The Untamed - Discussion of Politics and Choices

I just finished watching The Untamed, and while I can talk about all the light-hearted stuff elsewhere, I figure I'll blog about some of the dryer and duller meta stuff here.

Part of what fascinates me the most here is how the story shows how the force of public opinion - and, in many ways, how flawed it can be.

Fair warning, if you don't want any spoilers, you probably shouldn't read any more.

The main character - Wei Wuxian - would, in a more Western storyline, probably be considered an evil necromancer. Or rather, that's his reputation.

The story flits back and forth between the present and the past, so it takes a while before you get the full story, but he's not really evil. In fact, you could probably argue that he's chaotic good.  He's generally a trickster, and doesn't follow the rules just because they're the rules, but he's clearly got a working moral compass and tries to do the right thing.

There's a lot of comedic moments that highlight the difference between his fearsome reputation and the reality, both with him and his most infamous work - raising Wen Ning from the dead. Here you have a powerful undead monster, Wen Ning, also known as the 'Ghost General', and when he's not being controlled he's pretty much the sweetest and nicest guy imaginable. He cooks. He does chores. He clumsily tries hiding himself in tall leaves. He stutters.

Anyways, the true villain of the story frames Wei Wuxian (not without a bit of help from our overly dramatic protagonist), and there's some interesting scenes where we see how easily the public is swayed. How once they set their minds on believing the worst of Wei Wuxian, they closed their minds and refused to hear any evidence to the contrary.

One guy ambushed Wei Wuxian, with ultimately tragic consequences, simply because he assumed Wei Wuxian was the one who put a pretty nasty curse on him.

From a pollitical viewpoint, I wanted to talk a bit about an incident somewhat early in the slide to tragedy.

This world has four main clans, and three of them had just won a brutal war against the vicious and aggressive fourth clan. The clans at large were looking at Wei Wuxian with concern, because he'd used some particularly nasty powers during the fight... but he had been on their side, so for the most part it was just a worrying concern.

Then Wei Wuxian ran into someone who had been a great help to him during the war, even though she and her brother were a smaller offshoot of the losers clan. She and her brother, and other remnants of the losing clan, were being targeted and hunted down by the winners... who naturally dehumanized them and considered it 'just' and 'right' to do exterminate the threat.

This was Wen Ning's sister, who had become separated and was frantic to find him. Wei Wuxian could have walked away, could have decided nothing could be done, but he didn't.

They finally found Wen Ning in an internment camp with a bunch of other remnants of their clan. Mostly women, children, and the elderly.

Or rather, they found Wen Ning's corpse, and the rather brutal conditions of that camp. Again, Wei Wuxian could have chosen to look the other way. Decided nothing could be done. Or maybe even helped them escape and then left them to get hunted down and interned again.

Obviously, he didn't.

Anyways, we see a meeting between the clans as they tried to discuss what to do about Wei Wuxian. It seems fairly realistic, to me, of that type of meeting. You had your hotheads and your overly fearful, exaggerating Wei Wuxian's evils and assuming the worst of his intentions. You had the 'realpolitik' type, who coveted/were concerned by the power of 'the Ghost General', and the amulet Wei Wuxian used to create him. We see the more sensible ones refusing to give in to the more extreme viewpoints.

But during their discussion you realize that they had a particularly warped view of what happened. The jailors at the internment camp, after all, weren't going to admit that they killed their detainees. They claimed Wen Ning just 'fell off a cliff' and died.

And even if they lied, what did it matter? It was just a bunch of 'Wen dogs' that died, and who cares about them, anyway?

What you see, then, is how they found reasons to turn and look the other way. And, in the process, they saw Wei Wuxian's actions as a threat against the established order.

I know this is a fictional Chinese high fantasy show, but the thought processes there strike me as very realistic. It's like how after the Holocaust certain powers said 'never again' and swore to prevent something like that from happening again.

But when it does, they find convenient reasons not to do anything. And they call it 'ethnic cleansing', or give it some other label that obfuscates what's really going on.

