Sunday, January 09, 2005
Deep Futurism
Jedd and I have just returned from a lovely night at the Legion. We're about to hit the sack—sort of an early night—and are listening to some Common before we put ourselves to bed with a new (relatively) Ezekiel Honig track. A few months back, while surfing Amazon I discovered a free downloads section. Generally, any music that is genuinely available for free is not worth listening to, but this little ambient piece by Honig, "More Human than Human", stood out from all the chaff. Honig takes you through a mood, leaving nothing to hold onto, and by the end, you're left wondering how you got there. (We're just listening to the song again now—it's still just as good—sublime.) We decided to look around and see what else Honig has produced. A quick search on Amazon produced an album and an Ep. According to a customer review of the album, anyone interested in 'deep futurism' really needs to check this album out. I'd certainly say that anyone interested in good music who is even moderately versed in electronic music should check this album out, but what is 'deep futurism'. As tempted as I am to launch into a diatribe against meaningless genre distinctions, it is not only a hackneyed subject, but the the name, 'deep futurism', is suprisingly fitting for this particular track. There is a depth to it, which is to say that it brings you into another world, you feel ensconced in a different paradigm. There is also an obvious futurism, you can't help but feel that you are living in a post-modern age partly free from referentiality as you listen to this track. The track captures a certain existential joy filled angst that can be concomitant with a loosening sense of objectivity. The music could equally be described as ambient glitch, but that would be a more technical name, that wouldn't capture some of it's heart. Whatever it is, I suggest you give Ezekiel a try. Jedd and I will be looking for more of his music soon and we will update if the quality is wildly divergent.
Monday, November 29, 2004
Waves on edge
Some of you have seen this picture before. I've just set up an account at flickr, and am testing out its post to blog feature.
Sunday, November 28, 2004
The Outsourcing Demon?
As many of you know, I am a frequent reader of The Economist. I read it for its clear analysis (mostly), witty insight, and excellent prose. It is one of the few publications that has actually convinced me of views which I did not previously hold, and it has done so repeatedly. Broadly speaking, The Economist could be said to espouse a view of capitalism and liberal humanism, and it is one with which I tend to agree. Though I might uphold postmodern views of indeterminacy in a metaphysical debate, when it comes to the material conditions of day-to-day life, I think one must assert something. I assume that no one will find fault with liberal humanism (at least in part because I've left it undefined), but that perhaps many have at least a partial sense of revulsion when the word 'capitalism' is uttered in a positive light. As horrific as the products of capitalism sometimes are, I think it is the best we've got. I'm not supporting completely unregulated markets—indeed, there are many instances in which markets fail—but, on the whole, freer markets produce better outcomes for all involved.
All this is a rather long preamble as to why I was so excited when last week's Economist arrived: inside, I found a survey on 'outsourcing'. However, much to my disappointment, The Economist simply presented the already extant American debate within a slightly more nuanced narrative. I had hoped that more analysis and space would be accorded to both the principal problem, and to one oft ignored benefit.
Before I go any further, let me add that The Economist very rightly points out that 'outsourcing' is not in fact the correct term for the phenomenon that has occupied so much political discourse over the past year. Strictly speaking, a good or service is 'outsourced' when a company stops producing it and instead purchases it. When production is outsourced, it is not necessarily moved overseas. What concerns so many critics of 'outsourcing' then is not actually 'outsourcing', but the movement of jobs overseas, something which does not require outsourcing as a company can—and many do—set up shop overseas. Unfortunately, having made this distinction, The Economist reverts to standard usage, I'll do my best to avoid this.
The problem with moving jobs overseas is that those jobs no longer exist at home. The western world has seen this before with manufacturing. Indeed, some have even referred to America as a post-industrial society because it now manufactures so very little. I think it more correct to see Mexico or China as the home of America's working class, but I digress. What has alarmed white-collar workers and their politicians is that the movement of jobs overseas is no longer limited to manufacturing. Service jobs have joined the pack, and now, when you phone American Airlines, or your credit card company, you may be speaking to someone half a world away in India. Thus, alarmists talk of greedy unpatriotic companies (Lou Dobbs), or Benedict Arnold companies (John Kerry), who are destroying American jobs.
