Aphorisms and Observations
A Collection of Curmudgeonly Thoughts from Yours Truly
1 March 2008
With thanks to Watts Martin for the photo.
21 October 2007 • Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. come in for more than their share of negative criticism from a wide variety of technology pundits and analysts; a recent column characterized him as succeeding by “defying the odds.” This is dead wrong. He does not defy the odds, he defies the tech pundits’ and analysts’ solemn pronouncements. More accurately, he ignores them—yet, as a direct result, the company thrives. That is his unforgiveable sin, and why he and the company are excoriated so viciously by the pundits and analysts (and sometimes even the tinkerers). They can hardly do otherwise when the company’s daily continued existence, indeed its ever-increasing prosperity under his guidance, demonstrate vividly that their advice is not worth the money they are paid. “Why,” one can almost hear them say, “he pays more attention to the market, the unwashed consumer masses, than he does to us! How dare he!”
In like fashion, a similar phenomenon can be discerned in much of the vitriol directed at the United States by the far left and the far right, at home and around the world. The nation continues on its prosperous, egalitarian way, sublimely indifferent to the fact that their ideologies insist it should not, that it should come crashing down through its own rottenness, moral or economic or of whatever sort. It is existence proof that they are wrong, and no zealot can tolerate that.
9 September 2007 • If a social philosophy depends, explicitly or implicitly, on everyone playing well with others—without exception—it is utopian by definition. It inevitably will founder on the same fatal shoals as all the others: the tragedy of the commons and the so-called “ten-percent problem” often described with the phrase “ninety percent of the crime is committed by ten percent of the population”. If a social philosophy incorporates, explicitly or implicitly, mechanisms to cope with those irreducible problems, it has passed the first of many hurdles.
1 April 2007 • In the realm of pen-and-paper role-playing games, there is a school of thought that science-fiction and fantasy games are essentially the same, differing only in costumes and backdrops. Nothing could be further from the truth; in fact the two genrés are polar opposites, having in common only the human factors universal to any role-playing game. Magic, the backbone of nearly every fantasy game, is almost always presented as an arcane art used by trained specialists to achieve results unobtainable by the common man. By contrast, technology is all about giving the common man the ability to do things he could not otherwise accomplish. Magic is about exclusivity, technology is about empowerment. This does not make one genré better than the other—but it does make them different.
12 January 2007 • For decades during the Cold War, the United States poured tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars into Europe as a bulwark against the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact—either indirectly, through basing troops and equipment there, or directly, through grants, loans, and other subsidies. The profusion of socialist welfare states that is modern Western Europe was built on, or at least benefited from, the foundation provided by this most unabashedly capitalist nation. With the Cold War a generation over, US backing is waning steadily; at the same time, immigration is skyrocketing. This puts a double strain on economies never designed to sustain either. What will happen when they build to the breaking point?
3 October 2006 • A salute to the spirit of scientific inquiry: The map is not the territory—but it’s still useful to improve the resolution of the map.
The lament that there is no arguing with some people nearly always boils down to a refusal to accept all of the other fellow’s premises or axioms (and vice versa).
“Digital rights management” is not about combating piracy. It is all about entertainment corporations forcing law-abiding consumers into a pay-per-view world.
13 September 2006 • Is digital art of less value than physical art? There are those who say yes: a work that exists only in the translucent glow of monitor pixels does not have the same worth as a painting hanging on a wall. But this would demote the digital artist, regardless of talent and time invested, to the level of a craftsman, at best. (Comic artists in the United States have struggled against a similar discrimination for decades, with limited success.) Speaking as a professional making a living producing work that in a similar fashion does not directly generate original finished artifacts, the ramifications are disturbing. Consider two artists of equal ability, each spending one hundred hours composing, sketching thumbnails of, laying out, and executing a new, not previously existing work of art. Despite pouring similar amounts of blood, sweat, and tears into their efforts, Artist A’s time and skill are considered to be less valuable than Artist B’s, simply because the former wielded a Wacom stylus rather than a paintbrush.
8 September 2006 • A rule of thumb: one bumper sticker supporting a cause, driver is committed; two bumper stickers supporting a cause, driver is firmly committed; three or more bumper stickers supporting a cause, driver is a zealot.
