Shawn C. Butler

Writing. Thinking. More Writing

Category: Blog Page 2 of 5

Run Lab Rat Run – Milestones

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On August 10, 2021

In Novels, Writing, Resources

Blog posts like this (Run Lab Rat Run Milestones) are just for my own tracking and, hopefully, to provide some insight to other authors starting the publishing journey. Given that Run Lab Rat Run is my first published book, there’s bound to be a lot of silly nonsense here.

Milestones Reached

This also includes marketing activities and other events.

Q4 2021

8/9 – Book Release (Kindle)

This went up quickly, in less than 24 hours, much to my surprise. Pretty happy with Amazon responsiveness. And now…I’m a published author.

8/10 – Amazon Author Page

This went up almost the same time as the kindle edition was published.

8/11 – Book Release (Paperback)

This also went up quickly, probably around 24 hours.

8/12 – Goodreads Book / Author Profile

Run Lab Rat Run didn’t appear at first. I think what happens is that you need to enter your author information first, then GR scrapes Amazon for books by that author. No point in entering the book before your author info is posted on GR. I had the order wrong here, but it fixed itself quickly enough.

8/10 – 1st Sale on Amazon

According to the KDP reports dashboard, this happened almost immediately after I posted the launch on FB. One of my friends, no doubt.

8/11 – 1st Review on Amazon (5*)

I couldn’t put this book down, great read! Posted by friend from the ARC program, very nice review.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. I found myself really feeling for the main character, and cheering her on as she progressed throughout the story line. I could feel her aches and pains as she ran the race. The character building really helped keep you close to the heart of the story, a dystopian future where modified vs natural humans co-exist (not for long) and compete. I cannot wait for the next in the series so I can continue with Media on her journey. Shawn Butler has told an excellent story and I’m eager to see what is next.
8/12 – 2nd Review on Amazon (5*)

Excitement at Every Turn: Posted by a beta reader, very nice review:

Genetic manipulation and all it’s [sic] controversies is always interesting. I was not expecting to be pulled in to the world of marathon races as well. I was surprised at how compelling and exciting every minute was. At times I actually felt as if I were in the race with Media, willing her to keep pushing, not to give up, feeling exhausted and exhilarated right with her. The obstacles were thrilling, the race was grueling, and I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough to keep up with every turn. I really enjoyed this book and am already looking forward to the next one. I want to know so much more!

8/12 – Fiverr Marketing on Instagram

This was Instagram posting done by SADesign4 on Fiverr, largely an experiment on my part. The post garnered several hundred likes, but hard to tell if there was any interaction beyond that.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CScm2WFr44L/

8/13 – 1st Rating on Goodreads (2*)

My first rating on Goodreads was apparently some troll who just leaves 2-Star reviews on everything, often dozens a day. No idea what the point of that is. I assume this is just grist for the publishing mill.

8/13 – 2nd Fiverr Marketing Experiment

After seeing what happened with Instagram, I thought I’d check out the equivalent experiment on Twitter, Facebook, a blog and Pinterest (all one effort) by Melrock.  Thus far, this has yielded little interaction and I’m not sure how much value there is to these cookie-cutter efforts (they’re cheap for a reason). But Melrock has plenty of followers and traffic, so it’s interesting to see how things work.

I was off hiking when this posted, so didn’t catch a typo or two. If I were to do this again, I’d submit a custom text block, tweet, etc., rather than letting the marketer do them.

8/14 – 1st Bad Rating on Amazon (2*)

Another troll? Two-stars, no review, doubt they even read the book. Interesting. I wonder why people do this?

8/14 – Fiverr TikTok Test

Lol, well, I guess I got what I deserved there. Clearly…yeah.

8/16 – 3rd Review on Amazon (5*)

Fantastic Read! Another beta reader review. Very appreciated. Most ARC readers haven’t posted yet. Still working on how to do reminders there.

I’m not one for either genetic experimentation or extreme sports stories, but WOW. The race itself is interesting, Media is both hilarious and relatable, and my only complaint is that the second book isn’t already out. I loved every aspect of the world and the underlying forbidden romance. The character development is on-point, too, which is hard to find. I’m wildly excited to see what happens next!

8/20 – Researching Amazon Kindle Unlimited Royalty Model

The deals of the program are here.  Less a milestone than needed step. I’ll wait for 30-60-90 days to try to calculate royalties in KU as compared to actual sales at $4.99 Kindle list price.

8/23 – Book Raid Email Marketing

This is my first CPC marketing effort, and just curious how it works. Cost is $0.60 per click, max of $60, with no guarantee of any conversion; however, it does appear to be pushing some Kindle sales.

We’re pleased to report that ‘Run Lab Rat Run (Modified Book 1)’ was successfully promoted today (August 23, 2021) for free in the BookRaid Newsletter! The effects of a promotion will usually last a couple days, but when the dust settles we’d love to hear how things went on your end. Did the promotion move the needle for your book in a big way? – Sincerely, the BookRaid Team

I think in retrospect I did this promo wrong. I should have used  a KDP promo day to make the book truly free instead of only free using Kindle Unlimited. Would probably have gotten far more (non-KU) downloads and eventual reviews and stats, rather than 10 attributable Kindle sales from 500 clicks (which is FAR more than I expected). Glad about the purchases, but would have preferred more distribution and sales stats / ranking on Amazon. Still, a great deal either way from a marketing perspective. No way to see permalink for posting on their blog, but it’s under Aug 23 post for SF.

8/23 – Setup & Launch 2x Amazon Ads

Experiment with one ad focused on ultra running generally, and science fiction generally (many keywords), and another focused on the Barkley Marathons with different ad copy. This is purely for learning, and I doubt it will have much impact on sales. Campaigns run until 9/30.

Amazon_Ads_Sample-Barkley

8/23 – 1st Review on Goodreads

Lisa left a great four-star review from the ARC read:

A thriller that brings to the light the potential nuances of human genetic modification. While the naive among us may think of eliminating horrible genetic diseases such as sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis with genetic modification, let’s face it, in a world where we cannot agree providing adequate health care for poor people, the scenario presented here is completely believable. The rich elite get genetic modifications. Everyone else just suffers in a dystopian world.

Feisty Media is an employee/test subject for TTI Labs. She lives a limited, highly constrained life in the lab, in a time when wealthy people purchase genetic enhancements such as super-human strength, endurance, fighting ability and all-around insane mental abilities that are tested on our heroine. Despite being dealt this poor hand of cards in life, Media is a lively optimist determined to make the best of things. She is actually quite enjoyable to spend time with, even if she is fictional.

Through a series of events, Media is given a chance to run in a bonkers ultra-marathon-ish race. This is where the book gets fun, even for us non-modified, borderline couch potatoes. Lots of entertainment here: weirdly modified super animals, increasingly difficult obstacles to overcome, violent competitors, morally ambiguous villains/heroes, family loyalties, a forbidden romance and some possible internecine corporate strife.

I recommend this book to most. Haters of science fiction wouldn’t enjoy this, nor would those who profoundly dislike competitive sports. I’m not a big science fiction fan, but will read the odd dystopian novel, so this book worked quite well as viable entertainment for me.

I’m knocking off one star, for a 4/5 star review, as I would have liked greater background on how this dystopian society came to develop. I realize that many people enjoy a more streamlined thriller, but heck, I read Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies for fun, so it could just be my preference. At any rate, I recommend this book as quality escapist literature with the added brain candy of how genetic modification could play out in a dystopian, barely regulated society.

8/23 – Goal: 50 Copies Sold

Sixty-six (66) ebook and paperback units sold by 8/23, mostly paperbacks by my friends (thank you!), including 10 ebooks from the BookRaid promo. I have no idea how many KU units have been downloaded, and there doesn’t appear to be any reporting on this (?); you just see pages read, which is how you’re paid.

8/24 – Goals: 5 Amazon Reviews & 5 Five-Star Reviews

Both goals reached by today. Next goal is 10/10.

8/24 – Ad Campaigns on Amazon

No clicks or displays. I suspect bids are too low to match generic bids in same categories. Will let it run for a few more days before adjusting. So far, $0 spent, which is not good.

8/25 – Bargain Booksy Promotion

First newsletter type promotion to SF group for $40. We’ll see how it goes. Platform appears to be on brand of Written Word Media. Not sure I set this up right, so we’ll see how it goes. Oh, it worked. This is from the email that went out:

RLRR_BargainBooksy_Promo_Capture

Since they offer no reporting on the promo, unlike BookRaid, there’s no way to know how many people clicked on the link. Which is weird. I think I can attribute two (2) Kindle ebook sales and some KU downloads to them, but that’s it and that’s being generous. Also noted that my book was last on the list in the email, which means more scrolling. I wonder how you get placed higher?

8/26 – Various

Try also promotion sites from this list and this one.

8/27 – Updated and Added Amazon Ad Campaigns

I had impressions but no clicks, so tried adding (A) SF campaign (B) auto campaign and (C) campaign focused on products (similar books) rather than keywords.

8/29 – Various Minor
  • Added Universal Book Link. This is a service of Books2Read, affiliated with Drafts2Digital. Updated landing page link to include UBL.
  • Submitted for New Releases promo (probably little value) on SFF Book Bonanza for $5. Will appear here. They have a number of other promos possibly worth looking at.
8/30  – Goal: 1st Review by Stranger on GR or Amazon

This is a review by someone I don’t know, not from ARC or beta program, and not a friend. Really looking forward to a truly unbiased review…or several. And…here’s the first one, on GR, technically from the ARC program on StoryOrigin (4-star):

Run Lab Rat was a great book, I would totally recommend.
Feisty Media is lively and interesting to read about, and the plot is great, I really enjoyed it. This dystopian society is interesting, and I found it very engrossing.

Which…sounds like they copied part of Lisa’s review. So, whatever. Not exactly great insight, but milestone reached. This may not appear for a day or two, as GR has some weird caching problems on different platforms.

8/30 – Removed “Series” from RLRR on Amazon

I hadn’t realized some people don’t like to buy books in a series until they’re all published. Not sure this matters, but no point in series until Book 2 is out anyway. This takes up to 72 hours to propagate.

8/31 – Running FREE Promotion by James Mayfield

Scheduled Kindle to be free for ONE DAY to test service. Should get samples of posts by email: Facebook Page; Facebook Group; Twitter;  Tumblr; pending on Pinterest and others. Don’t see it shown here, where it’s supposed to be (maybe 1/2 day?).