Proponents retort that moving jobs overseas actually creates more jobs at home. The logic goes that the savings companies accrue by moving these jobs will translate into lower prices at home, which will, in turn, stimulate demand for other goods and services, some hitherto unheard of, and thus create new jobs at home. Whether or not we accept this as true, the problem that specific people have lost certain types of jobs remains. Whether or not these people will get new jobs depends on the availability of other jobs, and on their willingness and ability to retrain for those jobs. What needs to be discussed then is how society should deal with these people. Should their jobs be protected? Should they be offered compensation of some sort? Or, should they simply be left to fend for themselves? In the 'outsourcing' debate, the second question is seldom asked. Unfortunately, The Economist, by ignoring the material reality of the workers in question, does no better.
But this is not to say that I think moving jobs overseas is a bad idea. The oft-ignored benefit that I mentioned above is that jobs are created overseas. The Economist does mention this point in passing, but, with the exception of an anecdote about Indian workers' tastes for brand name clothes, offers nothing in the way of facts or figures to support the argument. Unfortunately, I am in no position to do so myself. But I will offer that, surely, all the anti-globalisers of the world can learn to appreciate a phenomenon that creates jobs in many underdeveloped countries around the world. They might retort that it's not really jobs that companies create, but opportunities to exploit underprivileged workers who have no recourse to a system of established rules and regulations. Though this has happened with manufacturing, it has by no means been the rule. As far as service jobs are concerned, the great majority require a fair degree of education, and thus such exploitation seems much less likely. More importantly, when exploitation has been made an issue, companies have often been forced to improve their practices. Unfortunately, this has not usually been a quick process, and many deplorable practices have gone unchecked for many years. Even so, change for the better has occured, and continues to occur—in large part thanks to the efforts of activists who have seized on the association between a corporation and its products. Thus, capitalism has, built in, a mechanism for dealing with such deplorable practices: it is called branding, which allows the exercise of consumer power. For example, since the campaign to eradicate child labour began, Nike has begun to pay a lot more attention to its supply chain, making a concerted effort to ensure that toddlers are not manufacturing its shoes. For a less hackneyed example, look at the rise in non-financial reporting, something that was almost unheard of ten years ago. At present, Britain is considering making such reporting mandatory.
At this point, there is an important digression that I'd like to make. If we don't like a company's practices, we need not support them. There are often many alternatives available, fair trade coffee (Equal Exchange, Fair Trade Federation, TransFair USA, Global Exchange, and others) and Rugmark come to mind. I admit, such alternatives are not always available, but this does not mean that the whole capitalist system ought to be trashed. NGOs and other assorted activists of the world deserve a great deal of credit for raising awareness about issues concerning the environment and social justice. Their work is important in large part for the information that it adds to the table, without which consumers would be unable to make choices that properly express their preferences (I don't mean to advocate market solutions in all cases, but in many, such solutions can work very well). A few years ago, a book by the name of No Logo achieved widespread acclaim. I should first admit that I have not read it and, unless someone convinces me otherwise, I don't plan to. Though I imagine that the author and I share a general distaste for contemporary forms of advertising and the consumer mentality that they engender, I believe that branding is very important. Brands are the mechanism through which consumers can hold companies to account. Without branding, a lot of the work that activists do to raise awareness would be useless. Again, if we don't like a company's product, we need not buy it. How do we know it's their product? Because they've branded it. Similarly, if we don't like a company's practices, we need not buy their products. Without branding, we would have neither fair trade coffee nor Rugmark rugs.
But back to why moving jobs offshore is, at least in part, a good thing: if the western world bogarts all the jobs, there will be none for other countries. Activists often decry the deplorable poverty that plagues much of the majority world, and so, I should think that a phenomenon that creates jobs in these countries would be applauded. What gives?
(comments wholeheartedly appreciated)
All this is a rather long preamble as to why I was so excited when last week's Economist arrived: inside, I found a survey on 'outsourcing'. However, much to my disappointment, The Economist simply presented the already extant American debate within a slightly more nuanced narrative. I had hoped that more analysis and space would be accorded to both the principal problem, and to one oft ignored benefit.