25 August 2006 • On a personal level, “net neutrality” seems to mean that the snarky college student downloading pirated music or video files from a floating peer-to-peer network gets the same priority and consideration that a small business, uploading paid-for client files under deadline, would get. On a larger scale, network carriers may be losing money on sources of exceptionally heavy traffic. By the same token, attempting to address this apparent inequity probably would lead to legislative restrictions, punitive pricing structures, contorted technical standards, or some combination. Neither side appears to have a solid case free of unpleasant unintended consequences, bringing forcefully to mind the phrase “a pox on all your houses.”
July 2006 • In the opening years of the twenty-first century, there is a gratifying groundswell of interest in space on the part of certain successful entrepreneurs. Why now? Consider that most of those particular businessmen are in their forties to sixties—which would have put them in their teens and twenties during the decade that began with Star Trek reshaping television and ended with Star Wars reshaping movie-making. Between those landmark works, of course, were the Apollo lunar landings and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The pillars of faith are: the ability of the human brain to comprehend its own eventual demise (and the fear generated thereby), the ability of the human brain to perceive patterns in its environment (even spurious ones), the ability of the human brain to generate ecstatic states of consciousness (such as those associated with messianic or spiritual experiences), and the inability of the human brain to perceive its own function (giving rise to the idea of vitalism—the soul or mind being separate from the body). The central pillar of religion is the exploitation of those peculiarities of the human brain to control that brain.
Faith and religion were very useful evolutionary adaptations for an intelligent, self-aware trooping primate struggling to survive in small primitive tribes. Mix in any technology, even the crudest, and they become disasters.
To those in the religious right who work to “return” the United States to a Christian theocracy that never existed: you are why the Founding Fathers incorporated the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights.
Most people around the world and even most modern Americans fail to grasp a subtle but essential distinction the Founding Fathers understood all too well when they drafted the Bill of Rights. A truly free nation does not grant its citizens rights—it acknowledges the already existing rights of its citizens. In other words, the Bill of Rights is a negative document; it states what the government cannot do. In many other national constitutions, if an equivalent of the Bill of Rights exists at all, it speaks of what the government can do, rarely if ever including definitive restraints on tyranny.
June 2006 • As a hiker in the Bay Area, it is infuriating to come upon bicyclists on a trail posted as “hikers only” or to dodge aside as they barrel downslope in excess of the posted speed limit. Here is a news flash for said bicyclists: you are breaking the law. The California Vehicle Code explicitly applies to bicyclists as well as motorists, and trail signs carry the same legal force as street signs. Therefor, the offenses mentioned are not simply rude or even unsafe, they are moving violations under state law and are subject to citation.
As a pedestrian on a city street, it is just as irritating to dodge bicyclists as they barrel along the sidewalk opposite the flow of motor traffic. Again: you are breaking the law. The aforementioned California Vehicle Code requires that bicylists not use the sidewalk unless street signs expressly allow them to do so and requires that bicyclists travel on the same side of the road as motor traffic. And again, the offenses mentioned are not simply rude or even unsafe, they are moving violations subject to citation.
May 2006 • Second only to “this too shall pass” for universality is “it’s more complicated than that”.
Many companies require that certain forms be sent by facsimile transmission and will not accept those same forms as e-mail attachments. The obvious question immediately springs to mind: What is the difference between a document sent electronically via telephone and printed out by a fax machine and a document sent electronically via e-mail and printed out by a laser or ink-jet printer? To provide a semi-serious answer: facsimile copies are generally of coarser resolution and are black and white rather than grayscale or color—in other words, inferior in quality.
2005 • Any belief system that declares an idea—any idea—too dangerous for its adherents to know thereby creates for itself a fatal weakness. An idea, once thought, cannot be unthought, and no amount of suppression or wishful thinking will make it go away.
What feeds most urban legends, some conspiracy theories, and a variety of other unsupported popular beliefs (for example flying saucers or creationism) is a widespread ignorance of basic science. Often this ignorance is simply a failure to become educated, but sometimes it is willful.
