There are lots of trends that range from annoying to downright fatal. Here are ten of them, mostly US but a few that span the globe. They are in no special order.
- The decline of working-class life expectancy. We still don't know for sure what's causing this, but it's for real. It's an extension of the growing long-term gap between the life expectancy of the rich and the poor, but in the past couple of decades it seems to have metastasized in some way.
- Blaming everything on social media. This really ought to stop. There's very little rigorous evidence to back it up, and quite a bit to suggest that social media is a net positive.
- The rise of aggressive, bigoted nationalism in India and China. This simply doesn't bode well in a pair of countries that contain a third of Earth's population between them.
- Our continuing lack of serious action on climate change. We meet, we talk, we set goals, and nothing ever happens.
Given the now obvious fact that no one is really willing to change their lifestyles in the face of climate change, our only hope is new technology or, if even that fails, geoengineering. - The continuing Black-white education gap. This is one of our country's biggest disgraces, and we seem to have all but given up on it. We will never overcome our racist past until we make concrete progress on this.
- The growing conservative terror about the future of America. Too many conservatives believe that liberals are stealing elections and deliberately destroying the country—and it's this fear that drives things like the January 6 insurrection. This trend predates Fox News, but Fox has certainly turned up the volume to 11.
- On a related note, the Republican embrace of Trumpism is obviously the worst thing to happen in recent years to US politics. It's inexplicable that mainstream Republican leaders and journalists have allowed this to happen.
- Charges of racism from liberals. Conservatives have complained for years that lefties are too quick to accuse conservatives of being racist. They've always had a point, but not much of one since conservatives are so obviously unwilling to police racism in their own ranks. Over the past few years, however, this lefty habit has spiraled out of control and now encompasses endless and frivolous charges of racism against anyone who misspeaks slightly or doesn't support the most up-to-the-minute racial politics of young, educated white people.
- Littering up space. First we sent up satellites by the dozens. Then the hundreds. Now we're sending them up by the tens of thousands and low earth orbit is getting crowded. The more satellites we send up, the greater the chance of collisions, which creates thousands more bits of orbiting debris. At some point, there's a chance that low earth orbit becomes unusable. I may be overreacting to this, but after watching humans poison the land, the water, and the atmosphere, it's hardly a stretch to think we may do the same to space.
- Franchise mania. This is more of a pet peeve than a dangerous trend, but it's my list, right? I'm speaking here of the art world, not the fast food world. Movies are increasingly prequels, sequels, and adaptations. In the world of science fiction and fantasy books, practically everything these days is a multi-part series in one way or another. Even serious art strikes me as being driven more by the artist-as-franchise than in the past. My advice is simple: There's nothing wrong with doing something new, doing it once, and moving on.
"Over the past few years, however, this habit has spiraled out of control and now encompasses endless and frivolous charges of racism against anyone who misspeaks slightly or doesn't support the most up-to-the-minute racial politics of young, educated white people."
This is just wrong. What we have is an almost continuous flow of events that demonstrate the deeply embedded racism in our political & economic systems & in our culture. It's tiring for white people, I get it. I am white. But unless and until there is a widespread agreement that racism exists and is wrong, we are going to continue to point out the evidence when it arises.
Yes. Of all of 10 points, this one is the most out of kilter. When "conservatives" go so far as to use "critical race theory" to discount the American experience of slavery and pretend that it never really happened is as racist as they come.
Hey, they are just trying to win elections with lies that will perpetuate our racist history. Harmless right? NO!
Please provide an example of someone saying slavery never happened.
Ahem. That's ' ... the American experience of slavery ... ', not 'slavery'. You're starting the year off wrong, Atticus.
Ok. Provide an example that the American experience of slavery never happened.
*Provide an example of someone saying it never happened, is what I meant to say.
Don’t put words in zaphod’s comment, which was “When "conservatives" go so far as to use "critical race theory" to discount the American experience of slavery …”
‘Discount’ means to minimize or dismiss the significance of (enslavement of Africans in the US), not ‘saying it never happened’.
You omitted the the rest of the comment which was “and pretend it never really happened”. What is it he is saying conservatives pretended never rally happened? You’re making word salad to support this straw man argument.
Sigh. It's the new year. Why can't you simply admit you made a mistake and rephrase? T'isn't that hard. And as far as 'showing' you, well, I heard that kind of talk all the time growing up.
Why, oh why do I think that's not going to satisfiy you? Do you see what's happening here? You asked an ill-phrased question (yesterday I would have said you did so to score purely partisan points, but that's yesterday), but somehow it's the other person's fault for giving you what you asked for instead of what you wanted.
KanYe "Slavery was a choice" West.
Meaning, as something chosen, it was slavery.
