Cooler Dirt

We were having a discussion the other night, and the topic of Mel Gibson came up.  No, not for the reasons you’re thinking.  (Well, probably because of those reasons.)  We were talking about his Lethal Weapon movies when the topic of the ‘revenge fantasy’ came up.

A common thread or theme found in many films, the revenge fantasy caters to that urge in all of us when we feel we have been wronged and want to pay the wrongdoer back and fantasize about how that retribution would be, how it would feel.  (See movies like The Brave One, Man on Fire, Defiance, etc.)  It arises in many contexts, from the schadenfreude we feel when someone else fails, to the conversations we have with ourselves when we think up the perfect comeback line to say after someone has insulted us and the opportunity has passed.  (”Well the jerkstore called and they’re running out of you!”)

Now, we don’t want to psychoanalyze anyone.  Apart from being grossly unqualified and in every other way not a psychologist, we never the less think there’s something to our observations.  The Basics are this:  Mel Gibson likes revenge. As an actor, he seems to play roles in which the character has a strong desire for revenge.  These characters go on to kill and deal out violence.

If nothing else, it causes us to ask why?  Is Mr. Gibson drawn to these characters because the emotion/impulse resonates with him, or that it’s one he can easily identify with?  Does he just happen to get these parts with strong revenge fantasy elements?  Is he fighting an urge in himself by letting his rage out in a constructive environment?   Is it all of these?

We don’t know, but it makes for an intersting conversation topic.  Take a look at the evidence. Here is a list of some of the Mel Gibson movies that have the revenge fantasy present:

1.  Lethal Weapon 2: Though less prominent in the other films of this series, this film is all about revenge.  Riggs (Gibson’s character) finds out that the bad guys are not only responsible for killing his girlfriend, but also his wife.  Revenge ensues.

2.  Hamlet: Depressed prince finds out Uncle killed dad and married mom.  Revenge ensues.

3.  Braveheart: Scottish clansman William Wallace gets married to his childhood sweetheart whom the English then kill.  Revenge ensues.

4.  Ransom: Millionaire airline owner’s son is kidnapped and a ransom is demanded.  Gibson’s character gets the ransom but instead uses it as a bounty on the kidnappers’s heads.  Personal and third party revenge ensues.

5.  Payback: Ok, we never saw this one, but it’s got ‘payback’ as the title.  We’re guessing the plot goes like this:  Gibson’s character is wronged.  He goes to get….wait for it…payback.  Revenge (and payback!) ensue.

6.  The Patriot: Former extremely violent guy (Gibson) lives peacefully on his farm until the English kill his son.  Bloody revenge (lots and lots and lots of it) ensues.

7.  Paparazzi: Mr. Gibson didn’t star in this film, but he did  produce it, have a cameo and got his former hairdresser to direct it.   In it a star is hassled by paparazzi.  After a car accident is caused by the paparazzi’s flashing their cameras at the star (where did they get that idea?), the star decides to kill him some paparazzi.  Revenge ensues.

Mr. Gibson has been in a lot of other movies (and has directed or been part of the production of many more), but this list at least gives you an idea of what we’re talking about.  I’m sure if we tried, we could find a lot of other revenge elements in his other films.  We just thought these seemed fairly obvious.

The revenge fantasy is a particularly primitive instinct, isn’t it?  Freud said that civilization started when the first person chose to hurl an insult rather than a stone. It seems that some people still very much like the idea of hurling stones.  Or at least shoting people, hacking them to death or burning them alive.

But hey, it’s all just a fantasy.  Right?

(Photo courtesy EAWB’s flickr page through Creative Commons.  Thanks, EAWB!)

Books, Movies, TV, Music and Art conversation, conversation topic, conversations, personal

It seems like every time we start talking about movies, someone brings up the Academy Awards.   We like the Oscars, we do.  We like to think about what movies were good, what movies were bad, and which ones we think were better than the rest.  (Though we don’t really think all movies are equal, or should be judged equally.)

Our problem with the Academy Awards though, is not about them specifically.  People can make up any award they want.  Super.  Have at it.  Go nuts.