Before I go any further, let me add that The Economist very rightly points out that 'outsourcing' is not in fact the correct term for the phenomenon that has occupied so much political discourse over the past year. Strictly speaking, a good or service is 'outsourced' when a company stops producing it and instead purchases it. When production is outsourced, it is not necessarily moved overseas. What concerns so many critics of 'outsourcing' then is not actually 'outsourcing', but the movement of jobs overseas, something which does not require outsourcing as a company can—and many do—set up shop overseas. Unfortunately, having made this distinction, The Economist reverts to standard usage, I'll do my best to avoid this.
The problem with moving jobs overseas is that those jobs no longer exist at home. The western world has seen this before with manufacturing. Indeed, some have even referred to America as a post-industrial society because it now manufactures so very little. I think it more correct to see Mexico or China as the home of America's working class, but I digress. What has alarmed white-collar workers and their politicians is that the movement of jobs overseas is no longer limited to manufacturing. Service jobs have joined the pack, and now, when you phone American Airlines, or your credit card company, you may be speaking to someone half a world away in India. Thus, alarmists talk of greedy unpatriotic companies (Lou Dobbs), or Benedict Arnold companies (John Kerry), who are destroying American jobs.
Proponents retort that moving jobs overseas actually creates more jobs at home. The logic goes that the savings companies accrue by moving these jobs will translate into lower prices at home, which will, in turn, stimulate demand for other goods and services, some hitherto unheard of, and thus create new jobs at home. Whether or not we accept this as true, the problem that specific people have lost certain types of jobs remains. Whether or not these people will get new jobs depends on the availability of other jobs, and on their willingness and ability to retrain for those jobs. What needs to be discussed then is how society should deal with these people. Should their jobs be protected? Should they be offered compensation of some sort? Or, should they simply be left to fend for themselves? In the 'outsourcing' debate, the second question is seldom asked. Unfortunately, The Economist, by ignoring the material reality of the workers in question, does no better.
But this is not to say that I think moving jobs overseas is a bad idea. The oft-ignored benefit that I mentioned above is that jobs are created overseas. The Economist does mention this point in passing, but, with the exception of an anecdote about Indian workers' tastes for brand name clothes, offers nothing in the way of facts or figures to support the argument. Unfortunately, I am in no position to do so myself. But I will offer that, surely, all the anti-globalisers of the world can learn to appreciate a phenomenon that creates jobs in many underdeveloped countries around the world. They might retort that it's not really jobs that companies create, but opportunities to exploit underprivileged workers who have no recourse to a system of established rules and regulations. Though this has happened with manufacturing, it has by no means been the rule. As far as service jobs are concerned, the great majority require a fair degree of education, and thus such exploitation seems much less likely. More importantly, when exploitation has been made an issue, companies have often been forced to improve their practices. Unfortunately, this has not usually been a quick process, and many deplorable practices have gone unchecked for many years. Even so, change for the better has occured, and continues to occur—in large part thanks to the efforts of activists who have seized on the association between a corporation and its products. Thus, capitalism has, built in, a mechanism for dealing with such deplorable practices: it is called branding, which allows the exercise of consumer power. For example, since the campaign to eradicate child labour began, Nike has begun to pay a lot more attention to its supply chain, making a concerted effort to ensure that toddlers are not manufacturing its shoes. For a less hackneyed example, look at the rise in non-financial reporting, something that was almost unheard of ten years ago. At present, Britain is considering making such reporting mandatory.
At this point, there is an important digression that I'd like to make. If we don't like a company's practices, we need not support them. There are often many alternatives available, fair trade coffee (Equal Exchange, Fair Trade Federation, TransFair USA, Global Exchange, and others) and Rugmark come to mind. I admit, such alternatives are not always available, but this does not mean that the whole capitalist system ought to be trashed. NGOs and other assorted activists of the world deserve a great deal of credit for raising awareness about issues concerning the environment and social justice. Their work is important in large part for the information that it adds to the table, without which consumers would be unable to make choices that properly express their preferences (I don't mean to advocate market solutions in all cases, but in many, such solutions can work very well). A few years ago, a book by the name of No Logo achieved widespread acclaim. I should first admit that I have not read it and, unless someone convinces me otherwise, I don't plan to. Though I imagine that the author and I share a general distaste for contemporary forms of advertising and the consumer mentality that they engender, I believe that branding is very important. Brands are the mechanism through which consumers can hold companies to account. Without branding, a lot of the work that activists do to raise awareness would be useless. Again, if we don't like a company's product, we need not buy it. How do we know it's their product? Because they've branded it. Similarly, if we don't like a company's practices, we need not buy their products. Without branding, we would have neither fair trade coffee nor Rugmark rugs.
