New:
1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
2. Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
3. Indigenous Relations: Insights, Tips & Suggestions to Make Reconciliation a Reality by Bob Joseph with Cynthia P. Joseph
Reread:
1. Betrayal in Death
2. Interlude in Death
Saturday, February 29, 2020
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Star Trek, colonialism and idealism: a braindump
What appealed to me about Star Trek as a kid was seeing a variety of different people all working together professionally, respecting each other's competence and intellect. In a middle-school world where I was ostracized for difference, competence and intellect, that's exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up, even though it seemed utterly impossible.
TNG ended when I was 13 and I wasn't yet ready for Voyager or DS9, so I took a break from Star Trek. In the meantime, I learned and grew. The world around me learned and grew. I learned and grew from the learning and growing world around me. I finished middle school, high school, university, and had the extreme good fortune to end up in a place where a variety of different people all work together professionally, respecting each other's competence and intellect.
Eventually, well-established in this adulthood that my middle-school self never dared dream of, I settled in for a nice cozy re-watch of Star Trek . . . and came to the realization that it's awfully colonialist.
I mean, that's obvious in hindsight - they're literally colonizing places! The initial premise was "wagon train to the stars"! - but I didn't spot it as a kid because I was born into a colonialist society, my very origin story is one of colonization. I was like a fish who didn't know what water was.
But I'd learned and I'd grown, and as an adult I could see it. Every line about how humanity is special made me cringe at how presumptuous and oblivious all my faves were.
Star Trek: Discovery premiered in 2017, when reconciliation was the buzzword of the moment here in Canada. At the time, I tweeted that I hoped Discovery would address Star Trek's colonialism problem.
Discovery has been less colonialist than 20th-century Star Trek (at least, that's what I perceive as I swim around here in the ocean trying to detect signs of water), but things have gotten especially interesting with Picard.
Jean-Luc Picard became disillusioned with Starfleet and resigned when they fail to live up to their lofty ideals, sacrificing vulnerable people they define as expendable, closing ranks in a time of crisis, turning away refugees.
The systems and structures of the Federation, which he'd always believed in, which he'd always seen as forces for good, which had always served him well and uplifted him, were being used to do harm. And had been for longer and more deeply than he'd realized.
Which reminds me very much of some of the things I'd learned about once I started reading for reconciliation!
Another interesting thing about Picard is they're talking about money. Raffi comments on how Picard is living in a chateau on his family's estate while she lives in what looks like a trailer in the middle of a desert, suggesting that, even though the Star Trek universe has heretofore claimed to have transcended money, hereditary wealth might still have some impact on people's lives of which our privileged Starfleet officers have been ignorant.
Which reminded me of how people talked about money when I was a kid.
Around the age when I was first watching Star Trek, I got constant lectures from my father that all you have to do is go to school, get an education, get a job, work hard, and you'll have money. If you're poor or *gasp* have to go on welfare, my father's lectures went, it's obviously because you aren't working hard enough or being diligent enough.
When I entered the workforce, I came to realize it wasn't that simple. And then, when I read Thomas Piketty, I further learned that the economic context in which my father had the experiences that led him to develop these ideas was fleeting and historically unprecedented. He was a fish in an aquarium, being fed regularly by his keepers, lecturing ocean fish on how to get food and avoid being caught in nets.
He was saying it's basically a solved problem, all you have to do is follow the system, but in reality he happened to be born in one of the rare niches where the system worked. As, we're coming to realize, was Jean-Luc Picard.
Some people have criticized 21st-century Star Trek for not having the idealism of 20th-century Star Trek.
But the fact of the matter is, in a world where we've had our consciousnesses raised to the notion of reconciliation and then watched it be sacrificed on the altar of short-sightedness, a wagon train to the stars isn't going to cut it any more.
But here comes Jean-Luc Picard.
He has become disillusioned with the harm that has been done by the systems and structures he'd always believed in, the very systems and structures from which he drew all his power and authority and expertise. He has come to realize that the economy into which he was born does not serve everyone as well as it serves him.
And he's out to right wrongs.
Yes, I do realize right now he thinks he's just on a simple rescue mission. Yes, I do realize that I shouldn't get my hopes up.
But right now, right this minute as I type this, given what has happened so far and given what still remains up in the air (and, on a meta level, given the fact that the series has already been renewed for a second season) Jean-Luc Picard could maybe, just maybe, dedicate himself to fixing this shit.
He's become aware of the ways the systems and structures and economy he came up in have been used to harm others even as they've served him well. He's in possession of the power and authority and expertise and wealth that he accrued through these systems and structures, and he's using it to right wrongs. Maybe, just maybe, once Soji is safe, he'll take on the bigger challenge of righting wrongs by fixing the systems and structures, so no more harm is done, so we have a universe that truly serves everyone well, and we can once again sincerely imagine an idealistic future.
Which is exactly what I want to be when I grow up, even though it seems utterly impossible.
TNG ended when I was 13 and I wasn't yet ready for Voyager or DS9, so I took a break from Star Trek. In the meantime, I learned and grew. The world around me learned and grew. I learned and grew from the learning and growing world around me. I finished middle school, high school, university, and had the extreme good fortune to end up in a place where a variety of different people all work together professionally, respecting each other's competence and intellect.
Eventually, well-established in this adulthood that my middle-school self never dared dream of, I settled in for a nice cozy re-watch of Star Trek . . . and came to the realization that it's awfully colonialist.
I mean, that's obvious in hindsight - they're literally colonizing places! The initial premise was "wagon train to the stars"! - but I didn't spot it as a kid because I was born into a colonialist society, my very origin story is one of colonization. I was like a fish who didn't know what water was.
But I'd learned and I'd grown, and as an adult I could see it. Every line about how humanity is special made me cringe at how presumptuous and oblivious all my faves were.
Star Trek: Discovery premiered in 2017, when reconciliation was the buzzword of the moment here in Canada. At the time, I tweeted that I hoped Discovery would address Star Trek's colonialism problem.
Discovery has been less colonialist than 20th-century Star Trek (at least, that's what I perceive as I swim around here in the ocean trying to detect signs of water), but things have gotten especially interesting with Picard.
Jean-Luc Picard became disillusioned with Starfleet and resigned when they fail to live up to their lofty ideals, sacrificing vulnerable people they define as expendable, closing ranks in a time of crisis, turning away refugees.
The systems and structures of the Federation, which he'd always believed in, which he'd always seen as forces for good, which had always served him well and uplifted him, were being used to do harm. And had been for longer and more deeply than he'd realized.
Which reminds me very much of some of the things I'd learned about once I started reading for reconciliation!
Another interesting thing about Picard is they're talking about money. Raffi comments on how Picard is living in a chateau on his family's estate while she lives in what looks like a trailer in the middle of a desert, suggesting that, even though the Star Trek universe has heretofore claimed to have transcended money, hereditary wealth might still have some impact on people's lives of which our privileged Starfleet officers have been ignorant.
Which reminded me of how people talked about money when I was a kid.
Around the age when I was first watching Star Trek, I got constant lectures from my father that all you have to do is go to school, get an education, get a job, work hard, and you'll have money. If you're poor or *gasp* have to go on welfare, my father's lectures went, it's obviously because you aren't working hard enough or being diligent enough.
When I entered the workforce, I came to realize it wasn't that simple. And then, when I read Thomas Piketty, I further learned that the economic context in which my father had the experiences that led him to develop these ideas was fleeting and historically unprecedented. He was a fish in an aquarium, being fed regularly by his keepers, lecturing ocean fish on how to get food and avoid being caught in nets.