Societal attitudes toward sex could be likened to a high-pressure steam pipe. The religious right want to shut off all the valves, then close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, and hum loudly to ignore the fact that the pipe is swelling and leaking in some weird places. Liberals want to open the wrong valves all the way and shut off the others, then are puzzled when the steam doesn’t go where they think it should.
2004 • Europe seems to have accepted the view that some problems cannot be solved and to take pride in how well it has learned to live with such problems. The US believes that, if only one looks—and works—long and hard enough, any problem can be overcome eventually. The US sees the European philosophy as timid and defeatist; Europe sees the American principle as arrogant and hubristic.
2003 • The 2002 Worldcon in San Jose featured among its panel subjects the question “why is modern science fiction and fantasy art so relentlessly representational and, compared to other types of fine art, so staid—even stuffy?” Discussing this topic with friends resulted in the conclusion that most contemporary fine art seeks to make the everyday seem extraordinary, while SF and fantasy art seek to make the extraordinary seem everyday.
30 Oct 2002 • A language is (or should be, at least) a precision instrument, like a scalpel or micrometer. Today, though, too many people seem to treat English as if it were a bludgeon, creating awkward, clunky neologisms that duplicate—badly—perfectly good existing words and mauling grammar and punctuation. Curiously, engineers, who exalt clarity and exactitude and originated the saying “don’t reinvent the wheel”, often seem to be among the worst offenders. Granted, a living language changes and evolves over time, but it should do so with grace and wit.
2002 • How many people who today lionize “our heroes in uniform” were, in the 1960s and 1970s, calling policemen “pigs” and soldiers “baby-killers”?
Until the early twentieth century, Washington, D. C. was a sleepy little southern city and the federal government centered therein was small and (relatively) unobtrusive. Prohibition and the stock market crash of October 1929 sounded the death knell for this state of affairs; within a few years, Roosevelt’s New Deal turned the U. S. government into a thyroid giant. The Second World War’s massive industrial and military mobilization inspired further explosive growth and emergency powers. Unlike the aftermath of any previous war, these did not go away: the looming Cold War continued the air of crisis, so that by the Korean War, an entire generation had grown up never knowing anything but a large government—and as a result had the habits of thought that went with it, making a return to a small federal government effectively impossible.
Faith is not knowledge.
DNA is not the “blueprint of life”—blueprint implies a precision and exactitude that simply do not exist. A closer analogy, as a friend put it, would be the “recipe of life”: environmental factors influence the instructions and ingredients, and never exactly the same way twice. For that reason, and because nobody has yet figured out how to duplicate a person’s mind, a clone is not simply a carbon copy. A clone is nothing more than an identical twin . . . and identical twins can differ, physically and mentally, far more than most people imagine.
By definition, only citizens have rights. Governments have powers.
Comic book artists and studio executives note well: good writing can save mediocre images, but good images rarely save mediocre writing.
So many utopians top their lists of Things to Engineer Out of Humanity with his penchant for violence and war. Unfortunately for these grand plans, this prediliction is simply the most extreme (and, admittedly, lamentable) aspect of man’s vigor and vitality, stemming from the same wellsprings that give rise to all his strivings, great or terrible. Destroy one, and the rest are almost certain to suffer as well.
It is not censorship when one’s cherished work is rejected by a publisher. It is editorial policy. What’s the difference? Editorial policy is when an editor or publisher says, “We won’t publish this work”; one is still free to submit that work elsewhere. Censorship is when a government authority says, “This work cannot be published anywhere in our jurisdiction.” Of course, this also means any attempt to legislate “decency” or “morality” is by definition censorship, and no amount of spin control or conscience-salving can change that unpleasant fact.
The media are not your friends. If someone wants an interview based on unusual interests or hobbies, chances are the final presentation will be a freak show. If this prospect is unpalatable, don’t grant interviews.
Science fiction is modern Western society’s Cassandra. As only one example, in the early and mid-1980s, cyberpunk fiction arose, depicting an impending future in which information access was vital to daily life and figured in the widening gap between haves and have-nots. In the mid-1990s, news and op-ed articles appeared, lamenting—as if in surprise—that information access had become vital to daily life and figured in the widening gap between haves and have-nots.