By 9:30 am PT, 21 free ebook downloads were reported on the KDP dashboard (not fantastic, but not bad) which really makes me wonder how many I would’ve gotten with a BookRaid promo and a free book. Lessons learned.

By the end of this 24-hr promotion, 112 free books were downloaded and RLRR was momentarily a “best seller” in the “free” category for Extreme Sports (#1), Running (#1), Humorous SF (#4) and Genetic Engineering SF (#8). Not sure it means much, but I suppose I can now call it a bestseller :). Will update details page for book (slightly) based on this, but not sure how many of the 112 will read or review the book. Still not bad for $15 bucks.

August Sales

So, not sure there’s much point in obsessively tracking this, but here goes. And yes, most of these sales are friends and family. So, thanks! 🙂 All figures shown are net sales after returns.

Paper-Back Kindle Paid Total Paid Free Kindle Total Units KENP Pages
54 17 73 110 183 3,566

The KENP figure equates to roughly 10 full reads. To put this all in perspective:

The average U.S. book is now selling less than 200 copies per year and less than 1,000 copies over its lifetime. – Publisher’s Weekly via 10 Truths

I’m assuming this is sales vs. giveaways (freebies), so my numbers seem okay so far…if I can maintain sales after friends and family are done. Not exactly setting the world on fire, but okay for a start. Interested to see how the Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) works out, but glad people are actually reading the book.

9/1 – Amazon Review from Sandy @ Reading Cafe (4-Star)

Good little write-up. Wish it was five, but still good details and almost all of her reviews are four-stars, with some 3.5-3.75 and the occasional 4.5. Also appeared on Goodreads. I assume this is in anticipation of 9/4 interview (below). This brings me to nine (9) ratings on Amazon and four (4) on GR. From the review:

RUN LAB RAT RUN is a cautionary tale; a complex, thought-provoking and twisted story of specieism and discrimination, competition, power and control. My only complaint would be the lack of background information regarding the Chrome Wars, the environmental disasters, and the history as to how and why the world of enhanced human modifications came to be.

Which is great feedback. Due to this book coming out before events it depends on are published in other novels, I can totally see the point. This will be addressed in subsequent releases, which should organically fix the issue for those reading the series in chronological order (by date, not publication date).

9/1 – Sent Books to Laz

After surprise delivery of author copies yesterday, sent 2x copies to Laz. He confirmed receipt and will be using RLRR in the future… 🙂

9/1 – Review Amazon Ads Spend & Results

Was starting to get impressions after 8/29 changes, but no purchases. Now I have far more impressions, some clicks, and one sale. Let it run until Friday or so…then probably kill some campaigns and change bids. This is clearly not ROI positive.

9/1 – Goal: 7-10 Amazon Reviews 4+ Average

Done. Made this goal with 8+ reviews, 4.4 average, but didn’t hit the 10-review mark. Several outstanding reviews in the works…

For a minimum, you should try to get 20 reviews within the first two months after your book release date. That shows your book has traction with real readers. At around 50 reviews, you are probably good to go. Around that point, you have solidified the book as reputable and should continue to generate reviews. – Scribe

Probably need to ping some friends about reviews?

9/1 – Goal: 75 Copies Sold

With at least two paperback and two paid ebook sales today, total paid sales are at 77 and goal is met.

9/1 – Found Profile on Fakespot

Apparently, they review products to see if their reviews are authentic are not. Mine are graded A, as in very authentic. Not sure if that translates to less risk of Amazon take-downs, but it’s a positive sign. Discovered via Reddit post.

Fakespot analyzes the reviews authenticity and not the product quality using AI. We look for real reviews that mention product issues such as counterfeits, defects, and bad return policies that fake reviews try to hide from consumers. We give an A-F letter for trustworthiness of reviews. A = very trustworthy reviews, F = highly untrustworthy reviews. We also provide seller ratings to warn you if the seller can be trusted or not.

9/2 – Free Promo on Indie Unlimited

Trying free Thrifty Thursday newsletter / blog promo. Unlikely to do much, but completely free, and appreciated support for community. Should I reach out to other bloggers?

9/4 – Reading Cafe Interview / Review

This is my first book blogger interview and review. Looking forward to it. See review links on 9/1 (above).

9/6 – Profile Live on BookBub

Not really a thing, but needed to do promo later. ReadingCafe will post review here, I think.

9/7 – ReadingCafe Posts Review to BookBub

Appreciated this followup.

9/7 – Sent a Few Author Blurb Requests

I’m not sure if this is going to bear any fruit (probably not), but…what the heck. Some of my favorite authors might be interested in RLRR. Sending today to some of the following. It would be an honor if any of them even read it…

  • (Maybe) David Brin, author of The Postman and Uplift series. Also looks eerily like my friend Allen. Responded quickly and offered to possibly look at my book if sent to him, which is the most I could expect. Sent 9/13 with fingers crossed.
  • (Pending) Andrew Niccol, Writer/Director of Gattaca, but can’t find info. Silly famous people.
  • (Pending) Stephen King, but no easy way to contact w/o being in spam folder. Probably need to focus on much less famous people :).
  • (Pending) Vernor Vinge (see singularity essay), can’t find contact info. Same for Larry Niven, etc. No doubt enjoying their retirement.
  • (Yes) Fellow IR/PS alum Eliot Peper. He responded with a “maybe” and offered to put me in his next newsletter. Seems like really nice guy. Appreciated.
  • (Rejected) Andy Weir, author of The Martian and Hail Mary. Rejected almost immediately with personal email.
  • (Rejected) John Scalzi, author of Red Shirts and Old Man’s War. Rejected almost immediately with personal email.
  • (Rejected, but Book Sent) Peter Watts author of Blindsight.

Also sent book review request to Silk Screen Reviews, which is Soo on Goodreads.

9/7 – Started Entry on Internet SFDB

Not sure worth the effort, but like supporting the cause. Should have the same thing done on Wikipedia.

9/8 – FREE Promo #2 (BookDoggy)

Scheduled and verified ($18). TBD on stats and downstream value. Starting to wonder if these promos (free) should only be run once you have more than one book so that potential buyers have something paid to choose from. Nearly 150 downloads by 8 am PT, and 409 total free downloads for the promotion, so good response. Have to see if it helps with purchase / review “drought” over the last few days.

RLRR-Book-Doggy-Sep-8-2021

This article on BookBub claims free giveaways are great, but they’re hardly unbiased. And even here, the emphasis is on how freebies increase sales in a series, which I don’t have yet.

9/8 – Some Marketing Reading

Spending some time figuring out how to do this better. Derek Murphy’s PDF on book marketing included this model for launch week (costing around $2,000):

BookPromoSitesLaunch

9/9 – Launched the RLRR Easter Egg Hunt

Not sure this is a good idea? Might be great. Might suck. Spaghetti thrown at wall. Shotgun fired. Next!

Also noticed a slight uptick in “to-read” additions on Goodreads, probably from the BookDoggy promo, but if I look at those users’ lists, there are thousands of books on them. So…yeah.

9/9 – Sent Blurb Query to Jeff VanderMeer

Which would be awesome, as Borne and Annihilation are both referenced in the book. Also looked at Blake Crouch (no EM), Adrian Tchaikovsky (Rejected Personally), A.G. Riddle (Rejected Personally, Matt Ridley (NonFic, Sent) and Kathryn Paige Harden (No EM), Philip Ball (NonFic, Sent) and Dr. Paul Knoepfler (NonFic, Sent).

Need to look at more authors under genetics, designer babies and CRISPR.

9/10 – Disabled Amazon Ads

I was getting impressions (almost 100k total), very few clicks (around 60) and zero (0) orders / sales except when it was free, which shouldn’t really count. This includes KENP pages counts (also zero). Need to rework blurb / details page?

9/10 – Updated Promo Plan

Note: Read this marketing plan / review

Think I need to schedule multiple overlapping promotions based on dropping price to $0.99 rather than free. Given limitations under KU, I have to do this well in advance but schedule now so it’s clearly a drop from the promo provider’s perspective. I’ll need to update blurb at the same time, and ideally A+ content would be live (still pending). Still undecided on waiting for there to be 10+ reviews on profile. Promos to run on (not all the same day):

Phase I:

Drop price 9/10 so ready for 9/13 promo (after 9/11!), run on selected sites, then restore price to $4.99 on 9/17 to reset discount-from level by 9/20.

Phase II:

Once there are 10+ reviews on Amazon, schedule big promo, drop price, and let her rip…

  • BookBub (price varies); registered, profile stuck, must drop to $0.99. I am concerned about rejection by them if not enough reviews.

We’ll see how this works in practice.

9/10 – Reloaded Books on Amazon to Correct 2-3 Typos

Shouldn’t impact anything. Also, updated blurb to be more catchy, hopefully, and improved overall formatting. And added review request and Easter egg link at end of Kindle version.

9/11 – Updated eBook Blurb & Dropped Price

This should be in effect by tomorrow, with different blurb for ebook than paperback, and new $0.99 price point for M/T promotion. The new price and edited blurb were live within a few hours. All set for Monday.

Crazy to think 9/11 was twenty years today. A lifetime ago. Good to remember my boss Danny Lewin who died that day…

9/11-14 – $0.99 Promotion

Running on these sites as part of new Phase I marketing test / plan. Meant for this to be 9/13-14, but there’s no way to predict timing on KDP updates.

9/13 – $0.99 Promos Launched

Trying not to be too OCD about this, but eager to see some sales again. Sigh. The grind is grindy. Screenshot from BookSliced, partner site of JustKindleBooks:

BookSliced-Capture

Pretty sure these site display portions of promos are borderline worthless, but hopefully the newsletter reach is better. And dig all the romance and erotica. It’s a plague. Conclusion: A total of two (2) attributable ebook sales and maybe one KU download. So, complete waste of time and money. I would not use GenrePulse or JustKindleBooks again unless I knew what happened and how to fix it.

9/14 – Various

After abysmal results on yesterday’s promo, trying one more on Book Cave before pausing and then hoping for BookBub. Hopeful that results might be better given more vetting of books and online comments. Promo would run on 9/17 ($26).

Raised price back to $4.99. When this displays, apply for Promo at $0.99 on BookSends and ManyBooks (Must be free for “best price”, hmm) (per Scribe article). The purpose of these would be to drive enough added sales to get reviews to make BookBub submission more likely to be accepted.