No, what troubles us about the Oscars is the impact it has upon discussing movies.  Here’s what we mean;

1.  Sycophantic Explosions: Movies are great entertainment. They are art. They are enjoyable, thought provoking and capable of changing the way you view the world.  They are also the surest way to get someone to claim that a person involved in the film industry is astonishing/amazing/unbelievable/brilliant/tremendous/possessed of unearthly intelligence/a once in a century genius, etc.  Our point is this: why do we pile praise upon films, or actors, or those involved with film making so effortlessly?  Why do some people feel the need to adore and gush over actors or filmmakers?  Why does an actor’s performance or a director’s work have to be praised with ‘I hope they get an Oscar‘?  Isn’t it enough to say you enjoyed the movie, or that it made you think, or cry, or laugh?

2.  The End of Existence: Discussing what is good or bad about a movie, what you like or don’t like, all that makes for wonderful conversation.  But when someone wins an Academy Award, this fact is often brought up as if it is the single greatest achievement in human existence.  “Well, they did win an Oscar.”  Congratulations to them.  Being recognized is wonderful, and as movies are such a popular medium, we can see why the Oscars get so much attention. But is there nothing a person can do or achieve that will bring about a sense of awe in the faces of their peers as winning an award for making a movie? Is this the ultimate achievement, so much so that it has to be treated with almost reverential awe?

3.  The Removal of the Personal: Movies, books, music, any art is experienced on a personal level. That one person gets something from it is one thing, that the work reaches a wide audience and resonates strongly with it is another.  The only way to evaluate a film is by what you think of it, what effect it had on you.  That awarding an Oscar to an actor or movie often causes people to think differently about that film, even if they’ve seen it and already formed an opinion, seems ridiculous.  If authority has be given from on high, you should now like/dislike/fawn over the movie in questions?   Rubbish. Saying a movie was great because it won an Oscar is like saying a meal tasted great because the chef said it did.

It may sound lie we’re down on the Oscars, but we’re not.  Not at all.  But it has been our experience that people who use the Oscars as basis of their conversations about film usually leave us wanting.  Be it layman or professional film reviewer, we’ve found that best film conversations come from those who watch the movies on their own terms, not on those of the people who vote for the Academy Awards.

(Photo courtesy hellochris’s Flickr page, through Creative Commons  license.  Thanks, hellochris!)

Books, Movies, TV, Music and Art book, books, conversation, conversations, music, personal

We forgot who came up with it, but we once heard a rule about evaluating whether or not how women are portrayed in movies, film or TV was realistic.  It went something like this:

If two or more women are in a scene and they only talk about men, it’s no good.

At first glance, it seems fairly simplistic.  But take a look at all the shows, movies or books where women  talking about men (or more specifically, their romantic interests or partners) takes up a lot of the dialogue.  Jane Austin? Sex and the City?   Pretty much any romantic comedy ever made?

Where are the conversations about art or politics or the lesser works of Ovid?  Of course women have these conversations in real life, but they seem to be far less represented in fiction and film.   Think about all the TV shows, movies and books where every conversation is about men; finding them, looking at them, evaluating them, living with them, thinking about them, etc.

It was also pointed out that while this may be how women are portrayed, it may not be far from the truth.  Do women spend more time talking about relationships than men?   Yes.  Do they spend more time talking in general?  Perhaps.  Is the majority of that time spent talking about men?  More importantly, is that what they think about?  Is the conversation merely an expression of their inner thoughts?

A lot of women respond negatively to these ideas.  But that doesn’t mean they are false, does it?  And if they are true, why is that a negative thing?

(Photo courtesy idoherty81’s Flickr page, through Creative Commons.  Thanks, idoherty81!)

Books, Movies, TV, Music and Art book, books, conversation, conversations, life, politics

We had an interesting conversation arising from an article we read on slate.com. The article stated that on Royal Navy SSBN’s (nuclear missile submarines), there is a safe containing a letter from the Prime Minister.

The letter contains the PM’s final orders to the captain of the submarine in the event he (the PM) is killed in a surprise nuclear attack.  The current PM, Gordon Brown, apparently wrote this letter out four times,  in longhand.

Previous PM’s have had to do the same thing, though all their orders have been destroyed.  Presumably, only they know what they wrote, but none of them have ever revealed the contents of their letters publicly.

This, obviously, prompted the question:  What did they write?

What would you write?