The issue is not "discount the American experience of slavery", the issue is pretending that slavery was something more or less uniquely American and uniquely capitalist.
Most of the principled objections to CRT would be OK with seeing it replaced with a program that discussed slavery across all of human history and human geography.
Both of these problems can be real at the same time. Obviously, conservatives are making specious arguments in bad faith. And there are a lot of racists over there, committed to maintaining white privilege.
But there are also too many people on the left who take maximum umbrage at any deviation from detailed standards of discourse that keep changing. There is no acceptance of innocent mistakes. There is no attempt to sort out what are real problems from minor offenses. Whoever is most offended controls the conversation.
The very valuable determination that victims should be heard has turned into a demand that the offended party's interpretation is the only one that can be tolerated. No nuance or ambiguity is allowed, and any attempt to defend oneself is nothing but further victimization.
This isn't as big a problem as Republican racism, but it is a problem, for two reasons. The first is that the left has a tendency to eat its own. Allies get discarded. We like to talk about the right's drift into epistemic closure without noticing that same thing on the left. And the left's perpetual insistence that the hill to die on is a poorly thought out slogan is one result; they've talked themselves into the belief that their language is obviously correct, and when the public outside the echo chamber reacts negatively, they double down.
The second problem is that this validates the right's complaints. When the response to problematic behavior or comments is always to scream racism, homophobia, or misogyny in language that the general public doesn't really understand, it becomes trivially easy for Republicans to paint the left as out of touch. And when this is done without any appreciation for how the population we are trying to defend actually feels about the issue, as with Defund the Police, it's inexcusably tone deaf.
+1
The phenomenon of "liberals" making specious charges of racism is very real. I was recently accused of racism because I insist that race is a physical fact, relating mainly to skin color, while my accuser put forward the nonsense position that race is cultural; (s)he insisted that if a black baby was adopted and raised by white parents, the child would grow up white.
Sigh. For about the milion billionth time, no, race is as you conceive it is not a scientific, let alone 'physical' fact. You can stamp your little feet and insist otherwise, and I won't stop you; in fact, I'll insist it is your right to say so.
Just like it's my right to consider you an absolute idiot every time you do.
So what makes a black lesson black in the common vernacular?
Because of their physiognomy of course. Which includes their skin color.
What, you expected me to say otherwise 😉 There's a lot of information that's whooshing over your head today, this day, the first day of the year.
And for the billionth time, how do YOU know how someone else conceives "race"?
If you talk of someone as "Jewish" are you making a claim about their genetic makeup? About what they do on Saturday? Or about their cultural behavior?
Likewise if you talk of someone as "Black" is this a statement about their genes, about their skin color (not quite the same thing) or about their culture?
Most of the pathology is US discourse about race comes from a refusal to even allow these questions to be posed. And so it's becomes impossible to criticize (or even talk about) "black culture" without being called a racist. The only people who can even dare to do so are those who are black, like Thomas Sowell or John McWhorter.
We have these weird "liberal" bullshit where we all have to pretend the exact same situations are completely different:
- every gay person is born gay with zero culture involved BUT
- every woman is born blank, with femininity a 100% cultural construction, MEANWHILE
- being black toggles between the two depending on which stance is best able to demonize the person you are arguing against.
It's unsurprising middle America has zero patience any more with this. You don't need a PhD to smell the academic corruption in this constantly evolving, but ever more inconsistent, set of "truth claims".
And for the billionth time, how do YOU know how someone else conceives "race"?
Uh, because I know them? Because this is far from the first time I -- and many others -- have pointed this out to lawnorder? TL;DR: Yet anoher edition of simple answers to stupid questions.
How does it feel being so easily and so publicly owned on the first day of the year, Maynard?
Skin color IS a physical fact. BTW, my shoe size is 13EEE. It's been many, many years since I stamped my "little" feet.
Did I say 'race'? Or did I say 'skin color'. Advantage to me has become so gross it's pointless to continue this conversation.
I'll give some free advice: playing stupid is no way to win an argument, son.
You were wrong the first time you wrote this nonsense, you have been wrong every time you wrote it since then, and you will be wrong every time you write it in the future. You don't become less ridiculous by repeating yourself.
You are also, as I previously noted, remarkably rude.
Tuds, you're getting a well-deserved reaming because you've been nothing but rude from the get-go and I'm sick and tired of your bullshit. The fact is, you owe everyone an apology for your continued and continual abusive behaviour. But no, you're going to keep playing the "if you can't make me say I'm wrong I win" game no matter how many times people tell you they're not interested.
TL;DR: Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, you nasty little troll. If I had my way, you and people like you would be banned for life from most ot the internet for your aggressive -- and studied -- incivility. Don't think I didn't notice, BTW, that you never replied to what I wrote (and supported with cites and links) after you previously levelled that accusation.
