Greg Sanders

Is multiplayer the key to engaging serious games?

Last was week the Games for Change festival where designers of serious games got together to discuss their nascent industry. One regular topic for discussion at such gathering is whether serious games need to be fun and what fun even means. Michael Abbott of the Brainy Gamer summarizes the discussion:

Perhaps games, and the audience for games, would be better served by design that emphasizes values beyond fun, but it’s clearly a difficult assignment. A notable undercurrent at this year’s festival was a sense that the current crop of games for change aren’t reaching their intended audiences. Most of these games are perceived by players as preachy, and even their developers admit they often fail to match the engaging gameplay offered by commercial games.

He also casts doubt on the idea that a new generation that grew up on games would be more inclined to take games seriously given his experience with some freshmen regarding his class on video games. That said, Abbott found hope in the increasing awareness of the value of connections with commercial developers. From my experience with documentary films, I do think production values definitely matter. This doesn’t mean that serious games should be high budget, that’s impractical, but they should have a professional look.

On the fun breakdown, I’m inclined to think engaging is a better word. To find an audience beyond the equivalent of textbooks and corporate training videos people have to want to play serious games.

Making serious games engaging gets to the mention of multiplayer in my title. Economics and political science both heavily involve themselves in game theory with the classic example being the prisoner’s dilemma. The mechanics there are not particularly impressive, cooperate or betray, but I recall little grumbling when people paired up to experiment with it. I think that’s because the challenge and competition of playing with another person can up the engagement value substantially. This could even be faked I suspect, but probably only for one-off games.

The end of advertising as a cash cow?

James Fallows has been discussing the death of newspapers and today posted a piece by reader Hal on saying what was really at issue was the death of advertisement.  Essentially he argues that the internet has to proved amenable to advertising with the exception of Google’s tiny ads.  Hal ties that in to the ability to skip television ads and argues that the outlook is poor for the industry as a whole.   He name checks radio but I don’t think there’s that much evidence there, although digital radio might make it all the easier to just jump around to avoid ads and I do hear more solid music blocks these days.

I suspect that this is at least partially overblown, I’d like some revenue and profitability figures to say for sure.  However, assuming it is happening, this means we’re losing a major model for providing public goods.  Specifically, if you can’t make much (Newspapers) or (any) money off subscribers to your product, make the money selling access to your subscribers.  Newspapers probably weren’t a public good until the internet, but I think once some papers put their content online news collectively became a public good.  I think this would have happened even if the papers stayed offline, although it might have been slower.

I don’t buy the idea that newspapers are suffering under their old model because they’ve cut back on hard news and investigative reporting.  Another Fallows reader along with Ezra Klein has repeatedly made the point that the good coverage is typically a beneficial inefficiency under the traditional model.  This is why I, like Yglesias, oppose a monopoly exemption for newspapers, it’s not the classic profit model we’re trying to save, it’s the inefficiencies.  Non-profit status instead attempts to directly pay for the social good via donors who would get tax deductions.  This is where reprinting the arguments of both sides without fact checking or otherwise adding value will cost news sources money, why would people want to pay for that?  Of course sponsorship will be encouraging for more partisan news as people certainly are willing to pay for news that supports their biases.

For those wanting to stay in the profit sphere, I can’t find the source on this, but I’d read an interesting article on how the Wall Street Journal does it.  You don’t charge for breaking news or big stories.  Instead you charge for niche products of interest to few customers.  Your big news will get you the wide viewership and each of that population probably has niches they’re willing to pay dearly to get access to.

Apology for slow weekend

Been busy with move and wedding stuff (and a Fallout 3 addiction).  I've got a memorial day post planned, but don't think I'll get to it until this evening at the earliest.

Among other things, I've put almost my entire collection of books up at Librarything.  I've been rather pleased with it so far.  I even bought a CueCat barcode reader to speed up insertion.  That helped and was more fun then typing them in, but I think it only managed about half to two-thirds of the books. 

Aside from enjoying cataloging, I put up the data in an effort to organize and trim some of the fat from my ~500 book library.  I figure it will be easier to check out reviews and such on some of the old textbooks whose quality I have forgotten if I ever measured them.  If anyone recommends any other methods for weeding out the less helpful non-fiction books, please let me know.  Lots of books are fun, but ultimately there are transaction costs in mixing good and mediocre material.  The marginal return of an okay book might be outweighed by distracting me from looking something up in a better one.  Space limitations are also an issue, but the time factor is a bit more of an interesting problem.

Manhattan Squared

 

Paul Krugman describes some of what I loved about Hong Kong:

Hong Kong, with its incredible cluster of tall buildings stacked up the slope of a mountain, is the way the future was supposed to look. The future — the way I learned it from science-fiction movies — was supposed to be Manhattan squared: vertical, modernistic, art decoish.

What the future mainly ended up looking like instead was Atlanta — sprawl, sprawl, and even more sprawl, a landscape of boxy malls and McMansions. Bo-ring.

He then queries about the lack of flying cars, but I personally would rather have Hong Kong’s transit system.

My photo which is available under a CC license, check out my China slideshow for more photographs.

In other news (5/21/09)

Rights:

• Diane Feinstein among others were willing to have Gitmo prisoners in their backyard (h/t Yglesias).  Thank goodness, that vote was embarrassing.
• Ezra Klein and Ta-Nehisi Coates note that terrorists are not super villains who can escape maximum security prison and if they were they could escape Gitmo.
• More logs on torture related communications (h/t Ackerman).  This gets to the sort of issues a truth commission would nail down.
• Yglesias notes that Columbia’s Uribe, like Chavez, is trying to change the constitution to extend his term.  There have also been human rights abuses relating to his fairly successful efforts against narco-guerrillas, but as far as I know he hasn’t clamped down on the opposition in the way Chavez has.
• Sen. Specter is apparently backing Speaker Pelosi.  Good for him.  In my opinion, the burden of proof is on the CIA.  They’ve destroyed videotape evidence on torture and Sen. Graham has shown that their oversight record keeping is inadequate and suggested some good reforms.  Not that it matters, but I think the attacks on her are unfair and those parts of the CIA under attack haven’t earned the level of respect that various centrists are calling for.

