November 2016 – Page 2 – Auxiliary Memory

Lessons I Learned from the 2016 Election

by James Wallace Harris, Sunday, November 13, 2016

To say Tuesday, November 8^th, was a shocker for most people is an understatement. Since everything is grist for my mill, I’m going to write about what I’ve learned from this disturbing experience. Like the pundits and pollsters, I had no idea how badly my fellow citizens wanted Donald Trump for president. I live in an isolated bubble of liberal friends, and we all thought Trump was a poor choice. In fact, we thought Trump was an overwhelmingly obvious poor choice. We were wrong.

Lesson 1: Electing a president is not an intellectual decision. I’m currently reading Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal. The chapter on chimpanzee politics is rather enlightening. Electing a U.S. president has many parallels to selecting an alpha male. I think our society is not against electing a female for the alpha male position, but we might not be ready to give up alpha male traits in our leaders. The point of de Waal’s book is animals are smart in all kinds of ways we don’t recognize, and sometimes those smarts are superior to ours for the same talent. He makes a case that our intellectual intelligence can be self-deceptive. Humans are animals, and we function on many levels, using many kinds of intelligences. To analyze the election results totally by measures of left brain logic is a huge mistake.

Lesson 2: Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” meant different things to different people. For people who are financially secure, America is already great. Sure our country has many problems needing fixing, but let’s not rock the boat. For people out of work, or working at low-paying jobs with no hope of ever succeeding, then Trump’s slogan takes on a whole new meaning. But do we know how many people are really out of work? How bad is the economy to the heartland? I see vastly different figures for the number of working age people not working. Here’s the Bureau of Labor Statistics for Employment release just before the election. Things don’t look bad at all, especially compared to 2008 and 2012. But if you’re a conservative, you read reports like, “Right Now There Are 102.6 Million Working Age Americans That Do Not Have a Job.” That’s unbelievable to people with math skills, but completely believable if you only see the bad sides of the economy. Looking at Wikipedia’s population demographics, I figure there’s roughly 185 Americans aged 20-64. (Add 34.4 million if you want to stretch working ages from 15-69) Looking at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I see 149 million Americans have jobs. That’s a 36 million difference. Not as scary as the 102 million the conservatives claim, but nowhere close to the 5% to the official unemployment numbers. But if 20% of the working-age Americans are out of work, then that’s a big factor for the election. Yesterday’s New York Times essay, “Can Trump Save Their Jobs? They’re Counting on It” is probably a better indication of how many voters felt. They are looking for an alpha male to align themselves with in hopes of gaining help. It’s a shame the election wasn’t between Sanders and Trump, when both candidates would have targeted the same issue. It would have been interesting to see which solution Americans preferred for solving “It’s the economy, stupid” angle.

Lesson 3: Does ethics matter? Both candidates were generally considered less than ethical by the general population. There were plenty of mud-slinging on both sides. Supporters of each candidate seem willing to ignore personal defects of any kind in their candidate, but not in the candidate they didn’t favor. I think the vast majority of voters went with either liberal or conservative values and ignored personal values. In other words, most members of either party would vote for a yellow dog. The country seems to be divided into thirds: liberals, conservatives, and independents. The independents swung the election.

Lesson 4: The future looks very different to liberals and conservatives, but both fear a bleak future. Liberals fear the climate apocalypse, while conservatives fear the secular apocalypse. Science and demographics show both trends are happening. Conservatives were determined to protect the Supreme Court from liberals. They want a Christian theocracy and the legal foundation for conservative economics. Read Dark Money by Jane Mayer. My guess is it’s less about Roe v. Wade, and more about taxes and regulation. Trump was feared as a disruptor by the plutocracy, but because of the Republicans winning Congress, they are more than happy to embrace him now. There are very few large piles of money for the 1% to siphon off anymore, and owning the Supreme Court helps to get access to that wealth.

Lesson 5: We’re not logical. Voters don’t cast their votes based on logic. Who we like is often decided by our unconscious minds. Read Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnerman. Even when we’re thinking we’re making an informed choice, it’s probably just a delusion of our conscious mind. Also, there are too many variables in the equations of politics for anyone to actually solve the problem logically, mathematically, philosophically, or ethically.

Lesson 6: I am immensely disappointed that my liberal ideas aren’t shared by the majority. Even though Hilary Clinton won the overall popular vote, that doesn’t mean the country is half liberal. My guess is roughly a third of the country is actively liberal philosophically. That means we want social programs to protect the poorest, extra taxes for the wealthiest, we seek diversity and equality, to protect the environment, fight mass extinction, to balance wealth inequality, and work to develop a sustainable economy and environment. We find it horrifying that greed and xenophobia win out over these values. Yet, the lesson of 2016 is a vast majority of Americans want to protect a way of life that has vanished, and they are unconcerned about the human impact on Earth. This is illogical to us, but that’s because we don’t understand the theological implications of conservative values. So the biggest lesson for me is I’m out of touch with the needs and desires of most voters. I felt climate change should have been the #1 issue of the election, and it was completely ignored. I feel that many of my fellow citizens are anti-science, and science is my religion.

