Books read in July 2018

New:

1. Shi-shi-etko by Nicola I. Campbell
2. Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson
3. Life Among the Qallunaat by Mini Aodla Freeman
4. My Name is Seepeetza by Shirley Sterling

Reread:

1. Concealed in Death

Do culture that value biological paternity produce more people who don't want children?

Today's post was inspired by this Scandinavia and the World comic:



The post under the comic:

Something that was deeply offensive to most of the cultures the Vikings encountered was that Vikings didn't worry too much about fidelity, even the women could shag around, and their husbands happily accepted the children as their own even if they knew they weren't the father.

The reason was quite simple. Keeping a child alive was difficult back then so any child that survived was a miracle, and people wanted big families, so if your wife had a child it was your right as the husband to keep it. The other loser could mob around with one child less to his name.

(Some of the commenters suggest that this might not be historically accurate, but that's not relevant to what I'm blogging about today.)

Reading this comic, I found myself wondering if living in a culture that values biological paternity increases the likelihood that people will realize they don't want children of their own.

How I arrived at this idea:

Every adult around me growing up would have said, with absolute certainty, that having children is a blessing and a gift and a wonderful thing.

And every adult around me growing up would have said, with absolute certainty, that's it would be a horrific burden and the epitome of injustice for a man to end up raising another man's biological child.

Not so much of a blessing and a gift and a wonderful thing, that.

I think (although I can't be certain) my first exposure to the idea of children being work/a burden (as opposed to simply being baseline human reality) had something to do with this idea of raising another man's biological child being the epitome of injustice.  I can't remember the details - it was probably something I absorbed from adults having adult conversation around me - but reading the comic stirred in me the forgotten knowledge that the two are inexorably linked in my mind.

I wonder: if I had never been exposed to the idea that raising another man's biological child is an injustice, and therefore to the idea that a child can be an undue burden, would I have entered the thought process that led me to realize I'm childfree?  I think I'd probably still be childfree - essentially, I don't want children because I don't want actual human beings with thoughts and feelings and human rights that I need to keep forever - but I don't know if I'd ever consciously realize it.  I might have been stuck on "Aww, babies are cute and funny and interesting!" and had children (or aspired to have children) on that basis.

I don't know if this could be studied - you'd need a population that thinks children are a gift regardless of biology and have access to reliable family planning and whose family planing intentions can be known (i.e. they have to be living or have a very robust and thorough diary culture, they'd have to be willing to speak honestly to researchers, etc.)  And then, I'm sure, you'd need other comparable populations who don't think children are a gift regardless of biology but are comparable in every other respect, in order to control for variables that I can't even imagine.  And then there's the question of which is cause and which is effect: do people see raising non-biological children as a burden because they value biological paternity?  Or do they value biological paternity because they see raising children in general as a burden, so if the kid doesn't even have your genes why bother?

But it would be super interesting to study if it could be done!

Tax dollars vs. library books: a personal cost-benefit analysis

The City of Toronto's 2017 tax-supported operating budget was $10.5 billion.

The Toronto Public Library's 2017 operating budget was $178.763 million.

$178.763 million / $10.5 billion = 00.0170250476

This means the library's budget is approximately 1.7% of the City's budget.

Therefore, 1.7% of my municipal tax dollars go to the library.

My 2017 property tax levy was $2618.47.

$2618.47 * 0.017 = 44.51399

Therefore, in 2017 I paid just over $44 in taxes to support the library.

 In 2017, I read a total of 55 books from the library.

44 / 55 = 0.8

Therefore, I paid $0.80 per book I read.


In comparison, Amazon's Kindle Unlimited costs $9.99 a month, which is $119.88 a year.  The cheapest book on their ebooks "deals" page is $0.99, and the cheapest book on their print "deals" page is $3.90.

So what was my return on investment? 

According to the Ontario Media Development Corporation (the first google result with relevant information), the average list price in 2016 was $19.12 and $12.86 respectively for trade and mass market paperbacks.