I've heard (generally in cynical, war weary tones) people talk about how 'the powers that be' will stamp out threats and don't care about justice, but its generally said in a way that makes it seem... I don't know. Impersonal. Just 'the way it is'. It sucks, but what can you do about it?

But here's the thing. Wei Wuxian had the choice to look away. To silence that little voice in the head that says 'this isn't right'. To choose convenience over the pain and struggle of trying to do the right thing.

He refused to look the other way - and paid a terrible price in doing so.

But everyone in that meeting had the same choice. One character refused to do so, even leaving her clan when she saw the direction things were going. The rest? Not so much.

One of the more interesting characters - Jiang Cheng - highlights this. Wei Wuxian was raised as his brother, they grew up together. Their personalities clashed a lot, they argued a lot, but there was a lot of genuine care and concern for each other. But Jiang Cheng was always insecure - heir of the clan leader, but often overshadowed by his talented foster brother. And at the time of this meeting he was the new clan leader trying to restore his clan after the ravages of the recent war.

It's hard to say what he was thinking, as he saw everyone speak out against Wei Wuxian. Was he too new to his role to try to defend Wei Wuxian? Too jealous? Did he believe that the person he grew up with would truly have done such terrible things without cause? Or was it that, much though he loved his clan - and brother - he was more concerned with protecting them then anything else, and had no room to care about the remnants of the other clan? Even though Wen Ning and his sister were the ones that helped rescue him and return his parents bodies?

The Untamed is a good tale, over all. I like the blend of action, comedy, mystery, and romance. The world building is amazing, the scenery and costumes are very pretty...

And it makes you look at questions like this. At what it means to do the right thing. At how easy it is to look the other way, or justify doing nothing. At what one person can do - and the limits therein - to stand up to injustice.

At how the group, as a whole, can be swayed in either direction. (There's a hilarious moment where... as a new villain is revealed, the very same crowd that had been baying for Wei Wuxian's blood suddenly wanted him as an ally. Funny mostly for the expressions on Wei Wuxian's face.)

Was it 'inevitable'? Was Wei Wuxing so scary and powerful that of course the powers that be would take steps to neutralize the threat?

Was it a sign of his naivete, and lack of political skill? There's a million steps along the way, each one of which could have been handled differently. By the choices of a million different characters.

Was it Wei Wuxian's fault? Was it Jiang Cheng's? What about the villain? How responsible was he?

So many times so many people try casting blame, some of it more warranted than others, that it does a great job of showing how pointless most of that is.

And how fickle the public's perceptions can be.

More To Monitor

https://www.en.eghtesadonline.com/Section-economy-4/32465-researchers-say-market-manipulation-is-destroying-traditional-safe-havens

Brainstorming

We had a team building exercise based off of improv comedy, which made an odd sort of sense because the attitudes it takes to do great improv are some of the same skills it takes to do great - and creative - brainstorming and team building.

One of the rules that stuck with me was 'Yes, and...' The idea being that you don't try to challenge or dismiss someone's ideas, but build off of them.

Which is useful when it comes to brainstorming, as you shouldn't start off trying to poke holes in the ideas. Yes, the ideas probably will have some sort of problem. You can address that as you flesh out the plan. It's more important to throw the ideas out there and get people sparking off of each other... you can refine them later.

So, as just an example, I wanted to throw out some oddball ideas for socioeconomic systems. I mean, I keep saying there are more options than just 'capitalism' and 'communism' right?

This is a big, blank board where you can throw all sorts of ideas out, addressing any part of it. How people make money, manage property, etc.

Right now, though, I wanted to play around a bit with stocks and finance. That is, you would seriously need to get an expert when it comes to refining here, but there's a LOT of possibilities.

Consider, if you will, that rich people are generally supposed to be able to live off the interest of their principle. (That's my understanding, at least. Never spend your principle. Invest and live off the proceeds. It'd be fun to try it myself if I had a large enough principle to begin with, but ah... well.)