Feminism and Statistics:

• Andrew Gelman passes on an interesting study by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers that finds that women’s happiness has declined in the last 35 years despite objectives improvements in quality of life.  Also apparently women do historically report being happier than men.  That surprises me.  I haven’t read the article, but I wonder if the benefits of the women’s movement are most important at the negative extremes.

Blog roll addition: Hathor Legacy

Hathor legacy is a cultural criticism site with the tagline “in search of good female characters.”  They recently revamped things by consolidating their multiple feeds into a single one (they also have a LJ feed), so this seemed like a good time to link.  The design of the core site doesn’t excite me, the text is a little big and you need to read more to get the details on any post.  However, that’s not an issue with the feeds, so I don’t really care.

My favorite discussion has been one by guest author Audra on Laura Roslin, the female President in Battlestar Gallactica.  The write-up does a good job of both addressing her strengths and acknowledging that she does make a fair number of iffy decisions.  The discussion went off topic some, but added more analysis and kept the things interesting well after the initial post.

A second post I enjoyed was one I disagreed with put up by Kris Ligman.  She thought Portal did more to advance female protagonists than Mirror’s Edge because the latter’s marketing was really driven by its main character.  Loving both games, I disagreed, as did other commenters, but while the discussion was a bit harsh on Kris I think she handled herself well and updated her views as new info came to light.  Potential for good discussion really is key in my view to a good criticism site.  Another fun series by the same author is a salutary set of pieces on the women of Metal Gear Solid.

The site was started by Jennifer Kesler who both gets a nice mix of writers and wades into comments as a moderator when appropriate, which is key to getting the commenting community that I enjoy.

Indiana Jones and the Residents of Evil

Resident Evil 5 (RE5) rightly garnered some controversy for setting a zombie-like game in Africa with a white protagonist.  Emphasis on “like” because the original trailer left out many of the safeties of the zombie genre.  The protagonist wasn’t defending home turn, the ‘zombies’ were intelligent enough to communicate, and they looked like normal, albeit furious, people.  These safeties were already off when RE4 came out, but the pseudo-Transylvania with Spanish speakers setting lacked any context and thus avoided controversy.  In part as a response to the controversy the situation improved through the inclusion of an AI-controlled African sidekick playable in co-op and made the bad guys look more alien via bloodshot eyes and post-decapitation tentacles.  These changes underline the importance of the initial protests, if not for a reaction to the trailer they may never have been made.  At this point, for the record, I’ve played about a quarter to a third of Resident Evil 4 and the demo of RE5.

So where does Indy come in?  He gets a mention in N’Gai Croal’s the column in the June issue of Edge Magazine.  It’s supposed to be out now, but my local Borders just had the May one.  So in this case I’m turning to Stephen Totilo for the preview which quotes Croal:

And as Takeuchi went on to explain that the enemies with the grass skirts and spears were seeking to defend the ruins from intruders and that he'd been inspired by Indiana Jones movies, I felt like I once again understood where he'd been coming from. That a two-to-three-week trip to unspecified African countries and looking at a number of movies set in Africa alongside pop-cultural inspirations like the Indiana Jones series simply hadn't been enough to sufficiently educate him or the team about he legacy of the imagery that they were tapping in to and, as a result, they'd lost control of their message. That's my take on it, of course; I doubt that the man who sat across from me and thoughtfully answered all of my questions would agree.

If Takeuchi had used Indy as inspiration, he rather severely messed up the execution. Put simply, Indy doesn’t slaughter natives.  In Raiders of the Lost Arc and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull he flees mobs but doesn’t engage them.  He does kill at times one-on-one, including a swordsman while he’s wielding a gun, but those examples have nothing to do with the madness of crowds that Takeuchi is trying to invoke.

Arguably, the most relevant analogy might be the Thuggee cult members in Temple of Doom that are mind controlled via the Blood of Kali.  The Brits do open up on them, but ultimately they’re captured and not massacred (the first minute of this video is from the actual film).  Notably the Brits are fairly pompous in the piece and its the natives who Jones take delivery on the treasury.  Another contender for the most apt scene are the tomb guards in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  However, in that case Indy’s group gets by them with the film’s artifacts, it’s the Soviets who perpetrate a massacre.

I don’t claim the Indy films are perfect by any means, but Indy generally treated the locals respectfully and was favorably contrasted to characters that didn’t.  I don’t know how this issue was treated in all the Indy games, but that’s not what Takeuchi is talking about in terms of inspiration.

The problem seems to be that zombie films, guerrilla war flicks, pulp, and real far-flung locations were all raided for visuals and set pieces without any consideration for the moral content of the sources or of the result. The Resident Evil series was never really known for deep thinking or making sense, so this isn’t really a huge surprise (as compared to the Metal Gear series which still often doesn’t make sense but is quite philosophical about it).  The closer this approach comes towards real world settings the more likely problems are to occur.

In short, I’d be rather hesitant about this director making any story or genre innovations without adult supervision.  Not that he doesn’t have a right to make what he wants, but without that input the ‘innovative’ product is going to reflect badly on him and his publishers.  The original controversy wasn’t overblown, it provided the needed supervision because neither Capcom U.S. nor anyone more knowledgeable in the lower ranks seemed to have spoken up prior to the trailer. 

The end of credit cards as we know them?

So according to a Kevin Drum piece, credit card companies are actually the most hated industry in America and for good reason.  It appears reform might actually pass this year and there’s an interesting New York Times article by Andrew Martin up on what credit cards might look afterwards:

Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems…”

For more information check out a 2005 GAO report that found that about 70% of Credit Card revenue came from interest charges with a growing 30% from fees to costumers and merchants.  Another aspect of the bill is that merchants would be allowed to pass those fees on to credit card users rather than splitting them among all customers.

