  Eventually I would probably fall into despair: "Maybe it's right, maybe I'm not really intelligent or creative after all…"  I might wish I could create a new account and go through the sorting again, but of course it's still in Beta, and there's no way anyone can create a new account for months, leading to the fifth and final stage: acceptance.
     Of course, I was sorted into Ravenclaw, and so I wrote in a gleeful blog post that I was "glad J.K. Rowling agrees."
     The personality quiz told me nothing meaningful.  I joke about the so-called "five stages of grief," but really I know better than to take Pottermore that seriously.  I have always seen myself as a Ravenclaw kind of person, and no online questionnaire could ever change that.
     I admit to being proud of my mental abilities, such as they are.  Trouble is, I'm not proud of being proud.  Really I've always admired Hufflepuffs.  It's a shame that Hufflepuff is so maligned - most Harry Potter fans see it as the fourth House, which gets the leftover students that aren't brave enough for Gryffindor, or smart enough for Ravenclaw, or ambitious enough for Slytherin.  Not so: Hufflepuff, at least to me, represents all the nicest qualities a person can have.  All the other Houses are, as a whole, stuck-up and self-involved.
     Recently I was surprised when this subject came up in conversation and a friend said that I'm a "Ravenpuff" - part Ravenclaw, part Hufflepuff.  If you're not a Harry Potter fan, I hope I've conveyed the meaning of that well enough that you won't think I'm completely insane when I say that that is probably one of the nicest things that anyone has ever said to me.

     …but this post is not about my ego.  Time to broaden the subject: Who am I?  Or better yet, who are you?  (I said I had a larger point to make.)
     When you were in school (or if you are in school now - well, not right now, but you get the point), were you seen as a geek or a jock?  Popular or a loner?  Regardless of who we are, we are all deeply affected by the boxes that other people put us in.  On some level, we all put ourselves in these boxes as well.  I have placed myself in the Ravenclaw box and the corresponding "nerd" box.  The ironic thing is that, when I think about it, I've always been quite popular, but I've never felt popular.
     There is more to your identity than the actual inherent traits that make up your mind and body.  Your identity is shaped by society, by the people around you, by the situations you encounter and the decisions you make.  "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."  And not choices on a silly personality quiz.
     Of course, like everything else in life, one must account for perspective.  I was thrilled to be called a Ravenpuff (silly as it might sound), but I have friends who self-identify as Slytherins and are quite happy as such.  Some people who think of themselves as nerds are ashamed of that status, while others are proud of it.  That's part of their identity, too.
     So, again, who are you?  Well, let's start with what I know.  You have access to an Internet connection and an Internet-enabled device.  You can read English, or you're using some kind of translator.  Judging by my blog's statistics, there is a very good chance that you are one of my personal friends or relatives.  If not, hello, and I hope you're not too bored.  I tend to ramble.  Blah blah blah blah blah…
     What was I saying?  Oh yes: Who are you?  Well, a biologist would say you are a collection of cells and chemical processes running elaborate programs set in your DNA.  A theologian would say that you are a miracle, a lump of clay into which God has breathed the breath of life.  A philosopher would say that you think, therefore you are (but isn't likely to get any less vague than that).  A politician would say that your vote counts.  Your doctor would call you a patient, your favorite musician would call you a fan, your mother will call you things you pray the world will never hear, and telemarketers will call you just as you sit down to dinner.
     Of course, all of that says a lot more about them than it does about you.  So what's my point?  I don't know.  I guess a person's identity is a pretty complicated thing.  That's why so many people have spent so much time thinking about it.
     And me?  What do I call you?  I call you one of my very few readers, and I thank you.

     When I write some of these more-philosophical blog posts, I feel like I'm asking questions that I don't know the answer to, and then trying to answer them anyway.  I write things that sound like opinions, but really I'm trying to form an opinion as I go.  When I write about myself, I sometimes feel like I'm playing a part, because I'm never sure exactly what to say.  I re-read my previous post, and I think it doesn't sound like me - well, I was in a different mood, a different situation…
     And there it is, there's my point.  I don't know who I am.  I don't know what I want to be.  I am a completely different person now than I was ten years ago, and I have no idea what the next ten years may bring.

Inside Pottermore

I am a Pottermore Beta tester.

For those of you who don't know, Pottermore is an online, interactive "reading experience" from J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series.  For the time being, access is limited to one million devoted fans who completed the "Magical Quill Challenge" to earn early access as Beta testers.  The Beta period was just extended again, meaning the general public will have to wait a while longer before they can sign up.  Once the site does begin open registration, new users will be admitted gradually; according to the official Pottermore blog, some may have to wait weeks or even months after registration before their accounts are activated.

So, as a public service, and to tide you over until the purple gates open for you at last, I shall attempt to describe Pottermore.  It's no easy task - for something based on books, words are surprisingly ineffective at defining it.  Well, here goes:

Pottermore is a new way to experience the world of Harry Potter, an experience that is completely unprecedented in books, films, games, or anything else.  The centerpiece is a series of immersive artworks, several for each chapter of each of the seven Harry Potter books.  Each of these pages captures a specific "moment" in Harry's story.  Each moment has three layers of depth, allowing the user to zoom in and out, interact with the scenes, and collect various objects: spellbooks, chocolate frog cards, Galleons to spend on potion ingredients, etc.  We as readers are now dropped into Harry's world and join his adventure - as he goes shopping in Diagon Alley, so do we; as he becomes a Hogwarts student, so do we; as he catches his first Snitch, so do we.  Before we can confront the Dark Lord, we must solve Snape's logic puzzle - the same puzzle that Hermione had to solve in the first book.