Here is the situation: You are the Prime Minister (or the President of the United States, or Russia, etc.) and you are tasked with writing your final orders to the commanders of your nation’s nuclear missile submarines.  These vessels carry enough firepower to vaporize the world’s largest cities, and most of the smaller ones as well.  (A single U.S. Ohio class submarine, for example, carries up to 192 nuclear warheads, each of them at least 5 times as powerful as the bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)

Your orders will determine whether or not these submarines fire their weapons and kill millions upon millions of people.  (Not to mention leaving the survivors in a world radically different than the one prior.)  You are dead because your nation has already been destroyed.  You’ve lost. You’re only decision is whether to take the attackers with you to the grave.

We didn’t come up with an answer.  Neither do we don’t envy those who have to write these letters, or those who’s task it would be to read them.

(Photo courtesy jmuhles’s flickr page through creative commons license.  Thanks, jmuhles!)

technology conversation, nuclear, war

A conversation came up the other day about DVD’s.  Specifically, why do we own them?

You may have experienced the following phenomena:  You are watching television when you come across a movie that is just about to start.  You happen to own the movie on DVD, but for some reason you sit and watch it anyway.

Why? In your mind you know that you can watch it at any time.  Why watch the movie now?

After a brief discussion, we came up with the following reasons:

1.  It’s easier: Yes, it isn’t very hard to get up and go to your DVD player, place the movie in the tray and hit play, but it is more than pressing the channel button.

2.  It’s disposable: Something on TV isn’t permanent, it’s disposable.  You can turn it off and not give it a second thought.  If you stop the DVD, you have to get up, remove it from the player and place it back in its case/rack, etc.

3.  You don’t feel obligated: If you take the time and effort to pick a movie out of your DVD collection, place it in the player and start it, you feel an obligation to watch it.  Yes, you can pause it at any point, but you’ve gone through all the work and built an expectation in your mind that ‘Yes, I am going to commit to watching this now.’   It’s very different than finding a movie on a channel and setting the remote down.

All of this brought up another point: the digital revolution.   With the advent of digital technology (the access and recording of information into a digital format), all manner of media is becoming easily transferable and more portable.  Music, movies, books, photographs, you name it.  You can have it all on your computer, your Ipod, your cell phone.

How long will it be before you carry all of this on a Star-Trek like handheld device?  You may only have to carry around something like your cell phone to have access to all of these things.  You could play your movies wirelessly on your TV screen, or send your music to your stereo, or have your picture frames show changing images of your children.    With sites like HULU, you might be able to go online, click on the movie you want and watch it instantly, anywhere in your house.

So will DVD’s go the way of the 8-track or laser disk?  Clearly, yes.  But what they, or their successors, may be replaced with is…nothing.  At least, nothing physical.  With data being conveyed digitally at an increasing speed and with more and more ease, how long will it be before we all have personal tricorders that have access to every piece of media ever created?

And what happens after that?

(Photo courtesy john a ward’s flickr page through creative commons license.  Thanks, john a ward!”

Books, Movies, TV, Music and Art, technology book, books, conversation, music, personal, tech, technology

As we often do on Foolosophy Friday, we’re going to start with a conundrum. Here are the basics;

1. You are a train conductor. One day you are happily moving along the tracks when you see something terrible ahead.  On the track you are on, two people are tied up and laying unconscious.  If you continue, they will die.
2. Luckily, there is a side track you can take.  Less than lucky is that on this track lies a single person, similarly tied up, unconscious and immobile.   If you switch to the other track, that person will die.
3. If you continue on the tracks, the two people will be killed. If you change tracks, the one person will be killed.  You can’t stop the train or do anything else to avoid hitting either the pair or the lone person.

Now the question is this:  What do you do? Do you go ahead and kill the two people, or do you change tracks and kill the one?

How do you decide? Should you decide on the basis of doing the least harm?  If so, you’ll probably change tracks.  Yes, you’ll kill someone, but you’ll save two lives.  If you continue without switching tracks, don’t you inflict more harm?

Does it change anything if the single person is conscious and can see you coming?  Or if instead of 2 people it is 100? Or they are children?   Why does that make a difference?

Think about this:  If you continue, you don’t have to change anything.  By acting you choose to do something, namely kill a person that otherwise would have been alive.  Are you a murderer because you chose to kill the one person?