No! Blaming black people for what "we" consider their excesses is a classic example of blaming the victim. "We" put them in their position at the bottom of American society, and when they do not behave according to our ideas of rationality, we dump on them some more. I have never disagreed with Kevin more.
A few years ago, I became quite angry when Ralph Northam was criticized by the NAACP for a past incident using blackface. I considered his behavior as being unfortunate, but the understandable result of cultural norms at the time. But I understand black sensitivity about the issue. I do not blame black leaders for being sensitive about it, and I continue to support the NAACP despite what I consider to be a political mistake in today's political culture.
While Kevin's point #8 represents a problem, it is a problem of the blindness of American culture in failing to recognize the problem that it itself created. We can't just move on without confronting it, although I'm rather sure "we" will try. It's a problem that does not remotely belong in a list of the ten worst trends.
No! Blaming black people for what "we" consider their excesses is a classic example of blaming the victim.
It's worth remembering that much of the elite discourse on anti-racism is driven by white liberals, not Blacks- and when minorities are a part of the conversation, they often come from the tiny fraction of the PoC population who went to Harvard or Yale, who have very different preference hierarchies than most members of American racial minority groups.
The vast majority of the Black population doesn't give a crap if some professor's exam hypothetical includes a mention of a racial epithet, just like the vast majority of the Hispanic population doesn't care if a Spaniard is cast to play Desi Arnaz. These are things that highly privileged people who go to selective colleges care about. Indeed, in many ways they are a cynical distraction from discussions that might actually help all the underprivileged American minorities.
+1
"These are things that highly privileged people who go to selective colleges care about. "
I think that's an incorrect characterization. The issue is not "they care about these", the issue is "these are the tools they use to attack other people". That's an important distinction.
Whenever an EGOB situation occurs (a situation of elite over-production -- too many people created who believe they deserve a place at the top, not enough spots at the top) weird artificial social attacks arise where the point of the attack is purely to tar someone down so that, hopefully, you or one of your allies gets their spot.
The details of what counts as a mechanism of attack change depending on the social group, but the general pattern is always the same. For high school girls it's wearing slightly the wrong fashion. For the Victorians it was hints of trivial sexual behavior. And for non-exceptional US college grads, it's hints of trivial identity behavior.
ie this has fsckall to do with caring about the wretched to the US, whoever they might be; it's 100% about attacking someone with a slightly better job than you because they have the monkey respect that YOU deserve.
What does “confronting it” look like?
Not to beat a dead horse, but that wasn’t Northam in the picture. If Northam had followed the Trump denial playbook the whole thing might have played out much differently.
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2019/02/04/northams-classmate-party-wasnt-photo-n268034
Thank you.
“When the response to problematic behavior or comments is always to scream racism, homophobia, or misogyny in language that the general public doesn't really understand, it becomes trivially easy for Republicans to paint the left as out of touch.”
All of this is so obviously true, on-point, and highly relevant for 2022 (midterms!), that I remain dumbfounded why countering these self destructive trends on the Left isn’t (one of) the front and center strategies for DEMs this year.
One thing though: we don’t just scream racism, homophobia, or misogyny at any slight deviation from a constantly and rapidly evolving orthodoxy, we also love to scream “transphobe”!
The fact that it was apparently problematic to include JK Rowling in the recent broadcast of the Harry Potter reunion, all because (as far as I understand it) she has stated her belief that biological sex is real, is one of the most depressing developments among Lefties that I have witnessed in my lifetime.
But, as always, it gets worse. The fact that every major star who took part in that reunion (Radcliffe, Watson, etc.) decided or were compelled to brandish their politically correct bona fides by issuing public statements proclaiming that we are a man or a woman if we feel like we’re a man or woman, is another of the most depressing developments in enforced groupthink (or ideological indoctrination) that I have ever encountered. The idea that these stars may have felt a necessity to make these statements just to continue working in their fields does not strike me as all that distant from saying that they do not and have not ever been a member of the communist party. But that anti communist purge came from the Right. This anti-anyone-We-suddenly-declare-to-be-racist-homophobic-mysoginistic-or-transphobic purge is coming from the Left. There is no doubt whatsoever that it alienates people. Even my leftist Bernie supporting friends scoff at this over the top sensitivity to anyone and anything that might remotely be considered offensive. I don’t know what can be done to reign in these Extremist tendencies, but there is no doubt that we are harming ourselves.
And, yes, all of this definitely constitutes a top ten worst trend of the year.
Racism is prevalent in our society. However, charging others with being racists is of dubious effectiveness. Does it help bring deeper understanding to the issues at hand? Sometimes, depending on the audience. Does it change behavior or merely make people more likely to dig in even more stubbornly?