Scattered along the way are bits and pieces that make Pottermore really exciting for devoted fans - nuggets of pure gold straight from J.K. Rowling herself, thousands of words of exclusive background material about various elements of Harry Potter's world, secrets being divulged for the first time.  Rowling has personally written pages and pages of notes about everything from Professor Quirrell's childhood to the specific properties of each wand wood, which are revealed as you move through the story.

While exploring the first book, users go through two personality quizzes.  The first determines what wand chooses you at Ollivander's shop; the second sorts you into one of the four Hogwarts Houses.  Once you have been sorted, you can earn House Points by duelling other students (users) and making potions (each of which takes well over an hour to brew).  Then the next level of the experience comes into play - social networking.  Each House has its own Common Room (read: chatroom), with nonstop conversation among you and your Housemates, several posts every minute, 24/7.  It's startling how much is posted just by Beta testers - I can hardly imagine how active the Common Rooms will be once the site is open to everyone.

The battle for the House Cup is very competitive, especially between the two frontrunners, Ravenclaw and Slytherin.  The two have remained disturbingly close in House Points, taking turns in the lead.  I am proud to be a Ravenclaw; my friends are mostly Slytherins.  I check the Great Hall several times every day, and make sure to let them know whenever Ravenclaw is ahead; likewise, they take care to rub it in my face every time Slytherin takes the lead.  Statistically speaking, it's incredible how close the two remain considering the magnitude of points each has.  In the first book, Gryffindor wins the House Cup with 482 points; all four Pottermore Houses currently have more than 70,000 House Points each.

In the interest of objectivity, I will note that the website designers are still working out some kinks - the potions system is rather unwieldy, the dueling system has been down for maintenance since August, the comment system is buggy, and the servers keep getting overloaded…but, gradually, things are falling into place.  The site is constantly being improved - after all, that's what we Beta testers are for.

A proud Ravenclaw - always have been, always will be.  Glad J.K. Rowling agrees.

I am not associated with Pottermore or any of its affiliates, beyond having a Pottermore account.

Seen but Not Heard

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights  - United States Declaration of Independence

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.  - U.S. Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment

Have you ever heard of Claudette Colvin?  How about Barbara Johns?  No?
     Let's try again.  Have you ever heard of Rosa Parks?  How about Brown v. Board of Education?  You have?  Of course you have.
     So I'll tell you the story of Claudette Colvin.  She was born in Montgomery, Alabama.  In 1955, she was 15 years old.  It was in that year that she defied segregation laws by refusing to give up her bus seat for a white passenger.  She was arrested; civil rights leaders did nothing.
     Rosa Parks was in fact following Colvin's example when she did the same thing, in the same town, nine months later; Parks then led a boycott of the Montgomery bus system.  Meanwhile, Colvin became one of four plaintiffs in a lawsuit, Browder v. Gayle.  One of the attorneys later stated that Claudette Colvin was the "star witness" in the case, which found the bus segregation unconstitutional and put it to an end.

     Now let's rewind a few years, to 1951, and I'll tell you about the first dramatic step forward in the civil rights movement.  Barbara Johns, 16 years old, was a student in an underfunded, unintegrated "black" high school, and she was having none of it.  Johns, along with a few courageous followers, took over the school and physically removed the administrators and teachers from the premises.  The students organized a strike, and convinced the NAACP to file a lawsuit to end school segregation, which became Brown v. Board of Education.

     You've heard of Paul Revere and his "midnight ride," but have you heard of Sybil Ludington, whose midnight ride was more than twice as long, and took place in pouring rain…when Ludington was 16 years old?
     You've heard of the Braille writing system for the blind, but did you know that its inventor, Louis Braille, was 15 years old when he created the system?  Braille was at the time attending a school for the blind, and the administrators immediately banned the Braille writing system - but, even under threat of severe punishment, Braille continued to spread knowledge of his system.

     There is a pattern here: young people can and do make meaningful contributions to society, but their work is often overlooked or even suppressed, just because of their age.  Young people have no voice: a sixteen-year-old cannot vote, hold public office, sign a contract, or even refuse dangerous medical procedures.  In many places across America, a sixteen-year-old cannot so much as leave their house at night.  A thirteen-year-old cannot drive or have a job.  Even a twenty-year-old, old enough to be required to register for the ongoing draft program, still cannot walk into a bar, and would be criminally charged for ordering a glass of wine.
     Those injustices not mandated by law are often perpetrated by schools.  In most public schools, a student can be punished for just about any exercise of free speech you care to name.  The "offenses" can be as obvious as peaceful protests or using certain words, or as insignificant as wearing a baseball cap to school.  A girl in Pennsylvania was suspended for refusing to take off a bracelet supporting breast cancer awareness.  A boy in Texas was suspended from preschool for growing out his hair, in order to donate it to cancer victims.  The same problem was faced by a high school student, a registered donor to Locks of Love, who was forced to cut his hair in order to return to school.
     Unless their parents have the time and resources to homeschool their children, or the money to afford better private schools, every young person in America is required by law to attend these public schools and be subject to these injustices.  Even if we put aside the 1st Amendment issues for the time being, we all know that public schools across the country are failing to fulfill their alleged purpose anyway.  Falling SAT scores and increased dropouts tell us that compulsory education is a failure.  As one rather intelligent person said:

It is...nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreak and ruin. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.  - Albert Einstein

Young people everywhere know this, but nobody listens, because youth have no voice.
     This governmental discrimination is just one facet of a much broader problem: pervasive societal bigotry.  Yes, I said bigotry.  And its name is ageism.
     Ageism is embedded in almost every aspect of society.  Children are alternately treated as nuisances or property.  Teenagers are subject to an assortment of cruel stereotypes.  Perhaps worst of all, young people are expected to live in their own world, their own "youth culture," not entering the "real world" until after they graduate from college.  That way, adults can go about their lives without being disturbed by the one demographic against which they are still allowed to hold prejudice.  That way, children can be seen but not heard.  And this, dear readers, is segregation.