These kind of hypotheticals are simplistic, but they aren’t designed to teach you what to do in these kinds of situations.  The question asks what we mean by morality, or more specifically, by the concept of the most good to the most people.  (Or the least harm to the least number of people.)   If you believe acting so as to bring about the most good for the most people, this kind of problem may arise.  But if you think choosing to take the life of someone is wrong, then in this situation at least, you will have to cause more harm than good.

Hmm.

(Photo courtesy jamesfischer’s flickr page through Creative Commons license. Thanks, james fischer!)

Foolosophy Friday blog, life

The other day a friend of mine and I had a conversation about all those survival shows on the Discovery Channel.  (Or is it The Learning Channel?  We couldn’t remember.)  We’ve been fascinated with man vs. nature type shows ever since we first read Robinson Crusoe.  So, we spent some time talking about it and came up with a question: What would we bring with us if we were stranded in the woods?

I remember once taking a class where one of the lessons was to rank a list of supplies in order of their importance if you were stranded on a desert island.  The list was given to Navy personnel (or maybe it was NASA, I forget that too) and consisted of about 50 items.  The items I remember were these:

• Compass
• Flashlight
• Bottles of water
• Radio, not working
• Umbrella
• Sextant
• Food rations
• Sunscreen
• Small mirror
• Bible
• Plastic jug
• Fishing tackle

When making their list, most people place food and water near the top.  But as I remember, the items on the top of the list as put together by the experts consisted of signaling devices like the mirror.  The theory being that you don’t really want to try to survive on your own at sea (or anywhere else), and your best chance at living is rescue.

Never the less, we came up with a list of items we’d want with us if stranded on a desert island.  Here is the non-signaling device list.

1.  Knife: Because you can use a knife for a lot, like making a shelter, hunting or spear-fishing, etc.
 
 
 
 
 
 



2.  Hand-powered water maker: One of these would come in really handy, especially in the hot climate of a desert island.  You can go a long time without food, but you can’t go more than a few days without water.  With these, you can make enough water to survive on, and all you need is two hands and an ocean.  (Check!)
 
 
 
 
 
 



3.  Plastic tarp or trash bags. Very useful to stay dry, and for a whole lot of other uses.
 
 
 
 
 
 


4.  Fishing Tackle: We have to eat too, and the ocean has fish in it, or so we hear.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


5.  Lighter: We like sushi, but not all the time.  Besides, a fire provides warmth, light and psychological comfort. And you can cook over it.

Uncategorized conversation

We had a discussion the other day about encounters with the police.  (See this great series of YouTube Videos on the topic.)  Most of us get the occasional parking ticket, or traffic ticket, etc.  Occasionally, you might be involved in something else, like being around a bar fight or something like that.

When the police get involved, it is serious.  Always.  Why?

• They have guns.

• They can arrest you.

• They can detain you, intimidate you and make your life hell.

In short, the police have more power than you.  They are not your equals.   Because of that, we came up with the following reasons for why you should never, EVER talk to the police.  (At least in the Unites States.)

REASON 1:  IT NEVER HELPS: Lots of people like to think they can talk their way out of getting arrested.  Maybe you can.  But if you are charged with a crime, talking to the police hurts you.   What you say can be used against you, but it isn’t going to be used to help you.

REASON 2:  YOU CAN TALK LATER: If you are guilty and want to confess, wonderful.  You are a good person.  But confessing has consequences, and you need to be aware of them.  Not only that, but you only want to confess to what you did, and you need to be sure of what you say. Think first.  Talk later.

REASON 3:  NOTHING IS OFF THE RECORD: Nothing you say to the police is out of bounds.  Even if you agree to keep it ‘off the record’ or ‘just between us’, it isn’t.  It’s going to be used, recorded, remembered and used against you at every opportunity.

REASON 4:  COPS CAN LIE.  YOU CAN’T: If a cop lies to you, it’s fine. They can do that.  If you lie to the cops, you commit a crime: obstruction of justice.  Not only that, but you will be seen as a liar and the rest of what you say is worthless.

REASON 5:  EVEN AN HONEST MISTAKE IS BAD: Everything you tell to the police has to be true.  Even if you make a mistake, this can be construed as a lie.  If you have to testify and what you said to the cops is brought into court and it’s full of holes, you are going to look bad.  NOT something you want to happen.