Anyways... why can't that work in other ways? We've got social security for retirement, and a lot of the libertarian sorts who are trying to do away with that. Companies that have gotten rid of pensions and want us to use 401Ks...

So imagine, if you will, that everyone born has a fund started with a set amount... and it has 18 years to mature. Upon reaching the age of majority, everyone gains control of their fund. They can let it wait (if the stock market is particularly bad, for example), or cash out, or transfer into some other investment opportunity. They can use to to fund college, or buy a house...

The point of the idea isn't to say we 'should' do it, as we'd have to consider where the money comes from, whether it would be national or state or locally funded, and how much is appropriate to start the fund off with. The point is really this - it takes a lot of resources for people to be successful in life, and 'winning' doesn't mean much of anything when too few people have the chance to even compete. If you want to believe in the American Dream, believe we're a meritocracy, it would help if we didn't have such huge disparities in resources. If everyone has a fund that they can use (or blow), then you've got a better case for saying people 'deserve' to be where they are. I'm not saying you've made the case, mind you, but it would have fewer of the problems that people keep glossing over in our current system.

So what if everyone had a starting fund? The rich would still have a ton of advantages, but at least the less well-off would have a real chance to change their circumstances.

By the same token - 401Ks give employees a stake in their company (well, okay. 401Ks don't have to be stock in the company you work for, but many do offer good deals on that. Like matching stock purchases). The company does well, and their retirement fund looks better.

That's got some interesting points from the 'we're all stakeholders in the business, and we all want it to succeed' perspective, but it doesn't exactly give the average employee any sense of ownership in their company.

Or rather, they might see some benefit when it comes to retirement, but in my experience a) none of them have any real ownership or say in company decisions, b) when you do get asked to vote on some sort of proposal, most have no real idea of what the question is, what the stakes or, or what the right answer is and c) it's hard to feel like the work you do really has an impact on it. Especially in a large organization, where one group might do particularly well and another particularly bad. Is the stock price reflecting the sales team? Or the supply chain? Or the engineers? How does a picker in a warehouse feel like their efforts matter, when they work their butts off but one of the other departments doesn't meet their goal and the bonus is less than it would have been if everyone had been on target?

It also seems to me that stock prices are more about gambling and perception than an honest evaluation of expected earnings... but again, that's my non-expert opinion.

What if we did focus on those earnings more? Or rather, what if the quarterly earnings off of a stock were apportioned in such a way that the return was equivalent to what a salary would be. That the price was less about speculation, and more about the fact that one stock returned $2.00 in the first quarter... and could be expected to do likewise for the foreseeable future, and so a low-wage employee might need to own about 3K stocks in order to make a living off that quarterly profit.

What differences would that make in how a company organized itself? What would be the pros and cons of such a system? It'd prob mean a ridiculous amount of stocks would have to be allocated to employees, but there'd also be more of a sense of ownership and 'my company's success leads to my success'. Would it cause more problems in terms of uncertainty? Or improve some of the disconnect between people who are 'just there to earn their wages' and the ones truly trying to make the company succeed? Would it be easier or worse to get rid of salaries and hourly rates?

Idk, I'm just throwing out oddball ideas, but it doesn't work as well without someone to bounce them across.

Update

Another three day weekend. I'll probably post a little something on my latest theme in a bit, I figured I'd just yammer on about life in general first.