     Young people do not lack a voice because they are incapable of speaking.  They lack a voice because their tongues have been cut out.

     But now young people have found their voice…and its name is the National Youth Rights Association. With over 10,000 members of all ages, NYRA is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to fighting ageism and advocating for the civil and human rights of young people.
     NYRA campaigns to lower the voting age, lower the drinking age, repeal curfew laws, close abusive 'behavior modification facilities,' protect free speech and students' rights, and dispel the myths behind age discrimination with history and science.  One of NYRA's priorities is "empowering young people to participate in the democratic process and self-determination."
     I could rant for pages and pages about how important this cause is, but you don't have to take my word for it.  Here's what psychologist Richard Farson has to say about NYRA:

Most of us tend to view childhood as a time of carefree pleasure. Those of us who have looked at the real condition of children in America, however, see a very different picture--one in which children are victims of terrible discrimination, prejudice, and abuse. They need protection. But the protection they need most is to have the protection of civil rights, so that they can be regarded as full persons under the law. The organization leading that effort, with research, discussion and effective action, is the National Youth Rights Association. Supporting it supports children and youth in the most important way possible.

So what can you do to support youth rights?  Well, to start with, join the movement!  Make a $10 donation and become a member of NYRA.
     The organization, though already effective, could do a lot more - gathering much greater national attention - with more funding.  If you can afford to make a financial contribution, please remember that every donation counts.
     Even better than donations of money are donations of your time.  Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper - or a politician.  Find the nearest NYRA chapter, and, if there isn't one nearby, start your own.
     All that is great, but the #1 best thing you can do for the youth rights movement is to spread the word.  Tell everyone you know.  E-mail them a link to this blog post, if you like.  Send them this URL, too: http://www.youthrights.org/
     Well, I think I've said enough for now, so I'll close with one last quote, and a song.

If 16-year-olds are old enough to drink the water polluted by the industries that you regulate, if 16-year-olds are old enough to breathe the air ruined by garbage burners that government built, if 16-year-olds are old enough to walk on the streets made unsafe by terrible drugs and crime policies, if 16-year-olds are old enough to live in poverty in the richest country in the world, if 16-year-olds are old enough to get sick in a country with the worst public health-care programs in the world, and if 16-year-olds are old enough to attend school districts that you underfund, than 16-year-olds are old enough to play a part in making them better.  - Rebeca Tilsen, 14 years old, given as testimony to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1991

 Note: This blog is not endorsed by the National Youth Rights Association. Opinions expressed here are solely those of the author.

A Special Day

     Sunday, May 22, two weeks from today, has been proclaimed the United Nations' International Day for Biological Diversity.  According to a report published several years ago by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Earth is currently experiencing a biodiversity crisis that has already become the worst mass extinction event since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago.  Many factors have been cited as contributing to this ongoing disaster - poaching, overfishing, habitat destruction, and so on - but one key factor always towers over the rest in the public view.  That factor is pollution.
     The attention that pollution gets is mainly because of global warming, which is caused by the greenhouse effect, which is triggered by pollution of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.  These gases build up in the atmosphere over a long period of time.  There are, however, other kinds of pollution, some very fast-acting and lethal.  Specifically, a kind of fast-acting poison that humans routinely dump into animals' homes.  I refer to pesticides.
     All pesticides are created for the sole purpose of killing things.  They are poured onto farmland; then, when the crops are watered, the pesticide residues run off with the water into little channels, which run into streams, which run into rivers (or storm drains), which run downstream to the ocean…and, at every step along the way, these lethal toxins kill whatever they pass, both in the water and out of it.
     These pesticides have all kinds of unintended (though not really unexpected) effects on all kinds of wildlife, bringing many species to the brink of extinction, and wiping some out completely.  This has got to stop.

     Some of the most dangerous pesticides in existence are aldrin, dieldrin, and endrin, three related insecticides that cause serious nervous system failure in animals including humans, with young children the most vulnerable group.  Rachel Carson described the dangers of these and other chemicals in her 1962 book Silent Spring, often credited for singlehandedly starting the environmentalist movement.  Many pesticides were banned over the following decades, thanks to Carson's efforts.
     Silent Spring opens with "A Fable For Tomorrow," which describes a hypothetical town in the countryside, surrounded with stunning natural beauty.  Carson paints a portrait of serene animal and plant life, the people living every day with the enchanting sights and sounds of nature.
     Then along comes a certain "white granular powder"…and suddenly, the scene dissolves.  The livestock die, the birdsong disappears, the wildlife is devastated by this deadly pesticide.  The fable ends with these chilling words: "No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world.  The people had done it themselves."


