Monthy Archive: March 2006
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March 01, 2006

Life : Stati

crunch over
steve tired
blog coming
not today

big thoughts
will come
need rest
write soon

think
sleep
clear
choice

z
z
z
z

Posted by Steven at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

March 16, 2006

Life : Yes, it has been a long time

The problem has been that I actually had three events which consumed my mind share, one after another.

First there was the original work-crunch. I'm glad to say I managed to care for my health (physical and mental) much better through this one than the last. I'm not as young as I was, and last big crunch at work I dove in like a 30-year-old and burned myself out after a few days. This time I ramped up more slowly, giving my body a chance to adjust to the faster pace, and was more careful to listen when it started to say "enough" at the end of each day. The result is I managed to put in a lot of extra hours over two weeks and still had energy at the end. The fact that I had been exercising regularly before this also helped I am sure.

But that's not all….

The timing of the original crunch was driven by a bunch of people coming to our SF office from around the world (no details, as per my "I don't blog on work" rule). As it turns out, it was decided that a subset of them would stay for the following week to work with me on an unrelated task. This was essentially a training exercise where I had to spend a fair part of the week teaching them about something. It was actually quite fun for me (as has been previously established, I love to teach); but "teaching" uses pretty much the same part of my brain as "blogging". So, while my hours were normal, I didn't really have any mind-share left to think any deep thoughts to blog about.

Finally, I had previously committed to preach at my church on a particular day when my pastor was out; and as it turns out, just as the people I was teaching at work left, it became time for me to prepare my sermon, which again took up whatever mind-share I had for blogging.

So, I spent 4 weeks with no real mindshare to spend on this blog, and then a few days where I really didn't want to think any deep thoughts.

But now, hopefully, I am back.

Not sure I have many big thoughts yet; but I'll find something to say.

Posted by Steven at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 17, 2006

Movies : V for Vendetta

Very interesting flick.

I'll start by saying that as a pure action movie, V' is wonderful ride. Well choreographed fight scenes which are well filmed, separated by just the right amount of drama and symbolism to keep it interesting.

But that's not what makes it interesting.
The real question I guess is – where do you place the character V in the moral spectrum.

Let start with the observation that the government depicted in the film is a totalitarian state which maintains control of its people by fear and force. This is a government which does not disserve to govern, and by the end of the film it becomes clear just how true that is. So by American standards of conduct, someone fighting to overthrow such a government is a "good guy" (historical pun there, since the term "guy" actually comes from Guy Fawkes, whose attempt to blow up the British parliament in 1605 plays a central role in the movie V'). We would generally classify someone like that as a "freedom fighter".

And if that was all there was to the movie V', then it would be pretty uninteresting.

The problem is, the character V is definitely not a good guy. When all is said and done, he is an evil man, driven by his desire for vengeance. Well spoken, kindly in his own way; but evil. If you doubt that, objectively consider for a moment what he does to Evey in the course of the film. He is (pun again intended) a Bad Guy. His ultimate goal (the overthrow of the government) may be good; but he most definitely is not. I think even the character knows that, which is why the film ends the way it does. So, perhaps, when all is said and done, V really is just a terrorist, and not a freedom fighter.

Personally, I tend to stay with the Freedom Fighter version. My reasoning is simple – we never see him attack any innocent people. His attacks are always carefully directed at guilty parties and empty buildings. His goal is not to instill terror in the population at large; but only in the hearts of government officials. If anything, the government is run by terrorists who use fear to manipulate the population.

Still, the movie managed to paint a complex, and often ambiguous picture and I enjoyed it.

A special note should be made of Hugo Weaving's (a.k.a. "Elrond" and "Agent Smith") performance as V. Not once in the film do we see an inch of his face (it is always hidden behind a Guy Fawkes mask); but with his voice and body alone he managed to create a compelling and interest character. Quite a challenge for an actor, and he disserves credit for his accomplishment.

Posted by Steven at 04:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 19, 2006

Life : 18 years

As of today, Anne and I have been married for 18 years. This is a short post as obviously I have more important people to attend to; but I thought it was an occasion worth marking.

Posted by Steven at 08:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 28, 2006

Life : A year on the web

Despite the year going out with more of a whimper than a bang, this is the first anniversary of my starting this blog and thus an obvious occasion for introspection and evaluation. I started this blog for a multitude of reasons. Some were achieved, others not.

First some raw statistics.

In 365 days I made 218 posts, or an average of about 4 posts a week. Obviously the last two months reduced that average significantly. To those posts there were 197 comments from other 12 people and 111 replies to those comments from me for a total of 308 comments. The fact that the ratio of posts to comments is nearly 1-1 over the year is very satisfying for me. Just looking at the posts (my comments would significantly increase this), I wrote over 92,000 words which, when formatted as manuscript for submission to a publisher, would fill 271 pages. So essentially, I wrote a book this year.

Beyond the numbers, how well did this venture “succeed” at being what I had hoped it would be? The answer is somewhat mixed, as were the reasons I started this.

One reason I started this blog was to encourage myself to get out of my shell. I am by nature a reserved, almost reclusive person. I am most comfortable either alone with my (many) thoughts or in the company of one or two other people I know. My hope was that doing this blog would encourage me to be a bit more open – not just on the web, but also in every day life. On that goal I am please to say this was a success. Putting my thoughts out on the web (even if it is read by only a couple dozen people) has managed to make me more comfortable talking about myself in general.