Let's see. It's now been two months since I started working from home. The world still seems to have gone crazy, but that's depressing and I'm not sure whether I want to talk about it right now. You'd think we'd have come to some sort of consensus by now, but we still have the dichotomy between people who are taking the pandemic seriously (and still want to lock down) and people who think it's overblown. I do get the people worried about feeding themselves and paying bills, ofc, though right now the problems are mostly showing in the push to get back to work rather than an outright call for improving our system at large. As this continues, I have to wonder if that will change. (I also suspect there's a fair bit of market manipulation going on - you can't have the stock market doing so well during such widespread uncertainty and unemployment without something screwy going on. I generally focus on having the system protect 'the little guy' or 'the common American' because, let's face it. The rich and corporations are pretty darn good at protecting themselves already. And I normally think that most of them have enough resources that they can probably get by on what they have for a long, long, looooong time. But this pressure to open up, and the market manipulation, makes me wonder. Do some powerful people have a lot of money tied up right now? How much are they spending to prop the market up? Most of them seem to have insulated themselves from risk pretty well - which is actually part of the problem since the way they insulate themselves causes problems - but I have to wonder if this is one of the situations where at least a few people will make decisions that they can't mitigate the risks on. But who knows? Idk what's really going on.)

So anyways. Avatar: The Last Airbender is now on Netflix, and I've been binge watching it. I finally got the urge to watch it a couple of years ago (?), because I heard a lot of positive feedback, but by that time it was almost impossible to stream. I'm pretty excited to finally get to see it. It is a children's show, ofc, and the first episode was not exactly compelling, but I rather kind of like it.

I think about the world Aang grew up in (100 years before he got encased in ice), and the grimmer and darker world his new companions grew up in, where war was all they knew. It makes me think of the difference in our own history, before 9/11 and after. Or the history of the Peloponnesian War, and how Athens became - yes, grimmer and darker, and led to the end of the golden age in Greece.

And I think, too, of the difference I saw in my fellow soldiers. How when I went to the Officer Basic Course before 9/11, where the most 'combat' anyone saw was on peacekeeping missions to Bosnia, Kosovo, and maybe some involvement in Somalia or special forces action in remote places, vs. the level of combat experience in the Captain's Career Course, where quite a few of my fellow classmates had already been to Iraq or Afghanistan. And those of us that hadn't all knew our turn would be coming soon.

Ah, well. It's a children's cartoon, and even if I do see deeper topics in it you can watch it without delving into them. (Sometimes I think that's one of the lasting effects of my own deployment experiences. I can still enjoy lighthearted and silly things, but I feel this... I dunno.. weight and depth to my experiences that sometimes feel like such a contrast to civilian life. Makes me feel worried I'll be a bit of a Debbie Downer, so I try not to spoil people's fun by talking about such heavy and serious matters. Hey, sometimes that's what blogging is for.)

I'm also watching episodes of a show called 'The Untamed' on Netflix, which is a Chinese fantasy-type story, with subtitles. The first episode was kind of confusing, but at the same time it's a very pretty show. Gorgeous scenery, and I rather love how their robes swirl around in the fight scenes.

In a weird way, the straight, long hair and flowing robes make me think the cast would be fantastic as Tolkien's elves. Well, dark hair, so not the blonde elves (Vanyar) like Galadriel. More like the Noldor or Teleri.

So anyways. I'm on call next week, so will be working the full week. Then I get the week after that off. 

The Consent of the Governed

When thinking about what society *could* be, rather than how it is, our founding documents provide a very compelling story.

"All men are created equal", expanded to include women, ofc. And including non-white men and women, who may not have been specifically excluded in the Declaration of Independence but were often excluded in practice.

"Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness."

Our Declaration says Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness are 'among these' unalienable rights. That means it's not a complete list.

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." So pretty much the social contract, and a nice neat explanation of why we have a government in the first place. Not to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, but to secure our unalienable rights. It is supposed to be people focused, and it's legitimately depends on serving the people. Which leads directly to the very next sentence in our Declaration of Independence -

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem mostly likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Early Americans often called our government a 'Great Experiment', an attitude that I think we've forgotten over the years. It embodies a willingness to try different things and keep on trying until we figure out what works.

Like many human endeavors, there's what we state publicly and what we actually put in practice - and there is dissonance between the two. But the Declaration of Independence, when taken seriously, is a powerful tool that helps define our nation.

All men and women are created equal - whatever race or creed. All are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - at the very least. Our government should be designed to secure those rights for all, not just for the few.