I’ve enjoyed and exploited the long credit card free ride.  However, it was quite inegalitarian.  Those with less revenue are most likely to get stuck in debt spirals and hit by fees.  It’s particularly ridiculous that cash customers have to pay extra to subsidize those with credit.  This gets to a point discussed in a recent post by new graduate Jamelle and a terrific Washington Post article by DeNeen L. Brown: being poor is expensive.  Access to credit is an important tool to escape poverty, but as presently configured the lower classes subsidize the well-to-do.

If not counterinsurgency, then what?

I'm sympathetic to the point Michael Cohen is hammering over at Democracy Arsenal:

As I've written here many times the clearest and most unambiguous lesson that we should draw from the war in Iraq is that we should never get involved in such a war again - and that any benefit we accrue from invasion, occupation and nation-building will almost never be worth the cost.

The fetishization of COIN is not the way to accomplish that goal.

That said, I wonder what sort of wars we should be fighting.  I feel confident in saying that a full scale war with China would have made Iraq look like a cake walk.  That, or perhaps North Korea or a border skirmish in Georgia, is the war I think conventional thinking most prepares us for.  An obvious counterargument would be that conventional warfare readiness is more of a deterrent than counterinsurgency readiness could be.  I think that's probably true, we did manage to get through the Cold War without a direct confrontation, but that was between two superpowers.  The dynamic might be different between a superpower and a regional power, the deterrence bonus might be offset if the superpower thinks that the war will be low cost.

In short, I'm not so excited by the status quo or even status quo plus Iraq War syndrome.  I'd like to know what Michael Cohen thinks we should be preparing for.

Play the long game in Pakistan, stop the drone attacks

I do not believe that the Pakistani government is in imminent danger of falling to the Taliban.  While their forces recently came within 60 miles of the capital, Islamabad, taking a capital is a conventional military effort that is highly vulnerable to a conventional military response.  As Yglesias notes, it’s bizarre that the U.S. is more worried about the Taliban than the Pakistanis are.  From what I’ve been reading from all sources, the Taliban are not particularly popular and thus are also not a threat for an Iranian style revolution.

Nonetheless, the situation there is obviously deeply troubled.  How do we deal with it?  I think we have to play the long game.  Pakistan’s military is far too influential and the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) had a hand in the formation of the Taliban as part of regional power politics.  I definitely think shoring up the civilian government is the best hope, but there’s been far too many trade offs between the Bhutto and the Sharif family and power is too concentrated in the elites.

So how can we interfere to make things better?  I don’t know.  Aside from pressure to work out political conflicts I don’t think we’ve really got the skill or knowledge to pull it off well.  Thus, I think the best we can do is to work to avoid doing things that make the situation worse.  I tend to support the aid conditionality bills in Congress. 

Beyond aid, one of the biggest destabilizers is our persistent use of unmanned aerial vehicle strikes.  These were chosen as a less controversial means to strike at the Taliban than using U.S. special forces.   I think the choice to avoid special forces is wise, but that we shouldn’t be making these strikes if we can’t avoid double digit casualty counts.  If we get a clear shot at Osama, fine, but that sort of example is a special case and not the basis of a campaign.  Long story short, I agree with the NY Times op-ed call for a moratorium.  Spencer Ackerman summarizes:

I'll be doing the Ricks book salon imminently, but before I do, take a look at this New York Timesop-ed call for a moratorium on the Pakistan drone strikes by COINdinista luminaries Andrew Exum and Dave Kilcullen. (This, if I'm not mistaken, is the furthest Kilcullen has gone: in his recentAccidental Guerrilla talk at CNAS and April congressional testimony, he called for reducing American reliance on the drones or to think long and hard before their uses, not an outright halt. I could be overlooking something, of course.)

The basic argument is familiar to all students of counterinsurgency: the strikes give the veneer of efficacy while sowing the seeds for long term instability; and a real strategy prioritizes the provision of security and services to the population rather than focusing on the elimination of an enemy who you're probably not so good at distinguishing anyway.

We aren’t going to win the long game by fairly regularly taking actions opposed by the Pakistani people. 

Photograph of a MQ-1B taken by Senior Airman Larry E, Reid Jr. from a U.S. government site.

Does the U.S. support democracy in Arab nations?

The Obama administration has wisely rejected regime change, but is it committed to supporting democracy non-violently?  It’s difficult to say.  On the one hand, they’ve respected democratic outcomes in Iraq, made statements in support of Pakistan’s civilian government, and worked to rebuild rule of law in that country.  Those are critical test cases as they are areas where U.S. interests are most at stake.  However, as Marc Lynch notes, Gates as said to Egyptian President and dictator Hosni Mubarak that military aid to Egypt, billions per year, is not contingent on democracy or human rights.

We will discover how Obama feels about Democracy promotion on June 4th when he will be making a speech from Cairo.  Choosing Egypt to give his promised speech in the Muslim world dramatically escalates the stakes for the speech because Egypt, along with Saudi Arabia, symbolize U.S. thwarting of democracy in Arabic nations.  Turkey or Indonesia, both democratic Muslim countries, would allowed some sidestepping of the issue as both governments could be legitimately praised.  Neither country is Arabic, but at least it would showcase good relations with predominantly Muslim nations.

I really do not know how Obama is going to come down on this.  His instincts are often realpolitik, albeit not constrained by the classical realist exclusive focus on the nation state.  If he does not make a meaningful push for human rights in Egypt or reach out to the non-violent Muslim Brotherhood it would be a profound mistake but not a betrayal of campaign promises.  Nonetheless, I actually rate this issue more important than the President’s positions on the torture pictures or even some sort of military commissions compromise.  Hamas and Hezbollah are hard cases, but the Muslim Brotherhood is not.  Our harbinger of change choose his venue, intentionally raised the stake, and anything short of a strong and Egypt specific message of democracy support will rightfully be seen as U.S. opposition to popular rule among our Gulf allies or more accurately put our frenemies.