But back to why moving jobs offshore is, at least in part, a good thing: if the western world bogarts all the jobs, there will be none for other countries. Activists often decry the deplorable poverty that plagues much of the majority world, and so, I should think that a phenomenon that creates jobs in these countries would be applauded. What gives?
(comments wholeheartedly appreciated)
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
? what's in a name
rather more than you might think, but first an update on earlier events.
Pumpkin wine was a failure. Too much yeast, not enough pumpkin. May have had something to do with my having effectively aged the wine on the lees (dead yeast cells) as I was attempting to rack it. I do, however, now have some real wine yeast. Things can only get better from here.
I'm in the middle of writing a philosophy paper, focusing on a paper by Saul Kripke called 'Identity and Necessity". I'm mostly through the first step, providing a coherent account of the argument, and am now working on my own response. I've not the time to go into it now, nor I am really sure that you've the interest, but I'll just say this:
1. For any objects x and y, if x is identical to y, then if x has a certain property F, so does y (substitutivity of identity).
2. Every object is necessarily self-identical.
3. By substitution, we can conclude that, for every x and y, if x = y, it is necessary that x = y. [I don't know how to type logic thingies on here, but this is an instance of the substitutivity law stated in (1)]
4. Therefore, for any objects x and y, if x is y, then it is necessary that x is y.
This all might seem rather uninteresting until you apply it to identity statements, things like 'water is H2O', statements that many of us generally take to be contingent. Kripke proposes that the way out of the apparent paradox of (4) above, is not to regard such identity statements as contigent, but as necessary (specifically, Kripke argues the necessity of identity for both theoretical identity statements, such as 'water is H2O', and for names). For Kripke, any identity statement that involves two rigiddesignators, is necessarily true, if it is true at all. A 'rigid-designator' is any term that refers to the same thing in all possible worlds in which that things exists. Kripke eventually uses this position to argue that the materialist, specifically the 'identity theory' (Every mental state is identical with a particular brain state) view of the mind-body problem is problematic.
I must get back to the writing of the essay. I'll be up in Vancouver over Christmas. I hope that there are still some of you left back home.
Love Ev
Pumpkin wine was a failure. Too much yeast, not enough pumpkin. May have had something to do with my having effectively aged the wine on the lees (dead yeast cells) as I was attempting to rack it. I do, however, now have some real wine yeast. Things can only get better from here.
I'm in the middle of writing a philosophy paper, focusing on a paper by Saul Kripke called 'Identity and Necessity". I'm mostly through the first step, providing a coherent account of the argument, and am now working on my own response. I've not the time to go into it now, nor I am really sure that you've the interest, but I'll just say this:
1. For any objects x and y, if x is identical to y, then if x has a certain property F, so does y (substitutivity of identity).
2. Every object is necessarily self-identical.
3. By substitution, we can conclude that, for every x and y, if x = y, it is necessary that x = y. [I don't know how to type logic thingies on here, but this is an instance of the substitutivity law stated in (1)]
4. Therefore, for any objects x and y, if x is y, then it is necessary that x is y.
This all might seem rather uninteresting until you apply it to identity statements, things like 'water is H2O', statements that many of us generally take to be contingent. Kripke proposes that the way out of the apparent paradox of (4) above, is not to regard such identity statements as contigent, but as necessary (specifically, Kripke argues the necessity of identity for both theoretical identity statements, such as 'water is H2O', and for names). For Kripke, any identity statement that involves two rigiddesignators, is necessarily true, if it is true at all. A 'rigid-designator' is any term that refers to the same thing in all possible worlds in which that things exists. Kripke eventually uses this position to argue that the materialist, specifically the 'identity theory' (Every mental state is identical with a particular brain state) view of the mind-body problem is problematic.
I must get back to the writing of the essay. I'll be up in Vancouver over Christmas. I hope that there are still some of you left back home.