He was saying it's basically a solved problem, all you have to do is follow the system, but in reality he happened to be born in one of the rare niches where the system worked. As, we're coming to realize, was Jean-Luc Picard.
Some people have criticized 21st-century Star Trek for not having the idealism of 20th-century Star Trek.
But the fact of the matter is, in a world where we've had our consciousnesses raised to the notion of reconciliation and then watched it be sacrificed on the altar of short-sightedness, a wagon train to the stars isn't going to cut it any more.
But here comes Jean-Luc Picard.
He has become disillusioned with the harm that has been done by the systems and structures he'd always believed in, the very systems and structures from which he drew all his power and authority and expertise. He has come to realize that the economy into which he was born does not serve everyone as well as it serves him.
And he's out to right wrongs.
Yes, I do realize right now he thinks he's just on a simple rescue mission. Yes, I do realize that I shouldn't get my hopes up.
But right now, right this minute as I type this, given what has happened so far and given what still remains up in the air (and, on a meta level, given the fact that the series has already been renewed for a second season) Jean-Luc Picard could maybe, just maybe, dedicate himself to fixing this shit.
He's become aware of the ways the systems and structures and economy he came up in have been used to harm others even as they've served him well. He's in possession of the power and authority and expertise and wealth that he accrued through these systems and structures, and he's using it to right wrongs. Maybe, just maybe, once Soji is safe, he'll take on the bigger challenge of righting wrongs by fixing the systems and structures, so no more harm is done, so we have a universe that truly serves everyone well, and we can once again sincerely imagine an idealistic future.
Which is exactly what I want to be when I grow up, even though it seems utterly impossible.
Sunday, January 12, 2020
Disillusionment (Part 1)
This post contains descriptions of transphobia.
I never really thought about transgender before I became an Eddie Izzard fan.
I'm not transgender myself, my formal and informal education didn't include notions surrounding transgender, I didn't knowingly know any trans people, I'd never had to translate about anything remotely related to transgender . . . it was just one of the many subjects that wasn't on my radar.
Then, nearly 13 years ago, a google search took me to an Eddie Izzard video, which took me down a youtube rabbithole, which led me to my very first hero, role model, and inspiration. Eddie gave me a huge portion of what I needed to grow up from an insecure, uncertain young woman to a more confident, more competent middle-aged woman.
And, along the way, got me thinking about transgender.
I listened to what Eddie had to say in standup and in interviews about gender identity, googled some concepts that were new to me, and then let the ideas gently simmer while I went about the business of growing up.
As these ideas simmered, some realizations bubbled up.
I came to be able to discern my own gender identity, as separate from biology and socialization.
I came to recognize thoughts and feelings and reactions dating back to childhood that support this.
I came to see parallels between some of the experiences of trans people and some of my own experiences, which led me to stop seeing trans people as Other and start seeing them as people basically doing the same thing as I am, just from a slightly different starting point.
I became aware of trans people in my online and real-life communities.
I became aware that I should be listening and learning when people talk about their firsthand experiences, rather than boldly opining.
I became aware of non-binary, of ways to write and ways to make policy that are all-inclusive, not just masculine or feminine.
By the time transgender came up in my translations, I had a general idea of potential linguistic pitfalls and what I should verify with reliable sources, and was able to guide my colleagues accordingly.
Politically, I've become increasingly aware of how policies I'd previously thought innocuous (and sometimes didn't even recognize as policies - I just thought "that's the way the world is"!) could cause disproportionate harm to trans and non-binary people.
And, most importantly, I've learned to listen to and believe trans and non-binary people (and other marginalized groups) rather than thinking I need to be an expert myself.
I'm still very much in the listening and learning phase of my journey (since my starting point was zero, I've had a lot of catching up to do!), but I've been slowly and surely becoming more and more informed since that fateful google 13 years ago pointed me towards the path I need to be on. It's been a gradual, painless meander in the general direction of the right side of history.
And that's why I'm both baffled and gutted by Heather Mallick's recent column, in which she describes a transphobic talk as "a feminist event", describes the trans women who were protesting the talk as "enraged men", and parallels these trans women with the perpetrator of the Montreal Massacre.
You see, that google 13 years ago that brought me to Eddie Izzard was inspired by Heather Mallick's writing. Her book title and her Eddie Izzard fandom brought me to Eddie, which changed every aspect of my inner life for the better, including setting me on my journey from being completely ignorant of transgender to being less and less assholic.
I have been very grateful to Heather for this ever since. I even considered walking up to her at an Eddie Izzard show (I recognized her from her column headshot) and thanking her for introducing me to Eddie's work, but I wasn't confident that I could do so without coming across as creepy.
And now I feel disgusted with myself for having - for years! - carried around positive feelings about someone who could say such horrible things.
And I'm also completely baffled that someone could start at the same starting point as me - could, in fact, direct me to the starting point when I didn't know where it was - and then head in exactly the opposite direction.
And then I'm wondering if, because this was my starting point, I might somehow unknowingly be transphobic myself???
What do you even do with this???
***
That was an awful lot of hundreds of words about my own feelings - what with this being a personal blog and all - but the real problem here is not about me at all.
The real problem is that this is a column in a high-circulation newspaper.
Newspapers are tools of information, so they have to be particularly mindful of serving the ignorant.
Having a columnist who is transphobic but somehow comes across to ignorant people (like me) as an ally of trans people is a disservice to ignorant readers. It exacerbates my ignorance. In fact, it conceals my ignorance from me, which is the exact opposite of what I need my newspaper to be doing - I need my newspaper to be enlightening me about areas where I didn't even know I was ignorant!
I can't tell if, when the Star hired Heather Mallick, they thought (as I foolishly did at the time) that she was a trans ally, or if they could tell that she wasn't and hired her anyway, or if they didn't care.
If they could tell or if they didn't care, they need to smarten up!
And if the Star was under the same mistaken impression I was, they need to find people who saw it coming.
As I've been picking through my emotions and slowly piecing them together into a blog post, it also came out that J.K. Rowling is transphobic, and it came to my attention that people have been flagging this for years. (I must start following some of them on Twitter!)
There must have also been people who could see years ago that Heather Mallick was transphobic, even back when I still thought she was an ally. The Star should consult with them when hiring people to write their columns.
Or, better yet, find some trans people who saw it coming and hire them to write columns!
I became aware of this protest, and of the nature of the speaker being protested, because of the trans people and allies I follow on Twitter. Similar things happen as I follow disabled people, and people of different races, and people from different countries, and people who speak different languages. As people talk about whatever's on their mind, information of which I was previously ignorant effortlessly reaches me, and the path towards the right side of history becomes just a touch clearer to me.
The Toronto Star, as a tool of information, should also be serving this function. It should be finding the voices that historically haven't reached its readers - especially readers who are ignorant like me - and putting those voices right where they will reach us effortlessly, nudging us away from our ignorance and in the general direction of the right side of history.
I never really thought about transgender before I became an Eddie Izzard fan.
I'm not transgender myself, my formal and informal education didn't include notions surrounding transgender, I didn't knowingly know any trans people, I'd never had to translate about anything remotely related to transgender . . . it was just one of the many subjects that wasn't on my radar.
Then, nearly 13 years ago, a google search took me to an Eddie Izzard video, which took me down a youtube rabbithole, which led me to my very first hero, role model, and inspiration. Eddie gave me a huge portion of what I needed to grow up from an insecure, uncertain young woman to a more confident, more competent middle-aged woman.
And, along the way, got me thinking about transgender.