The worst offense, in my experience, is when people are honestly attempting to grapple with the issue of race but make some clumsy, verbal misstep and then are pounced on by the "woker than thou" crowd.
That said the last decade has opened up a dialogue about the function of race in our history, politics, and current situation that has been enlightening. I've learned a lot about how decisions around the New Deal, GI Bill, and residential redlining shaped current racial gaps in wealth, education, etc.
Why yes, yes it does. Any other questions? Or did you mean to ask another question instead of the one you actually did instead?
"I've learned a lot about how decisions around the New Deal, GI Bill, and residential redlining shaped current racial gaps in wealth, education, etc."
What you've learned is CLAIMS about these things.
Much of the discourse disputes these claims. There is a lot of reasonable literature about this, for example it forms the bulk of Thomas Sowell's work, in particular his "Race and Culture, Immigration and Culture, Conflict and Culture" trilogy.
If your starting point is "well of course these claims are right, and anyone who disagrees is a racist", uh, well, that's kinda Kevin's point, isn't it?
Tha is for proving his point. The fact that lefties say everything and everyone is embedded in racism is the problem. Not to mention obviously not true. Give the racism charges a rest and go into and live your life.
... And there we have it. Confronting racism is dumping on -- if not actively destroying -- his 'way of life'. Pro tip: calling some distasteful habit your 'way of life' does not validate it, nor does it make it any less distasteful.
Thanks for providing a great example of a "straw man" argument. No, if there are some "lefties" that "say everything and everyone is embedded in racism", that is hardly the problem. The problem is that a large percentage of the American population IS embedded in racism. And that has produced the result of a black underclass, ridden by crime today.
How did things get this way? A large part of the answer has to do with the criminalization of black people after slavery, where they were sent to prison on the whims of the white overclass. And many of these were forced to work for businesses and corporations in situations described in the book "Slavery By Another Name". And then of course there were the lynchings.
Ignoring past and ongoing injustices is what you want to do. It has resulted in many of the societal problems we face today. The future result of this strategy of ignoring and "moving on"will quite likely be at least as deleterious as the result of the practices which have brought us to this point.
When republicans run the table next year you can look back at the attitudes expressed in your post as a reason why.
So, you don't dispute the truth of my "attitudes", just what you consider the likely effect of them.
I admit the possibility that Republicans might run the table this year. It is still early. And I admit that one of the reasons would be that Republicans are very effective in exploiting the racist attitudes of a large percentage of Americans. They are good at that. There are other reasons as well, including making it hard for minorities to vote.
So much the worse for America.
On race, & wokeness more generally, Kevin Drum is basically Conor Friedersdorf.
It's a wonder he didn't try to move his blog to the Atlantic when Mother Jones proved too condescending of people like J.D. Vance's holler kinfolk.
"... and we seem to have all but given up on it. .."
That's because conservatives think the problem is genetic and liberals are afraid they are right.
Good choices. I have been harping about space litter for years. Glad you included it.
Read up on the Kessler Syndrome. The notion is that with a large number of objects already in orbit they begin colliding and breaking up to produce even more objects. The number of objects grows faster than the number of objects that de-orbit naturally. In the near future it is likely that near earth orbit will be useless for us.
And space probes will need to have some kind of polar launch to avoid the ring of garbage -- or just give up putting anything new into space. Larry Niven mentioned this effect, way back in the last century.
A very productive day for new year's eve - surely this blogger will join Marian & the cats for a day off tomorrow.
On a somewhat lighthearted note: "Peeves" 9 and 10 are addressed in the Japanese anime, Planetes, about garbage collectors in outer space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elZ22Ibmxq4&t=52s Though it's approaching two decades old now, so maybe doesn't count towards #10? (And to be clear Planetes represents a counter-example to #10 -- it's very original and creative.)
Potential pots and kettles notwithstanding, that is pretty rich coming from someone who near as can be told hasn't done squat himself. Intercontinental trips on a whim, new ICE car rather than even a hybrid, driving hundreds if not thousands of miles to take pictures and/or deliver cats.
Where do those charges of racism happen? On social media. Which, we should ignore. Two problems solved!
“The continuing Black-white education gap. This is one of our country's biggest disgraces, and we seem to have all but given up on it. We will never overcome our racist past until we make concrete progress on this.”
The young blacks are too busy killing each other to bother with education.
https://wwmt.com/news/local/gun-violence-in-kalamazoo-reaches-new-high-for-second-year-in-a-row
“Data from the Department of Public Safety shows 90 people were shot in Kalamazoo in 2021, including 14 who died. That shatters the previous high of 75 shootings in 2020.”
This is not a big city, but blacks are shooting at other blacks every week. They drag down the average. They aren’t worth the effort.
Here’s a trend too….
