America’s got no class; i.e., it’s a class-bound society.

About a week ago, someone on MetaFilter posted a link to Wal-Mart People, the photo blog that mocks people who, wittingly or not, draw too much attention to themselves while shopping at Wal-Mart. These eccentrics or “walcreatures” have the nerve to not hide themselves despite lacking the bodies, hairstyles and clothing that the editors find appropriate. (They lack “class” – or “good” money.)

The link on MetaFilter was flagged as offensive and summarily deleted. For the last three days, it’s been one of the hot trending items in Google search. Apparently, we all can’t get enough of ourselves.

I would love to see what the voting profile is for everyone who has passed the web site on, approvingly, to a friend – “freakshow!” I’d bet $50 it’s an even split between Democrats and Republicans.

ideas/people

House paint manufacturers of the world unite.

Following up on the carrot vs. the stick, Matthew Yglesias writes: “Manufacturers of white paint need to hire some better lobbysist or something” since “trying to get people to paint roofs white seems like a total no-brainer and given how solid the science behind this is I don’t really understand why there isn’t more momentum behind it.”

ideas

Using CG to render the possible: a greener world.

On Before New York in National Geographic.

To date, computer graphics have been used most memorably in live-action movies to realize futuristic objects like spaceships. It’s the continuation of a push that began in the 1800s with railroads and crystal palaces. (e.g., From Metropolis through 2001 to Minority Report, etc.) To make visible an industrial reality.

Perhaps, we’ve hit a wall in that direction. If so, we’ll begin to realize a post-industrial reality, using CG to render green where there is currently steel.

Of course, both are artificial, man-made scenarios. Only one appears to be sustainable – for now.

ideas/movies & television

Two movies about politics, neither historical.

I had heard of the movie Soylent Green so many times over the years that I may have been dulled to the experience of seeing it for first time – which I did just a few hours ago. The most impressive moments aren’t fantastical, rather they’re an intimate and very modest dinner between two old friends as well as a death-bed scene – though it could be said that we are meant to mourn for two: our planet and the elderly character of Sol Roth. Reminded me of much more luxuriant movies like WALL-E, Blade Runner and Brazil.

District 9 is as good as everyone says it is. The story-telling is fresh, the techniques never distract and the protagonist is perfect (the personification of institutional racism – an Eichmann in Johannesburg). We want to cheer for life, no matter what form it comes in. If movies are judged by how effectively they make us empathize with strangers, this one is an unequivocal success.

movies & television/things

The stick isn’t quick enough – use the carrot, instead.

We’re built pretty well: put your hand over an open flame and you’ll jerk it away in a few milliseconds. For this to happen, the nerves in your hand have to feel the heat and send a warning signal to your brain which then sends a series of commands to all the muscles that control the position of your hand – and you move it.

But we’re not yet fully wired to deal with more diffuse and slow burning threats. For example, global warming. For one, we can’t feel it (and when we do feel it, it will not feel like heat but rather higher prices, political instability, mass migrations, etc.) Second, we’re still not very good at sending signals to coordinate the movements of an entire economy. (Though we’re getting better at it.)

Steev Hise picks up where Elizabeth Kolbert leaves off and asks when effective action – rather than stunts – will begin to avert the certain catastrophe of global warming. My guess is that it begins by rerouting the signal paths that drive our economy.

If we are unable to feel the stick until it’s too late, let’s start using carrots.

ideas

It’s the scripts, stupid.

There’s a presentation making the rounds lately that pokes fun at companies hoping to “capture the magic” of the Apple iPhone by making devices that are superficially similar but substantively different – or inferior. Namely, with similar hardware but different software.

There’s a very simple, fundamental principle at work here: literalism. To take something at face value. To disregard the relationship or the context.

For example, executives in the television industry (TV manufacturers, content providers) concerned by the increasing amount of time consumers spend in front of computers might fall into the trap of literalism by saying: “People are spending more time in front of computers. Computers have a keyboard. So let’s attach a keyboard to the TV…so the audience can type on the screen.”

But the keyboard is only meaningful in the context of the computer when it is required by the computer. People don’t just sit at a computer and type random characters on the screen for fun (though that is certainly what a two year-old might do in imitation of adults.) Rather, the computer is running software that invites the user – indeed, requires the user – to become involved via the keyboard.

If the television industry wants to compete with the computer industry, it has to change the software – i.e., the scripts.

ideas/play

Making money off of cheapskates.

Now would be a good time for businesses that “sell” to frugality:

Sales of vegetable plants swelled fivefold in March over past years. The company added a public address system and bleachers to accommodate hordes showing up for vegetable-growing classes.

Yes, many people are experiencing very significant losses. The GDP shrank.