I listened to what Eddie had to say in standup and in interviews about gender identity, googled some concepts that were new to me, and then let the ideas gently simmer while I went about the business of growing up.
As these ideas simmered, some realizations bubbled up.
I came to be able to discern my own gender identity, as separate from biology and socialization.
I came to recognize thoughts and feelings and reactions dating back to childhood that support this.
I came to see parallels between some of the experiences of trans people and some of my own experiences, which led me to stop seeing trans people as Other and start seeing them as people basically doing the same thing as I am, just from a slightly different starting point.
I became aware of trans people in my online and real-life communities.
I became aware that I should be listening and learning when people talk about their firsthand experiences, rather than boldly opining.
I became aware of non-binary, of ways to write and ways to make policy that are all-inclusive, not just masculine or feminine.
By the time transgender came up in my translations, I had a general idea of potential linguistic pitfalls and what I should verify with reliable sources, and was able to guide my colleagues accordingly.
Politically, I've become increasingly aware of how policies I'd previously thought innocuous (and sometimes didn't even recognize as policies - I just thought "that's the way the world is"!) could cause disproportionate harm to trans and non-binary people.
And, most importantly, I've learned to listen to and believe trans and non-binary people (and other marginalized groups) rather than thinking I need to be an expert myself.
I'm still very much in the listening and learning phase of my journey (since my starting point was zero, I've had a lot of catching up to do!), but I've been slowly and surely becoming more and more informed since that fateful google 13 years ago pointed me towards the path I need to be on. It's been a gradual, painless meander in the general direction of the right side of history.
And that's why I'm both baffled and gutted by Heather Mallick's recent column, in which she describes a transphobic talk as "a feminist event", describes the trans women who were protesting the talk as "enraged men", and parallels these trans women with the perpetrator of the Montreal Massacre.
You see, that google 13 years ago that brought me to Eddie Izzard was inspired by Heather Mallick's writing. Her book title and her Eddie Izzard fandom brought me to Eddie, which changed every aspect of my inner life for the better, including setting me on my journey from being completely ignorant of transgender to being less and less assholic.
I have been very grateful to Heather for this ever since. I even considered walking up to her at an Eddie Izzard show (I recognized her from her column headshot) and thanking her for introducing me to Eddie's work, but I wasn't confident that I could do so without coming across as creepy.
And now I feel disgusted with myself for having - for years! - carried around positive feelings about someone who could say such horrible things.
And I'm also completely baffled that someone could start at the same starting point as me - could, in fact, direct me to the starting point when I didn't know where it was - and then head in exactly the opposite direction.
And then I'm wondering if, because this was my starting point, I might somehow unknowingly be transphobic myself???
What do you even do with this???
***
That was an awful lot of hundreds of words about my own feelings - what with this being a personal blog and all - but the real problem here is not about me at all.
The real problem is that this is a column in a high-circulation newspaper.
Newspapers are tools of information, so they have to be particularly mindful of serving the ignorant.
Having a columnist who is transphobic but somehow comes across to ignorant people (like me) as an ally of trans people is a disservice to ignorant readers. It exacerbates my ignorance. In fact, it conceals my ignorance from me, which is the exact opposite of what I need my newspaper to be doing - I need my newspaper to be enlightening me about areas where I didn't even know I was ignorant!
I can't tell if, when the Star hired Heather Mallick, they thought (as I foolishly did at the time) that she was a trans ally, or if they could tell that she wasn't and hired her anyway, or if they didn't care.
If they could tell or if they didn't care, they need to smarten up!
And if the Star was under the same mistaken impression I was, they need to find people who saw it coming.
As I've been picking through my emotions and slowly piecing them together into a blog post, it also came out that J.K. Rowling is transphobic, and it came to my attention that people have been flagging this for years. (I must start following some of them on Twitter!)
There must have also been people who could see years ago that Heather Mallick was transphobic, even back when I still thought she was an ally. The Star should consult with them when hiring people to write their columns.
Or, better yet, find some trans people who saw it coming and hire them to write columns!
I became aware of this protest, and of the nature of the speaker being protested, because of the trans people and allies I follow on Twitter. Similar things happen as I follow disabled people, and people of different races, and people from different countries, and people who speak different languages. As people talk about whatever's on their mind, information of which I was previously ignorant effortlessly reaches me, and the path towards the right side of history becomes just a touch clearer to me.
The Toronto Star, as a tool of information, should also be serving this function. It should be finding the voices that historically haven't reached its readers - especially readers who are ignorant like me - and putting those voices right where they will reach us effortlessly, nudging us away from our ignorance and in the general direction of the right side of history.
Saturday, January 11, 2020
Breathe Right nasal strips for a runny nose: effective but messy
I have some serious and complex blog posts I'm working on that were stymied first by xmas, then by an annoying cold/virus thing that left me unable to do anything but drink tea while wrapped in blankets for over a week.
But, during the course of my cold/virus thingy, I finally had the opportunity to try a sample of Breathe Right nasal strips that I'd received ages ago. I was skeptical that they'd work for a cold, but I was too congested to sleep and I don't like taking decongestant (makes me wake up with my mouth painfully dry. So I decided to give them a try.
Surprisingly, they helped! They opened my nose by just a tiny amount, but it was enough to let me breathe well enough to fall asleep without decongestant.
The downside: if you have a really runny nose and you open it up wider, more snot comes out! I woke up looking like a toddler who doesn't know how to wipe their nose!
I found this worthwhile, but other people might not.
I also developed an enormous cystic zit in the tip of my nose after using the Breathe Right strip. I can't tell if this was just coincidence (I tend to get more acne when my immune system is working on something) or if they actually exacerbate acne.
I will be trying them again next time I'm congested enough that it hinders sleep.
But, during the course of my cold/virus thingy, I finally had the opportunity to try a sample of Breathe Right nasal strips that I'd received ages ago. I was skeptical that they'd work for a cold, but I was too congested to sleep and I don't like taking decongestant (makes me wake up with my mouth painfully dry. So I decided to give them a try.
Surprisingly, they helped! They opened my nose by just a tiny amount, but it was enough to let me breathe well enough to fall asleep without decongestant.
The downside: if you have a really runny nose and you open it up wider, more snot comes out! I woke up looking like a toddler who doesn't know how to wipe their nose!
I found this worthwhile, but other people might not.
I also developed an enormous cystic zit in the tip of my nose after using the Breathe Right strip. I can't tell if this was just coincidence (I tend to get more acne when my immune system is working on something) or if they actually exacerbate acne.
I will be trying them again next time I'm congested enough that it hinders sleep.
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Books read in December 2019
New:
1. How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
2. Queen's Shadow by E. K. Johnston
3. That Inevitable Victorian Thing by E. K. Johnston
4. The Morning After: The 1995 Quebec Referendum and the Day that Almost Was by Chantal Hebert with Jean Lapierre
Reread:
1. Judgement in Death
1. How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
2. Queen's Shadow by E. K. Johnston
3. That Inevitable Victorian Thing by E. K. Johnston
4. The Morning After: The 1995 Quebec Referendum and the Day that Almost Was by Chantal Hebert with Jean Lapierre
Reread:
1. Judgement in Death
Sunday, December 22, 2019
Horoscopes
Toronto Star
Globe and Mail:
The Star one just sounds exhausting. The Globe and Mail one kind of already happened as I tried to figure out how to make a life after my head injury.
IF TODAY IS YOUR BIRTHDAY: What you can expect this year is the unexpected. Once you find your life settling down and working well, do not be surprised at the wave of excitement that falls on you. Children and loved ones could be involved. If single, you could be overwhelmed by a series of passionate love affairs; with each affair, you might believe this is the right person. Let time be the judge. If attached, you will not be able to complain about boredom. It will be as if you are newlyweds or new lovers again. SCORPIO encourages you to live life with passion.