Love Ev
Friday, October 22, 2004
Pumpkin Wine
My first batch of pumpkin wine has just begun fermenting. I hope. My kitchen is a mess, the counters are covered in simple syrup, and there is a trail of pumpkin guts from the dinning room table to the kitchen sink, but I have three hollowed out fermenting pumpkins. In two weeks, give or take a week or a few months, I will hopefully have some drinkable pumpkin wine. For this first foray into winemaking, I dispensed with recipes, winemaking equipment, or even standard winemaking ingredients. I'm using a whole lotta granulated sugar, nine packets of dry active yeast, and lots of water. As I mentioned, I'm fermenting in the pumpkin instead of using a large food grade plastic tank. Fermentation will start in my kitchen for a few days as a sort of jump start, after which I plan to move the pumpkins to my storage area to slow down the fermentation in the hope of encouraging greater flavour development. My biggest concern is that dry active yeast, principally used in making bread, may have a low alcohol toxicity (the percent alcohol at which the yeast will be killed off due to alcohol poisoning). If this is the case, I may end up with some very sweet vaguely alcoholic (5% or so) undrinkable swill. Even if it reaches the 11-15% that I'd like, it may still be undrinkable swill, but at least it won't be too sweet. I hate sweet wines that end with a cloying finish, and I doubt that pumpkin must has the acidity to balance much, if any, residual sugar. To this end, I am going to procure some acidifier from a local wine making store for my second batch, and I will also be using real wine yeasts that are already on their way via UPS. But I still have high hopes for my first batch.
Friday, October 08, 2004
Hollywood Bans Fun
Governor Arnold, in cahoots with the California state legislature, has recently made the production and sale of foie gras illegal in the state of California as of 2012. Siding with animal rights activists, he says that the force feeding methods used to produce foie gras are cruel. And he's probably right. But I doubt that the force fed geese are significantly less happy than the chickens, cows, pigs and other animals that are mass produced in factory farms across North America. Is this the beginning in a revolution in animal husbandry? Will we soon find ourselves eating Kobe style chicken and Kobe style bacon? Will all of our animals be massaged, fed luxurious diets and slaugtered when they least expect it? As tantalizingly tasty a prospect as it is, I do not find it to be terribly practical, or fair. If consumers want to pay for humanely raised meat, let them do so. If, however, they'd prefer the economic savings created by cruel factory farms, then let them make that choice as well.
If anyone hasn't tasted the creamy goodness that is foie gras, may I suggest that you get a few friends together and cook some up tonight. You'll need about a two hundred bucks, a hundred for the foie gras and and a hundred for the wine. Besides the cruel force feeding, this is the main reason that I don't eat foie gras. But should you find yourself with the money to spare, a hundred dollars will get you 1-1.5 lbs. of fresh goose foie gras and the other hundred should afford you a fine bottle of a 1983 Rieussec, an excellent vintage from a fine chateau. Don't forget to invite me over.
If anyone hasn't tasted the creamy goodness that is foie gras, may I suggest that you get a few friends together and cook some up tonight. You'll need about a two hundred bucks, a hundred for the foie gras and and a hundred for the wine. Besides the cruel force feeding, this is the main reason that I don't eat foie gras. But should you find yourself with the money to spare, a hundred dollars will get you 1-1.5 lbs. of fresh goose foie gras and the other hundred should afford you a fine bottle of a 1983 Rieussec, an excellent vintage from a fine chateau. Don't forget to invite me over.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Lacan, non-self, and other personal musings
I recently pulled my first all-nighter of the semester. As I see it, I'm doing pretty well. Almost halfway through the semester and only one night of no sleep. I have an upcoming phil paper (Descartes) and a presentation on Foucault's "History of Sexuality", but I think I can get through those without any painful sleepless nights.
Lit theory was interesting yesterday. We discussed Lacan's mirror stage article. I don't know what the title of the English translation is, but in French it's "Le stade du miroir comme formateur de la fonction du Je" (roughly: The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function"). Though Lacan touches on other things, the heart of this article is his analysis of subjectivity. In Lacan's view, at some early point along the line, one comes to recognize oneself as a coherent whole through the experience of seing oneself reflected in, for example, a mirror. The problem with what I have just written are the words 'one' and 'oneself'. In the sentence above, 'one' implies a pre-existing subject that can recognize 'oneself' in the mirror, and 'oneself' implies an existing subject. Please do not be confused by these implications. 'One' does not exist as SUBJECT (this is an important word choice) until one has subjectivity, that is, until one has recognized 'onself'. However 'oneself' does not exist. It is a conceptual ideal, a notion that we construct, but not something we can ever obtain. Be careful, words like 'we' in the last sentence suffer similar problems as those already mentioned for 'one'. So what is subjectivity? For Lacan, subjectivity is simply the desire for coherence, which can also be called wholeness.