55 * $12.86 = $707.30

55 * $19.12 = $1051.60

Therefore, extrapolating from these averages, I got between $707.30 and $1051.60 in value from my $44 investment.

That's a return on investment of between 1607.5% and 2390%.

Considerations:

1. I also use the library for other things, but I can't figure out how to quantify them and don't have any record of frequency.

2. Since I started working from home, I've been reading less (about 50 pages less a day, since I'm no longer commuting and having a clearly delineated lunch break) and using the library for wifi/third place less (since I'm almost always at or very close to home). People whose patterns are more similar to my going-to-the-office patterns would get better value for money than I calculated.

3. I don't know which of the books I read were trade paperbacks and which were mass market paperbacks. Some of them were hardcover, which tend to be more expensive and therefore make my library use even better value for money than I calculated. Someone more ambitious than I could look up the actual prices of all the books I read in 2017 in the print format in which they were available in the month I read them.

What do you think of the body text colour?

I tweaked the body text of my blog in an attempt to make it more readable.  I'm not sure if I've succeeded.

This is the place to share any thoughts on the matter.

So it turns out I'm not an alcoholic

You aren't supposed to drink when you have a head injury. I didn't have any bottles in the house the day I hit my head, so it was a simple matter to just not go to the LCBO.

Some time passed, with my brain doing a variety of strange things, most of which were extremely temporary (i.e. one day of weirdness), the stickiest of which was vision issues, and none of which were cognitive issues or balance issue or anything that could be exacerbated by alcohol.

But I never got around to going to the LCBO, so I continued not drinking.

After some time, I noticed it was taking significantly longer to fall asleep each night, and I wondered if that was because of the absence of alcohol.  I thought I should go to the LCBO, get just one small bottle, and have just one standard drink under controlled conditions, for science.

But I never got around to it, so I continued not drinking.

The sleep situation stabilized. I started vision therapy. I scaled back and eventually completely eliminated my system of rest breaks.  I spent more days not crying than crying. I started working on waking up to an alarm again (with mixed results).

And I still never got around to going to the LCBO.

It's been five months since I had any alcohol.  It has occurred to me on and off that I should have a drink at home under controlled conditions so I can see how my body reacts, and I just keep...not getting around to it.

In the past, people have expressed concern about my drinking because I like drinking.  People have expressed concern about drinking because I drink alone rather than going out or inviting people over every single time I fancy a drink.  People have expressed concern about my drinking because people have expressed concern about my drinking.

But I'm pretty sure alcoholics don't just...not get around to buying more alcohol, especially when they have already arrived at the conclusion that they should drink alcohol for science.

***

Normally when people talk about not drinking for a period of time, they talk about how they feel better and don't miss it.

I don't feel better for not drinking.  I don't feel worse, but I don't feel better either.  I haven't lost weight.  I don't feel like I've saved money.  I don't feel in any way healthier.  Basically everything feels exactly the same, except for the residual symptoms of my head injury.

It wouldn't be fair to say I don't miss it either. Whenever I see a mention of someone drinking wine in something I'm reading, I think "Ooh, a glass of wine would be nice!" I kind of miss the feeling of  fun-twirling-around tipsy, but I'm so wary of falling now that I wouldn't risk that anyway.  At the same time, I don't really feel deprived, because it isn't something I can't do or shouldn't do.  It's just another thing I'm procrastinating, and I can stop procrastinating whenever I want.

Let's talk about sex (in 1998), baby!

In the wake of the Ontario government's shameful decision to revert to the 1998 sex ed curriculum, many people have already commented on the deficiencies in that 20-year-old curriculum. It doesn't reflect the existence or needs of gender and sexual minorities, it doesn't talk about consent, it was written when many people had only dial-up internet (if they had home internet at all).