“A 16-year-old Ohio girl was fatally shot by her father after he thought she was an intruder breaking into their home, according to a 911 call obtained by NBC News.
The girl, Janae Hairston, died Wednesday at a Columbus hospital about an hour after she was shot in the garage of her parents' home on Piper Bend Drive.”
Dumb asses with guns. 😂
Look on the bright side. The more space junk accumulates, the less sunlight will get through to warm the planet.
I thought that too. All satellites sent up into space should have reflective shields on their sun facing sides.
No, the satellites are not going to be an issue as long as they are designed properly (like starlink). You are acting like you don't know how big near earth space is.
Many satellite applications want equatorial orbits. For those satellites, near-Earth space is a surface, not a volume. Even worse, there is a lot of competition among communications satellites for geosynchronous orbit slots, which means they're competing for spaces on a ring, not a surface. Even worse than that, comsats need much more space than their physical size; they need to be spaced at least two degrees apart so they won't interfere with each other. That means there is room for a maximum of 180 GEO comsats.
Check out Kessler Syndrome. It's been a staple of (certain kinds of) sf for years.
Gravity!
I'm also going to go there and say while they get amplified by white socially liberal youth, most of the concepts that have gone "out of control" come from and are pushed by educated black people, mostly youth.
Care to tell us how you know this? Maybe a link to a factual source?
Number 10 wholeheartedly. Failure is an option.
You seem to work in mysterious ways; the WordPress app notified me that I had received one "like" - how can that be sent, when I don't see it here or any way of doing that myself? A thumbs-up emoji response or equivalent is the only option I see. Just mystified!
I utilize the handheld optimized app instead of a computer as normal people would.
And today, I found the app shows me what the website does- not the usual option. That seems to mean I'm not normal, or my cellphone isn't, but WordPress has been operating differently for me on Drum's blog & one a friend has. I'll just accept my incompatibility...
Hmmm, don't know what to say except welcome!
Low Earth Orbit is HUGE - enormous
If we just stick to 500 km to 1000 km - and use the surface area of 510 million square km we get a volume of 255, Billion cubic Km
So if we have 255,000 satellites each one has a million cubic km to itself
That is a cube 100 km on a side
The Starlink satellites are fully controlled and will de-orbit as they approach end of life
Except those satellites aren’t sitting in one place. They are constantly orbiting, in orbits which are not entirely unique.
I am not an orbital-mechanics expert, but I believe there are multiple problems with LEO objects:
1) maintaining a stable orbit requires occasional correction, due to spatial variation in the earth’s gravity, solar pressure, and other perturbations; correction requires fuel, which eventually runs out;
2) many LEO objects are uncontrolled, e.g. spent upper stages, discarded shrouds and fairings, and the like; their orbits will change gradually but continually;
Orbiting objects will inevitably sweep through larger volumes of space than they would if their orbits were perfectly circular and remained so.
It's not conservative terror, it's conservative terrorism, and it's nothing new.
And it's the same thing in India, and the same thing in China, and Russia, of course, was born that way. It's cultivated anxiety, and the only difference is it's blowing out of control faster in the US than elsewhere, but cultivating this thing will bring out all the same problems, but far worse, in India and China unless they strangle it now while they still can.
Nationalism has to be cultivated, esp. if things are not going well, to stay in power.
The classics never do get old, do they?
Political conservatism is the means of provoking the innate anxiety problems of social conservatives, and nationalism is one of those things that seem to them a 'strong' antagonistic reaction against their anxiety state, and so it's a very convenient and easy manipulation.
> The growing conservative terror about the future of America
The persistent idiocy of 40% of America.
11. The apparent desire of one V. Putin to start a war in Europe.
It seems to me that Putin is afraid of other (former) CCCP member nations joining a NATO or something similar not including Russia. It adds threat sanctions to his meddling with other, surrounding countries.
I don't think he wants a war. The threat alone has been useful for him.
What he wants is to de facto restore the USSR by at least dominating the politics of adjoining states, the way he does Belarus, where he can keep a Russia- friendly Lukashenko in power despite widespread opposition by the populace. But he is taking a very risky path, making demands to which neither Ukraine nor NATO can possibly agree. The former Soviet republics and satellite states want Western investment and trade relations. The Russian Federation can’t offer anything like that, it only has the threat of military force to counter. In the cases of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Crimea and the Donbas, the threats evolved into support for breakaway regions, occupation and/or annexation. It would be a mistake to think things like these could not happen in central Europe.
A number of issues center around taking systemic problems and then trying to dress them up as individual failings.
Making sure you shut off the lights when you leave a room won't be enough to stop climate change. Still, shut off the lights--but it's better if they are efficient lights.