And if what we're doing isn't working, then we can create laws, or constitutional amendments, or even (though preferably not often or easily. As our Declaration says "Prudence... will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes") changing it entirely.

I like to think what I'm writing is entirely in keeping with American traditions, from the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution. I don't really think it's radical, or foreign... though I have to wonder about that sometimes. Too many people seem to read the same documents I do and use them to justify beliefs that seem to directly oppose everything I understood about what we stand for.

It's very annoying.

Moving along, though. Let's talk a bit about 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'.

Life is fairly obvious, though the argument over the death penalty shows that even that isn't cut and dry. 'Pursuit of happiness' also seems... well. Nobody seems to be trying to prevent us from pursuing happiness, and it's not like the Declaration gives any guarantees about finding it. (Though we do have a heckuva lot more research now on what, exactly, tends to make people happy.

Still, liberty is what we tend to argue over the most.

For good reason.

It's easy to think of liberty as - well, freedom to do whatever you want, really. But we generally don't have such freedom, and it's not just because of government... or because we need a job and have to follow corporate norms.

We are part of a society. And being a member of society has it's own set of obligations and requirements. I suppose that's part of what made The Good Place an interesting show. It asks us "what do we owe each other?"

Maybe back in the day you could find a remote farm out in the middle of nowhere, and not have to worry about what anyone else wanted... though tbh, even then there was generally some sort of community, with various expectations and obligations. There's a lot of research on farming communities, for example, and how they tend to cooperate to help each other out. There may even be a practical justification (if I help you harvest your crops when you're sick, or your machine broke, then you'll help me in the future when I have a similar problem), but in general it's done because it feels good. As the happiness research I linked to above shows, ties to each other (and our community) generally give us all warm fuzzy feelings.

Oh, and some farms may have been *mostly* self-sufficient, but they often still needed to buy plows (as one example), and sell their produce, and various other things that still tie them to a society and community at large.

Which is part of why it's not pure mysticism to say we're all connected to each other. What happens to one person can affect us all. (Particularly right now, as we're all affected by somebody who was infected by a bat.)

What do we owe each other? What obligations do we have as members of society? And how does our concept of 'liberty' play a role in that?

An Update, Caring, and Coronavirus

My company has decided to force us to use our vacation time, which I have mixed feelings about. I had been thinking I should take time off, anyway. Everyone is handling the stresses of our current situation differently - some people seem to prefer being distracted by work, and some days I'm one of them. Other days? Its a struggle to focus on the job.

So... I'm not exactly upset at taking time off? But, at the same time, this is vacation time I won't be able to use later this year... and if I were to take time off, well. There are things I'd rather use it for than to stay at home during a pandemic.

Anyways, I've scheduled most of the Friday's off this month, except for the week I'm on call. Oh, and I'll take the week of Memorial Day off (because of my birthday).

It does give me time to blog, at least. :) I wanted to continue on with some more thoughts on... well, society and economic options, I suppose.

Before I continued, well. I am reminded of this article, the title of which occasionally haunts me.

"I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people."

There's a lot of room for debate in the things I'm talking about - whether something should be public, private, or non-profit. Whether it should be at the local (city or county), state, or federal level.

What are the compromises we're willing to make?

At the heart of it, though, is the notion that we should create environments that help people achieve their full potential. Again, a phrase with a lot of room for debate. What is our 'full potential'? How do we cultivate it? What are the tradeoffs, does helping one group achieve their potential overburden another? Is a 'nanny state', and pushing policies 'for our own good' detrimental to that freedom? How do we help people make wise choices in a way that isn't controlling and nannying? (The discussion on free range parenting and helicopter parenting are particularly relevant here).

How do we allow people to achieve their potential, in a world that is NOT particularly safe? Do we focus on trying to make it safer? On building resilience and skills that allow people to succeed even if it's unsafe?

There are all sorts of underlying values and assumptions to each of those statements, but at the heart of it we can debate these topics while understanding that each of us is coming to the argument with a sincere concern for each other.