     Easily the most infamous pesticide of all is DDT, which builds up in the fat tissues of fish.  When a bigger fish eats two smaller fish, the bigger fish picks up the DDT collections from both of them.  Thus a tiny amount of DDT drifting down to the ocean can become a significant concentration as it travels up the food chain.
     The top of the ocean food chain is the birds that eat the big fish.  Ocean-feeding birds would collect a relatively large amount of DDT.  This means birds such as the brown pelican (pictured), the peregrine falcon, and the bald eagle.
     Some people say that the only thing someone can do to you that is worse than killing you is to kill your children.  Well, DDT doesn't usually kill the birds that pick it up.  Rather, it makes their eggshells so weak that, before being ready to hatch, the eggs actually collapse under their own weight, destroying the unborn bird inside.  This tragic disorder decimated the brown pelican population, and wiped out peregrine falcons on the east coast…and, if you live in America, you probably know just how common it is to see our national bird, the bald eagle, flying around…


     Fortunately, all of the pesticides I have named so far are now banned in much of the world.  Unfortunately, there will always be other, newer pesticides, that can do further damage to wildlife.  There is currently a controversy revolving around the herbicide atrazine, which has been banned in the European Union - which includes the country (Switzerland) in which its manufacturer is based.  It is, however, still widely used in America…hence the controversy.
     Seriously harmful effects of atrazine have been recorded in frogs at an atrazine level equal to approximately one-thirtieth of the concentration that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allows in drinking water.  With that tiny amount of atrazine, male frogs have suffered "severe sexual deformities," and that is all I'm going to say about that.  The point is that, if you live in America, you could be drinking thirty times that concentration every day, and the government would do nothing about it…so, to make you feel even better, I'm going to add that employees at the atrazine manufacturer have shown an elevated level of certain cancers.  Just saying.


     So, the pesticides have to go.  The thing is, the chemical manufacturers have a lucrative business going, producing these toxins, and the farmers have a better profit margin, too, when they use pesticides. Both of those industries have an abundance of lobbyists.
     Some companies think that they can produce better pesticides, with fewer harmful effects.  Some people say that it doesn't matter, anyway: we shouldn't be worrying about these animals in the first place.
     First of all, there are plenty of organic farmers who are doing perfectly good business without using pesticides.  As far as the pesticide companies are concerned, I'm sure they could find work in a much healthier field of chemical production - medication, perhaps.  They simply cannot be allowed to continue disintegrating our world.
     As far as 'safe' pesticides are concerned, I contend that there is no such thing.  A chemical produced for the sole purpose of killing cannot possibly be a safe thing to have running into our water.  Finally, if you think we shouldn't protect animals because we're superior to them, consider this: the world's ecosystem is a delicate balance, and a tangled web.  When one species goes extinct, it has an effect on everything else that lives in the area.  This can turn into a chain reaction that would result in the loss of financially relevant resources.  Even if you cannot accept that, I have provided above several examples of pesticides directly harming humans.  Endrin kills children; atrazine may provoke cancer.  These are hardly the only cases - search the Internet if you want more examples.


     Now back to the International Day for Biological Diversity.  On May 22, try biking or carpooling instead of your usual drive.  Recycle.  Buy organic.  Tell some people about the dangers of commercial pesticides…and the great thing is, if you can do that on May 22, then you can do it on May 23, too…and May 24…believe it or not, every day is a good day to bike or carpool, recycle, buy organic, and spread the word.
     Once a species goes extinct, there's no getting it back.  As I said at the beginning of this, we are smack in the middle of the most devastating mass extinction in 65 million years.  We may not hear about all of them, but more species are going extinct every day.  Let's do what we can to end this crisis before it gets any further.


Sources:
http://www.cbd.int/idb/
http://www.livescience.com/652-humans-fuel-worst-extinction-dinosaurs.html
http://www.chesapeakebay.net/news_pesticides09.aspx?menuitem=43119
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001395.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Spring-Rachel-Carson/dp/0618249060/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304852343&sr=8-1
http://www.flickr.com/photos/72825507@N00/2205729974/
http://www.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/DDT_and_Birds.html

http://www.endangeredspeciesinternational.org/atrazine.html

Social Gaming

     People sometimes call me a nerd.  By the time you finish reading this post, you yourself will probably identify me as a nerd.  I don't mind that; in fact, it's a title that I carry with pride.

     I was once involved in a conversation with a number of people of various ages, in which I said something brazenly intellectual.  As everyone smirked at me, I smiled and said, as I have on many occasions: "I'm a nerd."  Then a young girl said to me, apparently trying to be reassuring, "No, you're not a nerd."  A bit startled - nobody had ever told me that - I said, "Yes, I am."  Then she insisted, "No, you're not a nerd.  You don't tuck your shirt in."

     So I explained that it didn't matter whether I tucked my shirt in or not, that my appearance was irrelevant, that all of that stuff is nothing but a stereotype.  Your stereotypical nerd wears thick glasses and alternates between a plaid sweater vest and a white button-up shirt with a pocket protector.  Your stereotypical nerd has no idea how to color-coordinate, and doesn't really care about fashion anyway, let alone hygiene, because your stereotypical nerd cares only about math, science, and computers.  Most importantly, your stereotypical nerd has no romantic prospects, and not even any friends other than fellow members of the science club or, for older nerds, coworkers at the computer company.

     Because of this stereotype, people associate intelligence with being anti-social, and the nerds who take pride in their intellectual achievements become the nerds who are outsiders in school and will remain single for life.

     I call myself a nerd; I do all kinds of traditionally 'nerdy' things; but this stereotype has nothing to do with me.

     One of the 'nerdy' things I do is that I play tabletop roleplaying games.  If you're not familiar with roleplaying games, I can give an example you've probably heard of: Dungeons & Dragons.  D&D has become part of the above 'nerd' stereotype: gathering in someone's basement to roll custom polyhedral dice.  Most people never give roleplaying games a second thought, because they are 'only played by complete nerds,' and therefore are games for the anti-social.

     Yet, somehow, another name given by roleplayers to their hobby is 'social gaming.'  No, really.  In fact, the name 'social gaming' gives a much better idea of what is really at the heart of tabletop roleplaying games.