Another reason I started this blog was I wanted some outlet for all of the random things I think about. Again, a success. Looking back at the entries I posted over the year, I do think they are a fair reflection of what I think about normally. Being able to put these thoughts down in ones and zeros has been a great release for me.

Another reason I had was to make some new connections to the world – to find some people with similar interest and develop some new friends. Here the blog was somewhat less successful. Of the twelve people who commented on this blog, only 5 were not known to me before I started blogging, and those 5 only accounted for 33 of the 197 comments. While it was never my plan to become a famous blogger, read by millions, I had hoped my audience would extend a bit farther outside my existing associations than it did.

My biggest disappointment?

While the lack of contact with new people rates fairly high, I have to say the difficulties I have had the last two months is probably my greatest disappointment.

My biggest surprise?

I was most surprised by how much I like writing non-fiction. I have always viewed myself as an aspiring fiction writer, even though I have never managed to finish any of my larger projects. What I discovered with this blog is how much I like writing essays, and that has led me to wonder if my pursuit of fiction has been misdirected. I am now contemplating putting an effort into writing a non-fiction book and laying fiction aside for a while.

What’s next?

Well, my intent is to continue blogging here; but I’m still not sure how often or on what topics. One challenge I have (other than work) is that I seem to be able to focus on one writing project at a time. Some of the gaps in the blog are from times when I was busy writing things for work or church. If I do in fact start to write a non-fiction book in earnest, that will almost certainly impact my ability to also write for this blog. On top of that I have the issue that a lot of what I have been thinking about lately is related to my faith and I still am unsure how much of this blog I want to see dedicated to that one (albeit important) part of my life.

Posted by Steven at 09:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

March 29, 2006

Thoughts : Power and unintended consequences

Everyone has some set of ideas in their head for “how the world should work”. These range from opinions on deep moral issues governing how people should behave to practical matters like store return policies to mundane things like how words should be pronounced. Some of these ideas are informed by our religious or philosophical views. Some are informed by our sense of logic and efficiency. And some, whether we admit it or not, are informed by self interest (enlightened or otherwise). The result is that our separate visions for the “ideal world” are all different. Common ground can be found between groups of people; but differences always exist. This is a problem for governments that consider themselves benevolent because there is no one set of policies which will satisfy everyone.

What’s more, our natural tendency is that to the extent to which we have control of our environment, we try to order it to conform to how we think things should be. This is often not a matter of conscious plotting and conspiracy, human nature leads us to do it subconsciously. The manager who is a morning person schedules key meetings in the morning. They do so without the intent to “make” everyone else morning people, they just act in accordance with their own internal view of how thing should work. It takes an individual with extraordinary self awareness and restraint to avoid using their opportunities to reshape their environment in this way.

Thus giving an individual power often has unexpected consequences as they consciously or subconsciously take the opportunity presented by that power to reorder the world around them. Thus giving someone power almost always results in unintended and unexpected consequences.

Lord Acton is noted as saying “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely”; but I think that is a misrepresentation of the true scope of the problem. It is certainly true that to the extent to which an individual’s view of how the world should work is driven by self interest; that given power, they will use that power for their self interest. However, in my observation it is just as likely that an individual’s view of how the world should work is driven by religious or moral opinions and that they will use that power for what they at least would view as the general good. They may not do this as a deliberate, conscious act; but rather their natural tendency to want to see the world be a certain way will lead them to actions which have that effect. The problem of course is that only a minority of people will agree that the result of these actions is in fact a better world.

It is for this reason that we must be very careful what power we give to the government. The agents of any government are likely to be a diverse collection of individuals whose ideal visions of the world will reflect that diversity. Given the opportunity presented by power, most will lack the self awareness and restraint to avoid using that power to make the world conform (to the extent their power allows them) to their vision. It does not take conspiracy or even deliberate intent for this to happen, just human nature. The result is that giving power to governments always results in unintended and unexpected uses of that power.

Give government the power to detain people without due process, and people will be detained for reasons other than what you intend. Give government the power to examine private communications and communication will be examined for reasons other than what you intend. Often these reasons will be well meaning, intended for what the agent of the government sees as the general good; but there will always be agents whose sense of the common good is different from the view of the majority of citizens and there will always be agents whose view of how the world should be is driven, at least in part, by self interest.

This effect can be limited by constraining the power and how it can be used, but it can never be eliminated entirely. Given the nature of the problem, the best possible constraint is to require several diverse people to agree when power is used. Given that their opinions on how the world should work are unlikely to be the same, the chance of agreement to use power in an unexpected way is small. This is why rules like judicial review and writs of habeas corpus are useful limits on government and dangerous when waved.

It is for this reason that the current situation in the US concerns me. Too much power is being given to the government with too few checks and balances. It is inevitable that this power will be misused – not as part of some vast conspiracy, but by individuals who subconsciously see the opportunity to make the world closer to what they think it should be, whether for reasons they would see (if they were conscious of what they were doing) as the common good, or personal interest. It is in my opinion a dangerous state of affairs.

Posted by Steven at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)