This all got me to thinking that it would be interesting to look at different theories of non-self. It's something I might one day write a book on, if I ever do such a thing. Thus far in my life, I have become acquainted with the following:
Ferdinand de Saussure: As far as I'm aware the first person (in the west) to propose that meaning is differentially established. There are probably some who proposed this before him, but his concept of the sign really does a nice job of describing a world in which there is no inherent, pre-existing meaning, or if you will, 'thingness', or you might say 'suchness'
Jacques Derrida: I've read some of his writing, including his exlanation of différance. I'm not going to hasard an attempt to say anything about it at this point. I'll just say that I plan to go back and reread some of his writing as, at least some of it is clear and lucid, despite that much of it is, well, difficult.
Jaques Lacan: as described above
Buddhist Philosophy: In particular, notions of shunyata, or emptiness, that might more accurately by tranlated as 'empty of suchness'.
Contempoary theories of Conciousness as an emergent property: I know little about this. Jedd and I went to hear a philosopher speak at UBC who spoke very briefly about his work on conciousness and his views of it as an emergent property. I remember being struck by the similarities to some of buddhist theory/philosophy. Near the end of his presentation, he read some of the negative reactions that other philosophers have had to his work. They were strikingly similar to the common (and sane/reasonable) response of an indignant 'wtf' when people are told in an intro buddhist studies class that the self does not exist.
Any one have any ideas of any others?
Lit theory was interesting yesterday. We discussed Lacan's mirror stage article. I don't know what the title of the English translation is, but in French it's "Le stade du miroir comme formateur de la fonction du Je" (roughly: The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function"). Though Lacan touches on other things, the heart of this article is his analysis of subjectivity. In Lacan's view, at some early point along the line, one comes to recognize oneself as a coherent whole through the experience of seing oneself reflected in, for example, a mirror. The problem with what I have just written are the words 'one' and 'oneself'. In the sentence above, 'one' implies a pre-existing subject that can recognize 'oneself' in the mirror, and 'oneself' implies an existing subject. Please do not be confused by these implications. 'One' does not exist as SUBJECT (this is an important word choice) until one has subjectivity, that is, until one has recognized 'onself'. However 'oneself' does not exist. It is a conceptual ideal, a notion that we construct, but not something we can ever obtain. Be careful, words like 'we' in the last sentence suffer similar problems as those already mentioned for 'one'. So what is subjectivity? For Lacan, subjectivity is simply the desire for coherence, which can also be called wholeness.
This all got me to thinking that it would be interesting to look at different theories of non-self. It's something I might one day write a book on, if I ever do such a thing. Thus far in my life, I have become acquainted with the following:
Ferdinand de Saussure: As far as I'm aware the first person (in the west) to propose that meaning is differentially established. There are probably some who proposed this before him, but his concept of the sign really does a nice job of describing a world in which there is no inherent, pre-existing meaning, or if you will, 'thingness', or you might say 'suchness'
Jacques Derrida: I've read some of his writing, including his exlanation of différance. I'm not going to hasard an attempt to say anything about it at this point. I'll just say that I plan to go back and reread some of his writing as, at least some of it is clear and lucid, despite that much of it is, well, difficult.
Jaques Lacan: as described above
Buddhist Philosophy: In particular, notions of shunyata, or emptiness, that might more accurately by tranlated as 'empty of suchness'.
Contempoary theories of Conciousness as an emergent property: I know little about this. Jedd and I went to hear a philosopher speak at UBC who spoke very briefly about his work on conciousness and his views of it as an emergent property. I remember being struck by the similarities to some of buddhist theory/philosophy. Near the end of his presentation, he read some of the negative reactions that other philosophers have had to his work. They were strikingly similar to the common (and sane/reasonable) response of an indignant 'wtf' when people are told in an intro buddhist studies class that the self does not exist.
Any one have any ideas of any others?
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