     I should explain what I'm talking about, for those of you who don't know.  First of all, I don't mean computer RPGs, such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic or Final Fantasy, which have become socially acceptable for non-nerds to play.  Those games involve teaming up with computer programs to fight computer programs inside of a computer program.  Your allies, your enemies, and the entire world in which the game takes place are all generated by the computer.  Everything you do must be one of the commands that can be given to the computer, and what will happen in response is determined by the nerds working for the corporation that programmed the game.
     Now imagine that, instead of working with pre-programmed pixels on a screen, you could team up with some of your friends to overcome the opposition presented by the game.  I don't mean multiplayer video games, where their programs appear on the same screen as your program.  I mean sitting down with your friends and figuring out how to get through a challenge together.
     Your opponents don't have to be pre-programmed, either.  If you had another friend who could decide what the non-player characters do, the game would be more dynamic and flexible.  In fact, why not go one step farther: remove the computer entirely and have a friend control the entire game world!  Now you're not limited to the specific maneuvers and results programmed into the computer - you can do whatever you want, go wherever you want, be whoever you want to be!

     That is a roleplaying game.  You and your friends each create a character all their own, and can now live out the lives of those characters within the game.  One player is usually designated as the Gamemaster, who creates from their own imagination a world in which the player characters can live and move about freely.  The Gamemaster provides the framework of a story, but the players always can - and often do - diverge from the original ideas of the Gamemaster, and create their own story.  Unlike a computer game, the story is fluid.  There is no predetermined outcome or set of outcomes; the players and Gamemaster work together to create a story from their imaginations.
     Furthermore, because every part in the game has been given to a real person, not a computer program, you have an experience that no other kind of game can match - a group of people sitting around a table, talking, laughing, eating sugary snacks, and just generally having fun, while at the same time inventing a story that has never been told before and could never have been heard at all if even one member of the group were missing.

     Doesn't sound so nerdy now, does it?  Now you understand why people call it 'social gaming.'  If you've never given pen-and-paper roleplaying games a second thought because you've always heard they were 'just for nerds,' I hope you see now that there's a lot more to it than the stereotypes of Dungeons & Dragons.
     D&D is a game of rolling dice and killing monsters.  Occasionally there might be some actual roleplaying, but some D&D groups just leave that out entirely.  Of course, they're missing the point, but hey, whatever works.  For those who care more about the stuff I'm talking about - the collective creativity - you might prefer GURPS, the Generic Universal RolePlaying System.  While D&D is designed for fantasy games and monster-killing, GURPS, as its name implies, is designed to leave the players and Gamemaster complete freedom over the genre, when and where the story takes place, and what characters can be involved.  In GURPS you can be a swordsman from the Dark Ages, or a trader from a high-tech civilization in the year 3000, or anything in-between.
     GURPS Lite is a condensed version of GURPS with only the most straightforward rules, but just as much flexibility.  It has only a few dozen pages, rather than the hundreds of pages in the GURPS Basic Set, making GURPS Lite relatively easy to understand and therefore well suited to beginners.  While many roleplaying rulebooks can be quite expensive, GURPS Lite is free - click here to download a PDF of the Third Edition.

     Once you understand how roleplaying games work, you might want to try FUDGE, which offers a complete, unabridged set of rules for free.  FUDGE takes GURPS' ideal of flexibility to the extreme, enabling Gamemasters and players unprecedented freedom in creating their game world and their characters.  You can read the 1995 edition of FUDGE here.
     If you like to laugh and have the money to spend, you might like Paranoia, a comedy roleplaying rules system with its own built-in world.  It allows less creativity than either GURPS or FUDGE, but it can be a refreshing change from more serious roleplaying.  Paranoia is a lighthearted parody of science fiction / dystopian future stories such as 1984, Brave New World, THX 1138, and many others.  Fast-paced slapstick designed to be the opposite of every other roleplaying game…I wouldn't recommend it as your only system, but it makes an excellent interlude between your more creative adventures.
     Of course, if you want to slay monsters and loot their treasure, you can always go back to the classic: Dungeons & Dragons.  There is a free version of D&D on the Internet if you want to try it, although that page's format makes it a bit difficult to work with.

     Whether you want to be a player or a Gamemaster, you will need several people to join your group.  I recommend keeping the number of people, including Gamemaster, to about 4-7.  It's best if you can get some friends to join you; if they're too nerd-phobic to give it a try, look up the location of your nearest gaming store and pay them a visit.  Many gaming stores hold roleplaying campaigns inside the store; if not, they probably know about other groups you can join.  Again, social gaming is best with your friends; who knows, maybe if you send them this article they might reconsider.

     Well, I'll stop here before I get any more delusions of grandeur.  In conclusion: Roleplaying is cool.  Try it.

Fighting Propaganda at the Grass Roots

     My previous post ("Global Warming is Good For You") was written as a parody of typical propaganda techniques.  It represents the first part of a two-part series on the subject of propaganda.  This is part two, and this time I am completely serious.
     I shall here address the following question, posed in my blogging class: "Should public schools be required to provide all students with a course on how to identify and analyze the motives behind propaganda?"