But, consumer spending is not entirely rational. Business that allow consumers to spend their money on “frugality” – i.e., that resonate with a new alignment of values – could very well thrive in the coming years.

people

Wal-Mart as an innovative, modern business.

My summary of a recent interview with historian Nelson Lichtenstein on Wal-Mart:

1) Wal-Mart’s first innovation was data mining, which it did using bar codes.
2) Wal-Mart’s most profitable innovation has been in social engineering – exploiting labor laws and incentives for managers, etc.

Elsewhere, Paul Krugman, in a terrific conversation with Charlie Stross, suggests how the information technology advances of the 1970s were first expressed as economic growth:

[T]he first place where people really figured out what do with IT in a way that was productive… was Wal-Mart. It turns out that all this unglamorous stuff like inventory management, basically knowing what exactly is left on the shelves the moment it is checked out of the counter, being able to plan your whole system for something big box stores brought in, and actually you can see that’s where the GDP growth…

Update: SH notes that Wal-Mart was also able to disintermediate by becoming their own distributors.

ideas

Do you know what this cryptic phrase means?

I’ve been watching Google Trends Hot Trends for fun recently. Most of it is self-explanatory. A story breaks or a show hits the air and people respond with understandable questions. But there’s also some noise in the signal. Possibly, users trying to game Google for sport or research or financial gain. I’m wondering if that’s what White People Stole My Car is all about. If you have any theories (or an explanation) please let me know. Thanks!

ideas

Dream job.

Ricky Jay in Wikipedia:

Jay created a consulting firm, Deceptive Practices, which provides “arcane knowledge on a need-to-know basis.” His firm’s clients are often within the stage, television, and film industries.

people

The Class (Entre les murs) will make your heart explode – inside your head.

The movie The Class may be the smartest, most gripping story I’ve encountered in a very long time. The day after, I was still thinking about the characters – as if they were real. That seldom happens.

But it’s watching the “making of” that accompanies the movie that puts it over the top. We generally think of philosophy as a thing – an object. But it’s a verb. The making of “The Class” is amazing philosophy.

If you can read this, you must see this movie.

Previously: this.

movies & television/people

Politics as campaigning also sucks when Democrats do it.

Matthew Yglesias:

My worry would be that it strikes me as very plausible that a political strategist could overlearn the lessons of his own success. The fact of the matter is that Obama’s margin of victory was more-or-less exactly what you would expect based on fundamentals-driven models of presidential elections. We know that the strategy Obama employed “worked” (he won, after all) but there’s no clear evidence that it was particularly brilliant. But you can easily imagine Obama and David Axelrod and other key players becoming overconvinced by their own success.

It’s worth noting that some of what made the Bush White House so ignoble was that it treated policy – you know, governing – as a way to win elections, exclusively, and not as a covenant between free citizens and their elected leaders. The closest Americans come to a sacred trust. The Constitution, a few wars, all that jazz.

Although it could be that Yglesias’ point in the above passage is that the Obama White House isn’t very good at campaigning as politics. A point made the other day by the Daily Show.

It’s hard to watch one’s team make tactical mistakes. But it’s worth remembering the overall strategy. Especially when that strategy isn’t winning a game – it’s changing the game.

When we reduce leadership to campaigning and voters to sheeple, we drift into relativism. It’s what allows The Politico, as noted by Josh Marshall, to deride our moral imperative to assist the less fortunate as “a discredited argument from the reform effort under President Bill Clinton.”

As if only those arguments that win elections are valid. Or worthy of the ultimate sacrifice.

You can rule by intimidation or you can rule by persuasion. Only one is legitimate. Persuasion is also not seduction (nor fear mongering) though it can be hard to disentangle our feelings from our thoughts. For example, a recent study suggests intense feelings can help soldiers make appropriate split-second decisions. Voting is not, however, a split-second decision.

Campaigning borrows from warfare but it is a replacement for it, not its logical extension. Politics even less so.

Alternately, the tactics that help pass a bill through Congress are not the same as those that help win the popular vote during a quadrennial election.

people

Reality.

NYT:

Sunday mornings at church, Jan Thomas and Joan Becker can be seen sitting side by side.

The story telling is indulgent but the story is amazing.

people

Always on the offense, never on the defense.

The tell is more important than the telling:

Voters don’t have a great deal of knowledge about the issues, or a great deal of interest in acquiring knowledge about the issues. But they are human beings, equipped with our species’ excellent ability to read the emotional states of other human beings. If they see a politician acting defensive about his “side” in an argument, they conclude that this critics are probably on to something. If they see a politicians acting outraged and hitting back fearlessly, they’re likely to conclude that he has nothing to apologize for.

Unfortunately, Matthew Yglesias is may be right. Which makes most of what concerns me really esoteric or, as they say, wonkish.

ideas/people