Globe and Mail:
A Mars-Pluto link on your birthday will add a touch of iron to your nature and anyone who thinks they can bully you is going to realize you are not the pushover they thought you were. What happened to your easygoing attitude? Who knows, but it’s gone!
The Star one just sounds exhausting. The Globe and Mail one kind of already happened as I tried to figure out how to make a life after my head injury.
Saturday, November 30, 2019
Books read in November 2019
New:
1. Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King
Reread:
1. Witness in Death
1. Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King
Reread:
1. Witness in Death
Sunday, November 24, 2019
Another option for Captain Awkward #1237
From Captain Awkward:
In addition to Captain Awkward's idea (which are definitely worth reading - a lot of interesting food for thought about what happens when etiquette no longer serves us well), I have another script suggestion:
"Let's not do gifts any more."
You might cite reasons like "We're all adults now, we can all buy whatever we want for ourselves just as easily as we can buy things for each other. We all know what we ourselves have and need, whereas we can't see what the others have or need."
If your mother is going to be disappointed by the thought of her children not exchanging gifts, you can add something about "What's really important is being together."
(If you want to keep exchanging gifts with your mother, your initial script can be "Let's not do gifts among siblings.")
This approach will achieve several things:
Basically, the worse your siblings' intentions, the more this approach punishes them, whereas the better their intentions, the more this approach unburdens them. And all while requiring no effort whatsoever from you!
Hi!
I am 28, she/her. My sister in law (“A”) is also 28 and my brother (“D”) is 31.
I have a question about gift etiquette.
Last year on my birthday, A and D gave me a bunch of used DVDs. They got me slightly damaged copies of a couple movies and every season of a TV show my parents liked in the 90’s that I have never expressed any interest in. They wrapped each one individually so they could watch me unwrap them and giggle. I got the joke – this is a terrible gift! Hahaha – but I wasn’t included in the joke. With each one I opened, I got more confused, which seemed to make it even more funny for them.
That Christmas, they did it again, and this time they did it to my parents as well. They got me individual seasons of a TV show that is available in its entirety on Netflix and that I have had conversations about with them in the past where I said I did not like the show. They got my parents copies of DVDs they already owned. All of these were slightly beat up from being previously owned. They giggled and said things like “That’s an important one” and “Better get on watching that soon” the whole time.
My parents pretended to like them the whole time, but as A and D had already done this on my birthday, I finally got frustrated and refused to open more presents from them, because they just kept coming. We all take turns opening gifts and every time it was my turn, it was another used DVD.
Meanwhile, I work very hard on gifts. Last year I got A, a notorious anglophile, a certificate to a years subscription to a service that gets a ton of different British TV shows she had been wanting to watch but hadn’t been able to get access to. I nestled the certificate in a box of fortune cookie fortunes I had collected throughout the year (she collects these and plans to cover a table with them someday). For D I spent months searching for a sweater that had the Coca Cola logo on it. (He loves Coke. He once wrote an essay on its history for a college history class.) These were in addition to other things – games they didn’t have (they love board games) and nice teas (they enjoy tea). I spent ages trying to find thoughtful gifts and then I wrapped each one in nice paper that’s in their favorite colors.
The Christmas before last they didn’t get me a joke gift. They got me a “gummy candy maker.” It was essentially brightly colored silicone molds and unbranded Jello to put in them. It was obviously a children’s toy, and when I opened it, it was sticky from being previously owned. I pretended to be interested and thanked them, which made them smirk at each other. They also gave me a wine-scented candle. It was branded as being from a winery A’s parents had gone to a month or two prior. (Meaning I think they regifted it.)
So they have always given gifts like this, last year was just kind of a new level.
After they left last Christmas, my mom pulled me aside and was like, “Do you know what was going on with all the used DVDs?”
I said, “I think they just thought it was funny.” She seemed a bit crestfallen. She gives gifts similar to mine. She had gotten A a rare kind of tea set.
Furthermore, I don’t think A used the gift certificate and I know D got rid of the sweater because this year Mom said we should take a family photo wearing goofy sweaters and D said he didn’t have one. I said, “What about the one I gave you last Christmas?” He said “Oh, right. I might still have that.”
This is not a money thing – they both make more money than I do and buy nice, new things for themselves regularly. They’re just giving me joke gifts and doubling down when my feelings are hurt. I guess they just don’t like the gifts I give them.
I don’t mean to seem like I’m bragging about being super great at giving gifts or I’m entitled to lots of cool presents. I only meant that I try to put a lot of thought into their gifts and save up for them for a long time. They take a long time to think of and pull off. And A and D get cheap gifts at the last second. I would rather they didn’t get me anything at all.
My question is, what is the etiquette for receiving gifts that hurt my feelings? Do I have to keep pretending they don’t? What should I feel about trying really hard to get them things they like and having them openly dislike them? I want to just get them Amazon gift cards this year, but if they decide to get me non-joke presents this year I’ll just look like an asshole. I don’t know what to do or say.
Sorry this is so long. Thank you in advance.
In addition to Captain Awkward's idea (which are definitely worth reading - a lot of interesting food for thought about what happens when etiquette no longer serves us well), I have another script suggestion:
"Let's not do gifts any more."
You might cite reasons like "We're all adults now, we can all buy whatever we want for ourselves just as easily as we can buy things for each other. We all know what we ourselves have and need, whereas we can't see what the others have or need."
If your mother is going to be disappointed by the thought of her children not exchanging gifts, you can add something about "What's really important is being together."
(If you want to keep exchanging gifts with your mother, your initial script can be "Let's not do gifts among siblings.")
This approach will achieve several things:
- If your siblings dislike the gifts you give them, this will free them from that burden!
- If your siblings like your thoughtful gifts, this will deprive them of that pleasure!
- If your siblings struggle to find an appropriate gift for you, this will free them from that burden!
- If your siblings enjoy watching your discomfort as you open an unsuitable gift, this will deprive them of that pleasure!
Basically, the worse your siblings' intentions, the more this approach punishes them, whereas the better their intentions, the more this approach unburdens them. And all while requiring no effort whatsoever from you!
Saturday, November 09, 2019
Not blogathoning this year
Traditionally, I blogathon on Remembrance Day.
However, this year's goal is to eliminate things that don't serve me well, and blogathoning would not serve me well in the current context.
I do have a quite a few posts half drafted and they will come along in due course, it's just spending an entire day on it that would be unhelpful.
However, this year's goal is to eliminate things that don't serve me well, and blogathoning would not serve me well in the current context.
I do have a quite a few posts half drafted and they will come along in due course, it's just spending an entire day on it that would be unhelpful.
Tuesday, November 05, 2019
Why is there a "gender" field in Elections Canada's voter registration?
You can use Elections Canada's Voter Registration Service to see if you're registered to vote.
You enter your name, date of birth, gender and address, and it tells you if there's an entry on the voters list that matches those criteria.
My question: why is gender one of the criteria?
It's obvious why they ask for your name.
Your address is relevant because it confirms the riding you're eligible to vote in and the poll you should vote at.
Date of birth confirms that you're old enough to vote. It can also help distinguish you from other people at the same address who share the same name (given that it's not uncommon for parents and children to live together and that it's not uncommon for children to be named after their parents). Also, historically (with the existence of the phone book) it's been fairly simple to find out a person's address, but less easy (or, at least, requiring some degree of acquaintanceship) to find out their date of birth. Added to that, date of birth is a data point that doesn't change. You can change your name, you can change your address, you can change the gender marker that appears on your ID and personal records, but your date of birth stays the same.