     The word 'propaganda' comes from the name of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide - 'Congregation for Propagating the Faith,' a missionary organization established by Pope Gregory XV in 1622.  In modern times the word has been brought into the English vocabulary with a more insidious connotation, referring to manipulative communications intended to subvert the public for political or monetary gain.  Because propaganda is so prevalent in our society, it is important for members of society to understand propaganda techniques and know how to defend themselves.  To this end, public schools should offer a course covering techniques of propaganda and the motives behind it.
     School should be about more than just learning to efficiently regurgitate facts; students should be stretching their minds and developing their own opinions.  As it is, the American school system is riddled with real propaganda, depending on the views held by the teacher, the school administrators, and even the state in which the student happens to live.  While school districts may have a conflict of interest in disguising their own use of propaganda, we can at least bring the topic into the open.  Learning the nuts and bolts of logic will help students to recognize these problems where they occur, and then they can start to think for themselves.
     Propaganda is, of course, intimately related to logic.  Using my own satire as an example, look at the central section of my previous post ("Global Warming is Good For You," the part in-between the disclaimers) and see how many absurd leaps in logic and other logical fallacies you can find in this sample propaganda.  While the writing in that post is deliberately bad, the same basic techniques are used in genuine propaganda.  Turn on any political opinion show and chances are you'll hear the same kinds of logical fallacies.  Because adding new classes to school schedules can be difficult in these financially trying times, and considering the relationship between propaganda and logic, perhaps at least some schools could incorporate teaching about propaganda into a broader logic course, thus increasing efficiency and reducing costs.
     What about the political pundits who indulge in propaganda?  What are they trying to achieve?  Naturally, they are trying to get everyone to agree with them without thinking.  Rather than having voters study the issues and make up their own minds on every candidate and every proposition, election results are decided by whichever side is LOUDEST.  The same 'herd mentality' is considered a major problem in public schools, where it is referred to as 'peer pressure.'  The skills that students could learn in a course covering propaganda would help bring an end to these problems, from the bottom up.
     Democracy is most effective if the people are well-informed, not deceived.  By teaching people to understand logic and propaganda from an early age, we can enable the next generation to make wiser decisions than the current one has, from dangers in the schoolyard to controversy in the voting booth.  Rather than fighting the symptoms, target the foundations of the problem: empower young people to think for themselves.

Global Warming is Good For You

     Once again I must begin with a disclaimer.  The current topic in my blogging class is propaganda, and our assignment this week is to write a satire of typical propaganda techniques, in the form of a piece of our own sarcastic propaganda.  This is a humor piece; do not take anything in this post seriously.

     Well, actually, please do take that first paragraph seriously.  Then again, the first paragraph says that you should not take either of these last two sentences seriously. *

     Okay, the following sentence is the only one in this post that you should take seriously:

     This entire post is intended as tongue-in-cheek, so do not take it seriously, except for this sentence, which you should take seriously.

     In other words, everything after this sentence should not be taken seriously.


     Science has now generally accepted that global warming is not a hoax.  Indeed, global warming is very real.

     However, liberal pundits have taken this to mean, without question, that we must combat global warming, and prevent it from advancing any further than it already has, and these propagandists, seeing things only in black and white, use this kind of absurd leap in logic, to great effect, to befuddle, the general, masses.  They also like using a lot of commas.

     This conspiracy exists to subvert the good old apple-pie family values of honest, right-thinking Americans such as you and me (not ‘I’).  Think of the children!

     Moreover, look at how this idea of “fighting” global warming conflicts with American patriotism!  Tell me now, which is more important:  The star-spangled symbol of this righteous nation and the freedoms it represents, or some kind of an ozone layer way up there where I can’t even see it?

     No, these devious conspirators’ (not ‘conspirators’s’) true purpose is to divert our attention and resources from stopping their treacherous financial schemes!

     …but this is getting off point. What was the point again? Oh yes: “Global Warming is Good For You.”

     Well, first of all, warmer soil means better agriculture, which is good for such traditionally chilled regions as Minnesota, bringing greater revenue to this great American state. Second, less ice on roads will make winter driving safer, reducing health care costs in Minnesota and helping to rein in spending in Washington. And finally, a warmer all-around climate will undoubtedly encourage long-stagnant tourism to such great American states as Minnesota. If you have any problems with global warming, I suggest you move to Minnesota.

     In conclusion, if you don’t act now to end this sham before it’s too late and start welcoming global warming as the short-term financial gain it represents, then blah blah blah trouble in Pine River City, Minnesota.

     * Also: This statement is false.

     Fun factoid: The official website for Pine River, Minnesota features the slogan: "Now totally paved!"

     Holy crud. Having already written this post, I discovered that someone else had already written it. I won’t link to it directly - just Google "thomas gale moore" "global warming benefits" and it should be the first hit.

     I love how ‘Google’ has become a verb.

     Anyway, I was just gobsmacked by the similarity between my humorous blog post and this RESEARCH PAPER FROM A PH.D. Well, I set out to satirize this kind of thing…and I guess you could say I succeeded.

     In the interest of reporting as unbiased as I can manage, here is a link to further writings of Dr. Moore, and, on the opposing side, a game based on his writings.

     Much as I am trying to keep politics out of this blog, it appears they have snuck in.  However, recall that this post is based on an assignment of satire, and while my satire may show one angle, recall my recursive disclaimer, and you will realize that I may indeed have written a counter-satire, in which case my true beliefs might fall on an unexpected side of the "aisle"; or, indeed, I may have intended a counter-counter-satire…

     Perhaps I intended to parody the writings of those who dislike the highly educational method of imparting knowledge that they deride as "propaganda."  Or, indeed, those who dislike parodies of the writings of those who dislike…

     Perhaps I have no political beliefs whatsoever, and have cleverly tricked you into thinking that I do.

     In any case, as I am writing this, I am sick.  Maybe all of this was just the virus talking.

