Culture

That Political Question

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

I once had someone note that my blog wasn’t political, and that was refreshing. I can sort of get that, especially if you’ve encountered writers to A) turned “political” and B) did it for the clicks/attention/cash. “Politics” has become a dirty word in some ways, and people have made an effort to dirty it.

But that made me think. See my blog does talk politics. In fact it talks politics more than many readers may realize (and probably in some cases, than I realize). Because a lot of my blog is about organization, technology, culture, and getting things done. That’s all politics.

Ed Zitron may be the Lewis Black of technology, but if you ever heard or read his stuff, his work is political, he just doesn’t say it.

I do avoid, in some cases, making it explicitly political. Some of this is the dismal state of modern politics. A lot of it is about what I want to discuss. If I make specific political statements then that means those who automatically disagree won’t listen and those who automatically agree won’t question me. I’m fine with disagreement and agreement, but would like it to be heartfelt not automatic.

Praise me or call me a dumbass for real, not because I repeated a talking point.

When I do this consciously, I’m kind of annoyed with it, because politics should be interesting and engaging. Politics is part of society and civilization. In fact, to try to avoid politics is to avoid having a society. To emphasizes that let’s talk the Toledo Zoo and Civil Defense.

The Toledo Zoo, which I had visited many times, had some buildings made by the Works Progress Administration back in the 30s. Those lasted quite awhile, and the WPA was the result of politics. I’ve also dug up books create due to the WPA and so on. Parts of our history due to politics.

Civil Defense, for a time, interested me as well. At first for the nature of it’s communications, and later for what it meant. As a Project Manager seeing Americans come together in organized fashion intrigued me. It’s also part of my interest in disaster recovery. Yes, Civil Defense was propaganda-heavy, it was political, but it also left a legacy.

Politics can be sure we get things done. Ever go and say “someone should fix this?” Well getting it fixed is politics.

But why has it become such a dirty word? Why is it associated with screaming at each other over Thanksgiving? Why can’t we, you know, solve problems?

My short take is simply this – we’re in a media saturated culture where politics is somewhere between lousy soap opera and gladiatorial game. Some people compare it to wrestling but that’s insulting wrestling. We’ve made politics about anything but doing things, and all that does is serve entrenched interests at best. At worse (and I think we’re at worse), politics is essentially a media-industrial complex filled with people who will say and do anything for hits, money, and to release their own psychological complexes.

And while all this is going on? Terrible things are happening, only we’re not as aware of them or trying to fix them as she should be.

(I have suspected the origins of this are in Kennedy’s popularity and the mass media, but I think there’s more I need to chew over. A friend has been studying media history and his insights are depressingly useful.)

We’ve made politics not about getting anything done and politics has always had its problems. We should be engaged. We should have discussions, not arguments. We should do things for our communities of all kind. We should not be listening to some guy on YouTube who alternately argues for insane politics while pitching pills to fix erectile dysfunction or legal psychedelics.

So I may be talking politics more directly. Be the change I want to see in the world and all. Though I can’t say I won’t do a bit of a runaround before I admit something is about politics. Let’s keep things fun here – as opposed to what too much political talk is about.

Steven Savage

But What If It Wasn’t Worth It?

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

As I’ve mentioned a few times here, a friend once said she didn’t think any tech “innovation” in the last 15 years was worth it overall. Admittedly considering some of the innovations are supermassive web frameworks and electric vehicles that inadvertently catch fire, I sorta get that. But this brings up a larger question.

What is it we’re used to today that actually isn’t worth it?

This makes me think of my interest in Chinese history and philosophy. Watching Taoists and Confucians discuss good government, it was in context of feudalism, so it was “what if we feudalismed right?” Like maybe feudalism was part of the problem, even if some Taoists had a kind of “Anarcho-feudalism” in mind.

So how much of what we have today we think of is perfectly fine and normal is a bad idea we’ll need to get over? And I’m not talking the usual critiques of things like AI (which is easy), but other technologies and policies and the like.

Focusing America on the automobile is one that I think is a big mistake, even if I like having one. It’s led to racist zoning, sprawling suburbs, loss of public transportation, pollution, and the like. I’m not saying automobiles are bad, but man did we overdo it for various reasons.

Try to imagine if that hadn’t happened.