But even if you didn't care about all those things, the fact of the matter is that medical knowledge has evolved. For example:

• The HPV vaccine did not yet exist.  (I myself either hadn't heard of or had forgotten about HPV, despite my sex education having covered every other STD that my adult self has heard of. I can't tell you whether this is a result of the state of medical science or the state of the curriculum.)
• PrEP did not yet exist. (I don't know any more details about how HIV treatment has evolved since then, but I'm sure there's lots of other relevant and important stuff in there.)
• Essure did not yet exist. The only available method of female sterilization was tubal ligation, which is an abdominal surgery and therefore far more drastic.
• Nuvaring and contraceptive patches had not yet been invented. 
• Norplant existed, but many of the issues that led to its subsequent reduced availability/withdrawal from the market had not yet come to light.
• The morning after pill had not yet been approved for use in Canada
• Medical abortion was not yet available in Canada (I don't know whether or not it existed.)
• I don't know if home ovulation tests existed, but I didn't hear about them until well into the 21st century.
• I don't know if puberty blockers existed, but I only heard of them in the past few years.
• We were nearly a decade away from the first male pregnancy.

And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head, in my capacity as someone who isn't a medical professional and whose sexual health needs would have been served perfectly well with 1998 medical knowledge.  I'm sure there's tons more!

Everyone would be appalled if 20-year-old Geography or Physics or Computer Science were being taught in schools, because the subject matter has evolved.

Everyone would be appalled if they were given cancer treatment or antibiotics or a weight-loss regime that didn't take into account the last 20 years of medical developments.

If nothing else, everyone should be appalled that they're deliberately reverting to a curriculum in which some technical information is obsolete.

What if Star Trek: Discovery could desexualize the miniskirt uniform?

I recently saw an article saying that Star Trek: Discovery should use unisex miniskirt uniforms.  The article quoted Nichelle Nichols:

“The show was created in the age of the miniskirt, and the crew women’s uniforms were very comfortable. Contrary to what many may think today, no one really saw it as demeaning back then. In fact, the miniskirt was a symbol of sexual liberation. More to the point, though, in the twenty-third century, you are respected for your abilities regardless of what you do or do not wear.”

I absolutely agree that, when Discovery inevitably runs up against the original series uniforms (which, being set about 10 years before TOS, it will if it has a full run), it should present the miniskirt uniforms as unisex/gender-neutral, like TNG briefly did before it phased them out entirely. 

But what if, in addition to making the miniskirts gender-neutral, Star Trek: Discovery could make them non-sexy?

Imagine if the most prominent occurrence of the miniskirt uniform was a person whom modern television costuming standards would not normally put in a miniskirt. Someone whose legs are hairier than average.  Someone whose thighs rub together below the hemline of the skirt.  Someone noticeably older than the rest of the cast.

For example, maybe 10% of the background cast is in miniskirts (at least 50% of whom are male), and maybe one or two characters who have "Aye, Captain" sort of lines are seen wearing miniskirts in one or two brief scenes.  And then the most prominent instance of a miniskirt is on a stout, battle-hardened octogenarian admiral, with a reputation for being a brilliant military tactician as well as a bit of a hardass (like Captain Jellico), who is called in for some particularly dire crisis where particular bravery, heroics and expertise are required. And throughout, the camerawork is done exactly the same way it would be if everyone is wearing pants, neither lingering on nor ignoring any particular character's legs.

From a production perspective, this would be difficult to carry off well.  First of all, every actor deserves the dignity of flattering, thoughtful costuming, and non-sexy miniskirts would not be perceived as flattering.  Secondly, there's a history of putting revealing female-coded clothing on performers who aren't women who meet the narrow Hollywood definition of sexy and presenting it as comedic. ("HA HA HA! Look at that dude's hairy man-legs in that miniskirt!")  It would be absolutely essential to avoid inadvertently doing this, and I don't know whether they could avoid having the less-savoury parts of the audience interpret the scene that way.