We interrupt this blog…

     Yes, that is an advertisement.  I’m actually going to ask you to have a close look at it.  Clicking on it should give you the full-size image.
     I should begin by saying that I am not associated in any way with Honda, I do not endorse Honda or its Odyssey, and I was not paid to publish that advertisement - it’s actually the subject of my assignment for this week.  I scanned that image from a magazine, and I have reproduced it here for the purpose of review (given that I just posted their ad here for free, I think they can hardly complain).

     Go ahead and click on it, and check out the full-size ad.  Look at it for about ten seconds.  When the ten seconds are up, close the image and think for a moment about what it was trying to tell you.  Then come back to this post.  I'll wait right here.

     In his treatise “Rhetoric,” Aristotle described three modes of persuasion:

• Logos (logical appeal) is based on facts, information, data, etc., regarding the subject.
• Ethos (ethical appeal) is based on the character of the party doing the persuading.
• Pathos (emotional appeal) is based on the character of the party being persuaded, speaking to the wants, needs and emotions of the audience.

     These concepts outdate advertisements in any recognizable sense by a millennium or two, but, as we will see, they are still applicable today.

     Consider this advertisement for the Honda Odyssey.  A semicircle of water and a rainbow frame the subject of the ad, immediately drawing our eyes to the Odyssey itself.  The van is off-center overall, but the arcs surrounding it create the impression that it is in its own little world.

     Quite a world it is!  The pool of shining water around the Odyssey is in stark contrast to the asphalt around it…and, as our eyes travel outward, we see that the contrast continues between the mundane urban world and the fantastical world of the Odyssey.  Sunshine, rainbows and butterflies - beauty and elegance.  The lily pond and deer - nature.

     Compare that with the fading, out-of-focus city all around the Odyssey's bubble.  The only greenery outside of the bubble consists of neatly pruned shrubs enclosed in concrete.  We see a lamppost, with an exit sign attached.  More subtly, in the upper-left corner we can see what is apparently a corporate office building…or was.  It has evaporated, its outline vanished, its remains wafting into the heavens.

     The caption tells us that the Odyssey is "the van of your dreams"; this dreamworld appeals to a desire to escape from the dreary metropolis into a more pleasing plane of existence.  I hardly have to tell you that this is pathos through and through - and we identify easily with the woman staring, dumbfounded, at the natural wonders within the bubble.

     The display of nature, however, leads us into another mode of persuasion.  What's that on the deer?  28 miles per gallon - and the placement of this number is no accident: it equates the Odyssey's mileage with nature, telling you that buying the Odyssey is good for nature…and, by extension, it says that Honda cares about the environment.  This is, of course, an ethical appeal - ethos.

     I should add that the stated MPG is, more directly, a simple form of logos.  Indeed, once the artistic pathos has captured our attention, we find that the ad has plenty of straightforward logos, presented as the only text in the ad.  (Third row folds down; available Bluetooth; 28 hwy mpg; V-6 engine.)

     Finally our eyes fall on the largest word on the page, located in the bottom-right so as to be seen last: Odyssey.  "Introducing the all-new Honda Odyssey."  Ideally that word, "Odyssey," should resonate in the reader's mind when they are finished with the ad.

     I mentioned identification with the dumbfounded woman in the ad.  Who exactly is meant to identify with her?

     I found this ad in a cooking magazine, whose audience presumably consists mainly of women (I myself got it from my grandmother).  Well, the only human figure in the ad is indeed a woman.  Her clothing implies a sense of metropolitan fashion, but her vivid shoes, rolled-up jeans and especially her colorful shirt also imply a desire for something less conforming - which might explain why she is so impressed by the otherworldly bubble.

     We see that she has been shopping - and those are not cheap grocery bags she's holding, they obviously represent a more important (read: expensive) kind of purchase.  New shoes, perhaps, or a designer outfit.  She probably drove through quite a bit of the aforementioned mundane urban metropolis, to get to the store, and she probably spent quite a bit of time picking out whatever is in the bags, and quite a bit of money in purchasing it.  Now, however, the goods hang dejected at her side, completely forgotten in the wonder of the moment.

     So then what we see throughout the image is from this woman's point of view.  The exit is out of focus, the building behind her (perhaps her place of employment) is now naught but a fading memory.  She looks at this van and sees, in her mind's eye, all of the wonders that surround it in the image.  Since we are supposed to be identifying with her, we get a window into her imagination, and we see those wonders, too.

     All of this is meant to be assimilated in a glance, which is probably all that it's going to get from the average reader…but a glance is enough.  That glance will fall directly into the Odyssey's bubble, invoking the ad's pathos.  Then, as the reader turns the page, he or she will catch a glimpse of that one highlighted word: "Odyssey."  The rest will be absorbed subliminally - most of these details will never be noticed outright, but a reader who spends as much as two or three seconds looking at the intriguing image will completely understand the overall message conveyed.

     That's an awful lot of subliminal messaging - it took me over 750 words to explain everything that's going on in this ad, and so the magazine's reader is expected to absorb 750 words of information in just a few seconds.

     So, going back to your ten-second examination when we started: How much of this stuff did you glean from that quick look?  How much was readily apparent?  How much was there that you didn't really think about at the time, but were nodding your head in agreement when I brought it up?

     Take another look back at the ad.  This time, don't limit yourself to ten seconds - take as much time as you need to recognize and understand all of the subtle elements…and the next time you see an ad on TV or in a magazine, take a moment to think about the kind of appeals it uses.  Is its message dominated by logos, ethos, or pathos?  How much of the message is expressed outright, and how much of it depends on subliminal manipulation?