But gender doesn't add much to proving or confirming someone's identity.
Because so many given names are most commonly associated with one gender, it's not terribly likely that the gender marker would help differentiate you from other people with the same name. It can happen that people with different genders have the exact same name, but it's not nearly as robust a factor as address or date of birth.
And, because so many given names are gendered, it's not a workable factor for authenticating your identity either. A malicious actor (or a bot programmed with data scraped from baby name sites) would probably be able to guess the gender of the majority of people on the voters list.
On top of the fact that using gender as an identity factor adds little to no value, it also creates a situation where any negative impact is felt strictly by the most marginalized demographic.
People who continue to use the gender they were assigned at birth will have no problems whatsoever with choosing the same gender as appears on the voters list, or with having their gender as it appears on the list match the gender that appears on their ID.
But people whose gender marker on their official documentation has changed may find that their previous gender marker is still on the voters list, which would mean the online system says they're not registered to vote when in fact they are. Or it could cause problem at the polling station, when the gender indicated on the list doesn't match the gender indicated on their ID, or the poll worker's perception of the voter's external appearance.
At a minimum, the presence of a "gender" field on the voters list creates the possibility of extra red tape for transgender voters, non-binary voters, and any other voters whose gender marker has changed at some point in their lives. Worst case, it could prevent these populations from being able to vote.
But it would have no possible impact on people whose gender identity and gender marker align with what they were assigned at birth.
Since we still live in a world where non-cis people are all too often marginalized, this means any negative impacts of having a "gender" field land squarely on the marginalized group.
Elections Canada does deserve credit for introducing a "Gender X" option on the voters list. But I do encourage them to look critically at whether they need to be including gender at all. Does it actually add any value? And is that value worth the burden that it places squarely on the marginalized group?
You enter your name, date of birth, gender and address, and it tells you if there's an entry on the voters list that matches those criteria.
My question: why is gender one of the criteria?
It's obvious why they ask for your name.
Your address is relevant because it confirms the riding you're eligible to vote in and the poll you should vote at.
Date of birth confirms that you're old enough to vote. It can also help distinguish you from other people at the same address who share the same name (given that it's not uncommon for parents and children to live together and that it's not uncommon for children to be named after their parents). Also, historically (with the existence of the phone book) it's been fairly simple to find out a person's address, but less easy (or, at least, requiring some degree of acquaintanceship) to find out their date of birth. Added to that, date of birth is a data point that doesn't change. You can change your name, you can change your address, you can change the gender marker that appears on your ID and personal records, but your date of birth stays the same.
But gender doesn't add much to proving or confirming someone's identity.
Because so many given names are most commonly associated with one gender, it's not terribly likely that the gender marker would help differentiate you from other people with the same name. It can happen that people with different genders have the exact same name, but it's not nearly as robust a factor as address or date of birth.
And, because so many given names are gendered, it's not a workable factor for authenticating your identity either. A malicious actor (or a bot programmed with data scraped from baby name sites) would probably be able to guess the gender of the majority of people on the voters list.
On top of the fact that using gender as an identity factor adds little to no value, it also creates a situation where any negative impact is felt strictly by the most marginalized demographic.
People who continue to use the gender they were assigned at birth will have no problems whatsoever with choosing the same gender as appears on the voters list, or with having their gender as it appears on the list match the gender that appears on their ID.
But people whose gender marker on their official documentation has changed may find that their previous gender marker is still on the voters list, which would mean the online system says they're not registered to vote when in fact they are. Or it could cause problem at the polling station, when the gender indicated on the list doesn't match the gender indicated on their ID, or the poll worker's perception of the voter's external appearance.
At a minimum, the presence of a "gender" field on the voters list creates the possibility of extra red tape for transgender voters, non-binary voters, and any other voters whose gender marker has changed at some point in their lives. Worst case, it could prevent these populations from being able to vote.
But it would have no possible impact on people whose gender identity and gender marker align with what they were assigned at birth.
Since we still live in a world where non-cis people are all too often marginalized, this means any negative impacts of having a "gender" field land squarely on the marginalized group.
Elections Canada does deserve credit for introducing a "Gender X" option on the voters list. But I do encourage them to look critically at whether they need to be including gender at all. Does it actually add any value? And is that value worth the burden that it places squarely on the marginalized group?
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Books read in October 2019
New:
1. Vendetta in Death by J.D. Robb
2. Be With: Letters to a Caregiver by Mike Barnes
Reread:
1. Loyalty in Death
1. Vendetta in Death by J.D. Robb
2. Be With: Letters to a Caregiver by Mike Barnes
Reread:
1. Loyalty in Death
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Wish strategy
1. If you ever find a genie in a bottle or some other wish-granting mechanism, here's how you do the most good:
If you get more than one wish, make the your subsequent wishes under the influence of that first wish.
2. Conversely, if you're wholly selfish, your first wish should be:
3. If you want to do good and are also a bit selfish and have more than one wish, your first wish should be:
Then wish for broadly-optimal decisions under the influence of the first wish (if it still comes out that way), and the third wish under the influence of broadly-optimal decisions.
4. Conventional wisdom is that you can't use wishes to make anyone fall in love with you, and, really, we want to be loved for who we are, not because the object of our affections has been brainwashed.
I previously theorized that a getting-to-know-you spell would be a good alternative to a love potion, and I think you could also do the same thing with wishes.
If you're brave, your wish could be:
If you're more cautious, your wish could be:
That way, they still fall in love with you (or not) on your own merits, they just fast-forward to knowing what those merits are.
I wish that every decision ever made from now on will be optimal on as broad a level as possible.
If you get more than one wish, make the your subsequent wishes under the influence of that first wish.
2. Conversely, if you're wholly selfish, your first wish should be:
I wish that every decision ever made from now on will be optimal for me.
3. If you want to do good and are also a bit selfish and have more than one wish, your first wish should be:
I wish that nothing will ever get worse for me or anyone I care about.
Then wish for broadly-optimal decisions under the influence of the first wish (if it still comes out that way), and the third wish under the influence of broadly-optimal decisions.
4. Conventional wisdom is that you can't use wishes to make anyone fall in love with you, and, really, we want to be loved for who we are, not because the object of our affections has been brainwashed.
I previously theorized that a getting-to-know-you spell would be a good alternative to a love potion, and I think you could also do the same thing with wishes.
If you're brave, your wish could be:
I wish that [object of my affection] will know everything about me.
If you're more cautious, your wish could be:
I wish that [object of my affection] will know everything about me that they perceive to be positive.
That way, they still fall in love with you (or not) on your own merits, they just fast-forward to knowing what those merits are.
Saturday, October 26, 2019
Voted
I usually blog about my voting experience directly after the election, but I've had an extremely busy week so I'm not getting to it until now.
Voting went literally as quickly as humanly possible. I walked out the door straight to the polling place (pausing only to pet two friendly dogs who proactively greeted me). There was no line at the door, there was no line at the table for my poll, I cast my vote immediately and walked straight home. No more than 10 minutes elapsed between locking my door on the way out of the apartment and unlocking the door on the way back in.
I saw more than the usual amount of signs this time around, in the usual proportions. On the weekend before the election, a fringe candidate in my riding put up a bunch of signs on lampposts - some at the perfect height to smack pedestrians in the face, others so high up that the property owners would need a ladder to remove them. The next day, I noticed that many of the face-height signs were battered and torn.