As Spencer Ackerman notes in a post on Somalia today, there are forces in this world far worse than moderate Islamists, even moderate armed Islamists.  Please, Mr. President, stand with government by the people, of the people, and for the people.  Democracy may be about more than elections, but popular sovereignty is at its heart.

The Speaker and Torture

The Republicans are trying some sort of odd defense that breaking the law doesn’t count if you tell opposite party politicians about it.  The way rule of law works, you actually have to change the law, if you check the constitution, there’s not some sort of briefing exception.  Regardless, here’s Dan Balz of the Post on the current controversy:

For the first time, Pelosi (D-Calif.) acknowledged that in 2003 she was informed by an aide that the CIA had told others in Congress that officials had used waterboarding during interrogations. But she insisted, contrary to CIA accounts, that she was not told about waterboarding during a September 2002 briefing by agency officials. Asked whether she was accusing the CIA of lying, she replied, "Yes, misleading the Congress of the United States…"

Instead of registering her protest to the administration, she said, she set out to help Democrats win control of Congress and elect a Democrat as president.

Basically the difference between 2002 and 2003 is the difference between asking for permission and presenting a fait accompli.  Pelosi’s actions were no profile in courage and I certainly think it’s fair that she should say all she knew in front of a truth commission.  However, once she did get power she has worked towards ending both torture and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment as well as launching investigations of the lawbreaking.  On this issue, she’s certainly been out in front of President Obama and for that I salute her.  I actually got to see both her and Rahm Emmanuel at a fundraiser this Wednesday and even with these revelations I am still a fan.  Why, because while I do think Pelosi is spinning, I think the CIA is engaging in a bald-faced lie.  James Fallows helpfully explains:  

It's easy! If the CIA says one thing and former Sen. [Bob] Graham says another, then the CIA is lying. Or, "in error," if you prefer.

(Background here and here, in which Graham says that some of the briefings in which he was allegedly filled in about waterboarding and related techniques never occurred. This matters, because the CIA's claims are part of the same argument that Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats in Congress had known about and acquiesced to waterboarding all the way along.

Part of the payoff of reaching age 72 and having spent 38 years in public office, as Graham has, is that people have had a chance to judge your reputation. Graham has a general reputation for honesty. In my eyes he has a specific reputation for very good judgment: he was one of a handful of Senators actually to read the full classified intelligence report about the "threats" posed by Saddam Hussein. On the basis of reading it, despite a career as a conservative/centrist Democrat, he voted against the war and fervently urged his colleagues to do the same. "Blood is going to be on your hands," he warned those who voted yes.

More relevant in this case, Graham also has a specific reputation for keeping detailed daily records of people he met and things they said. He's sometimes been mocked for this compulsive practice, but he's never been doubted about the completeness or accuracy of what he compiles…

This doesn't prove that the accounts of briefing Pelosi are also inaccurate. But it shifts the burden of proof.

As for the reputation of the CIA?  Spencer Ackerman notes that they aren’t denying Graham’s statement.  There are certainly trustworthy people there.  On the other hand, there are also people that destroyed 92 videotapes of interrogation despite a judge’s order to preserve evidence.  We’re also talking about an administration that started torturing in part for the classic reason, to get confessions that affirm the party line.  In this case, to gin up ‘evidence’ of the connection between Iraq and Afghanistan.  Did they genuinely believe such a connection existed?  Doesn’t matter, the fact that they’d torture people until they ‘admitted’ such a connection existed shows why torture is so corrupting and why other methods are both more moral and superior.

I do fear that Ta-Nehisi Coates and Digby are right and the torture taboo is shattered.  The Balz article above, like most in the media, is unwilling to call a spade a spade.  But there is a chance here if the Speaker plays her cards right.  I’d like to believe we have strong public support, but I don’t think that’s true.  However, depending on what else is being lied about, the public might start to feel strongly about this.  We should certainly not put all of our eggs in this basket, we have to look to the long game and in the short term work on a truth commission.  In the likely event no one goes to trial now, we could still try them later.  If we fail to get the information out now, then it will be all too easy for the torture clique to destroy more evidence.

Implications of mental health parity

By a recent law, insurance coverage should treat physical and mental health care in an equal manner.  I think that’s a good idea, but my friend Arwen T. did raise, on the record, a negative consequence.  As someone who has been treated in the past for a phobia she now has trouble getting coverage in the same way someone with a physical pre-existing condition would. 

Due to this vagaries of America’s health care “system” the standard way around that is to find employment with benefits.  But, getting good jobs are always tricky, particularly during a massive recession.  Similarly, severe pre-existing conditions will make finding a job harder.  For those who’ve recently lost jobs with there’s COBRA and depending on the state there may also be programs like I-CHIP.  Both allow methods of buying insurance that go around the employer base system and the denials common with individual accounts.  They aren’t cheap, but being without healthcare can be far more expensive.

On the whole, I think this downside is worth it.  Ultimately insurance needs to cover important needs or it’s a cruel joke.  The logical solution to these sorts of problem is to switch from an employer based system of care to a universal one which somehow the rest of the developed democracies of the world manage to provide.  Moving to universal care won’t eliminate trade-offs, but it does pool risk and make lives better by ensuring access to necessary and effective treatments.  However, while the odds for healthcare are good, we can’t forget about those negatively affected in the interim.

This gets to why the stimulus aid to states matters.  Most states have a hard time running deficits and so reinforce bad times with cuts to that hit healthcare and other vital services.  In addition top insuring funding we also have to make sure the transition goes smoothly.  Arwen’s been waiting a while on her I-CHIP app and I suspect that Illinois, along with most states, may be playing catch-up to deal with the new mandates in coverage.  I suspect some of the insurance companies are also reacting with blanket denials as a first recourse rather than looking at the gradations in pre-existing conditions. That may well change over time, but that’s little consolation in the meantime and healthcare often can’t wait.

