Frustration Friday: Fear For The Forgotten

As I'm writing this, there are battles in congress over unemployment benefits – and people who have maxed our their use of unemployment benefits.  There are people whose job prospects are dimming or stagnant.

There are people in short, who are hurting, more people who will be hurting, and at some point someone's going to have to do something.  Or in short, we're going to need some kind of society-wide solution to the horrible problems people are facing economically.

In fact, I think we probably will (if only to forestall unrest, or because the media finally does its job, or something).  But what I am frustrated about is that I think any solution won't be so much "enough" but one that will fix as many problems as possible while also sweeping others under the rug – or forgetting about them.

I'm concerned any future solutions will leave a new underclass/underemployed class that many of us won't notice or see because, well . . . so much else got solved.  So many of us will see an economic recovery, or an unemployment extenuation, or a kind of training bill, or some combination that helps us – but we won't notice how many people won't get helped.  We'll probably be to thrilled that we're OK.

That's a serious concern of mine, that future solutions to the economic mess will miss a lot of people – and a lot of us will miss those people because our own situations get solved.

Let's try to remember.  They're our fellows.  They're the people we know.  Also, if there are a variety of people who are not helped out of their economic issues, that may yet drag us down further.

Yeah I know, another not very ranty Frustration Friday.

Steven Savage

The Production Revolution Isn’t For All: Time

Self-publishing.  Webcomics.  Game design tools.  Art programs.

Give yourself an hour and you can find the tools to let most anyone with some skill be a media creator.  You can make books, games, etc. that you could never dream of years ago, and get them to a waiting audience.

Now of course you know I've been a bit cynical that this explosion of tools will also mean a creative renaissance, a kind of "Production Revolution" of media.  My own research, my own experience, has been very informative, so let me put it straight:

All these tools may mean that there's a chance for more people to get out their dream comic/video/game/book/movie and so on.  But there are still many barriers to their chances to do this.  These are not barriers of distribution or technology (which are changing).  These are personal barriers.

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