Some pickup trucks are as big (bigger?) than Sherman tanks
https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkbxzg/american-cars-are-now-almost-as-big-as-the-tanks-that-won-wwii
There is an arms race on the roadways. Yet, we need to go electric, so where are the charging stations?
We should be recycling. But someone put a coffee cup in with the recyclables...so throw them all out!!!
"On a related note, the Republican embrace of Trumpism is obviously the worst thing to happen in recent years to US politics. It's inexplicable that mainstream Republican leaders and journalists have allowed this to happen."
Uhh, really? (To be clear, this is directed to the second sentence, not the first.) I assume you have been observing politics since Reagan. This is not only utterly explicable but utterly predictable. Drumpf, although singularly virulent and despicable, is pretty much an inevitable symptom of Republican dysfunction and drift towards fascism. (Though, yes, he has opened the floodgates for Republicans to state the pervious quiet parts and dog whistles in plain English.) Not to mention that the "mainstream" of the Republican Party and its propaganda apparatuses (calling them journalists is too kind), both of which are now classic personality cults, is completely MAGA.
I agree, it's not inexplicable at all. Donald Trump didn't appear out of nowhere, he was preceded by George W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan before that. Furthermore, some Republican leaders (the so-called “never-Trumpers”) did try to stop Trump.
Fake news (by which I mean purported news stories that are actually just made up) only appeals to people on the political right, or at least that was the case a few years ago when Facebook started cracking down on fake news on its platform. Perhaps if you watch Fox News long enough, the rush you get from seeing liberals bashed becomes more important to you than whether the news is actually true.
I don't think that Trump had any political convictions that inspired him to run as a Republican rather than as a Democrat. (Seth Meyers: “I was surprised to learn that Trump was running as a Republican--I had assumed he was running as a joke.”) Instead, as a con man he went where the suckers were. And that would be the supporters of the party long dedicated to cutting taxes on the top 1% while pretending to represent “real Americans” as opposed to the elites.
Regarding #10, might I suggest watching a few k-dramas?
One of the many things I prefer about British TV is that they are less likely to go in for the endless franchises. They still produce a lot of short 4 to 6 episode mini-series and anthologies like Black Mirror and Inside Number 9. And even many of the conventional series are ordered in six episode tranches and not renewed unless there is good reason to do so. For example, the original British version of The Office was, I think, 12 episodes total while the U.S. version went on forever. I'd say that format was good for about 12 episodes.
K-dramas are also rarely renewed. Tell a story, and move in to the next one.
Re: #3. You forgot to mention that both India and China are nuclear-armed. Significantly. So, not only their 1/3 of earth's human population is at risk, but all the rest of us, too, should they decide to get "patriotic."
“We will never overcome our racist past…”
What does this mean? What will it look like when we “overcome our racist past”? What still has to be overcome for blacks? Does KD or others think there is some permanent state to be reached in which racism does not exist?
The world will muddle through the effects of climate change. As low lying areas slowly become inundated by rising seas, people living in those areas will slowly, but surely, move to safer inland locations. Market economics will help in this migration as low-lying coastal property becomes less and less valuable and uninsurable. It will be much the same for hot, arid regions that become more so: people will move to cooler, wetter, more hospitable locations. Summer forest fires will continue to get worse, but people will just get used to standing 2 or 3 weeks of smoky air, or move to areas where it's not a problem. Ecosystems will degrade and collapse, but, again, people will simply move to more livable locales. Those that can't or won't move will suffer, but most governments won't be able to or won't be willing to do much about it.
Hard to move when all your wealth is tied up in your property, and said property is either worthless or (literally!) under water.
There will be waves of climate refugees much like we have now fleeing war zones in the middle east. In fact, we're seeing them now, coming up from central america. And Haiti, for that matter. How "easily" are we handling them? How peacefully?
There's gonna be a lot of death, and it won't just be the other animal and plant species. People will become angry about it. Fortunately for them, there are lots and lots of easily available guns.
People will determine for themselves when it's time to sell the beach house. But we have been warned.
Anything and everything with Ryan Seacrest.
"Franchise mania" But what is the alternative?
I know people want to argue about this as poverty of imagination but, like so much modern discourse, the real poverty of imagination is in refusing to understand and accept that living in the Age of Plenty gives rise to problems that need to be understood an characterized differently from the past.
The problem of art in 2022 is that there is SO DAMN MUCH OF IT. TV, Books, Movies, Music, Games, there is so much of everything.
How do either creators or consumers find each other in such a world?
Many attempted solution exist, but none are great.
Various publications create their recommendations and top-10 lists but, even apart from possible commercial corruption (ie buying a spot on the lists) someone one realizes in one's teen years is that one can agree with someone else about many things while having zero interest in their artistic tastes.