Lesson 7: I have no reason to expect more people to side with me in the future. On the other hand, I can’t expect to predict the future in any way. Even though I’ve read The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and intellectually know it’s impossible to predict the future, we all keep hoping we can shape it. Tuesday, a whole flock of black swans landed. That should have been enough to teach all of us that we can’t predict the future. It won’t. We will all continue to campaign for our own models of reality. Conservatives refuse to see climate change, but then I guess I refuse to see conservatives.

JWH

Artificial Intelligence Wants Us To Write Better

by James Wallace Harris, Monday, November 7, 2016

For weeks now, my computer has been nagging me to write clearer. I checked Google, and Microsoft has upgraded Office 2016 with two new tools for Word and Outlook: Editor and Researcher. In the past, I’ve thought of adding Grammarly to Office, but using the full version is rather pricey. I wonder if the new Editor feature in Word is meant to compete with it, or similar add-on grammar checking programs? It must be a bummer for little companies that create a business by patching cracks in big programs when those cracks are filled.

Anyway, the update feels like Microsoft fed my computer a copy of On Writing Well by William Zinsser, the classic guide to clear writing. Word now bitches at me to simplify my sentences. Little red underlines and popups tell me the same thing my teachers used to write in red ink on my papers. This advice feels like a Deep Learning program studied all the works of Ernest Hemingway and now wants us to write like Papa. It’s hard on passive voice, wordy phrases, and unnecessary words. Words like “really” and “just” are superfluous. And they are, but I often use them to make my writing voice sound like my speaking voice. The AI in Word obviously thinks I sound dumb. Surely, it knows best.

When did AI minds decide clear writing in humans was needed? Did NSA computers ask Microsoft computer to help clean up our language? Spy programs would have an easier time tracking our opinions if we wrote precisely.

Do you take style and grammatical suggestions from your computer? We could tell it to shut the #@&% up. Don’t our grammatical quirks give us unique voices? Won’t Word convince all humans to sound alike? I wonder how many people around the world learn English just so they can go more places on the web? Will grammar checkers convince us all to write the same way? Maybe it’s not Microsoft, but the AI overlords. They want us to be more logical. We’re being evolved.

JWH

Do Judge Books By Their Covers!

by James Wallace Harris, Sunday, November 6, 2016

I created a page for the Classics of Science Fiction where readers could shop for the books at Amazon. And because I love book covers, I listed the books by cover images. However, those are their current covers, and not the ones I grew up seeing. I thought many of the modern covers were ugly, uninspired or garish. So I decided for my blog to collect the covers that I remembered and loved best. Many are the covers I first saw at libraries in the 1960s. That was a long time ago, when I was still a kid. So maybe it’s just nostalgia. But to me, these older covers seem more enticing. Which ones would make you want to buy the books?

Now for some honesty. As I searched for the covers I remembered, I realized for the most part the covers that I feel best are the ones I first discovered when young. Does that mean they are better covers? I don’t know. Y’all decide. Maybe I’m remembering the past better than it was. Or maybe covers that came out in the 1980s and 1990s imprinted on young people the same way covers imprinted on me when I was a teen in the 1960s. I was lucky, because my favorite library, at Homestead Air Force Base, had many of the Gnome and Shasta titles from the 1950s.

001-dune

002-a-canticle-for-liebowitz

003-the-left-hand-of-darkness

004-childhoods-end

Are Americans Two Distinct Species?

by James Wallace Harris, Saturday, November 4, 2016

Should we divide America into two countries as a social experiment? If we allowed liberals and conservatives to have complete control over their own nation, would that produce two happier populations? Would the citizens of each nation end up mostly agreeing on how to govern themselves? Would the majority in each culture be calmer and more satisfied? I’m wondering if Americans aren’t really two distinct species:

Homo sapiens liberals
Homo sapiens conservatives

The extreme polar views expressed in the 2016 U.S. presidential election convinces me they are. I was just reading “Why Republicans Still Reject the Science of Global Warming,” and its stark description of political differences only reinforces such speculation. Science often describes two species of animals that to my eye look the same, but have adapted to the environment differently. When I listen to my Fox News loving friends, I feel they are a completely different kind of people. They are so passionately confident about being absolutely right. Then again, I feel the same way about my liberal views. Are we both seeing the same reality dramatically different because we’re different creatures that only look similar on the outside?

What would happen if we separated these two species? What would happen if all the conservatives move west of the Mississippi, and all the the liberals to the east? So each would create a government government according to their philosophies. In the west they’d form a free market nation, with a small government based on The Bible, and in the east they’d build a secular nation, with a big socialist government. Would the citizens in each new nation then be happy?

Would these two nations then evolve dramatically differently? Would the mating of conservatives with conservatives, and liberals with liberals, further enhance their distinct differences? In thousands of years, would the citizens of each country look physically different? I know this is an impossible experiment to perform, but it sure would be fun to see the results.

I might have an idea for a science fiction novel here.

