the people's republic of sole

Having trouble sleeping lately..

Just read


Reading

It's a really interesting read. It's given me a lot to think about. I'm a big fan of Postman. The theory is marvelous, but I find some of the evidence he generates in support of it to be sort of vexing. This is partially because it's dated (the book was written in 1982; he invokes Brooke Shields frequently, but the modern reader will note that she turned out to be more of an anomaly than a trendsetter), and partially because it just feels flimsy or speculative (he mentions how many runaways there are as evidence of the fact that children are discontented with how childlike adults are becoming).

Finally got this from my library last week. Finished it yesterday. What'd you think theus?

reading a book on "astrobiology"... its like a textbook with a cd and shit..

i'm gonna start "capital as power- a study of order and creorder" next...
theres a link to it somewhere

For my thesis.





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i really enjoyed it. the thing that stuck with me most was her argument that if gender differences are the result of social influences, where else would they manifest themselves but the brain? the idea that because something is observable in the brain it must be "hard-wired" definitely needs challenging. it's also pretty relevant to those lego videos, with the ceo citing "the way girls naturally build and play" as justification for those atrocious toys.

here's something the bbc just put up yesterday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17264883

"science has said that women trust men's voices more than women's voices and certainly men trust men's voices more than women's voices". what a coincidence that this happens to mean denying women jobs! well, if science says so. it's impossible to take this stuff seriously.

the chapter on the history of men trying to scientifically prove the inferiority of women was great too. their brains are too light, their bones are too short, their synapses are too delicate and feminine and might break if they think about politics...

anyway, how about you?

reading this at the moment, and it's also pretty cool:

I absolutely agree with this. It was one of my main takeaways; the brain literally acts differently based on social input, and so when people assume that different-acting brains are the result of genetic differences, they're so obviously just perpetuating a stereotype. I was constantly reminded of one of my favorite quotes ever, by Sir John Lubbock: what we see depends mainly on what we look for. The plasticity and social identity aspects were sort of "duh" moments for me. I also was really surprised at how easy it is to get people to think in gender-stereotypical ways just by literally having them check a box marked "male" or "female." Also, I think I'd heard something about these studies before, but the resume-based experiments were really eye-opening, about how if you have people review identical resumes of a "Michael" or a "Michelle," they'll overwhelmingly assume that Michael is more competent and that "his" qualifications are more relevant.

As Fine says, she doesn't try and blow the doors off of anything, or stand on the shoulders of giants; she just very calmly explores the breadth of the current research, and convincingly documents the comical hubris of human beings as they attempt to understand things they cannot reasonably claim to come close to grasping. She exposes a lot of conventions as pathetic or nonsensical. I'm always trying to live an objective life, and this gives one so much to think about. We so over-inflate the role of gender in everything we do. Why? It's crazy.

--

Without prompting, my fiancee asked me the other day if I'd want to know the gender of our potential future baby prior to it being born. I said I'd never given it much thought, but that I'd rather not. She looked surprised and expressed the idea that to her, it's "really important" to know the sex of the baby, so that you can "plan" things ahead of time, before the child is born. Those deep-seated biases really struck me. I gave her a quizzical look; she explained that it was important, amongst other things, to have a properly-outfitted nursery to bring the child home to (read: boy decorations or girl decorations), and that furthermore, "your whole life is affected, why wouldn't you want to know?" (I don't really know exactly what she was implying, but it could be any number of ideas about how boys and girls are really different, so your life will be really different depending on the gender of your child).

I said that a male baby and a female baby need the exact same things, and so the idea that it was really important to know didn't make much sense to me. The conversation didn't evolve much further than that ("We're not having a baby, so I don't really even want to talk about this right now!").

Anyway, so happy you recommended it. It was great.

(Everything I read now, I think of that thing davo said about intellectual junk food. One of the best points anyone's ever made to me. This book is good stuff.)

I do wish there was more of a discussion of the reason why humans so easily, readily, and effectively characterize and stereotype others, and why we are so comfortable stereotyping even ourselves. She frequently references the eagerness of children to fit into groups, but, why is this the case? And when adults do this -- because clearly, they do -- is it because they learned those associations in childhood, or because they continue to be effected by those same forces that caused them to seek out group identities as children in the first place?

I once heard a stand-up comedian make a joke about the fact that people are so obsessed with skin color, if a white man met a three-armed, eight-legged, six-headed African American, and was later asked to describe him, he'd say "You know, black guy, three arms, six heads..."

Anyway, people make quick-and-dirty associations about one another, and readily conform to the expectations of others. I would love to learn more about that. I guess that's outside the scope of the subject though.

as far as people wanting to fit in, *according to neuroscience* it goes something like this:



(borrowed from this very cool but possibly not entirely accurate video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPEdDcs_8ZQ)

i keep writing things and deleting them, going off on tangents. discrimination is a cool topic but probably one for another time/thread. really glad you enjoyed the book. like you say, the problems are so deep seated and hard to detect. i don't think people's individual opinions are much of a problem any more, but all these seemingly innocuous conventions linger on, affecting the way people think and behave in the subtlest ways.

Brought this from Stockholm:

remember to post a review when you've read it. i keep seeing it in book shops and nearly buying it.

i just bought a 'comic' book by Brecht Evens, just about the most awesome graphic artist of the moment (for me). He has two books out, the first is his graduation work, called The Wrong Place.
I just copped his second, The Making Of (called De Liefhebbers in Dutch)

besides the drawings, the writing is great too.
http://www.raggedclaws.com/home/2011/10 ... cht-evens/

One of my bosses had this book sitting unread for like four months on his desk, so now I'm slogging through it:



It's a very, very hotly-contested (and long, and laboriously detailed) account of the administration. A lot of reviews consider it to be a serious blow against people like Summers, Geithner, Emanuel, and even Obama; another camp considers the Pulitzer Prize-winning Suskind to be a blowhard and a scam artist. Anyone else read it?

For and Against Method- Feyerabend and Lakatos(sp)?

I read them Salen & Zimmerman shits. Deece.

new theory of the earth