Based on feedback on FB (by request), I’ve updated details on books (again) to (a) reduce running-related references and (b) remove categories related to running. Park of the concern is that it might look like a non-fiction books and thus NOT CONVERT if you’re looking for non-fiction. Updates done on site (inc. this one).

9/15 – Moved Laz’ Foreword to End (Postface)

As per suggestion on FB. Bummer, but if you looked at front matter on Amazon preview, the first thing you saw was the foreword and no way to fix that w/o moving. I’ll move back to foreword once sales are higher and more established.

Also, restarted Amazon ad campaign w/limited campaigns and targeting to see if that makes any difference. And started first Facebook ads, which…I have no way of attributing other than guesswork.

And…submitted to BookBub. Nervous about that. It’s the promo tool I want…

9/16 – First Unsolicited 5-Star Review

This was a first on Amazon, not long but unexpected and awesome, from Silvia:

The development of the characters and plots kept me up longer than I should’ve been. Enjoyed reading it very much. Can’t wait for the next part.

Also go rejection on blurb from A.G. Riddle. Might change to only requesting if I see the author doing blurbs elsewhere.

9/16 – Audited & Updated Book Categories on Amazon

I wanted to make sure all changes had taken effect, so asked for audit summary of categories and got the following, which was surprising. I guess they’d put RLRR into three kindle fantasy categories and missed several paperback categories (subjects). Though they did pull it out of all running categories.

Below are the categories for the kindle version of book ""Run Lab Rat Run":

/Kindle Store/Categories/Kindle eBooks/Science Fiction & Fantasy/Fantasy/General
/Kindle Store/Categories/Kindle eBooks/Science Fiction & Fantasy/Science Fiction/General
/Kindle Store/Categories/Kindle eBooks/Science Fiction & Fantasy/Fantasy/Action & Adventure
/Kindle Store/Categories/Kindle eBooks/Science Fiction & Fantasy/Science Fiction/Dystopian
/Kindle Store/Categories/Kindle eBooks/Science Fiction & Fantasy/Science Fiction/Humorous
/Kindle Store/Categories/Kindle eBooks/Science Fiction & Fantasy/Science Fiction/Adventure
/Kindle Store/Categories/Kindle eBooks/Science Fiction & Fantasy/Fantasy/Humorous
/Kindle Store/Categories/Kindle eBooks/Science Fiction & Fantasy/Science Fiction/Genetic Engineering
/Kindle Store/Categories/Kindle eBooks/Literature & Fiction/Absurdist

Below are the categories for the paperback version of book ""Run Lab Rat Run":

/Books/Subjects/Literature & Fiction/Genre Fiction/Absurdist
/Books/Subjects/Literature & Fiction/Action & Adventure
/Books/Subjects/Science Fiction & Fantasy/Science Fiction/General
/Books/Subjects/Science Fiction & Fantasy/Science Fiction/Genetic Engineering

Updates were requested in both cases. Pending update.

9/16 – Sent Blurb Request to David Plotz

Not sure why this didn’t occur to me sooner. He wrote the book on my grandfather’s idiotic sperm bank and should be sympathetic to issues of eugenics. The first email bounced (from link above), so resent via Twitter.

Also sent notes to Edwin Black, Adam Cohen and Dr. Minna Stern (positive response/w purchase & read) (writers of books on eugenics). I’d keep trying this, as there is an obvious value to helping each other. Also try the page on Wikipedia. So odd I didn’t do this earlier.

9/16 – Started Using Asana for Project Tracking

Will restrict items here to things of more substance.

9/17 – Rejected by BookBub

Sad. No information on why, but lots of possibilities. Think I can reapply on 10/13 or so.

9/22 – More Book Review Requests

Sent to a few on this list, and a few from Reedsy as well. Got one response from Bookish Beyond, who said they’d be interested in reviewing. Book sent. We’ll see in four weeks or so…

9/26 – Eliot Peper Newsletter

Eliot was kind enough to mention RLRR in his monthly newsletter:

Not one, but two subscribers to this humble newsletter released their debut science-fiction novels this month. J.W. Galliger’s The Terminal Code is a murder mystery set in a future where the world has largely migrated to virtual reality, and Shawn C. Butler’s Run Lab Rat Run is a techno-thriller exploring the implications of genetic engineering. I’m so excited for and inspired by J.W. and Shawn.

The link here appears to have led to a few immediate ebook sales, which is great if hard to confirm. Thanks, Eliot! Someday, hope to make this list.

Also, changed price of ebook back to $0.99 in prep for Book Sends promo (tomorrow).

9/26 – Goal: Reached 10 Ratings on Goodreads

Also K.A. Fox was kind enough to read and review RLRR on GR, Bookbub and Amazon (TBD), which was great. And had first completely unsolicited, stranger five–star review on Amazon. So, cool.

9/26 – Beasts of Sonara Submitted for Pre-Sale

This is the pre-prequel for RLRR. Woot!

9/26 – Goal: 100 Copies Sold

Noice.

9/27 – Book Sends Promo

Went out for $0.99 deal. Cost was $40 leading to 23 sales, so definitely okay (even if losing money) and hopefully driving future reviews.

9/29 – More Blogger EMs

And my first foreign review, from Germany: “Alles gut.” You’re damn right, alles gut! So there was that. Need to work on both traffic and conversion on Amazon.

September Sales

All figures shown are net sales after returns.

Mo Paper-back Kindle Paid Total Paid Free Kindle Total Units KENP Pages
Aug 54 17 71 110 181 3,566
Sep 12 45 57 411 468 3,829
YTD 66 62 128 521 649 7,395

Q4 2021

Sales have definitely slowed to a trickle. Facebook ads the only ongoing promotional effort, and those have not converted well. TBD on what’s next…

10/7 – Peak Endurance Podcast Interview

Nice interview with Isobel came out. I’m not sure it will generated much buzz for a number of reasons, but very pleased to have it out there. And it was fun to catch up with her.

10/9 – Goal: 20 Amazon Reviews 4+ Average

I doubt I’ll make this goal, as I’m at 19 on 10/8, but I’ve also stopped pushing this so hard. I realize that (a) I don’t want to be the guy pushing friends and colleagues for reviews (b) people have lives and (c) hopefully I can drive organic reviews by increasing readership (somehow). But still, 19 is pretty close to 20 reviews in two months (since release), so not too shabby.

10 / 20 – $0.99 Promo with

Promo with Book Cave (first). Sold 18 copies. Maybe some bump on KU. Not sure…

10 / 21 – 2nd BookRaid Promo @ $0.99

Didn’t really work. Three sales. Hmm.  Maybe b/c repeat with same list?

10 / 28 – Remembered RLRR was in CLC Book Fair

This is a free promotion w/limited probable value, but still appreciated and shared.

October Sales

Things definitely slowing down, except for paid promos and KU sales. Not sure what’s driving KU at all (all ads have stopped), but at least half of paid ebook sales are from promos.

Mo Paper-back Kindle Paid Total Paid Free Kindle Total Units KENP Pages
Aug 54 17 71 110 181 3,566
Sep 12 45 57 411 468 3,829
Oct 3 29 32 0 32 6,640
YTD 69 91 160 521 681 14,035
11/4 – Promotion (0.99) on Fussy Librarian

We’ll see. Most of their promos are free. Interested to see how to build newsletter with them, too.

11/4 – Goal: 25 Reviews on Amazon

Barkley ScRitch pushed me over the line. Thanks!

11/12 – Launch Beasts of Sonara on Amazon

This is a pre-prequel to RLRR. Hopefully by this point I’ll know more about how to get this launch process right.

11/19 – Blurb from David Brin

Pretty stoked about this. Woohoo!

11/24 – David Brin Plug on His Site 🙂

Unexpected and very nice recommendation.

November Sales

More slowdown. Still…

Mo Paper-back Kindle Paid Total Paid Free Kindle Total Units KENP Pages
Aug 54 17 71 110 181 3,566
Sep 12 45 57 411 468 3,829
Oct 3 29 32 0 32 6,640
Nov 5 9 14 0 14 5,068
YTD 74 100 174 521 695 19,103
12 / 5 – Promo on ENT

Worked well with 40 kindle editions sold at $0.99 and 600+ KENP pages attributed. Should do for Beasts ASAP.

Dec 9 – Updated Keywords on Amazon

Using Publisher Rocket. Despite the fact that RLRR was the highest ranking organic search result for CRISPR (which is kinda cool, but probably not helpful).

12/28+ – Do 2nd Book Sends Promo

Might try every 90 days…if they accept it.

12/31 – Goal: 50 Amazon Reviews 4+ Average

LOL, not even close. I think I was at 33 or so on NYE. Whatever.

December Sales

Some pickup due to Beasts promotions and launch. Probably not going to track after this (individually). Good things: more than 200 books sold in far less than a year, which beats (alleged) industry average; signs of pickup on launch of new book; new promo sites are better; no reason to do free promo anymore unless I can figure out how to make it drive sales; etc. Bad things: definitely a long road to sustainability; need constant new releases more on-market; at some point will need to go wide (off Amazon) and sacrifice KENP revenues.

Mo Paper-back Kindle Paid Total Paid Free Kindle Total Units KENP Pages
Aug 54 17 71 110 181 3,566
Sep 12 45 57 411 468 3,829
Oct 3 29 32 0 32 6,640
Nov 5 9 14 0 14 5,068
Dec 1 51 52 0 52 8,368
2021 75 151 226 521 747 23,905

2022+ Tracking

Probably not. Will consolidate at some point, or put only major events here. See promo tracking.

Milestones Pending

Coming soon, I hope.

Book Sold Every Day for 30 Days
Top #10 Ranking in any Amazon Category

Reached in Free categories on 8/31/2021, but waiting for non-free ranking.

Top #1 Ranking in any Amazon Category

Reached in Free categories on 8/31/2021, but waiting for non-free ranking.

Run Promos on these Sites

These are for free only:

These have other requirements:

  • RobinReads ($60 for SF); booked out months (good sign?)

Other Stuff

Stuff for Readers

Stuff for Authors

Peace!