Netflix and suchlike have tried to approach the problem from a different angle, kinda matching "what I have liked" to what others have liked. Maybe this works for some people but, again even apart from commercial perversion (the supposed "show controversial stuff on YouTube to boost engagement" which may or may not be true), this also just doesn't seem to work well even for Prime or Netflix; what one person finds appealing about movie X can be so different from what another person found appealing that movie X by itself is just not a great signal as to what else you might like. The hope was, I think, that more movies would refine the signal, but I'd say that has not been born out.
I still think, with the right feedback, with a way to say WHAT I liked (disliked) about each movie, this could work well. But most people seem uninterested in that level of feedback -- heck most people couldn't be bothered to do that for OKCupid, a vastly more important search problem.
And so Franchises become an alternative way, on the creator side, to solve the problem. Done well, a franchise can establish "this is what Harry Potter, or Star Wars, or Marvel, stands for" and people have a fair idea of what to expect and whether they will enjoy it or not. BUT of course, like everything else, this requires people controlling the franchise who know what they are doing.
Marvel so far, yes. DC, so far, uhhhh...
Once the Franchise gets into the hands of idiots who do not understand that the value of the Franchis precisely that it does NOT appeal to everyone everywhere, then it's all over. You get things like Lego TV series/movies where the Lego brand is utterly meaningless, ranging from generic saturday morning crap (most of it) to stuff that's truly fantastic in its cleverness (the movies... so far; and Lego City Adventures).
So basically Franchises are yet another Sturgeons law -- 90% of them are crap, but that's the human experience; and wisdom consists in finding the few that aren't (yet) crap, and in realizing when they've jumped the shark and it's time to move on to the next one.
I take issue with the "on the creator side". My limited exposure to authors, etc is that they like to do lots of new things. But video costs, bigtime, and the moneymen are only interested in the ROI (return on investment). What's the better bet? The 45th comic book movie in its particular "universe" or some off the wall thing that got written as a story or book? Go with the established brand.
My limited exposure to authors, etc is that they like to do lots of new things
Sadly, I'll beg to disagree. The dream of most authors, of most artists in general, is to make a living from your work. Being able to create a steady cash from a series, whether literary or theatrical, is nearly ideal.
Among other things, the work goes usually far more easily once you've created your universe.
And to reinforce that, at least on the publishing side, writing stand-alone work - unless you are a best-selling author - is the fast track to finding yourself dropped by the publishing house, if not by your agent.
Another factor to consider - the audience is far more likely to chose series and sequals - prefering the known to the new - which crowds out all the alternatives.
is your goal to understand or to blame?
The issue is not "lots of angelic creators want to do new things".
Neither is it "demonic moneymen only care about ROI".
The issue is HOW DO PEOPLE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN THE SHINY NEW THINGS YOUR ARTIST FRIENDS CREATE LEARN ABOUT THEM????
Get that through your head!!!!
This is not an ethics problem, it is an engineering problem.
You solve it by providing an engineering solution, not by screaming that some brute fact of the world (time is short, content is infinite, how do we find what we want) offends your senses and therefore everyone involved with the problem is either from heaven or hell.
if you have a better SOLUTION than branding, tell us. BTW solution is something that actually works, not content-free assertions that "people should try indy material because anyone who does not sucks". Because, right now, branding (done well) is the one solution that is actually working, allowing (again, when done well) a fairly wide variety of types of stories to be told in a fairly wide variety of styles, while still solving the problem of matching content to what particular users want.
If you have a complaint that "what everyone except me wants sucks, and everyone should watch only the content I approve of", well, whatever, we all have our delusions, but that is not the issue being discussed here.
It doesn't surprise me at all that black achievement scores are consistently lower than whites. From early on it begins to dawn on black kids that there are jobs that no one will ever hire them for and places they will be unwelcome to live just because of their skin color. This must have terrible psychological effects on them. It also likely creates an antipathy to the idea that academic achievement has some bearing on future success. "Standardized test? What'll it get me? Nothing with all this bigotry and prejudice around." It also doesn't help that many parents of black kids suffered through the same dynamic. Consequently, there is no legacy of academic achievement being the key to success.
I think one item that is missing is the failure of the internet to fulfill the promise it had regarding education of the masses.
There is no distinction between true learning and learning twisted information.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that we need some sort of disclaimer indicating to the reader that "this is not a news site, but an opinion site".
There are still far FAR too many people my age (OLD) who believe EVERYTHING They read or see on the internet because they grew up in a time when Cronkite, and Huntley Brinkley told the TRUTH and nothing but the truth. So when you said "You saw it on TV, so it must be true" - it normally was.
Not now. NOW we have made an entire industry out of fact checking!