We can argue about whether the government is the correct place for food stamp programs, while all agreeing that people shouldn't starve and that *some* sort of social program for the needy should be in place (and I would expect/hope everyone trying to cut food stamps and welfare programs is working to support such programs privately, instead.)

Part of the reason I've decided to push on with my own writings, though, is that I feel like I kept getting stuck at this level. At trying to explain why it should matter. Why we should care.

Because it's growing increasingly apparent that a large (or perhaps more accurately - powerful) segment of our society Just. Doesn't. Care.

They don't think people who make less than a certain amount each year matter. They think it's okay for 'grandma to die for the economy', to paraphrase the sentiment.

They're perfectly okay with letting a pandemic spread unchecked, and even as they privately acknowledge that lives will be lost they use that information to sell their stocks before the market tanks, rather than create policies to reduce the death rate. They choose to stay home themselves, safe and secure, while arguing that 'other' people should go back to work.

They push news articles and research that supports what they want to have happen, and it's hard to tell how much of it is a combination of wishful thinking and selecting sources that tell them what they want to hear, and how much of it is done in bad faith.

Because at the heart of it, it is clear that they don't care about other people.

Thank God the majority of us don't feel that way. I do sometimes think that our current crisis, in some ways, highlights that those rich and powerful forces aren't quite as powerful as they're made out to be.

I know that sounds contradictory, given how much the news media has been augmenting the protesters pushing to open up the economy. (and isn't that a whole other can of worms? Why and how does our media amplify the worst, and ignore so many topics more deserving of attention?)

And yet - what good does it do, if a governor says the economy is open and nobody goes out? Yes, there are plenty of stories talking about how many people are. I suspect it's nowhere near 'normal' levels though, which means at least some of the businesses that have opened are operating at a loss. (And, again, is there any truth to the belief that pushing businesses to open is about trying to prevent them from being able to make insurance claims, and their employees from making unemployment claims? It doesn't seem to be about 'care for other people' at all.)

The states that haven't enforced a lockdown have, at least in some cases, had people take it upon themselves to socially distance anyway. Does that mean we don't need a 'nanny state' enforcing it? Or, on the other hand, are enough people dismissing and downplaying the coronavirus threat to create a public health crisis?

I haven't posted as much on it lately, on social media or here, in part because it feels the majority of people have made up their minds. There's little room for persuading people one way or another, any more.

Which makes the current situation stressful in it's own way, because this issue isn't our typical polarizing politics. It's not some argument about taxes or medicare for all, where the consequences of our decisions are delayed and confused enough to gloss over and abstract away the human impact.

Either this coronavirus is a real threat, and a lot of people will die if we let it spread unchecked - or it isn't.

Right now, there's no consensus on that. In part because we *have* been socially isolating. In part because its taken time to spread to the more distant parts of our country.

Unlike other political issues, though, I don't think this difference of opinion can last. The virus does what it does, and no amount of refusing to test or failing to report deaths (or, if you believe the other way - reporting every little thing as coronavirus when it isn't) is going to change what it does.

At some point, the numbers will be inarguable.

Garbage Can Theory

Just came across a reference to the Garbage Can Theory on Twitter - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_can_model - and wow, that fits a number of things.

I kind of want to let that sit in the back of my mind for a while. 

Random Coronavirus Thought

A post reminded me that prominent christian conservatives have a tendency to claim bad things are a sign of God's wrath.

I tend to think this is bogus, and so I'm not really serious when I say this:

Since coronavirus impacts the elderly the most, and men more than women, then we really ought to ask what old men have done to offend God. 

Furthermore, since nations that use science, have a better social safety net (healthcare, unemployment, etc) are doing better than those that don't, one could also argue that God is mad at us for creating a system that utterly fails to take care of the least among us.

Given how the virus works, I think this is far more believable than their usual claim that it's our depraved, godless, homosexual-friendly society.