I got one flyer each from my Liberal, NDP and Conservative candidates. The Liberal and NDP flyers were the usual boilerplate. The Conservative flyer managed to assume both that I'm wealthier than I actually am and that I have a harder time making ends meet than I actually do. It also failed to mention the candidate's name.
The Conservative candidate also had a branded SUV that they kept parking just outside the riding (probably because my neighbourhood marks the boundary of three ridings and street parking is scarce.) I can't tell if this was an advertising measure or if that was just their campaign vehicle. (Do candidates in transit-intensive urban neighbourhoods have campaign vehicles?)
One thing I do appreciate is that my Liberal candidate's campaign office configured their phone service so that a name showed up on call display. I find that fewer and fewer callers are doing that lately, and I particularly appreciate knowing who's calling when it's for a legitimate reason. I don't know if any of the other campaigns called me. I didn't get any voicemail messages from them or see any of their names on call display, and I don't answer the phone to unknown numbers.
Voting went literally as quickly as humanly possible. I walked out the door straight to the polling place (pausing only to pet two friendly dogs who proactively greeted me). There was no line at the door, there was no line at the table for my poll, I cast my vote immediately and walked straight home. No more than 10 minutes elapsed between locking my door on the way out of the apartment and unlocking the door on the way back in.
I saw more than the usual amount of signs this time around, in the usual proportions. On the weekend before the election, a fringe candidate in my riding put up a bunch of signs on lampposts - some at the perfect height to smack pedestrians in the face, others so high up that the property owners would need a ladder to remove them. The next day, I noticed that many of the face-height signs were battered and torn.
I got one flyer each from my Liberal, NDP and Conservative candidates. The Liberal and NDP flyers were the usual boilerplate. The Conservative flyer managed to assume both that I'm wealthier than I actually am and that I have a harder time making ends meet than I actually do. It also failed to mention the candidate's name.
The Conservative candidate also had a branded SUV that they kept parking just outside the riding (probably because my neighbourhood marks the boundary of three ridings and street parking is scarce.) I can't tell if this was an advertising measure or if that was just their campaign vehicle. (Do candidates in transit-intensive urban neighbourhoods have campaign vehicles?)
One thing I do appreciate is that my Liberal candidate's campaign office configured their phone service so that a name showed up on call display. I find that fewer and fewer callers are doing that lately, and I particularly appreciate knowing who's calling when it's for a legitimate reason. I don't know if any of the other campaigns called me. I didn't get any voicemail messages from them or see any of their names on call display, and I don't answer the phone to unknown numbers.
Saturday, October 19, 2019
Voters' Resources (Canada 2019 edition)
Getting started
Election Day is October 21!
First, go to the Elections Canada website and type in your postal code to find out if you're registered to vote, your riding, your candidates, and where to vote.
You need ID to vote. Here's the list of acceptable combinations of ID.
Your employer needs to allow you three consecutive hours off during voting hours.
Platforms
Bloc Québécois (PDF)
Conservative Party
Green Party
Liberal Party
New Democratic Party
My posts about deciding how to vote
How to decide who to vote for
How to decide where to vote if you have a choice
How to vote strategically
To figure out which party is best for you
CBC Vote Compass
Political Compass: compare your results on the test with the Canadian federal elections 2019 chart
Riding-by-riding predictions
Election Prediction Project
338 Canada
LISPOP
Too Close to Call
This post will be updated through to Election Day as I find more information. Do you know of anything else that should be included here? Are any of the links dead? Let me know in the comments!
Election Day is October 21!
First, go to the Elections Canada website and type in your postal code to find out if you're registered to vote, your riding, your candidates, and where to vote.
You need ID to vote. Here's the list of acceptable combinations of ID.
Your employer needs to allow you three consecutive hours off during voting hours.
Platforms
Bloc Québécois (PDF)
Conservative Party
Green Party
Liberal Party
New Democratic Party
My posts about deciding how to vote
How to decide who to vote for
How to decide where to vote if you have a choice
How to vote strategically
To figure out which party is best for you
CBC Vote Compass
Political Compass: compare your results on the test with the Canadian federal elections 2019 chart
Riding-by-riding predictions
Election Prediction Project
338 Canada
LISPOP
Too Close to Call
This post will be updated through to Election Day as I find more information. Do you know of anything else that should be included here? Are any of the links dead? Let me know in the comments!
How to vote strategically
This is part of my Voters' Resources post.
Some people vote for the party whose platform they find most suitable (the Best Party). If that's what you're trying to do, this post isn't for you. Go vote for the Best Party.
Other people try to prevent the party whose platform they find most harmful (the Worst Party) from being elected, by voting for the party that's most likely to defeat the Worst Party (the Compromise Party). This is called strategic voting.
The most important thing about strategic voting is that your strategy has to apply to the reality in your riding. The media feeds us national polls for breakfast every day, but they're not directly relevant. Regardless of what the rest of the country is doing, your vote will only be used to elect the MP for your own riding. If your riding is already disinclined to elect the Worst Party, there's no point in a strategic vote - you'd just end up making the Compromise Party look more popular than they really are.
So here's what to do if your priority is stopping the Worst Party from winning:
1. Ask yourself: "If I don't vote, who's going to win in this particular riding?"
If the answer is a party other than the Worst Party, vote for the Best Party. If the answer is "the Worst Party" or "it's too close to tell," go on to step 2.
2. Ask yourself: "If I don't vote, who's most likely to defeat the Worst Party in this particular riding?"
This is your Compromise Party. Read their platform. If it's acceptable, vote for the Compromise Party. If it's not acceptable, vote for the Best Party.
Remember: ignore the national polls; think only about the situation in your riding!
Links to tools to help you figure out what's going to happen in your riding are available in the Voters' Resources post
Some people vote for the party whose platform they find most suitable (the Best Party). If that's what you're trying to do, this post isn't for you. Go vote for the Best Party.
Other people try to prevent the party whose platform they find most harmful (the Worst Party) from being elected, by voting for the party that's most likely to defeat the Worst Party (the Compromise Party). This is called strategic voting.
The most important thing about strategic voting is that your strategy has to apply to the reality in your riding. The media feeds us national polls for breakfast every day, but they're not directly relevant. Regardless of what the rest of the country is doing, your vote will only be used to elect the MP for your own riding. If your riding is already disinclined to elect the Worst Party, there's no point in a strategic vote - you'd just end up making the Compromise Party look more popular than they really are.
So here's what to do if your priority is stopping the Worst Party from winning:
1. Ask yourself: "If I don't vote, who's going to win in this particular riding?"
If the answer is a party other than the Worst Party, vote for the Best Party. If the answer is "the Worst Party" or "it's too close to tell," go on to step 2.
2. Ask yourself: "If I don't vote, who's most likely to defeat the Worst Party in this particular riding?"
This is your Compromise Party. Read their platform. If it's acceptable, vote for the Compromise Party. If it's not acceptable, vote for the Best Party.
Remember: ignore the national polls; think only about the situation in your riding!
Links to tools to help you figure out what's going to happen in your riding are available in the Voters' Resources post
How to decide where to vote (if you have a choice)
This is part of my Voters' Resources post.
Some people (such as university students renting housing in the community where they go to school who also still have their parents' house as their "permanent address") are in a situation where they could legitimately vote in one of two possible ridings. This post is intended to help them decide where to vote.
1. If one of the ridings is a really close race, vote in that riding. If both are close, vote in the riding with the closest race. If neither is really close, follow the instructions below.
