Avatar photoSteven Savage

Economic Common Sense Goes Derp

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You know the story.  We just don’t train people in manufacturing, and thus we’d have more people employed, but there’s just that skills gap, right?

Wrong.  Turns out the problem is that manufacturing has changed, and employers paying the properly-educated people lousy wages means they’re not interested. The skills gap is made up – but in danger of becoming a real skills gap.

Or maybe that war stimulates the economy – which is usually based on the experience of World War II, which wasn’t what we thought and really doesn’t apply to today.

We can go through more of course.  Remember when home investment was a great and unbeatable idea?  That was one ruined economy ago.  We could talk about the idea that certain degrees are always employable, or how MySpace was unbeatable, or . . . you get the idea.

It doesn’t take much work to dredge up economic myths.  Just look at how the Freakonomics guys became famous with one simple book.  Really I need to find a way to make money by telling people they’re full of it.  Maybe it can be like the Monty Python argument sketch.

I treasure these stories, in fact I seek them out, because a lot of economic common sense is just plain wrong.  A lot of us get taught many things are too good to be true, but it seems that when we dress it up with economic language, we somehow will believe anything.

We have to remember how much crap we believe, economically.  A few things I’ve found help me stay aware of real economic issues:

You Need To be Informed: Follow economic news.  Yes I harped on this for years, but trust me.  I usually follow:

You Need To Be Hands On: Do as much of your own budget and financial planning as possible (but hire or ask for help when you need to).  That visceral understanding is very helpful.

Economics Is A Religion: Like it or not a lot of people deal with economics as areas of unquestioning faith and overarching universal assumptions – and they’re often full of it.  Don’t trust someone who doesn’t show sufficient explanation or skepticism.

Economics Has Plenty of Conmen:  Merely look at Jim Cramer and why John Stewart took him apart.  Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t have some credibility, puts on a crazy show, or sells out.  There is money in selling people B.S.

It May Change:  Much as Nate Silver’s poll analyses brought attention to how many pundits are full of it, I’m hoping the trend towards reality-intensive news and analysis continues.  I’m not gonna hold my breath, but still, it’s promising.

We all believe plenty of economic myths because a lot of it is ideology, it is hope, it is information, and it is wrapped around a damned difficult science.  But for the sake of our careers, we can try and disarm it.

Besides we’re geeks.  We’re good at information and thinking out of the box.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

#1ReasonWhy on Twitter And Why You Should Follow It

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I strongly recommend following the #1reasonwhy hastag at Twitter.  It’s about women involved in gaming and why there aren’t more women in gaming.

It’s fascinating (and sad) to read the stories and issues.  It’s heartening to see the positive response.  It’s informative to see the inevitable critics of the women stating their issues, because the critics are, well, lame.  These critics are forgetting that women want to be heard, and they should listen before shooting their mouths off.

I worked in gaming for two years, and the people I worked with were awesome.  I worked with many great women.  Sexism is not integral to gaming culture or the industry, it’s a sad, horrible thing that drags the industry, the art, and the fans down.

As a Project Manager, I have a rule that Status Reports are usually good.  If you see information and pay attention to it, good things happen.  This is about the status of women in gaming – people need to pay attention.

EDIT: The thread started more in traditional pen and paper RPG community.  Missed that.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

 

Media Adaptions, Books, And Why We Don’t Really Know Much

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On his own blog, Serdar noted that in a way books aren’t being written as books anymore, they’re parts of franchises and larger efforts.  In turn, some books aren’t being thought of as books because of this – they’re franchises, or works that are made to transition over, or something else.

We discuss a lot of media transitions here, especially adaptions, which Scott has done a heroic job covering.  Those are important in the Geekonomy as they drive efforts and affect geek culture.  However one thing rarely discussed is that this is a comparatively new phenomena, and one we’re only now exploring as it’s new.

Right now things can go from book to TV, from video game to movie, from comic to game, from  . . . well you get the idea.  Merely looking at the ever-expanding media empire that is Star Wars, or the way “The Avengers” succeeded against all odds, gives you an idea of how far media translations and transformations can go.  It’s almost normal now to discuss what actor will play who in a film or what anime would be great as an adaption.

It just hasn’t been normal for most of human history.

How many movie or television adaptions only became viable when computer technology and special effects reached enough of a pinnacle to actually make them believable.

How many adaptions only exist because of chance-taking like HBO’s Game of Thrones that wouldn’t have taken chances a decade ago?

How many television shows, books, or comic adaptions wouldn’t have existed just due to cultural issues in the past

For that matter, so much technology we take for granted didn’t exist decades or a century ago.  I rather imagine radio adaptions seemed somehow radical at the time . . .

Then of course go back 200 years and 99% of what we discuss about adaptions is moot.  Your biggest worry was probably how well the play went or getting a certain book.  Hardly comparable to “Is Benedict Cumberbatch going to make a good Smaug?” being a big concern for people.

(The answer by the way, is yes).

So when we discuss adaptions, when we discuss what it means for culture or economics, we have to remember this really is new.  We have to remember that this is new in human history, in a serious new way.  We don’t have many models, we don’t have previous experiences, we don’t have a lot to extrapolate directly from.

We’re in new territory here, so when we discuss economics, careers, etc. there’s not a lot to go on.  Accepting that is going to make dealing with these crazy times and options easier, as we don’t have to delude ourselves to our level of knowledge.

We don’t have much.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.