#SFFpits 2021 Popular Tweets

SFFpit Popular Tweets from Feb 2021

By

On July 27, 2021

In Resources

This quick look at #SFFpit popular tweets is just my casual observations as I look at participating on July 28, 2021. It’s always good to try to learn from what’s worked for others, and since Retweets seem to be what we’re after (hopefully leading to agent likes), I spent some time looking at what posts got the most RTs. I’m not comparing anyone to anything, ranking anyone or anything, or otherwise implying competition where collaboration is best. If this is useful for you, great. If not, also great. Good luck to everyone tomorrow!

BTW, I’m picking 200 RTs as my cutoff for “lots of RTs” because I’m lazy and there are way too many to analyze if I go with 100 or even 150. There were many great / awesome / wonderful tweets that got 100+ RTs. This is not meant to say 200 is good, 199 is bad, etc. Just an arbitrary cutoff to save time.

BTW2, for hashtag definitions and content details, go here.

Feb 2021 #SFFpit

On February 3 of this year, #SFFpit had six tweets that earned more than 200 retweets, two of which were by the same person with the same pitch concept (with format updated). Well done, all.

Tweet Summary
Hashtags		 User
Follower		 RTs
Likes
“Black Siren” @ 5:03 am
#YA #FA #BVM #OWN		 Gabi Burton
8.9k		 452
107
Eat Pray Love x Lovecraft @ 5:02 am
#A #DF #LGBT		 Hester Steel
2.7k		 345
109
Indian Alice in Wonderland (#1) @ 7:30 am
#MG #FA #OWN		 Dr. Sara Kapadia
3.5k		 233
58
Mononoke x Sanderson @ 5:07 am
#A #FA #EF		 Daniel Roman
2.6k		 212
11
Chinese Queer GOT @ 5:01 am
#YA #LGBT #POC #OWN		 Ming
0.8k		 208
81
Indian Alice in Wonderland (#2) @ 5:30 am
#MG #FA #OWN		 Dr. Sara Kapadia
3.5k		 200
23

NOTE: All figures shown here were from a snapshot in time. This numbers can and probably will change.

Five of the six tweets were from POC or LBGTQ+ participants, five of the six were by women (or so it appeared), and five of the six were by users with more than 2.5k followers. If there’s a lesson there, it’s that I probably need more followers–which is hardly surprising. And I need to post as quickly after 5:00 am PT as possible, so, some coffee or a timed tweet will help. Late morning and afternoon posts didn’t ever seem to get the same response (though that may just be a consequence of being up for a shorter period of time).

All of the pitched books sound like they’d be a great read, but I have no idea how many lead to agent likes (too many non-agent likes to filter) and/or agent pitches and/or representation.

“Black Siren” / 452 RTs

Very popular take on the classic Siren mythology, with a #BVM and #OWN voices update. Note that there was no summary line on this one, so “Black Siren” was taken from the text. I’m not sure the lack of a summary / title line impacted RTs one way or another, but the clear use of a diverse modification of a “traditional” trope seemed to work very well (see many of the titles below).

Eat Pray Love x Lovecraft / 345 RTs

Interesting pitch and comps. I read Lovecraft when I was younger and didn’t realize how racist it was. Never read Eat Pray Love, as I’m not quite the target demographic, but the combination of a journey of discovery and monsters sounds pretty cool. This tweet followed what seems to be “the standard” format of TITLE / text / hashtags (see below). #DF = Dark Fantasy.

Indian Alice in Wonderland #1 / 233 RTs

The second very successful tweet of this concept by Dr. Sara Kapadia, with this one two hours later in the morning than the first (see below).

Not sure if more RTs were due to timing, restructuring of text (prose vs. bullets), raising summary to top, familiarity with the concept or something else. For reference, here are the two side-by-side:

5:30 am Tweet 7:30 am Tweet
A for Alisha, the rebellious Indian girl
B for the blue tiger, her new friend
C for the magical kingdom hidden in a cave
D for the phoenix-dragon queen who threatens them all.
Together, the letters spell an adventure, an Indian ALICE IN WONDERLAND #SFFpit #MG #FA #OWN		 INDIAN ALICE IN WONDERLAND
I was born under a thousand rain drops. I roam the magical kingdom where anything is possible, even the dreams of a twelve-year-old girl who wandered in from another world. I am Badal, the blue tiger. And I am waiting. #SFFpit #Own #FA #MG

Personally, I find the second tweet a little more compelling, but I’m not sure if that’s structure or the updated text.

MONONOKE x Sanderson / 212 RTs

Fantasy is really not my genre, so I had to look up the comps. Mononoke seems to be an animated Japanese TV series, so perhaps there’s an anime / manga tie-in that would draw in a large fan base. I assume Sanderson is Brandon Sanderson, an epic fantasy author. Sounds like a cool combo. The story seems very dramatic with crazy high stakes, so no wonder it was popular. Might have to read more fantasy. Structurally, this follows the standard format. #EF = Epic Fantasy

https://twitter.com/RomanWriting/status/1356952326611685381

Chinese Queer GOT / 208 RTs

I’m definitely not the target demo for this, but I love me some GoT and the title / summary got me. I wonder how much it helped that Ming has two other books published under Joan He, implying a reader fan base and offsetting the relatively small twitter follower count (compared to others with high RTs)? Not sure. Still, seems like a great concept.

https://twitter.com/Mingshuwrites/status/1356950816817569794

Indian Alice in Wonderland #2 / 200 RT

This sounds cool. I assume the phoenix-dragon queen takes the place of the Queen of Hearts. I wasn’t sure if the A/B/C/D format implied something beyond the initialism of the bullet points, so I was a bit stuck on that, and wonder if anyone else also stumbled over this while reading. Note the non-standard format, which I like for creativity, but found a little harder to read quickly. See comments on second standard-formatted version of this tweet, above.

Lessons Learned

Obviously, this is a very, very small sample size so some of the following comes from looking at a lot of other tweets in various Pits.

1. Participate

Pretty obvious, but you can’t pitch if you’re not there. Participate even if it looks like the odds are stacked against you. For instance, it seems like users with lower follower counts get fewer RTs (for obvious reasons), the women authors do better than men (there are more women authors and readers, so maybe more participate?), and that some groups seem to do a better job supporting each other than others do (which is fine). But who knows how this all translates to agent representation, if it does at all? No matter what, it’s a chance to be seen and refine your elevator pitch, so go for it.

2. Write a Great Pitch (or Pitches)

Probably doesn’t hurt to have a great book idea with awesome comps. Brevity, emotional content, clear and very high stakes, compelling characters, all of that. In 280 characters. How hard can that be? Okay, yeah, that’s hard. Here’s a pitching guide from the SFFpit founder to help.

3. Pitch Early

The sweet spot for the most retweets appears to be between 5:01 and 5:30 am — in other words, a few minutes after the pit gets started. And all subsequent pitches should probably be made before noon, rather than evenly spaced throughout the day, but I can’t back that up with data…just an impression.

4. Use the “Standard” Structure

A lot will depend on how many characters you have available. I suspect some formats are chosen because they have fewer returns and spaces, leaving more characters free for text. But if I have the space, I’ll use this format:

SUMMARY / TITLE
Text or Bullets
#H1 #H2 #H3

Where the summary / title is in ALL CAPS to catch the reader’s eye. I’m sure there are other structures that work just as well or better, but this one seems to cover all the bases. Some examples that seem to work:

GREAT COMP x GREAT COMP
Really interesting text that tells a story.
#H1 #H2 #H3

Or something like this, if it works for your story:

TWIST OR UPDATE to GREAT COMP
Really interesting text that tells a story.
#H1 #H2 #H3

Nothing exactly mind blowing here. And if you prefer some other format, use it. There are no (few) rules here. Be free!

5. Have a Lot of Followers

Must work on this, seriously. If I want my pitches to blow up on the day, I need to build followers the rest of the year. Not my favorite thing or skill set, but that’s the way social media works.

6. Experiment

Try different pitches and formats throughout the day to see what catches peoples’ attention (withing the allowed # of pitches). That is, if your first pitch isn’t knocking it out of the park.

7. Retweet Other Pitches

I’m always baffled when I see people who pitch but don’t RT other pitches. It’s a collaborative event. If people see you not collaborating…

8. Follow Other Participants

I mean, a lot of us are in it for the long term, so why not? This also seems to help incentivize RTs and follow-backs.

9. Don’t Assume RTs or Likes Lead to Agents

They might, but then again they might not. There seems to be a lot of randomness to all this, but no matter what happens, you’ll learn what resonates and what might need a little more work.

NOTE: The etiquette is usually NOT like the tweets unless you’re an agent, and yet some tweets seem to have vast numbers of likes from random supports, while others don’t. No idea why this is, but you might want to let your base know not to click on the like button during the pit.

10. Have Fun

Because the alternative is sad.

#SFFpit Search Shortcuts

This is just so you can easily find tweet lists from past #SFFpits. Maybe you can find more insightful details than I have to help you out.

SFFpit RT Count
Jul 28, 2021 200+ / 100+ / All
Feb 03, 2021 200+ / 100+ / All
Jul 29, 2020 200+ / 100+ / All
Jan 30, 2020 200+ / 100+ / All

If you found other patterns or approaches that worked for you, let me know in the comments. I’ll try to update this after tomorrow’s pitch.

Peace.

Find Your Facebook Notes

By

On April 8, 2021

In Resources, Other

Can’t find your Facebook Notes? Facebook officially deprecated the Notes feature in late 2020, but left legacy Notes content in user feeds. This means you can’t create new FB Notes, edit them, or even find them easily, but don’t despair. At least for now, there appears to be a complex but effective way to find all your Facebook Notes.

However, there is no way to know how long this workaround will remain in place. I would strongly suggest you download all your Notes and save them somewhere else, if they are things you want to hold onto.

Find Your Facebook Notes

Because Facebook has preserved Notes as content in your feed, and not changed their content type, notes all remain in their system under the following URL:

https://facebook.com/notes/[note-id]/

However, unless you know your note’s ID, a long number, this isn’t very helpful. So, let’s find your Facebook notes. Keep in mind that these instructions are for the desktop, and might not be exactly the same on your mobile device.