It is discouraging for many older folks who don't WANT to know the difference because it's hard = whereas before you turned on "the tube" to ABC, CBS, or NBC you came away informed
Now you question it. It is a failure of epic proportions in my mind
It's a bit mind boggling to me that someone wouldn't be able to distinguish between a network news program and some random web site. Aren't we old people supposed to distrust all these newfangled technologies, and instead trust the TV networks and hard copy newspapers which have been covering the news since we were children?
Donald Trump's discriminating taste in women,
https://i.redd.it/medn4x4e73981.jpg
Slightly off topic
Here's a New Years story for you
A pregnant woman in Israel has been diagnosed with BOTH Covid, and the Flu. The media is calling if Florona(?)
WHO has already said that having both at the same time was a possibility.
https://www.deccanherald.com/international/coronavirus-clouds-new-year-celebrations-across-globe-1066800.html
This is the second story I read on this.
It's an interesting twist to all of this. First the woman was pregnant and unvaccinated.
The other story seemed to allude to the fact that this is a worst case scenario because it shows early indications that the immune system could be collapsing.
I tend to doubt that.
Just another twist in the long running saga
That's cute, it has a celebrity couple name!
Here's a better link to the story:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/flurona-israel-records-its-first-case-of-patient-with-covid-and-flu-at-same-time/
Israel confirmed its first case of an individual infected with both the seasonal flu and COVID-19 at the same time, authorities said on Thursday.
The two infections were found in an unvaccinated pregnant woman who had mild symptoms, Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva said.
Some reports suggested this marked the first such dual case in the world, but reports of patients with both flu and COVID-19 surfaced in the US as early as spring 2020.
Israel has seen a spike in flu cases in recent weeks, with close to 2,000 people hospitalized amid fears of a “twindemic” of the two diseases. The term refers to fears large numbers of flu cases and COVID-19 cases could overwhelm hospitals, not that many individuals will be infected with both viruses at once.
Last winter those fears were not realized when COVID-19 restrictions largely stamped out flu cases. However, this year has proven different
Health officials said it was likely many others have been infected with both viruses, but have not yet been diagnosed, the Ynet news site reported.
The identified case of “flurona,” as some have dubbed it, was relatively mild, according to doctors at Beilinson.
“The disease is the same disease. They’re viral and cause difficulty breathing since both attack the upper respiratory tract,” said Arnon Vizhnitser, the director of the hospital’s gynecology department.
The woman was released Thursday from the hospital, which said she was in good condition.
Still, the Health Ministry was studying the case to see whether a combination of the two viruses caused more severe illness.
The ministry said Wednesday that it had charted a worrying rise in flu cases.
Last week, a 31-year-old pregnant woman died in Jerusalem after contracting the flu. The woman, who was not named, was nine months pregnant when she fell ill two weeks ago.
After she was hospitalized at Hadassah Medical Center, the woman’s son was born by Caesarian section. The child was said to be healthy.
Immediately after the surgery, the woman was put on a ventilator due to respiratory complications, but her condition deteriorated further and the medical team was unable to save her life.
Last month, six-year-old Yosef Naim from Netivot died in his sleep after going to bed with a fever. Health experts believe he was stricken with myocarditis — an inflammation of the heart — from flu complications
*****************************************************************
Can't get them at the same time? WRONG
"Some reports suggested this marked the first such dual case in the world, but reports of patients with both flu and COVID-19 surfaced in the US as early as spring 2020."
So perhaps the Delta or Beta variant? Even before Omicron? They said spring so it would be a guess - but certainly not Omicron.
COVID is throwing us curve balls, it seems
Could be a new installment in the Conjuring Cinematic Universe: the Curse of La Florona.
It's inexplicable that mainstream Republican leaders and journalists have allowed this to happen.
This is a throw-away line, Kevin. It's far from "inexplicable": the trend is easily explained by the electoral gains they've realized as a result of their embrace of Trumpism. Indeed, a big part of it is path dependency: MAGA is merely a continuation and intensification (and probably the logical culmination) of political dynamics that have been in play on the right since the 1960s.
Mind you, it's possible that GOP elites have done their sums wrong, and that they'd have been better off in sheer political terms clamping down on the crazy. But possible isn't the same as "obvious" (maybe, absent their coddling of white ethnonationalism, the United States by now would a country characterized by a substantially larger public sector and significantly higher taxes; we don't have a parallel universe to view the results of this alternate history).
Your No. 6 and Your No. 7 are completely tied together.
If you as an average Republican voter or Republican-leaning independent believe the country is going to hell and have this notion reinforced day after day after on the TV you watch or radio you listen to or the books you read, then you're not going to vote for a candidate who is blase about it. Trump struck a cord precisely for this reason and that's why the "establishment" within the GOP could not stop him. Because not only did they have to agree with his premise, because everyone else in the party and Right media were saying this as well, but also acknowledge they were part of the problem. Thus compromised, they were ultimately useless.
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