REASON 6:  YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING: Did you know it’s illegal to own a lobster that is below a certain size, or that you can’t play dominoes on a Sunday in Georgia?  If you don’t already know every law on the books, you may admit to doing something you didn’t even know was illegal.  And yes, there are a lot of things that are illegal you don’t even know about it.   How many?  About 10,000 or more federal criminal statutes alone. And that doesn’t include local and state laws, and or regulatory rules.

REASON 7:  THE 5TH AMENDMENT PROTECTS THE INNOCENT: The Supreme Court has said this themselves.  The 5th Amendment is there so innocent people don’t get caught up in the very serious, stressful process of a criminal investigation.  Innocent people are worth protecting. That’s why the 5th Amendment is there.  Use it.

REASON 8: THE POLICE AND WITNESSES CAN BE WRONG: If the police get it wrong and you suddenly find yourself having to say X and the cop says Y, who is going to believe you?  You are accused of the crime.  Everyone expects you to lie, even if you are not lying and never did anything wrong.

REASON 9:  EVERYONE THINKS YOU DID IT: Innocent until proven guilty is a nice idea, but it isn’t quite real.  Think about it, how many times do you see or hear of someone being arrested and think “It has to be proven they’re guilty.”  Never. And everyone is just like you.   If you have to go in front of a jury, they already think “They’re probably guilty.”

REASON 10:  THE POLICE HAVE THE POWER: Let’s say you and a friend get into a scuffle.   Your friends says he won’t “press charges” and neither will you.  Super.  But your friend never could “press charges” even if they wanted to.  Only the police and prosecutors can, even if no one wants them to.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should report a crime or not call 911 if you are in trouble.  But it does mean that if you get pulled over for a ticket or get into a car accident, you should probably just say “No thanks, I’ll get back to you later.’

(Photo courtesy pena2’s Flickr page, through creative commons license.  Thanks, pena2!)

Uncategorized book, books, friends, justice, law, life

Personality tests have been around for a while, and are widely used by businesses, schools and even religious groups.  A few friends of mine and I recently had a conversation about these tests and whether or not they are worth anything.

Some argue that many personality tests cater strongly to the Forer Effect, that tendency of people to view positive, yet vague, assessments of themselves as highly accurate.   This effect is often used by charlatans, astrologers and others of questionable scruples as their way to entice new victims.

The premise is simple: say something flattering about a person and they will believe you to be smart.  If you take it a step further and say the flattery is derived from a test or other diagnostic tool, they’ll believe that the tool is not only accurate, but useful for determining what that person would do, how they should act, etc.

Further confounding this is the evidence.  Many, if not most or even all, personality tests (even the widely used ones) have little reliability or predictive value.  Basically that means that if you take the test more than once, you’ll get a different result, and if you use it to try to predict your behavior, you won’t get it right.

So why take these tests at all? Why take a useless, or at best questionable test, if there is little reason to believe it is worth anything?

Well for one, because they are fun.  We all like to hear nice things about ourselves, and the promise of a test telling us what how great and special we are caters to our ego’s.  But it also allows us a moment of introspection.  Many of us spend the majority of our days in pursuit of something, we have little time to turn our attention towards less immediate tasks.  A little time spent thinking might do us some good.

So here is a basic personality test you can take that might allow you that moment of introspection.  It may prove useful, or it may be worthless.

But no matter how it turns out, it is fun to think about.

(Photo courtesy Thomas Hawk’s Flickr page through Creative Commons license.  Thanks, Thomas Hawk!)

Testing, Tuedsay, Testing conversation, friends, personal, personality, science, survey, testing

True love.  Is there anything better in the whole world?   (Perhaps a nice MLT, a mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich.  We love that.)

Well, according to research, about 10% of married couples actually do experience this romantic ideal.  That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, TRUE LOVE IS POSSIBLE!

Previous research indicated that romantic relationships follow a distinct pattern: 10 to 15 months of infatuation and then the love goes away.  By the 7-year itch, it’s pretty much gone.  But, if it gets past a decade, you and your partner may be headed for the story books.

Which makes us wonder: why? Why do some people find it and not others?  Is it hardwired? Is it about finding that right person?

Is it an odor?

(Photo courtesy fe’s flickr page through creative commons.  Thanks, fe!)

Relationships book, books, love