11 Dec 2001 • A popular subject for folk and folk-rock music is the Revolution of the Poor, in which they will “get their fair share.” Attractive as this may be, it is simply wishful thinking. History shows that a revolution by the poor, even when it succeeds in overthrowing the old order, does not work: the French and Russian examples are offered up for examination. The poor are in that state precisely because they are incapable, for whatever reasons, of exerting control over their own lives, let alone entire nations. The most successful revolution in history, that which birthed the United States, owes its success to the fact that many of its principle authors were affluent, educated men long accustomed to wielding authority and responsibility confidently and decisively. Whether this historical record is just remains a separate (and in the end moot) question.
13 Nov 2001 • Emergency powers are never rescinded.
If it has a political or social agenda, it’s not science.
1 August 2001 • The idea that “violence never solved anything” is only partially correct. Often, it does indeed lead to retribution ad nauseum, and in that sense it is true. One look at the Middle East is sufficient to see that. In another sense, though, violence has settled nearly everything of note in human history. One look at the Second World War, and the atrocities of that era, is sufficient example. With this in mind, no study of history is or can be complete without a good understanding of military history; one might even make a case that military history is the central pillar of human history. This is most urgently commended to the pacifist who wishes to alter that aspect of human nature (leaving aside the question of whether it is possible)—one cannot change what one does not comprehend.
2001 • Much can be told of a society by examining what it regards as the ultimate insult. In Germany, this is (or was) insult to one’s intellect; in Japan, insult to one’s honor. In Russia, of course, it is insult to one’s cultural sophistication. In the United States, the ultimate insult is almost always sexual or scatalogical.
In the late sixties and early seventies, the SF community felt like Daedalus must have felt, rising (if only vicariously) on wings of fire and thunder through the Florida skies, reaching, albeit tentatively, farther and farther until we touched the very face of the moon itself. There was exultation and exaltation, the sense of a doorway opening and sunlight pouring in. Ten years later, we knew better: we were Icarus, our wings melted by public indifference, political incompetence, and bureaucratic confusion. As Arthur Clarke put it, we never imagined going to the moon—and stopping.
In the aftermath of an isolated fatal dog attack in San Francisco, there was talk of restrictions and legislation regarding dogs, mostly dealing with leashes and muzzles. Dog owners and their partisans argued vociferously, and mostly successfully, against these hasty and ill-conceived offspring of panic, receiving in the process much attention from the media. Exactly the same arguments, often word for word aside from the substitution of “firearm” for “dog”, have been used for years by Second Amendment advocates—but rarely if ever do they receive mention in the general press.
It was fashionable in the sixties and seventies among science-fiction authors to write stories in which, through narrative or dialogue, religion was (often patronizingly or off-handedly) dismissed to the oft-invoked dustbin of history alongside its older brethren superstition and mysticism. This is an unrealistic expectation: it seems unlikely that concepts so deeply rooted in the human psyche over tens of thousands of years will vanish in a mere few decades or centuries. What made the idea so attractive to SF writers, however, is that all three concepts stem entirely from the human mind’s need for patterns and meaning in its surroundings and have no basis in observable reality. In the modern world, intellectual laziness must be considered as well, since faith and belief provide great comfort while demanding little if any critical thinking—indeed, the latter is often (but not always) strongly discouraged. All too many people are still willing to offer a figurative cup of hemlock to someone who insists on disturbing their blissful certainty. Questioning and reasoning are hard and uncomfortable work, but the rewards of intellectual and philosophical clarity are tremendous for those willing to stay the course.
Hard science fiction, as opposed to space opera or “soft” SF, could be defined as the sort that attempts to ask the difficult questions and to hew as much as possible to realistic or at least plausible science and technology, based on current understanding. The more serious the attempt at hard SF, however, the more completely general-interest reviewers seem to miss the point. This is stated not for the sake of SF fans, to most of whom it is self-evident, but simply for the public record.
The old adage that crime does not pay is true not because crime is morally or ethically wrong, or for some other such warm and fuzzy reason. Crime does not pay because the overwhelming majority of common criminals are stupid or allow greed or passion to overcome discretion—which amounts to the same thing.