But if they could carry it off, it would disarm the unfortunate connotations of the miniskirt uniform and reclaim its original empowering intention s in a way that's consistent with woke Star Trek: Discovery values and with Federation values.

What if construction workers weren't even allowed on construction sites during quiet hours?

The most frustrating thing about all the construction near me is the frequency with which they wake me up by starting work early. City of Toronto noise bylaws state that construction can't start before 7 a.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. on Saturdays, but all too often they're out there making noise before that.

The thing is, I think that most of the time when they're making noise too early, they think they're not working yet.  I think they think they're just getting ready to work.

The noise that wakes me up is stuff like gates opening, trucks being backed up, the external elevator operating, and equipment being moved into position (note to construction sites: moving dumpsters around is the single loudest thing you do!).

Then, at 7 on the dot, the noise picks up - big loud whirring machines spring into action, millions of people start hitting things with millions of hammers, etc.  As though they were waiting until 7 to start all this stuff, as though they thought the stuff they were doing before 7 didn't count.

But, nevertheless, the stuff they were doing before 7 still woke me up.

Idea: what if construction workers weren't even allowed on the construction sites before 7? That way they couldn't possibly make noise to wake people up, regardless of whether they think they're working or not.

It would also be easier for by-law officers to enforce (if we ever get by-law officers working outside of business hours - and I'm strongly confident that such an initiative would pay for itself in fines collected if they patrolled the Yonge and Eglinton area between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.) because if there is any activity or worker presence whatsoever before 7 a.m., that's a violation.  Gate open? Trucks present? Violation.  No debating whether work is being done or not, instead it's a hard and fast "yes or no" question.

On top of that, it would make life easier for workers by disincentivizing the employer from requiring them to report to work obscenely early.  The earliest I was ever woken up by construction was 5:36 a.m. - and this was in the middle of winter!  Imagine how early they had to wake up on a cold winter's morning to get to the construction site in time to wake me up that early!  But if the construction company got fined for workers being on the site early, the employer wouldn't make them come so early, and would in fact order them to "sleep in" another hour and a half so they aren't there before 7.

A new colour

A common thought experiment is "imagine a new colour", i.e. a colour that no one has ever seen before.

But that must have been a thing that has happened in human history.

On an individual level, there's the fact that there's a first time for every life experience, including the first time you see each colour.  If there isn't any orange within your immediate field of vision when you're born, you will one day see orange for the first time.  You probably won't realize that you're seeing a new colour, because you're experiencing all kinds of new weirdness, like eating and peeing and breathing and air and light, but the fact is you did, at some point, see orange for the first time.

But it might also have happened on a societal level. Within the full scope of human history, people have lived (and still do live) in some pretty desolate environments. In the past, where people didn't travel very long distances and didn't have access to dyes, maybe there have been societies living in the Arctic or the Sahara who went years without seeing a particular colour, because it simply wasn't present in their environment.

Then, one day, someone goes on a journey, sees a new flower, and OMG, what is that colour???

The voice in your head vs. the voice outside your head

The first time I ever heard a recording of my voice, I was completely weirded out. My voice sounds nothing like it does in my head!  (And everything about it is gross, but that's a whole nother story.)

Many, if not most, if not all people feel that way about hearing recordings of their voice.  It just sounds so different!  (I wonder if anyone thinks their recorded voice sounds better than the voice in their head?)

This is why I'm surprised that vocal impersonations/impressions are a thing.  We sound so different outside our heads that I'm surprised anyone can even do a vocal impersonation that is recognizable to anyone outside their head.

Or do they record themselves, see what their attempt sounds like, and adjust accordingly?  Then you'd have to remember what an accurate impression sounds like inside your head.

I wonder if they eventually develop the ability to determine "If I sound this way inside my head, I must sound exactly like Famous Person to others."

Or do people who can do accurate vocal impressions sound the same both inside and outside their head?

I wonder if vocal impersonations existed before recording technology?  I wonder if they were less accurate/recognizable than they are now?