This gets to why health care proposals are so careful to make sure people keep their existing coverage.  Transitions can be difficult and people do fall through the cracks. Improving care in the aggregate isn’t that appealing if you are afraid of losing yours.  I think a public option is a good idea, but I want people to switch to it because they think it’s superior coverage or a better deal.

The hard case against a series I love: Alan Jacobs on Malazan

Steven Erikson is an epic fantasy writer whose Malazan series I'm a great fan of.  The books in many ways read more like history than typical fantasy.  Magic follows rules, the conflict between civilization and 'barbarians' is not one of good against evil, and while there are gods they're just as fallen as the rest of us.

Alan Jacobs over at the American scene contrasts Erikson negatively to Tolkein:

In a number of letters Tolkien responds to the very common view that The Lord of the Rings is about power by simply denying it. Rather, he says, the book is about “the Fall, Mortality, and the Machine.” To seek for power (including technological power: “the Machine”) is one of the ways we respond to our fallen and mortal state. But there are other ways: for instance, art. Even those who are not mortal, but are fallen — in Tolkien’s world, the Elves — are driven by the impulse to make beautiful things, and indeed their desire to make beautiful things can cause them to fall…

Tolkien was also deeply interested in the varieties of friendship, and the ways in which friendship can be a consolation and a comfort in a broken world…

All this is not to say that Tolkien doesn't have a great deal to say about power, only that power is not at the very heart of his concerns, and his treatment of it only makes complete sense in the context of these other fields and values.

By contrast, Steven Erikson, as best I can tell from Gardens of the Moon, does not appear to be interested in anything other than the many varieties of power: physical, psychological, magical, political, spiritual. In his world there is no art, unless you consider as art certain varieties of magic — say, shifting a person’s soul from a human body to a wooden marionette. But this is really just the exertion of a (temporary) power over death…

Now, a contemporary writer may not share Tolkien’s vision of what makes for a good life. Fair enough; but in that case I’d like them to give me some sense of what their ideals are. Of these exhaustive and exhausting anatomies of power — it’s Foucault’s world; they’re just playing in it — I have had more than enough.

He similarly critiques George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire and it is worth reading the whole thing, but I’m more interested in his discussion of Erikson.  The Malazan books do have definite flaws, but here Jacobs goes after their strengths which makes for a more interesting argument.  I think Erikson does believe in something other than power: the ideal in the books is the vibrant, chaotic, diverse city of Darujistan which is at the center of Gardens of the Moon and a sometimes longed for home in other books. 

That said, I think it is fair to say they are books about the problem of power.  I’d say it’s also about the problems underlying various civilizations and how they can, and cannot, overcome them.  I wouldn’t have a degree in political science if power didn’t fascinate me, so obviously this is my sort of thing.  But if you want to read about a world where interests and cultures clash more regularly than good an evil, one which subverts many of the racial dynamics of classical fantasy, and one in which even gods learn the risks of meddling in the affairs of mortals, Malazan might be for you. 

That said, it is not for everyone and if Alan Jacobs review scares you off, than you probably would not enjoy the series in the first place.  The books are by no means perfect, following all the characters and world details is nigh impossible, some of the baddies aren’t that inspiring, and the occasional bit with sex and female characters interested in it sometimes seems more fan-fiction-esque.  However, I think the virtues of the series outweigh the flaws and Jacobs’ review should help you sort out if its strengths are of interest.

Review: Gamer Symphony Orchestra (Univ. of Md College Park)

Thanks to a heads up by my friend Matt, I went to the Gamer Symphony Orchestra’s spring show this afternoon.  They hit a lot of the staples (Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Halo) but notably had a pre-encore finale with a medley from Katamari Damacy which made me quite happy.

The show was free, as are their recordings. I may well do a song by song discussion when they put up MP3s or video for this concert.  They’ve definitely got some talented people, but they’re also quite open about being a club that’s happy to take inexperienced people.  As a result, I did definitely notice some slips, and I’m no pro.  This didn’t prevent me from enjoying the concert and I would be willing to buy a CD (they weren’t available, presumably for licensing reasoning).

The arrangements they did were fairly original.  For example, their Metal Gear medley had a jazzy version of the theme from three.  I don’t think I’d pick that as my mainstay version, but it was a fun change of pace with the caveat that I’m not sure what a Bond audio reference was doing in there.  Similarly, I’m rather fond of the way they played around with Still Alive (although that’s a version from a prior concert, possibly with a different lead).

On the whole I enjoyed it and will gladly catch future shows, particularly in UMCP’s lovely Clarisse Smith Art Center.  If the presence of some less polished musicians is going to bother you, then probably not for you.  These days you can get a show with fully professional orchestras, but I think their choices of music and arrangements benefit from intimate knowledge and enthusiasm for the material.  Thus aside from being a terrific value, they also do pieces that I think tend not to be done even at the game orchestral concerts.

Celebrating same-sex marriage victories

I’ve long thought that the spread of same-sex marriage in America was being furthered by demographics.  Aside from the more liberal attitudes among the young, each victory would bring same sex couples more into the spotlight and show how they were not a threat to society at all and would instead will help make up the bedrock.

Despite my optimism, I’ve been shocked by the speed of the recent string of victories.  A judicial decision in Iowa followed by legislative implementation in Vermont and Maine.  New Hampshire has passed a bill, although it is unclear whether the governor will sign it.  Meanwhile, despite all the hand-wringing over African-American voting in California, the DC council decisively voted to recognize marriages from other states.