     The people who make these advertisements can be pretty tricky.  Perhaps all of this knowledge will make you a more savvy consumer; perhaps it was just an interesting read…or maybe I just bored you to tears with a three-page essay about a car ad.  If so, then I apologize, and I hope my next post will be more to your liking…and, if it was that boring for you reading it, imagine me writing it!

Two Book Reviews and Some Rambling

     My assignment for this week is to write a book review on a book of my choice. I’m supposed to select a specific “audience” to address, and then write a review that either encourages that audience to read the book, or explains in excruciating detail why that audience should not read the book.
     I chose to review “The Great Gatsby” because that happened to be what I was reading at the time, but I wasn’t yet sure whether I would be writing a favorable or an unfavorable review.
     Well, I’m still not sure. The thing is, I don’t yet know who my audience is. I have no idea what your literary preferences may be.
     So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to write two book reviews, intended for different audiences - one favorable, one unfavorable - and hopefully one of them will apply to you.

     F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (or: Liebestod) is a romantic tragedy in the great tradition of Shakespeare. The members of the fated cast of characters all begin quite distant from one another, but their lives become inexorably intertwined.
     The author speaks through the voice of Nick Carraway, an innocent observer who is gradually dragged deeper and deeper into the novel’s events. He inadvertantly moves in next door to the mansion of the mysterious Gatsby, and eventually begins to attend Gatsby’s weekly parties.
     Who is Jay Gatsby? We never learn the whole truth, but we know that he and Daisy were in love, years ago, before Gatsby went overseas to fight in the war. Uncertain of his survival, Daisy eventually married…but a piece of her heart remains with Gatsby.
     If Daisy were the only one with split affections, the plot would be a good deal more straightforward. That is not the case. Her husband is having an affair with the mechanic’s wife.
     Had Gatsby never moved to New York City, positioning himself deliberately near Daisy, events would have continued as they were for quite a while - but Gatsby does move in, and Daisy returns to him…half-heartedly.
     Her husband, Tom, is jealous of Gatsby, and Gatsby is jealous of Tom. The mechanic’s wife is jealous of Daisy, and the mechanic himself is jealous of…well, everybody; he knows that his wife is being unfaithful to him, but he doesn’t know with whom.
     This tangled web engulfs the entire cast. Even as more and more strands of hatred are added to this web, it is ever so slowly stretched thinner and thinner until, under the ominous, ever-present gaze of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg…it snaps.
     Boy, does it ever snap. Fitzgerald’s masterpiece draws the unsuspecting reader in, and will hold you until the bitter end.

     F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (or: “Four Attempted Weddings and Assorted Funerals) consists of almost 200 pages of character development. Nothing happens for almost the entire duration of the book.
     The narrator falls in love with the best friend of his favorite cousin, who is married to a guy he went to college with, but this guy is having an affair with the mechanic’s wife. Meanwhile this other mysterious guy is in love with the cousin, and she’s kinda in love with him, cause they knew each other, like, five years ago, but she also sorta loves her husband, but then the mechanic’s wife thinks that the best friend in the yellow car is the college guy’s wife, and the mechanic thinks that the other guy in the yellow car at a totally different time is the guy who’s having an affair with his wife, and then the college guy tattles on the mysterious guy. Hilarity ensues!
     No, seriously, this is the point at which the author begins to employ various colorful metaphors for death, and then the narrator gets all sullen, at which point, once again, nothing happens.
     In short, a pointless story of love out the wazoo.

     My point here is at a larger scale than just a review of one book. My point is that differing perspectives can result in dramatically different opinions. An individual’s tastes are more important to enjoyment than the subject matter itself.
     Oddly enough, I was able to appreciate each of the above viewpoints, to an extent, while reading the book, which is why I still can’t say whether I like it or not. Part of me really enjoyed the powerful form of the novel, and part of me genuinely found it mind-bogglingly dull.


     This whole line of thought reminds me of a comment I wrote last week on a classmate’s blog post. As I mention in “About Me” (over in the upper-right corner), this blog exists because of the writing class I am currently taking (Argumentative Writing and Blogging). My first post, entitled “Writing,” is a kind of homework paper on an assigned topic, and everyone in the class wrote a blog post on the same subject…
     More or less. I was really surprised by the wide variety of perspectives and interpretations among my classmates. Every student’s post was quite different from all of the others, but each was good in its own way.
     To see what I mean, read the blog post at the following URL and compare it to my first one (“Writing”). For convenience, I have reprinted my comment below. 

http://partialtopink.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-writing-changes-us.html

I find it interesting to compare our posts for this assignment. As you know, the question to be answered here was: "Why is writing important?" I interpreted this quite differently than you did. 

I took the question to mean something like "Why are writing skills important, and how is writing relevant to our daily lives?" My answer can be found on my own blog, at: http://the-occasional-post.blogspot.com/2011/02/writing.html 

It was not until I read your post that I realized that the original question may be interpreted in more than one way. You read the same question and saw it as something quite different, summed up nicely in the title you gave this post: "How writing changes us." 

As you can see by comparing your post and mine, these differing perspectives resulted in posts that are - to use your phrase - "like night and day." While I provided facts, statistics, and analysis, you shared the story of your own journey - the experiences of how writing has changed you. 

While I hope that my post is educational and interesting, yours is personal and motivational. While I explain why writing is intellectually necessary, you make a compelling case that it is emotionally valuable. 

From the very first paragraph of each post, a reader can immediately tell that they will be radically different…but both present perfectly valid styles, and, in my opinion, both posts provide perfectly acceptable answers to why writing is important. 

Incidentally, my favorite of all the "Writing" posts in our class can be found here.