Would the western states pursue an anti-science legal system, moving away from urban society, back towards small town rural living? Would easterners pursue science, becoming cyborgs, and create high-tech super cities? Would westerners allow diversity? Or would they move towards a conformity of looks and culture? Would easterners mutate into even newer forms of post-humans, genetically enhancing themselves even more? Would westerners become like the Amish, and halt the acceptance of technology? Would easterners run their nation on renewable energy and give up fossil fuels? Would the western states build a giant wall around their country, and reject globalism? Would they still build a large world-spanning military?

I could imagine the westerns states slowing their pace of living as they settled on a ideal conservative lifestyle, whereas easterners would embrace everything new and diverse, enjoying rapid change.

I can envision the westerners creating a Christian theocracy, although it would be a strange one where everyone would carry a gun. And eastern Americans would build a non-religious culture that oddly enough would appear like the meek had inherited the Earth.

And you know what’s funny. If conservatives created their own nation, I can’t imagine them ever electing Donald Trump as their leader. He neither acts, nor looks like someone that would fit in the west (or the east).

JWH

How Many Readers Avoid Books Based on a Writer’s Gender?

By James Wallace Harris, Thursday, November 3, 2016

I often see comments on the web where readers attack book list makers for not having enough titles by women or people of color. Sometimes the comment sections get rather heated over the topic, especially when people using Twitter get involved. How common is this sentiment? Statistically we know that women and people of color aren’t represented equally in society. How often do readers avoid books because of their prejudices? How often do buyers select books to read based on their desire to promote equality? Today, far more women and people of color are succeeding on the bestseller lists than ever before. Is that because some readers are choosing to purchase books by writers to promote diversity, or because readers are interested in great stories and pay little attention to authors? My best guess is readers are mostly indifferent to who wrote a book, all they want is to forget the world and immerse themselves in a compelling work of fiction.

I bought The Fifth Season because it won the Hugo Award this year, and it got amazing reviews. I do assume there are readers out there that chose not to buy this novel because it was written by a woman, but how many people still think that way? I suppose the misogyny of the Donald Trump campaign is evidence that the figure could be large, but looking at lists of best sellers and books that have been made into movies recently, I wonder how large.

I do believe movies, television shows, and novels can spread the acceptance of diversity. But how many people consciously choose a book to broaden their outlook? I’m not sure if book lists created to promote diversity have much impact. I do think what has impact is success. A blockbuster movie or bestselling novel that brings people closer together will change society. But does making lists of them help change society?

As a list maker, I have some evidence to apply towards these questions. After reading many essays and comments by people advocating there should be more women writers on lists of science fiction books, I created a list of science fiction books by women writers for the new version 4 of Classics of Science Fiction. Our list is generated by studying 65 other lists, and we’ve been doing this for over thirty years. The trend we see is more women writers are being read. However, I’m not sure readers are selecting books to read because they are written by women. I think more women are writing great stories readers want to read.

When I look at our stats page, the only list that people are interested in is the Classics of Science Fiction by rank. We also offer the list ordered by author, title and year published, plus this time, the most popular science fiction books by women writers. Any list other than rank gets damn few hits. Our lists aren’t that popular to begin with, so I tend to doubt many readers buy books based on lists, other than best seller lists. And our rank list is somewhat like a bestseller list, books that succeed over time. Readers seem interested in long term popularity, but that might be nostalgia. I think most readers prefer new books. I don’t see any indication in our stats that readers focus on authors. The popularity of a novel is everything. I do know authors have fans that read all their books, but our readers don’t seem to care to check our author list to see which books by their favorite writers made the list.

I’m disappointed that our list of science fiction by women writers gets so few lists. I thought it was a well made list. Promoting great stories worthy of reading. I hope the lack of hits isn’t because science fiction readers are prejudice against women writers. The most popular book on our rank list by total citation lists, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, had been on 43 of the 65 lists we studied. I like to assume it proves most readers aren’t bias by gender, but favor great storytelling.

I’m a lifelong liberal. I’d like to believe I’ve never avoided a book because a woman wrote it. But I have to admit that growing up I read very few science fiction books by women writers. As a teen I read Andre Norton, Leigh Brackett, Zenna Henderson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, Madeleine L’Engle, Judith Merril, C. L. Moore, and a few other women writers. But to be completely honest, none of my favorite science fiction novels back in the 1960s were written those women. My two favorite authors growing up were Robert A. Heinlein and Samuel R. Delany. I knew little about them personally. Second tier was Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. I didn’t like all their books, but the SF books I loved best were mainly by these five guys. Did their gender influence me? I don’t know. I do know my current all-time favorite novel is The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. And even though I think Gilbert is a fascinating woman, her book is my favorite novel because of the story.

And to be totally upfront, I wrote this essay to get people to read the list, “Science Fiction by Women Writers,” and hopefully try the books on it. I like list making. I want them to be useful. But I’m also learning the limits of their appeal and value. Lists are very popular on the web, but I’m starting to wonder if readers are becoming indifferent to them.

JWH