Kevin Drum makes an interesting observation about all this:

But I wonder if this is an example of how gay marriage opponents are going to end up losing this battle entirely when they could have won at least a partial victory if they'd been less strident in their opposition.  If they had actively supported civil unions, that could have become the de facto standard across the country, accepted by courts and legislatures alike.  But the ferocity of their opposition to any form of marriage equality might have been instrumental in convincing a lot of people like Baldacci that half measures are impossible.  And if half measures are impossible, then full marriage rights are the only alternative.

Yglesias also rightly notes that this should be seen as a vindication for the judicial press for rights.  Lawsuits can’t be the only way of advancing the cause, but they can be a great way to get the ball rolling.

So what’s next?  The current pace is obviously unsustainable.   Even so, things are going well enough that we’ll be listing Equality Maryland as a charitable alternative to our  wedding registry.  I had been afraid that Maryland was far enough off that it would be better to target resources elsewhere given the snowball effect.  With this good news, I feel more confident in the local fight.  To end on a happy local note, a few weeks ago that crazy Topeka hate group staged a protest outside of Walt Whitman High School.  Apparently bigots aren’t Whitman fans.  Regardless, they didn’t know who they were messing with:

Funny Numbers

Speaking for myself here.

William Wheeler goes to far in a Politico piece where he points out that the Department of Defense official numbers don't get to the entire budget (Hat tip, Ackerman).  That's true.

Here's his accounting:

• $534B - Topline
• $6B - Mandatory expenses for DoD
• $130B - War Supplemental

Those are all uncontroversial.  If someone doesn't at least reference the supplemental then they don't know the defense budget.  I haven't tracked the mandatory expenses in OMB before, I'll check that out.  [Here's what I find arguable:]

• $22B - DoE money for nuclear matters, selective service, and national defense stockpile.  Odd grouping there and I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but it seems plausible.
• $106B - Department of Veterans Affairs.  Fair enough.  If we get universal health care than I might favor breaking up this number some, but until then the whole thing seems reasonable.
• $28B - Treasury Account to pay for military retirements.  Wasn't particularly aware of this.  Seems like a reasonable classification.

Here's the accounting I'm more dubious of:

• $43B - Homeland Security.
• $57B - Department of Defense's share of interest on the national debt.

We don't account for anything else by including its share of the debt.  Why should we do that with Defense spending?  Homeland security is arguable.  I could see counting the Coast Guard[, although it is more policing,] but I can't really see counting the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Here's where I've got a major problem:

What about the military and economic aid to Iraq and Afghanistan, gifts and loans to Israel and others, U.N. peacekeeping costs, and all the rest from the State Department? Add $49 billion.What about the military and economic aid to Iraq and Afghanistan, gifts and loans to Israel and others, U.N. peacekeeping costs, and all the rest from the State Department? Add $49 billion.

The foreign military aid come to about $15B and some of that aid is already on the military books.  Economic aid to Iraq and Afghanistan via the State Department are civilian programs.  That I could see argument on, but what's crazy is he lumps in the entire State Department budget.  So all Foreign Policy is Defense Policy now?  Bull.  Look, the numbers above are already huge?  Why fudge them to sneak in an extra 5% or so?  The problem with this sort of tactic is that it throws his other numbers into doubt despite the fact that the base uncontroversial $670B number is already insanely high and is basis enough to argue for substantial cutbacks.  The only explaination I can see was that he really wanted to be able to justify rounding up to one trillion dollars.

That said, I agree with him on the F-22 and he makes a fair point critiquing the F-35.  It really isn't ready for a dramatic expansion.

Performance based Seniority

After the initial euphoria of Sen. Specter’s switch, his votes and comments were both rather disappointing.  Specifically he voted no on the budget bill, spoke out against a public option for universal healthcare, said he wouldn’t change his vote on the unionizing bill, and generally indicated that he wouldn’t be a loyal Democrat.

I can’t help but thinking that’s related to the Paul Kane’s news that Specter just got stripped of Seniority and thus plum committee assignments on the Democratic side.  He’ll get his back post 2010 election, assuming he’s still in the Senate.  On the whole, this makes him more vulnerable to a primary challenge and should increase his incentives to move to the left.

This seems fairly sensible to me so long as it didn’t violate whatever deal was made in private.  I’m guessing the deal didn’t specify when he’d get his exciting new Democratic rank.  Prior to this, Senators had been fairly supportive of Specter in regards to the coming primary.  One possible explanation Andrew Gelman provided was that Senators are sympathetic when other Senators face primary challenges.   Another interesting possibility raised by Josh Tucker  is that there’s some long game planning with regards to the Senators from Maine who might be willing to swap themselves if they think Specter got a good deal.  That’s why I think it’s important to keep to the private details of the deal, as I would guess Senators Collins and Snowe are aware of the broad strokes of what we’re offering.

Iraq Polling with Gary Langer of ABC

Intro by Tony Cordesman, uptick in Iraq violence, still more violence in casualties than in Afghanistan.  Do not measure violence in terms of killed, casualties are killed and wounded because it tends to disguise trends.

Gary Langer, ABC’s director of polling with D3 Systems/KA Research Ltd.  The poll found dramatic improvements in public attitudes across a range of measures.  Sample size: 2,228 with 446 sampling points.  By comparison, the Hopkins Lancet survey with the high casualty count only had 47 sample points.  They give more detail on their methods which seem quite robust to me but is a bit over my head.  67% cooperation rate which is higher than the U.S. but lower than their Afghanistan polls.  Iraqis interviewing Iraqis which lets them get

Roots of the change is security.  Low in March 2007, level in August with improvements on an individually level.  Much better for February 2008 and February 2009.  Suicide attacks are the form of attack people have the most experience with.  Only area where things have degraded is Anbar.  Local services and conditions have improved, but aren’t yet to pre-violence 2005 levels; fuel has the greatest improvement.  Confidence in national government is at a new high as is the support for Democracy at 64% (although not getting a majority of Sunni Arab support).  Support for Islamic state is relatively stable at 19% has for the first time overtaken the support for a strong leader at 14%.