Shortcut: If you don’t want to go through all the steps, I think you can just enter the following URL, scroll down, and then skip to Step 5:

https://www.facebook.com/your_information/?tab=your_information&tile=your_activity_grouping

But here are all the steps if that doesn’t work:

Step 1: Go to Setting & Privacy under your “Account” Menu

This will take your General Account Settings page. You can also go directly to this page by URL:

https://www.facebook.com/settings

However you get there, it should look something like this:

Step 2: Click on “Your Facebook Information” (Left Column)

This link is highlighted in the image above, and should take you to the Your Facebook Information Page.

https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=your_facebook_information

Which looks like this:

Step 3: Click on “View” by “Access Your Information”

This link is highlighted above, and should take you to the Access Your Information page at this URL:

https://www.facebook.com/your_information

And you should see something like this:

Step 4: Click on “Your Activity Across Facebook”

This is highlighted above, and should take you to the Your Activity Across Facebook Page, as shown below, at this URL:

https://www.facebook.com/your_information/?tab=your_information&tile=your_activity_grouping

But you’ll have to scroll down to see the Notes link:

Step 5: Click on “Notes”

This is highlighted above, and should take you to your Activity Log with notes selected via a weird URL:

https://www.facebook.com/[your-user-name]/allactivity?category_key=notecluster&privacy_source=access_hub&entry_point=ayi_hub

Which is useless. Anyway, you should see a list of your notes in the left column:

Step 6: Click on the Note you Want to See

I had only one to show, and it came up like this:

Or, at least, it should have. For some reason, Notes don’t seem to load right away and you often get this error message:

So, just click on “Reload Page” until it…reloads.

Step 7: Download Facebook Notes You Want to Keep

Again, there’s no way to know how long this workaround will last, so download all notes you want to keep.

Hope that helps!

Peace.

10 Ideas to Make America Better #2

By

On March 27, 2021

In Make America Better, Politics & Policy, Blog

Ten more ideas to make America better? Nobody asked, so of course I answered. Here are ten more ideas focused mostly on politics, but also adult drinking and daylight savings time (which are surely related). Some seem like they’d be a slam dunk to implement, some much harder, but all are worth a try.

What do you think we should tackle first?

10 Ideas to Make America Better

1. Make Daylight Savings Permanent or Nuke It

Spring forward! Fall back! It’s like national calisthenics determined to make you less healthy. You know why we have this brilliant institution of annual confusion and electronics abuse? Freakin’ German imperialists:

“The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation starting on April 30, 1916. Many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the 1970s energy crisis.” – Wikipedia

That alone should be grounds for repeal. But it turns out changing the clock also screws with sleep patterns, causes depression, increases accidents and…sucks.

The solution is permanent DST, which of course in the USA is banned by the federal government because…freedom? More on this history of all this here:

As this video suggests, just sent the clocks forward during the spring and leave them there. For freaking ever. It’s not legal for states to do this now, but that should be relatively simple change. It has bipartisan support:

Marco Rubio first introduced the Sunshine Protection Act in 2018, which would move the entire country to permanent, year-round daylight saving time. Rubio has renewed his call multiple times since then, most recently on Tuesday: “The call to end the antiquated practice of clock changing is gaining momentum throughout the nation,” he said. – NPR

How? Pass the Sunshine Protection Act, set your clocks, and leave ’em. Forever. That’s it. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Write your legislators. Call them. They’re lonely and want to hear from you. Sign the petition. Do something!

2. Get Rid of Term Limits Except for Executives

Okay, this will be controversial and probably sound counter-intuitive, but term limits are just a terrible idea (for anything except executives, and maybe even there). Does anyone really think term limits taking effect in California starting in 1990 made California better? It did not improve politics, partisanship, policy or much of anything positive.

What term limits did in California is what they always do; ensure that ignorant, inexperienced politicians have to rely on special interests to tell them what to do on complex topics they barely understand and don’t have time to learn while figuring out what office they can run for after being termed out. Term limits empower money and lobbyists over people, period. And that’s why conservative think-tanks like ALEC love them. They want more power in the hands of corporations, and less in yours.

But what’s worse is that they are objectively unconstitutional and a gross violation of our democracy. Why? Well, think about it. People, soldiers, advocates and others have literally fought and died to give you a right to vote. And because we’re too lazy to do our job voting, we want to surrender that right back to the government so it can then tell us we can’t vote for the candidate we want.

This is the very definition of fascism, limiting votes to only those the government approves of. Term limits are a betrayal of democracy, period. If you really want to limit the power of incumbents, I’ve suggested a different approach called incumbent handicapping that increases  the votes required to hold office with each subsequent term, but even without that, term limits need to go.

But term limits could also tend to promote longer tenure than necessary, as well as perverse incentives for self-dealing in a lame-duck term. Proponents of term limits probably need to identify better arguments to overcome 230 years of constitutional practice, at least if presidential term limits are any guide. – Federalist Society

The only purpose they really serve is making angry voters think they’re teaching career politicians a lesson. It’s about anger, retribution and petty hatred of the “political class.” And that’s just a holdover from our founding when the country was small and you didn’t need to understand, well, much of anything to be a politician. You could learn it all on the job.

Today, there is simply no way anyone can understand what they’re voting on without years of experience. So term limits are really a vote for the “deep state,” the legacy bureaucracy, who are the only ones then left who know how things actually work.

How? Just. Stop. And get rid of the term limits in place.

3. Implement Ranked-Choice Voting

Without getting into a lot of technical and wonky jargon about voting, most of us can agree that the first-past-the-post 51% voting model that dominates in the USA isn’t ideal. We can’t risk “wasting” a vote on candidates we like, so instead we vote for the candidate most likely to win from the pool of candidates we hate the least. This lesser of two evils model frustrates voters and voter intent, makes it harder for third-parties to win office, and doesn’t even reflect what most voters want. Ranked-choice voting is one of several models that tackle these issues head on:

It’s a little complicated to explain, so here’s an infographic from the Maine Secretary of State, where RCV is already in place. You rank your top candidates and then:

Rank Choice Voting

Ranked Choice Voting – Courtesy of Maine SOS

Several states have already put RCV in place, including Maine in 2020:

To be clear, I’m not saying RC voting is the only option that’s better than the simple majority, just that it’s better. If there’s a preferred or superior option, let’s to that. I don’t care as long as voters can get closer to voting for the politicians they want rather than the ones they hate least. How can that not make America better?

How?  Learn where it’s already implemented and how it improves things. Support or start RCV initiatives in your state. Then, get ready for a better voting experience.

4. Government Use IFRS Accounting Standards (Hard)

I know, accounting. Exciting, right? International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) would require the US government to follow the same rules as pretty much everyone else (or at least, where the world is heading), thus increasing transparency, decreasing software and accounting costs, and paying less to consultants who actually understand our arcane national GAAP and other accounting rules.

This is like the metric system: most of the world uses it, but we don’t. It causes translation cost and confusion. The US uses its own system (US GAAP) instead of IFRS, just like China and a bit of Japan, who also have their own systems. Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually pretended like we were part of the world for a change? That would make America better for, well, everyone.

How? Lots of legal, regulatory and accounting changes. Will it happen any time soon? No. Should we start moving in this direction? Yes. Is this exciting? Sorry, I dozed off. I mean, sure! If you care about government efficiency.

5. Universal Automatic Voter Registration (Hard)

Other than the fact that some parties benefit from low voter registration and turn out, it’s hard to see why we make registering to vote so hard in this country. We’re a representative democracy. Democracy requires voting. Shouldn’t we make that as seamless and efficient as possible?

I’m not going to spend a lot of time explaining this because it’s a contentious partisan issue. The GOP would probably prefer we all give blood and five forms of ID to prove we’re worthy of the vote, and for them, this makes political sense. The more Democrats show up, the worse Republicans perform. That doesn’t make it a sound bases for public policy or elections.

How? Support initiates in your state for motor-voter (DMV-based-registration) and other programs that automate and simplify voter registration.

6. Require Single-Subject Legislation (Medium)

The idea is simple; legislation (bill) should be about one thing, and one thing only, so they are (a) less complex (b) more easily understood (c) don’t carry endless riders and amendments for special interests and (d) aren’t 5,000 pages long. This should be a policy supported by either end of the political spectrum, if not necessarily by political parties that benefit from massive and confusing omnibus legislation.

This has even been proposed as an amendment to the US Constitution:

A federal amendment was proposed as early as 1999 in a law journal article by Brannon Denning and Brooks R. Smith. The Florida Legislature in 2014 passed a memorial applying to Congress to call a convention for this purpose. A bill was introduced in the 113th Congress, and again in the 114th Congress, to propose the amendment by Congressman Tom Marino…” – Wikipedia

If you want to watch the world’s most boring and probably auto-generated summary of this, here’s a video guaranteed to kill some brain cells. Seriously, don’t watch it.

No, wait, this interview with (late) Single Subject Amendment CEO Spider Webb is even more excruciatingly uninteresting.

Despite how painfully uninteresting this topic is, it’s actually pretty important; giant bills full of mysterious amendments are how special interest slip ridiculous things into bills that almost no one even knows are there. And that’s why the single-subject rule is already law in state legislatures, including California:

In California, there is a single‑subject rule for legislation. Found in the state constitution, Article IV, Section 9, it provides, “A statute shall embrace but one subject which shall be expressed in its title. If a statute embraces a subject not expressed in its title, only the part not expressed is void. A statute may not be amended by reference to its title. A section of a statute may not be amended unless the section is re‑enacted as amended.” – CAP Impact

How? Every state could pass single-subject rules as a constitutional amendment, and the same thing would likely be required at the federal level. This will be a challenge given partisan opposition (parties do love their special interest amendments), but if it can get out of Congress and into the ratification process, it’s hard to see how 2/3 of states couldn’t be pressured into passing it.

7. Require an I’ve Read the Legislation Pledge

This is the simple but apparently inconceivable idea that a politician should know what they’re voting on when they…vote on it. There is simply no way that any current politician reads massive 1,000+ page bills pushed at them hours before a floor vote, where they’re just asked to trust party leadership.

The $900 billion pandemic relief package that was rushed through Congress Monday created a familiar year-end conundrum for lawmakers: It was a bill too big to fail, and also too big to read. – USN

What I propose is that a politician’s Yes vote be legally treated like a sworn affidavit stating that they or their staff have read the bill in full, that they understand what they’re voting on, and that pledging ignorance later is a legal admission of fraud. It may sound harsh, but voting for bills you don’t understand because someone told you it was all good is a terrible abnegation of responsibility and common sense.