I’ve also wondered about the impact of parts of pop culture. Things I loved in my youth have become sprawling, money-sucking mega-franchises. Was it large company consolidation that we needed to avoid? Something else? Why is it now when I hear of anything Star Wars, Star Trek, or Marvel I just assume I won’t like it?

What was missed because we made another Star Trek?

In another case I definitely felt that too much of our world got driven by graphics. Systems get bigger, cards get larger, all so we can watch web pages that look like movies and play games that don’t look like games. A few years ago I found Team Fortress 2 (a fave of mine for ages) still runs off of CPUs and looks fine in its stylized way.

How many resources got poured into pretty? Maybe we just didn’t need as much photorealism?

I’ve also questioned office software. I mean I self-publish out of LibreOffice, which is basically Microsoft Word ten years ago. I’ve worked with tools that store enormous amounts of data no one cares about. Look I’m fine with graphics software getting more powerful (albeit again, needing the hardware) but otherwise? Not sure.

I’d like something that does its job with options, not has something that does so much more than anyone needs. Or maybe some software can be more modular.

Try asking what we’re used to now that kind of has flaws is something we didn’t need or needed less of?

Steven Savage

The Unaccountability Man

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

So lately for many reasons I’ve been thinking about how supposedly Great Men fail and let us down. We’ve all been disappointed, and as a person working in technology, I’ve had so many supposed luminaries disappoint me. I’ve been contemplating this for awhile, and I found something that helps understand it and makes clear how really bad it is to Hero Worship someone into deciding your life.

(And notice how we always talk Great Men? More on that later . . .)

Now as any regular reader knows, The Unaccountability Machine was a book that changed how I see the world, and I haven’t yet shut up about it. As I continue to not shut up about it, let me sum it up quickly: the book’s thesis ends up being organizations go insane because they follow limited measures as goals (like stock market value). These organizations may persist – they may be quite good at it when they go mad – but their decisions will cause problems.

Those problems, by the way, are sort of the last twenty-thirty years.

Now the idea of some Great Awesome Business Leader is a form of madness no different than deciding stock value is the only thing to pursue. You have decided to focus only on one thing, and that thing is “whatever this dude says.” That is insane it’s just one we allow because some people believe in the Great Super Savior who will save us.

(Also, ever notice how this one Dude also is good for stock prices? Hmmm . . . )

Anyway this problem has a few facets.

First, as cynical as I am about some Great Dude Saving us, let’s say you find an actual Great Dude. Fine, maybe they’re worth following but for how long? They may navigate issues today but not tomorrow after the world changes. They may age out of understanding things or just age. They might drop a bunch of very expensive hallcinogens on some New Age trip and fry their brains. Someone truly awesome isn’t forever and is still only human.

And that’s assuming that the hero-worship, the money, doesn’t go to their head. How many people who actually had at least some good ideas got so insulated from reality they lost any actual skill they had? How would we know when we’re so busy still telling how awesome they are.

Second, there’s what ed Zitron called the Business Idiot. People who know how to play the various stock market and business games but don’t really know anything else. They’re good, perhaps every good at fundraising and upping the stock price and getting venture capital – but that’s all they’re good at. They’v learned how to work the system, and in doing so give an illusion of a deliverable.

Follow those people – who are great at selling themselves – as you have the madness of following a so-called Great Man, but also of following a shyster.

Third, there’s people who fit the Great Man who are similar, fitting what I call The Narrative. Some guy shows up who says the right thing and does the right thing that fits people – and the press’ – narratives and wham they’re rich and famous. You can make a lot of money and get power jut by checking off the right boxes at the right time. This I think explains a lot of people.

This is where the term Great Man reveals the sexism in the discussions. Which tells you how much The Narrative controls our thoughts.

Fourth, of course, the Great Man idea just leads to grifters coming in, lying, and ripping people off. And we keep falling for it.

Looking for some hero to save the day, for someone to be the next Fill In The Blank, is a fools game. That person probably isn’t out there, possibly is coning you, and even if they are out there, they won’t last, they will get out of touch or want to retire or just pass away. It’s madness to rely on one person, no different than running a company just to get the stock price to go up.

Even if you benefit, what you leave in your wake will be harmful.

Steven Savage