Maliki has been gaining support among his base in Shiites, increase in Sunnis to 31%, but Kurds have dropped to 51% despite prior stronger support.  That said, even Shiite Arabs are concerned that Maliki is consolidating too much power.  Even so, there’s not a great deal of confidence in the Council of Representatives with the least support among Sunnis.

Interestingly, if the ABC polling is accurate, Shiites Arabs are just 49% of the population and not the 60-65% classic CIA/LoC sources have said but there’s no source for the numbers.  Kurds are still around 16% which is standard and non-Muslims at  4%.  The dramatic change is that Sunni Arabs come in around 31% of the population.  This means that the standard measures might overestimate Shiite Arab vs. Sunni Arab population by 10 percentage points!

In general, Sunni’s still lag in the positive ratings of the situation, but have been dramatically increasing sometimes to the extent of doubling.  The prior strong support of Kurds remains above the Sunnis but is leveling off and now sometimes dropping below Arab Shiites levels.  That said, Kurds still feel very safe in their neighborhoods and able to live where they wish without prosecution.  When it comes specifically to services, it appears that the dramatic improvements are coming from the Arab Shiites.  There’s been some suggestion that this was a boost targeted at majority Arab Shiite provinces in an attempt to win votes.

There is evidence of increasing ethnic separation with 62% in Baghdad and 75% in the rest of Iraq living in neighborhoods dominated by one sectarian group.  They estimate the population of Baghdad down to 30% with others estimating it’s gone as low as 15%.  But as the number above shows that this is not a Baghdad only phenomenon.  Fewer friends across doctrinal lines Sunni/Shiite relations are rated positively in homogenous neighborhoods but negatively in heterogeneous neighborhoods.  While the vast majority of the country prefers a strong central government, 39% of Kurds favor a confederate government and another 39% favor full separation.

Even so, 56% of Iraqis opposed the invasion with a small increase since 2008.  Kurds highly supportive, Sunni Arabs opposed, and the Shiite Arabs becoming a bit more opposed perhaps as they’re more confident that they aren’t dependent on American power.  Although negative ratings of the U.S. and Britain are dropping and are now below the negative ratings of Iran.  In terms of withdrawal 35% current time table (2011), 46% leave sooner, 16% stay longer.  Based on that question it does sound like the Status of Forces Agreement could be ratified by a majority vote, although it would be a near thing.

I wouldn’t have been able to guess the specific numbers, but most of this information is in line with what I expected.  The main surprise was that the standard demographic profile might be dramatically off.  This does suggest that Sunni-Shiite Arab reconciliation is all the more vital for the stability of the country.  I’m most depressed at the level of the ethnic cleansing and the extent that this ethnic separation seems to be a key driver of security perceptions.  One other fascinating point, security has a weaker effect on confidence with the national government that development, but I’d guess that they may be holding the U.S. and not the national government culpable for security problems.

Here’s the charts for the data itself.

Can a creator be too willing to kill their fictional characters?

As television has moved from more episodic stories to dramatic arcs, there’s been an increase in willingness to kill characters that have been around for more than one episode.  This is less of a new thing in books, although the death tolls of some recent series, such as a Song of Ice and Fire, are legendarily high.

The cost of using death is obvious, if the death is real, you can’t tell any more non-flashback stories using the character. I’m not really talking about killing off lame characters here, as the downsides are much more minor. The advantages are also important.  First off death is part of life and having plot advancement and character growth in more dangerous settings will involve facing that.  Second, death increases the drama of putting characters at risk.  The occasional death keeps viewers or readers on notice that bad outcomes are possible.  This secondary effect can also be achieved by character failure or non-trivial wounding, but with failure there’s a risk that that plot advancement will also suffer.  Similarly, if the wounds are psychological, characters can just become broken ground out shells.

I think having a few deaths in a series is normally a safe bet.  The risks come in when it becomes a more regular phenomenon.  I’d argue the structure of the show or book, as well as the practical realities of the medium, have an important impact on whether regular death is a mistake.  For this purpose, I’d argue that there’s three main types of structures.

• Static team:  By and large from one arc to the next the cast is stable.  If someone is replaced it will often be in close succession with the arrival of the replacement.
• Rotating team: Common in team stories, particularly in comics.  Characters may leave and return, assuming they don’t permanently die.  The cast may vary greatly over time, although there’s often a few central stalwarts.
• Farm system: These stories have a wide range of characters and are often told from multiple viewpoints.  New characters are fairly regularly introduced, are less likely to be killed within the short-arc they arrived in, and those that resonate often stick around.

Hybrid systems are fairly common.  The main cast, supporting characters, and antagonists may each have a separate structure.  The use of a rotating team or a farm system often means that the boundaries between main cast, supporting cast, and antagonists are permeable.

Books and shorter firm mediums like films and miniseries have the most freedom to kill characters.  There’s no actors involved so the real-world consequences are minimal.  In Japanese anime, the series often follow plots from written manga and thus death is more commonly expected.  Comics in the short and medium term tend to be more like books but for major franchise works their habitual resurrections show a real fear of losing characters.

Despite the increasing lethality of some modern American television series, I don’t think the underlying model has changed that much.  A variety of shows with arcs: Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, post-TNG Star Trek, and to a lesser extent shows like Buffy and Angel have stable main casts and are most likely to change if there’s a problem with an actor or actress.  As a result, if the show is more lethal, it will tend to express this lethality by running faster through supporting characters.  Under the old episodic system, supporting characters that weren’t star cameos would probably have never lasted beyond the end of the episode, so this is still an improvement.  However, and I’m thinking most clearly of Battlestar Galactica here, the lethality denies us some of the benefits of a strong supporting cast.  As the relative safety of the main cast becomes widely noticed, the dramatic boost that the lethality provides will be undercut.