And one great side effect of this requirement is that the longer the bill is, the longer it has to be publicly available before the vote, which increases transparency and review time. There is already something like this in discussion, though I’d argue this doesn’t go far enough:

The Review Every Act Diligently In Total (READ IT) Act aims to allow members to fully review all legislation before votes. It would institute a new rule in the official House rules, that anything receiving a vote must have been publicly available in electronic form for a number of minutes that’s double the number of pages. – Medium

The proposed Read the Bills Act gets closer to the mark:

The Read the Bills Act (RTBA) is proposed legislation intended to require the United States Congress to read the legislation that it passes. It was originally written in 2006 by Downsize DC, a non-profit organization focused on decreasing the size of the federal government…

Similarly, a separate bill nicknamed the “Read the Bill Act” would require bills to be posted publicly 72 hours prior to consideration in Congress. Unlike the Downsize DC proposal, this bill is supported by ReadTheBill.org (part of the Sunlight Foundation) with the primary aim to increase transparency in government. – Wikipedia

But whatever the name or form of the bill, it’s time politicians were required to read the bills they vote on, and given the time to do so.

How? Pass one of the bills mentioned above, preferably the one advocated by ReadTheBill.org, and then take it a step further to require reading before voting.

8. Stop Infantilizing Adults (Drinking Age 21)

You’re an adult when you’re eighteen. You can be drafted, sent to jail, ruin yourself financially, and so on. You should be able to buy a damn beer. They idea that in the allegedly “freest country on Earth” you can be forced to fight a war oversees and kill people for America but then can’t have a beer when you get back is beyond hypocrisy.

Countries Drinking Age 21

Central Maine Newspapers graphic

All laws restricting the rights of anyone over the age of eighteen should be repealed and are, frankly unconstitutional. The only reason we have this effective national drinking age is because President Reagan imposed it on states by threatening interstate highway funding in 1984.

This video might or might not help inform you about the topic, but either way it’s a good laugh.

So if you want to decrease binge drinking, decrease date rape and sexual assault by drunken idiots, and generally act more like a free country populated by adults, it’s time for the age 21 law to go.

How? Just freaking repeal the 1984 act and replace it with a law that you can’t strip adults of freedom in the name of interstate commerce or funding. Or any other reason short of felony convictions, and then only to the extent necessary.

9. Restore Native American Land where Possible (Hard)

There is no way to undo what has been done to Native Americans in this country, but one problem we can fix is to (at the very least) enforce and comply with land-related agreements that are currently in dispute. See the #LandBack hashtag on Twitter for an active discussion.

Does this mean giving all US land back to all tribes? Of course not. Do I agree with everything being proposed? No. But should we do something to restore lands and dignity where we can, and often where the law requires? Hell, yes.

How? At least start the process of seeing what Native American land can be restored in your region, what remains in dispute, etc. There’s a large learning process here for all of us, and no perfect solution, but it’s time to get started in earnest.

10. Formalize a Default Neutral Pronoun

And I don’t mean “it”. It’s a scary clown or an offensive objectification, not a neuter pronoun. Just pick a set of words we can all use to solve absurd damn problems like calling companies they or who and unknown people he / she or he or she or frack! Why hasn’t anyone just fixed this? And yeah, I know “they” is the current contender, and I’m glad it works for trans people (genuinely), but it’s a grammatical disaster and always has been. We can do better.

Universal Gender Neutral English Standard

Universal Gender Neutral English

One suggestion for a humanist, apolitical and Universal Gender-Neutral English.

How? I guess I’d start with business communications, publishing companies and schools. But honestly, I’m open to ideas.

Other Ways to Make America Better?

I’m sure I’ll have more ideas in the future, but I’d love to hear your thoughts. What works or doesn’t? What’s practical or not? And what do you think we can do to improve America? I mean, the United States.

Peace.

Why Aren’t Most Environmentalists Vegetarian?

By

On March 24, 2021

In Blog

The full question is, “Why aren’t most environmentalists vegetarian, vegan or eating as little eat as possible?” but that wouldn’t fit in the box.

And I’m not asking just to be provocative. I’ve gone through nearly two decades of being a vegetarian, sometimes strict, sometimes not, and in between eaten a glorious volume and variety of delicious meats from around the world. I never once stopped loving the smell of sausage, that first bite of bacon, or the bloody surrender of prime rib. I often crave yellowtail sashimi and greasy cheeseburgers at the same time, and have an inordinate fondness for salty brisket.  But.

And this is a big but (I cannot lie).

I have never once since college eaten meat without a bit of shame. With every eye-rolling bite, I wonder, why am I doing this?

“…when 15,364 scientists advocated for plant-based diets by signing the 2017 “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice,” vegetarianism in the U.S. didn’t budge. Despite movies like Food, Inc. and Cowspiracy, and despite countless academic papers on the harmful impact of animal agriculture, and despite ever more meat substitutes, veganism has risen only a few percent since 2012.” – SA

There are many personal reasons why I feel off the vegetarian wagon, none of which matter (even if they were momentarily funny), but I’m falling inexorably back on that same wagon. Falling up, if you will, toward a low-to-no-meat diet. For me this is inevitable. I can’t live with the background shame of meat consumption any longer. But that’s me, and I alone don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. What matters is what we all do collectively, how much and how soon.

Why Aren’t You Eating Less Meat?

That is, assuming you’re an environmentalist (because otherwise, this post is pretty pointless), how can you call yourself an environmentalist while still eating meat?

No, that sounds judgmental and I really don’t mean it that way. My question comes from curiosity, not condemnation. What allows any of us to do intellectually inconsistent or even arguably unethical things while telling ourselves we’ll do better tomorrow? Are we too busy, too poor or too distracted to do better? Are we the boiling frog that hasn’t noticed how the world has changed?

In terms of emissions, if Americans ate even a mere hundred pounds of meat per year, it would be the equivalent of 26 million people switching exclusively to bicycle transportation. – SA

What allows us to actively willing support a meat industry that is grossly and obviously bad for the environment while caring for that same environment?

What am I missing?

Because if it’s really that simple, shouldn’t most environmentalists be at least shuffling slowly away from the grill (or putting more veggies on it)? The Scientific American article I quoted aboved asks the same question but offers no answer. I want an answer. More specifically, I want your answer.

But before you answer, some food for thought:

Reasons to go Vegetarian or Eat Less Meat

This is all the stuff you’ve probably heard before, so I’ve just put in a few quick bullet points as reminders. If you don’t know it by now you probably don’t want to, but if you do, here’s a cool video summary:

In other words, meat is “bad” because:

  • Unethical treatment of animals. No they’re not people, but most of them feel pain, affection, fear and probably don’t like being slaughtered.
  • Environment and climate change. Which covers everything from land use to water consumption, pollution to packaging, shipping to disease spread and antibiotic use, and…well, you get the point
  • Perfectly healthy low or no meat diets. In other words, there are options. Meat is not required for life or even pleasure.
  • Great meat alternatives. Beyond Meat and Impossible, among many others, are crazy good. You don’t have to give up the grilling.
  • Supplements if you need them. To cover what you’re not getting from kale. Kidding. Who really eats kale?

And if that’s not enough, you can watch this horrifying video, but please don’t unless you have a strong stomach. It’s kinda hard on the soul.

Reasons to Keep Eating Meat

Maybe these are just rationalizations? I don’t know, but here’s a cheesy video that covers most of them (Guess it got deleted). What it said:

  • Animals are delicious. Bacon is an animal right? Delicious!
  • It’s easy. Meat’s cheaper than ever, so why not?
  • Everyone does it. Social eating is joyous. And who wants to look crazy?
  • Fuck animals. Not literally, I just mean, maybe you don’t care about animals so much. You don’t have to to be an environmentalist.
  • Need the protein. You can find it other places, sure, but it’s a good source.
  • Need the micro nutrients. Some like DHA are hard to get without meat.
  • Other dietary needs. Maybe your body just needs ham. It’s possible.

And of course there are those who think that going vegan won’t really help that much, assuming the only thing you care about is climate change:

Going vegetarian can help a little bit, but it’s both an unrealistic and inefficient policy to push on people across the world. We should focus on research to develop cleaner, maybe artificial, meat and cheaper clean energy. And while we do so, we can have our summer barbecues without being told they destroy the planet. – Bjorn Lomborg

Are those truly compelling reasons not to defund the meatriarchy (yes, I just made that up)? I want to know. Is it something else, a combination of things, or just habit?

I love Homer and I know he’d never give up bacon, but then again he abandoned an alternative universe where it rained donuts and he’s not an environmentalist. You are. So, what’s the deal?

A Terrible and Offensive Analogy

Let’s say you were a feminist and you found that we could cut the rate of rape by 10% by not drinking fancy boat drinks. Our decision to eat meat despite how it damages the environment, kills animals and so on, when we have plenty of great alternatives, is like saying screw it, I hate rape, but I really love Pina Coladas. It’s not even like saying you have to give up alcohol, because of course we can’t give up all food, just some of it. You can still get wasted.

If you find this analogy offensive, great, you’re paying attention. It’s offensive because we sincerely care about rape, but we don’t seem to care as much about animals or the environment. And maybe we shouldn’t; society hasn’t yet decided that animals matter as much as people, and maybe it never will.  That’s fine. But if we did truly care about animals at all, then this analogy wouldn’t be offensive; it would blindingly, obviously true.

Got a Little Judgy There

Sorry about that. I don’t want to sound like this guy…

You might be able to call yourself an environmentalist as your job title and you might actually care about the environment. But if you are consuming animal products, especially products that come from factory farms, then you are a hypocrite. – Sentient Media

…because that’s just not productive. No one’s ever grateful for being attacked. You are not being attacked. I have tried and failed many times to be a perfect vegetarian, environmentalist, and even a decent human being, and will fail many more times. And many great environmentalists have defended eating some amount of meat:

“I’ve known a number of people who were great environmentalists, and who ate meat, so I guess the answer for me would be yes, empirically, you can,” Bill McKibben, the author and environmentalist, tells us in an email. “Most of them, I think, ate carefully. Maybe my favorite environmentalist of all — though he might eschew the label — is Wendell Berry, who wrote wisely about this as about so much else.” _ NPR

But, and this is another big but, Wendell Berry comments extensively on what it means to eat meat and everything else carefully, locally and judiciously:

Eaters, that is, must understand that eating takes place inescapably in the world, that it is inescapably an agricultural act, and how we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used. This is a simple way of describing a relationship that is inexpressibly complex. To eat responsibly is to understand and enact, so far as we can, this complex relationship. – Eco Literacy

So, if you’re willing to follow Wendell’s seven steps to more conscious eating, like eating locally, maybe there is some way for some individuals in some cases to eat meat and be environmentally consistent–but since most will never do this at it doesn’t matter at the scale of global meat consumption, it’s kind of a strange argument.