2. Of the parties running candidates in your riding, decide which one has the best platform that comes closest to meeting your needs and your vision for the country (hereafter the Best Party). Then decide which one has the worst platform that is furthest from meeting your needs and deviates the most from your vision for the country (hereafter the Worst Party). You are judging the parties as a whole, not the individual candidates in your riding. Assess each party individually without regard to possible strategic voting - that comes later.
3. Based on your own needs and your own vision for the country, decide whether it is more important to you that the Best Party win, or that the Worst Party does not win.
4. If it's more important to you that the Best Party win, vote for the Best Party in the riding where the Best Party is least likely to win.
5. If it's more important to you that the Worst Party not win, and the Worst Party has a chance in either of your ridings, vote for the party most likely to defeat the Worst Party in the riding where the Worst Party is most likely to win.
6. If the Worst Party doesn't have a chance in either of your ridings, vote for the Best Party in the riding where the Best Party is least likely to win.
Tools to help you figure out where you're eligible to vote and which party is most likely to win in your ridings can be found in the Voters' Resources post
Some people (such as university students renting housing in the community where they go to school who also still have their parents' house as their "permanent address") are in a situation where they could legitimately vote in one of two possible ridings. This post is intended to help them decide where to vote.
1. If one of the ridings is a really close race, vote in that riding. If both are close, vote in the riding with the closest race. If neither is really close, follow the instructions below.
2. Of the parties running candidates in your riding, decide which one has the best platform that comes closest to meeting your needs and your vision for the country (hereafter the Best Party). Then decide which one has the worst platform that is furthest from meeting your needs and deviates the most from your vision for the country (hereafter the Worst Party). You are judging the parties as a whole, not the individual candidates in your riding. Assess each party individually without regard to possible strategic voting - that comes later.
3. Based on your own needs and your own vision for the country, decide whether it is more important to you that the Best Party win, or that the Worst Party does not win.
4. If it's more important to you that the Best Party win, vote for the Best Party in the riding where the Best Party is least likely to win.
5. If it's more important to you that the Worst Party not win, and the Worst Party has a chance in either of your ridings, vote for the party most likely to defeat the Worst Party in the riding where the Worst Party is most likely to win.
6. If the Worst Party doesn't have a chance in either of your ridings, vote for the Best Party in the riding where the Best Party is least likely to win.
Tools to help you figure out where you're eligible to vote and which party is most likely to win in your ridings can be found in the Voters' Resources post
How to decide which party to vote for
This is part of my Voters' Resources post
1. Of the parties running candidates in your riding, determine which one has the best platform that comes closest to meeting your needs and your vision of Canada (hereinafter the Best Party). Then determine which one has the worst platform that is furthest from meeting your needs and deviates the most from your vision of Canada (hereinafter the Worst Party). You are judging the parties as a whole, not the individual candidates in your riding. Assess each party individually without regard to possible strategic voting - that comes later.
2. Based on your own needs and your own vision for Canada, decide whether it is more important to you that the Best Party win, or that the Worst Party does not win.
3. If it is more important to you that the Best Party wins, vote for the Best Party. If not, continue to the next step.
4. If it is more important to you that the Worst Party does not win, assess the Worst Party's chances of winning in your riding. Not in the country as a whole, just in your riding. If you feel that there's too great a risk of the Worst Party winning in your riding, vote for the party most likely to defeat the Worst Party. If you feel the risk of the Worst Party winning in your riding is acceptably low, vote for the Best Party.
Remember: do NOT use national polls to inform any strategic voting you might choose to do. Your vote is only effective in your riding. No matter how earnestly you vote, you cannot cancel out votes in another riding. Vote strategically only if the situation in your very own riding demands it, regardless of what the rest of the country is doing.
Information about how to find who's running in your riding and links to party platforms can be found in the Voters' Resources post. Further information on how to assess parties' chances in your riding and other aspects of effective strategic voting can be found in the How To Vote Strategically post.
1. Of the parties running candidates in your riding, determine which one has the best platform that comes closest to meeting your needs and your vision of Canada (hereinafter the Best Party). Then determine which one has the worst platform that is furthest from meeting your needs and deviates the most from your vision of Canada (hereinafter the Worst Party). You are judging the parties as a whole, not the individual candidates in your riding. Assess each party individually without regard to possible strategic voting - that comes later.
2. Based on your own needs and your own vision for Canada, decide whether it is more important to you that the Best Party win, or that the Worst Party does not win.
3. If it is more important to you that the Best Party wins, vote for the Best Party. If not, continue to the next step.
4. If it is more important to you that the Worst Party does not win, assess the Worst Party's chances of winning in your riding. Not in the country as a whole, just in your riding. If you feel that there's too great a risk of the Worst Party winning in your riding, vote for the party most likely to defeat the Worst Party. If you feel the risk of the Worst Party winning in your riding is acceptably low, vote for the Best Party.
Remember: do NOT use national polls to inform any strategic voting you might choose to do. Your vote is only effective in your riding. No matter how earnestly you vote, you cannot cancel out votes in another riding. Vote strategically only if the situation in your very own riding demands it, regardless of what the rest of the country is doing.
Information about how to find who's running in your riding and links to party platforms can be found in the Voters' Resources post. Further information on how to assess parties' chances in your riding and other aspects of effective strategic voting can be found in the How To Vote Strategically post.
Saturday, October 12, 2019
Analogy for spicy food
Imagine you're at an amazing concert - the music is beautiful, the lyrics are deep, the artistry is incredible...except someone pointed a microphone at a speaker, causing loud high-pitched feedback.
The feedback is so loud and high-pitched that it causes you physical pain. It's louder than the music, it's hurting and hurting and getting worse the longer you hear it, and no one is doing anything to fix it for the duration of the entire concert.
That's what it's like to eat spicy food when you have a low tolerance for spiciness.
It hurts (the roof of your mouth, your tongue, your esophagus), and the pain gets worse the more you eat. On top of that, it completely overwhelms and buries the other flavours of the rest of the food, so you can't even perceive the interaction of the other flavours and textures. You may as well be eating spicy chalk.
People who enjoy spicy food seem to feel that the spiciness interacts interestingly with the other flavours.
But, for those of us with a low tolerance, that's like saying that the microphone feedback harmonizes delightfully with the rest of the music. We can't even tell, because it hurts and we can't even hear the delightful harmonies beneath.
Sometimes, people who enjoy spicy food point out that all spices are different, and, if you think a particular cuisine is too spicy for you, it's likely just one spice or style of preparation that's causing that effect, and you should try a variety of dishes and narrow down what exactly is bothering you.
That's like if you go to a concert at a particular venue and there's a lot of painful feedback. But when you say you don't want to go to that venue any more, people say "It's just that one set-up. You should go to more concerts there to see if they have other set-ups that don't cause the feedback." But why would you subject yourself to more pain to pinpoint the precise source of the pain when you could just go to one of the many other concert venues in the city, or listen to your own music at home?
The feedback is so loud and high-pitched that it causes you physical pain. It's louder than the music, it's hurting and hurting and getting worse the longer you hear it, and no one is doing anything to fix it for the duration of the entire concert.
That's what it's like to eat spicy food when you have a low tolerance for spiciness.
It hurts (the roof of your mouth, your tongue, your esophagus), and the pain gets worse the more you eat. On top of that, it completely overwhelms and buries the other flavours of the rest of the food, so you can't even perceive the interaction of the other flavours and textures. You may as well be eating spicy chalk.
People who enjoy spicy food seem to feel that the spiciness interacts interestingly with the other flavours.
But, for those of us with a low tolerance, that's like saying that the microphone feedback harmonizes delightfully with the rest of the music. We can't even tell, because it hurts and we can't even hear the delightful harmonies beneath.