Thus, I think unless a show or story employs a rotating cast or a farm system for the main cast, it should avoid being too lethal or risk undercutting the supporting cast enabled by arc-based storylines.  Similarly, if a show wants to go more than three seasons, I think it should also be careful with psychologically wounding a static cast.  Shows like Buffy and Angel tend to run into this a lot as the main characters are all ground down by a war of attrition with comparatively few reinforcements.  I think this also was beginning to take it’s toll on Battlestar Galactica, but since the show only ran four seasons it was easier to stick through the pain because an end was coming.

If everyone’s responsible, no one is

This odd rationale has been floating around lately when it comes to torture prosecution discussions.  Here’s Jacob Weisburg:

What we need now is a public airing through congressional hearings and perhaps a high-level commission—Jack Goldsmith and Philip Zelikow, brave opponents of torture and legal casuistry inside the Bush administration, would be excellent choices for it. But pursuing criminal charges would be too hard legally and politically and too easy morally. Prosecuting Bush and his men won't absolve the rest of us for what we let them do.

First off, as I’ve often thought when hearing this sort of argument, what do you mean “we”, white man?  More to the point there was certainly damage done to America’s reputation, but more to the point there are victims here, admittedly many of them nasty people.  Beyond that, a violation of a treaty is a betrayal of all the abiding signatories.  Weisburg and the like seem to be treating torture as the equivalent of neglecting our national gravesites or something else just about us.

If we are collective responsible, than what is the collective price we pay?  I’m not a believer in collective punishment, but there are certainly people radicalized by torture that are.  The answer American collective punishment advocates seem to argue for is basically that we should uncover the truth and feel guilty.  In war time we’ve tended to take a far harsher line but in power politic conflict we’ve tend to give defeated adversaries a pass.  I think not gloating or going for blood is often a wise move, but that’s in the context of a country that’s already paying a tough price.

Instead, advocates for the collective responsibility approach act as both sinner and forgiver.  They dilute the guilt until it vanishes entirely and then order us to go and sin no more.  The investigation will provide a hand basin for a collective washing our hands of this unpleasantness.

Of course, the torture advocates are still arguing torture, so that sort of throws a crimp in the plan.  But what are the odds that in a two party system, the other party will win again?

Good news from the courts

The charges against AIPAC lobbyists for spying have been dropped.  I’m no fan of AIPAC, but I think this was the right call.  Jerry Markon reports:

Rosen and Weissman were charged in 2005 with conspiring to obtain classified information and pass it to journalists and the Israeli government. They were the first non-government civilians charged under the 1917 espionage statute with verbally receiving and transmitting national defense information.

Some lawyers and First Amendment advocates have said the case would criminalize the type of information exchange that is common among journalists, lobbyists and think-tank analysts.

As a note of disclosure, I am a think-tank analyst, but I’ve never dealt with classified information.  Closest I’ve come is For Official Use Only (FOUO) material and business sensitive stuff.  I think on the whole I’m happier that way.  Regardless, these guys didn’t have clearances and if you’re doing normal espionage you don’t pass it on to journalists.  Moreover, I think journalists should at times receive go digging for classified information because some things are declared secret because their embarrassing.

In other good news, the Obama administration lost a ruling where they were attempting to invoke the states secret doctrine.  In essence, they were continuing a Bush era policy of rejecting suits because they would involve disclosure of classified information.  I do think that certain information shouldn’t come out to the public in lawsuits, but there’s ways to protect secrets without deny the judicial branch a chance to review the case.

Disturbing local news

Apparently two high school students were planning an attack on Springbrook High School in Silver Spring.  The method would have been explosives, not guns.  That actually makes me hope that they wouldn’t have been that successful at pulling it off as even terrorists with some logistic support can botch that, but thank goodness we didn’t find out.  Saw the news from Andrew Gelman who I didn’t realize was an alumni.  I don’t know too many high school students these days, but back then I had several friends that went there.

I don’t know to what extent small groups launching murderous attacks on society is cyclical or if this is a disturbing, albeit still extremely uncommon, new trend.  One thing I have heard is that sensationalism does feed this phenomenon, so I’m trying to keep this entry low-key and not repeating the name of the students involved.  Also, it is still breaking news, so things might not be as they now seem.

A lot of the common perceptions around school attacks are wrong.  This came up recently in Gary Krist’s review of David Cullen’s Columbine.  It’s fairly widely known that there’s no evidence to support the idea that they were targeting Christians, but the early incorrect information doesn’t end there.

We remember Columbine," Cullen writes, "as a pair of outcast Goths from the Trench Coat Mafia snapping and [then] tearing through their high school hunting down jocks to settle a long-running feud. Almost none of that happened. No Goths, no outcasts, nobody snapping. No targets, no feud, and no Trench Coat Mafia. Most of those elements existed at Columbine -- which is what gave them such currency. They just had nothing to do with the murders."

Far from feckless pariahs, in fact, the two shooters in the Columbine case – [See above regarding names] -- were smart, reasonably popular kids who doled out more bullying than they ever suffered. Their shooting spree was not some precipitous act of revenge against specific tormentors, but more like an elaborately planned theater piece, worked out almost a year in advance, designed to demonstrate their innate superiority by indiscriminately killing as many victims as possible.

It is important that we keep this kind of thing in perspective.  The normal flu for examples kills 30,000+ annually in the U.S.  Driving collisions kill many more than that.   Overreacting to these incidents takes away resources from more pressing needs and can result in mistreatment of those who are outcasts to begin with. 

One recent change that gives me hope is that by law mental healthcare and physical healthcare must be given equal coverage.  Political radicalization is one issue, but I think it’s uncontroversial to say that anyone who would commit the alleged acts is deeply troubled in one form or another.  I don’t believe we have any sort of panacea at the moment for these cases, or for many other mental health challenges.  But I do believe in science and in medicine, as we study and assist all those that need help but don’t strike out violently, we will do great good and should learn more about how to assist the extreme cases.