That said, most meat eaters, environmentalist or not, seem to agree that veganism and vegetarianism are good or ethical in some ways but also not so convenient (as always, take a single survey result with a grain of organic free-range sea salt):

Analysis published in the journal Sustainability from University of Bath Psychology PhD student Chris Bryant suggests that 73% of meat eaters surveyed considered veganism to be ‘ethical’, 70% said it was good for the environment and half (50%) considered it healthy. 60% thought veganism was ‘acceptable’. By contrast, over 80% of respondents thought veganism was not easy, 77% thought it ‘inconvenient’ and over 60% thought it was not enjoyable. Attitudes from respondents towards vegetarianism were significantly more positive on almost all counts. – UB

So, back to the only question that matters:

Why Aren’t You Vegetarian or Eating Less Meat?

Sup Cow

Honestly, I just want to know. Maybe it will help me understand my own waffling back and forth. What’s the deal? Is it just convenience? And will that ever change?

Let me know in the comments or however you like. I’d love to hear from you.

Peace.

10 Positive Things – The Strange and Beautiful

By

On March 20, 2021

In Blog

Life can be a very serious experience, lacking joy and the positive things that make life, well, worth living. And yet I’m often struck by how many people and groups try pull us forward into a more sublime and beautiful future despite the terrible things around us–artists, creators, pundits and others give us their humor, insight or distracting surrealism.

And since many of us are prone to moments of melancholy, I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve watched or otherwise partaken of to make things just a little bit better. There’s no way to make a definitive list of such things, of course, so here are some of the people and things that have helped make my life and world better just by doing what they love.

There’s nothing intellectual here. Don’t overthink it. Enjoy.

10 Strangely Beautiful Positive Things

These are in no particular order, and are numbered just to make them easier to reference.

1. Ze Frank’s True Facts

I can still remember the first time I heard about Ze Frank’s True Facts while in the backseat of my cousin’s car as his daughter tried to explain the ridiculous sex lives of ducks. It sounded wonderfully ridiculous, a parody nature documentary that was as educational as it was odd and frequently disturbing. Here is the True Facts about the Duck that started the binge:

If you just watched that, you understand the meaning of “nine-inch exploding corkscrew penis.” You’re welcome. And that’s not even the best video on True Facts playlist, which includes this gem about mantis shrimp and their freakish eyes and destructive powers:

Then there’s this beauty about marsupials and in particular koala, which includes the quote, “koalas in the rain, no fucks given” in addition to some truly odd reproductive facts:

Not to mention, Ze Frank has other channels and content, perhaps most famously his Sad Cat Dairies and pet commentaries:

2. The Oatmeal

SEO-expert and web designer turned cartoonist turned game creator, The Oatmeal produces social commentary, humor and all the exploding cats we never knew we needed. I first stumbled across a graphic novel he’d done on ultra running, The Terrible and Wonderful Reason I Run Long Distances (with bonus segue on murder hornets):

The Oatmeal Running Intro

The Oatmeal Running Intro

So of course I read all of his cartoons and graphic novels. Years later, he produced some videos including this collaboration with Sarah Donner on Nikola Tesla:

My personal favorite thing on the internet on some days, is this profane, absurd and whimsical madness: The Motherfucking Pterodactyl:

The Oatmeal produces games like Exploding Kittens and more. He doesn’t need my marketing, of course, but I truly appreciate the new weirdness he’s brought to animation, games and even running.

3. Screen Rant’s Pitch Meetings

Pitch Meetings are a surprising guilty pleasure, quick videos about how movies might have come to being that you watch thinking, I’ll just watch one, and then, well, you’re eyes a burning and it’s two in the morning:

At some point, you start to wonder if this is how movies actually get made. It makes more sense than the reality of it. Pitch Meetings are far from high art, but they are strangely addictive good fun. This one about Coraline cracks me up:

Other mother and her scary button eyes. For the children!

4. The Barkley Marathons & Backyard Ultras

It may seem strange to include ultra marathons on this list, but art comes in mysterious forms and the act of creation is not limited to the canvas or screen. Gary Cantrell (aka Lazarus Lake or laz) is most famous for creating the Barkley Marathons, a cultish race limited to 40 runners a year that almost nobody finishes. The race first became (unfortunately to some) popular after release of a 2012 documentary called The Race That Eats it’s Young that you can watch on Amazon Video.

Both the movie and the race it tries to explain are terrible, beautiful things, darkly mysterious, full of impossibilities, and for many aspiring runners such as myself, deeply addictive. Laz has turned running, endurance and suffering into living, breathing sculpture covered in briar-gashes and sweat. It’s unclear if the weird and quirky race can survive him, but there’s no doubt he birthed something new into the world one gladly brutalized runner at a time.

And then, of course, Gary created the Big Dog Backyard Ultra, which is less mysterious but still unique in its own way. Feeder backyard ultras have spread around the world over the past few years, and will probably continue to grow for decades. It’s art that grows itself.

That’s two entirely new race formats, followed by millions, neither of which are about money or glory but instead just teaching runners more about their own untapped potential.

5. Ozzy Man Reviews & Destination Fucked

Ozzy Man is just an Australian dude with a great voice who makes profanity-laden narratives of random nonsense. He’s funny, good-natured and finds fun in the absurdities of life. Destination Fucked is just one series, focused on, well, bad experiences in weird places,

Ozzy Man has several other series. One of my favorite videos is his narration of some bizarre Slippery Stairs competition that seems to mock itself:

And his commentary on a honey badger fight is hysterical. This one’s for you, JM:

6. Kurzgesagt Videos (All of Them!)

One of the greatest challenges in the age of short attention spans and screaming pundits is to convey useful information in a calm and engaging way. Kurzgesagt has this nailed, if not for the pronunciation of their name. Whether you want to learn about nuclear war or the dangers of future of designer babies, you’ve found the place:

This video on loneliness, while not the happiest of topics, is well worth a watch:

7. Random Music Videos

Yeah, totally random. Just a few videos that were beautiful, thought-provoking or funny. Maybe even a little sad in a provocative way, like This is America:

There’s a whole movie associated with this video (which is really just the song), but I’m just including Dirty Computer because it’s awesome:

Somebody that I Used to Know is good by itself…

…but I’m including it here just so I can show the parody from The Key of Awesome:

Heh heh. The plinky noise.

8. Random Animated Shorts

Even more random than the music videos, these are some recent shorts that were inspiring or just gorgeous in their own way–most famously Oscar-Winner Hair Love:

Memorable by Bruno Collet lost to Hair Love, but offers a truly beautiful if devastating perspective on dementia. You can watch the trailer here, but the full video has to be purchased on Vimeo.

The next video Happinessby Steve Cutts and is about the opposite of happiness found in the pursuit of it, the rat race we all seem trapped in at times. It’s a beautiful piece of work:

9. John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight

John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight is a lot like Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show in that he finds a humorous way to cover serious things. Yes, he’s got a liberal bent and yes he can go off on weird tangents, but if you want to keep up on recent events and laugh a bit while doing it, John’s here for you:

And of course his Eat Shit Bob video is a classic takedown of Bob Murray, litigious coal CEO and, well, asshole:

Should there be a trigger warning on that? Well, too late now.

10. Randy Rainbow

What happens when musical theater meets political commentary? Randy Rainbow apparently. Come for the harmonization, stay for the puns:

And if you like Fiddler on the Roof, enjoy this take on Sedition:

Seditioooooon. Sedition!

More Beautiful or Positive Things?

What strangely beautiful or positive things have you found? Feel free to share. I’d love to see what makes your day better.

Oh, I just thought of another one, so I’ll leave you with this:

Peace.

10 Ideas to Make America Better

By

On March 17, 2021

In Make America Better, Politics & Policy, Blog

When people talk about how to make American better these days (meaning the USA), it’s always about the big things–racism, sexism, global warming, and so on. And these things are important, but also hard and complex and frankly disheartening. We sometimes forget that there are many other problems we could solve with relatively simple solutions if we gave them some attention. Things we could do quickly, in other words, if we can just find the will to do so.

That’s the focus of this and possibly future quick-and-dirty posts: What can we do now, today, to make things a little bit better for someone, somewhere, even if it’s not us? These things are not prioritized or ranked (numbering is just a way to order the list), and these ideas are just here for discussion and consideration. What do you think we should tackle first?

Ideas to Make America Better

1. Change to the Metric System (Easy)

What most Americans don’t seem to know is that the US Imperial system is already based on the metric system (via standards set in by ISO in Europe). Most large US companies maintain machinery and systems based on metrics to ensure international compatibility. Food packaging includes both metric and imperial units. We’re already 90% of the way there. So what’s holding us back?

And the answer is, of course, nothing but political will. Neither party has much to gain by pushing the change, no major special interest is driving adoption, so the US is stuck with Liberia and Myanmar as the only countries on Earth not officially using the metric system. And both of the other countries are in the process of changing. We are at risk of “American exceptionalism” becoming American stupidity and irrelevance. This forces US businesses, scientists and pretty one everyone else to maintain two separate measurement systems and convert between them–sometimes causing expensive accidents.

How? Maybe states can start pushing adoption. I’m not sure of federal legal constraints, but there is nothing stopping schools in, say, California from teaching the metric system to ALL students starting immediately, even if it’s just as another option. Start making kilometers the default on road signs. Change all food serving default sizes to 100g like in Europe. Just. Do. Something.

2. Outlaw Political Redistricting (Medium)

Drawing strange political districts to benefit one party is obviously not ideal for democracy, and neither major party theoretically benefits more than the other (although the GOP seems to benefit more in practice). And it would ensure that states elect representatives that are actually representative of the population as a whole.

The key is to remove political parties from the process. Redistricting based on the decennial census should be  focused on creating simple, competitive districts that represent the people of the state, regardless of political party. There are even mathematical systems to help measure how representative a district is:

And there are entire organizations dedicated to these improvements, including represent.us (see video below). We have the tools and knowledge to make these changes now.  What’s stopping us? And the answer is, as always, entrenched political parties the special interests that back them.

And most Americans already support reforms to redistricting to eliminate or reduce political party control.