2000 • It is no accident that the concepts of “true love” and “undying friendship” are popularly associated with the family of stories that often include elves, unicorns, or fairyland, for they are approximately as real or achievable.
Why is it that the same essay, course, or book on writing very often on the one hand urges the prospective author to use strong, vivid verbs and on the other discourages that same would-be writer from using “said-isms”?
A particular quotation admonishes the reader against complaining about a lack of time—after all, one is granted as much of it in the day as any of the great figures of history. This is true as far as it goes, but it entirely misses the point; one might as well chide all seven-foot-tall men for being unable to shoot baskets with the same skill as Michael Jordan. What distinguishes those great historical figures from everyone else is the willingness, ability, and circumstance to turn their roads to greatness into full-time occupations (even obsessions), or die trying—a luxury denied the vast majority of people.
I have been accused of viewing life through a cold, pessimistic eye, and even been told with condescending sympathy that it’s terrible I feel I have to live that way. Nonsense! I simply acknowledge, perhaps rather more baldly and with less inclination to change matters than is considered polite, that there are unpleasant facts of life and that there always have been. Preparing for them, then leaving those concerns carefully aside but ready to hand, is a far better way to live a cheerful, carefree life than closing one’s eyes and hoping that, if one ignores them, they will return the favor—as they most demonstrably do not, all too often.
One of the best slogans in defense of the right to keep and bear arms comes from, of all places, the classic movie version of Ben Hur. In a scene involving Ben Hur, an Arab horse breeder, and Balthazar (one of the Three Wise Men), the horse breeder turns to Ben Hur after Balthazar’s departure and says, “Balthazar is a good man—but until all men are like him, we should keep our swords bright.”
The United States has a de facto two-party political system. These days, deciding upon which party to support seems to boil down to deciding which sections of the Bill of Rights one is prepared to sacrifice.
What Benjamin Franklin called “essential liberties” are like muscles: if they are not exercised vigorously and often, they atrophy. Worse yet, political surgeons may decide they are vestigial or even harmful and attempt to remove them.
Mass transit will not catch on in the United States so long as driving one’s own vehicle to a destination means a travel time three to four times shorter.
Existentialism is simply clinical depression with a philosophy.
Many of the less palatable aspects of the modern world have been attributed to the Cold War and to immutable human nature. Certainly these are of immense importance and influence, but there is also a subtler and perhaps as far-reaching factor. For the first time in human history, there is no significant frontier open to would-be settlers, iconoclasts, malcontents, and other driven spirits.
Much is made of the scourge that air pollution represents and the motor vehicles that produce so much of it. Rarely, however, is a word said about what is perhaps as unpleasant and prevalent a product of internal combustion engines: noise.
Anger is never justified.
Neither is hate.
The supporters of unrestricted laissez-faire capitalism propose, in effect, to let run free and unfettered the most destructive force in human history—human greed. To be fair, however, it should also be said that the supporters of socialism propose, in effect, to let run free and unfettered the second most destructive force—the compulsion to mind other people’s business.
1999 • Man admires the cat because, like himself, the cat is a wild animal under a thin veneer of civilization. Were man ever to become fully domesticated, he would more resemble the dog. But much of what man admires about the dog would be no more admirable in himself than it would be in the cat.
Recently there have been breathless, optimistic predictions that in the next few decades medical science will extend life spans to one hundred twenty or even one hundred fifty years. But rarely is there mention of a far more important consideration: whether it is youth or old age that will be extended.
Who else but the Baby Boomers would be so arrogant as to call their chosen brand of music “classic”—as in “classic rock”—while still in middle age?
1995 • Most fen agree that many of fandom’s problems could be solved with six shallow graves. Where people differ is in who should fill those graves. (Co-originator: “Zjonni”)
The advent of “desktop publishing” software put the power to abuse typography into the hands of millions. Ω
Go to top of page
Go to . . .
This Web site and its content
copyright 2006 Dave Bryant except where otherwise noted. |
Some design elements on this Web site may render awkwardly if font sizes are changed in browser preferences or if viewed through Internet Explorer, because of its cavalier treatment of HTML and CSS standards; Safari or Mozilla-Firefox are recommended.
|