Sometimes, people who enjoy spicy food point out that all spices are different, and, if you think a particular cuisine is too spicy for you, it's likely just one spice or style of preparation that's causing that effect, and you should try a variety of dishes and narrow down what exactly is bothering you.
That's like if you go to a concert at a particular venue and there's a lot of painful feedback. But when you say you don't want to go to that venue any more, people say "It's just that one set-up. You should go to more concerts there to see if they have other set-ups that don't cause the feedback." But why would you subject yourself to more pain to pinpoint the precise source of the pain when you could just go to one of the many other concert venues in the city, or listen to your own music at home?
Wednesday, October 02, 2019
[X] or [X+1] [noun]s
A turn of phrase I've noticed recently, although it seems old-fashioned (or possibly British) is "[X] or [X+1] [noun]s".
Examples:
- "An army of 300 or 400 soldiers."
- "I drove there with 2 or 3 friends."
- "The house had 13 or 14 windows."
This turn of phrase is interesting to me, because I think it has connotations and I can't tell what they are. I suspect it's not (or perhaps not always) literal - like how "a dozen eggs" means literally 12 eggs, but "a dozen people in line" can mean 10 or 14.
Does "300 or 400 soldiers" mean between 300 and 400? Or might it be 298 or 407? Or might it be between 300 and 500? (i.e. "three hundred and something or four hundred and something")? The speaker knows, I can't tell.
The "2 or 3 friends" phase is a real-life example, i.e. someone actually said that. (Unfortunately, I didn't save the source.) That's a situation where they'd actually know the real number - surely when it's only 2 or 3 people, you can remember who exactly was there. So why did they phrase it that way?
This sounds like a strange thing to worry about - even if I don't know what the speaker's thinking, it's clear enough for our purposes - but this kind of thing is sometimes relevant in translation, when the target language doesn't do the same thing with numbers or doesn't have the same connotations.
For example, in French they have the word dizaine, deriving from dix, meaning 10. As I mentioned above, in English we have "dozen", which means either "12" or "approximately 12" depending on the context. (French also has douzaine, meaning "dozen".) Dizaine does the same thing with 10 as "dozen" does with 12 - it either means "10" or "approximately 10", depending on context.
But because English doesn't have a word for dizaine, the French to English translator needs to figure out from context where this particular instance of dizaine means "10" or "approximately 10", and whether the approximateness needs to be explicitly stated in the translation. (For example, if I say "Cassandra can cook Thanksgiving dinner for 10 all by herself!" and there were really 11 people at dinner, no harm is done by my saying 10. If I say "Cassandra invited her 10 nieces and nephews to Thanksgiving dinner" and Cassandra actually has 11 nieces and nephews, someone might read that and wonder whom Cassandra has disowned.)
This doesn't seem like it would be relevant to translating "[x] or [x+1]" - all languages have words for numbers and for the concept of "or". (And if there are any that don't, please let me know in the comments!) You can just plug the words for the numbers and for "or" into the sentence, and the translation is complete, right?
Not necessarily.
It's possible that a number phrase that's perfectly cromulent in one language might sound unduly weird in another, and the translator might have to adjust.
An example I routinely encounter in technical and administrative documents written in French is an approximating adjective followed by a non-round number, for example environ 473 voitures ("around 473 cars").
It is a simple matter to translate the words, but it sounds conspicuously weird to the English reader in a way that it doesn't to the French reader, so the English translator has to figure out the connotations (do they mean literally 473 or approximately? If they mean approximately, how did they land on that number rather than 470 or 475?) and the implications (what would be the consequences if you said "473" without any modifier and it turned out to be approximate? Or vice versa?) and adjust their translation accordingly, or find a workaround. (I like "some" as a workaround here - "some 473 cars". It conveys the notion of approximateness, but is also more easily overlooked by the English reader).
There might be some languages where "300 or 400 soldiers" also sounds conspicuously weird in a way it doesn't to the English reader, so a translator working away from English might need to understand the connotations so they can eliminate the conspicuous weirdness without eliminating accuracy.
And that translator may well ask me, in my capacity as a native-speaker Anglophone, exactly what the connotations are.
And I haven't a clue! Isn't that weird?
Examples:
- "An army of 300 or 400 soldiers."
- "I drove there with 2 or 3 friends."
- "The house had 13 or 14 windows."
This turn of phrase is interesting to me, because I think it has connotations and I can't tell what they are. I suspect it's not (or perhaps not always) literal - like how "a dozen eggs" means literally 12 eggs, but "a dozen people in line" can mean 10 or 14.
Does "300 or 400 soldiers" mean between 300 and 400? Or might it be 298 or 407? Or might it be between 300 and 500? (i.e. "three hundred and something or four hundred and something")? The speaker knows, I can't tell.
The "2 or 3 friends" phase is a real-life example, i.e. someone actually said that. (Unfortunately, I didn't save the source.) That's a situation where they'd actually know the real number - surely when it's only 2 or 3 people, you can remember who exactly was there. So why did they phrase it that way?
This sounds like a strange thing to worry about - even if I don't know what the speaker's thinking, it's clear enough for our purposes - but this kind of thing is sometimes relevant in translation, when the target language doesn't do the same thing with numbers or doesn't have the same connotations.
For example, in French they have the word dizaine, deriving from dix, meaning 10. As I mentioned above, in English we have "dozen", which means either "12" or "approximately 12" depending on the context. (French also has douzaine, meaning "dozen".) Dizaine does the same thing with 10 as "dozen" does with 12 - it either means "10" or "approximately 10", depending on context.
But because English doesn't have a word for dizaine, the French to English translator needs to figure out from context where this particular instance of dizaine means "10" or "approximately 10", and whether the approximateness needs to be explicitly stated in the translation. (For example, if I say "Cassandra can cook Thanksgiving dinner for 10 all by herself!" and there were really 11 people at dinner, no harm is done by my saying 10. If I say "Cassandra invited her 10 nieces and nephews to Thanksgiving dinner" and Cassandra actually has 11 nieces and nephews, someone might read that and wonder whom Cassandra has disowned.)
This doesn't seem like it would be relevant to translating "[x] or [x+1]" - all languages have words for numbers and for the concept of "or". (And if there are any that don't, please let me know in the comments!) You can just plug the words for the numbers and for "or" into the sentence, and the translation is complete, right?
Not necessarily.
It's possible that a number phrase that's perfectly cromulent in one language might sound unduly weird in another, and the translator might have to adjust.
An example I routinely encounter in technical and administrative documents written in French is an approximating adjective followed by a non-round number, for example environ 473 voitures ("around 473 cars").
It is a simple matter to translate the words, but it sounds conspicuously weird to the English reader in a way that it doesn't to the French reader, so the English translator has to figure out the connotations (do they mean literally 473 or approximately? If they mean approximately, how did they land on that number rather than 470 or 475?) and the implications (what would be the consequences if you said "473" without any modifier and it turned out to be approximate? Or vice versa?) and adjust their translation accordingly, or find a workaround. (I like "some" as a workaround here - "some 473 cars". It conveys the notion of approximateness, but is also more easily overlooked by the English reader).
There might be some languages where "300 or 400 soldiers" also sounds conspicuously weird in a way it doesn't to the English reader, so a translator working away from English might need to understand the connotations so they can eliminate the conspicuous weirdness without eliminating accuracy.
And that translator may well ask me, in my capacity as a native-speaker Anglophone, exactly what the connotations are.
And I haven't a clue! Isn't that weird?
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