How? Just freaking demand reform from our elected officials. Call or write your representative. File lawsuits over biased redistricting. Given how polarized the US is, and the increasing speed at which we’re abandoning mainstream political parties, this should be a  non-partisan issue we can actually address.

3. Pay Prisoners Prevailing Minimum Wage (Medium?)

One of the greatest incentives for the private sector to encourage and drive mass incarceration is, the more prisoners they have (a) the more the government pays them and (b) the more cheap labor they have access to. This is in a very real sense a direct legacy of slavery, and it creates an incentive to imprison people. And yes, there’s a Jon Oliver video on this:

Among the MANY reforms needed is to require that prisoners are paid the prevailing minimum wage in their state of incarceration, require that they get to keep their wages, and ensure that the prisons themselves don’t get a single dime of this money. If we want prisoners to fight fires, pay them. If we want prisoners to pick up trash, pay them. Prison is about protecting us from violence and punishing crime, not creating a cheap labor force for corrupt politicians and local factories.

How? Make it a law for all state and federal prisons. Enforce it. That’s it.

4. Make Washington DC a State or Equivalent (Hard)

This one, and the ones that follow on US Territories, probably breaks the rule of being “easy to do” because while it’s theoretically easy, there is no way conservatives in the US will let either happen without a bloody fight. And I can’t blame them — it’s not like DC is going to swing for the GOP anytime soon (see second video, below). And pretending that Democrats are passionate about this for purely humanist reasons is farcical.

But none of that changes the fact that US citizens and legal residents of DC are currently and unfairly deprived of representation in Congress. We allegedly fought a war of independence over taxation without representation, so why is it okay for the people of DC?

In this case, there’s a fight to be had, but it’s a fight we need. The people of DC do not deserve to be treated like second rate citizens.

How? No constitutional amendment is required–this falls under the clear jurisdiction of Congress–and DC must be a state for its people to have the same rights as in other states (are there other creative options?). So GOP opposition just has to be overcome. I don’t know. This is genuinely hard. But we still have to do it.

5. Grant US Territories Statehood or Independence (Hard)

America’s colonial past is an anchor on our democracy, and a travesty for US citizens trapped in a limbo where they’re American but not-quite-American-enough to be treated like full citizens. All American territories should immediately be granted independence or statehood, at their discretion.

The (main) US territories comprise American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the US Virgin Islands and, of course Puerto Rico.

Every person in all of these territories is currently treated like a second-rate citizen of the US, taxed without representation, abused for land or corporate manipulation, and only partially protected by the US constitution (in practice). This is no way to treat human beings, let alone Americans. These territories should be freed or made states as soon as possible.

How? Great question, and there is no simply answer for the same reason that making DC a state is hard; adding new states affects the political balance in the US House and Senate, and the makes this a partisan issue. And I’d argue that, since most of the impacted people are not English-speaking whites, it’s also an issue for US racists who don’t want brown people to have more power in the country. I’m open to creative solutions? Add more conservative states at the same time by splitting existing states? Something else? How do we solve this problem?

6. Remove All Native Mascots and Team Names (Easy)

This one should be relatively simple, and there’s already vast momentum behind it from the US indigenous population. Native American cultures are not caricatures to be used for mock battle calls or team motivation. The Washington Redskins is a racist name just as the Washington Negroes would be. It’s time to change them, and all it takes is a decision to do so. The costs are not that great. The benefits include showing respect and offering dignity to an oppressed people, so…why not?

Of course there are conservative groups and interests like Prager U that will argue differently, but there is always opposition to change. The response in this case is, so what? This is not a trillion-dollar tax issue. This is not a guns-rights issue. This is just about respecting a people we’ve treated like crap for hundreds of years. That’s it. Everything else is noise and distraction. And we’re already doing it.

How? Just do it. Call your school, representative, team and demand that team names and mascots be changed. There are petitions on change.com. There are campaign websites. This should be a slam dunk.

7. Reform Juries to be More Representative (Medium)

The concept here is incredibly simple. Rather than worrying about the process of jury selection or exclusion, simply make it a federal law that the result of jury selection must be a jury that includes actual peers, or at least one, and is minimally diverse:

  • If the defendant or victim is Black, there must be at least one Black and one non-Black juror, if Asian, then at least one Asian and one non-Asian, etc. In other words, one person must be of the same or similar race, and one person must not be of that race or ethnicity.
  • If the defendant or victim is openly LGBTQ+, then the jury must include at least one person who is also LGBTQ+ and one who is not.
  • If the defendant or victim is disabled, then there must be someone else on the jury with a similar disability, or at least another person with adjacent experience.
  • And there must always be at least man and one woman.

This won’t guarantee a truly representative jury in all cases, but at least it establishes a minimum or representation in all cases.

How? Just make it a law. Or a constitutional amendment. Don’t care. Never again in the United States should anyone face a jury that does not include a simple person that looks like them or understands their experience. And this doesn’t even really have to change the current process. Lawyers can still reject or dismiss jurors they find biased or objectionable, they just have to keep the process going until minimal representation is reached.

8. End the War on Drugs (Medium)

Two of the great travesties of modern America are the vast waste of lives and resources on idiot drug wars, largely to the benefit of US pharmaceutical companies and foreign drug lords, and mass incarceration of young men for petty drug crimes. Both of these issues can be substantially addressed by legalizing pretty much everything and then taxing it.

Legalization gets rid of idiotic legal penalties for personal decisions, raises revenues for treatment, decreases the size of government, and removes one major sources of systems racism from government structure. We’re already doing it with marijuana, and even hallucinogenic mushrooms.  Just do it for freaking everything and focus on treatment.

How? Just freakin’ do it. We live in this weird fear that if a drug is legalized, crazy hippy mobs are going to run rampant in our cities. This is nonsense. Drug treatment and related issues can be easily funded by taxation on those drugs, with none of the costs of an utterly failed and immoral drug war.

9. Default to Roundabouts vs. Stoplights (Easy)

Roundabout Image

Roundabout Image

Hey, not everything has to be about vast and horrible issues. Sometimes you just want to make a little change that makes life better for everyone, and roundabouts are that kind of change. They’re safer than stoplight-regulated intersections, for cars, bikes and pedestrians. They cost less. And they leave space for a cute little garden or statue in the middle.

Roundabout Safety Graph

Roundabout Safety Graph

Roundabouts are already spreading around the country after decades of resistance, so let’s just change the logic: from now on, roundabouts should be the default while stoplight-controlled intersections are the exception you have to justify.

Roundabouts are not a cure-all, of course (see video below), but they are far, far better than traffic-light and stop sign intersections.

How? Anytime the city is building, planning, converting, expanding, just make sure roundabouts are the default and stoplights (or other options) come next, or at least that engineering and planning guidelines include them. This is largely a public education issue. So, tell people roundabouts are awesome. Because they are.

10. Upgrade Affirmative Action (Medium?)

Everyone has a strong opinion on affirmative action, pro or con, racist or not, and it results in more heat and friction than measurable progress. Do middle-class white women benefit more than BIPOC communities? Is it reserve racism? Does it stigmatize minorities on colleges and workplaces? It’s a mess.

There is plenty of controversy around, including backlash against “model Asian” college admissions, and what’s increasingly obvious is that basing admissions on socioeconomic factors rather than race has substantial benefits without all of the controversy:

What I’m suggesting is something a bit more radical: focus affirmative action explicitly on generations of historical poverty. In other words, admissions should favor families and people stuck in grinding poverty for the past, say, ten generations over those that have already made the leap to the middle or upper classes, regardless of race, gender or other factors. Add to this the stipulation the slavery and living on native reservations is by default a state of poverty, and you attain all the major goals of affirmation action without accidentally helping those who are doing just fine without it. I get there are some details to be worked out here, but we can all agree that poverty is bad and getting out of it is hard. So, let’s make it a little easier.

How? Oh, you know, minor political changes and whatnot. But seriously, changing race-based affirmative action to class-based affirmative action preferences is probably the only way to save it in our increasingly divisive political environment.

Other Ways to Make America Better

I’m sure I’ll have more ideas in the future, but I’d love to hear your thoughts. What works or doesn’t? What’s practical or not? And what do you think we can do to improve America? I mean, the United States.

Dr. Seuss Stamp

Dr. Seuss and the Question of Artistic Censorship

By

On March 4, 2021

In Blog, Art & Music

Like many children of my generation, I love Dr. Seuss and always have, but this post isn’t about what you think it is. You’ve probably heard that Dr. Seuss Enterprises (DSE) has pulled six Dr. Seuss books from publication, and it’s likely you already have an opinion about it. Nothing you read here is likely to change your mind, and that’s fine. This post isn’t about that; it’s about what happens next, the inevitable slide down the slippery slope, and where that leads us.

What Dr. Seuss Enterprises Actually Said

Some background will help avoid confusion. Dr. Seuss Enterprises (DSE) issued the following statement on March 2, 2021 (links and emphasis added), and thus ignited the firestorm of indignation we’re now seeing online:

Today, on Dr. Seuss’s Birthday, Dr. Seuss Enterprises celebrates reading and also our mission of supporting all children and families with messages of hope, inspiration, inclusion, and friendship.

We are committed to action.  To that end, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, working with a panel of experts, including educators, reviewed our catalog of titles and made the decision last year to cease publication and licensing of the following titles:  And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot’s Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Cat’s Quizzer.  These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.

Ceasing sales of these books is only part of our commitment and our broader plan to ensure Dr. Seuss Enterprises’s catalog represents and supports all communities and families. –

So, all of these books are now cancelled, if you will, including their adorable covers:

Offensive Dr. Seuss Books

Offensive Dr. Seuss Books – Courtesy of CBC News

And this is of course the right of any rights owner (like DSE) or publisher. I imagine the question in conservative minds is whether left-wing activists are cancelling Dr. Seuss by applying pressure to the publisher in censorial ways?

Is Dr. Seuss Being Censored?

There’s a lot of argument online about whether DSE pulling the books is censorship or not, but all this misses the point. There is government censorship, which we generally oppose as a nominally free society (but which happens all the time), and private sector censorship that we generally support (and which happens all the time). If you take away people’s ability to get information, that’s censorship.

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or “inconvenient.” Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies. – Wikipedia

All of which is academic. It’s only a legal issue if the government does it by force in contravention of free speech, etc., whereas private companies have every right to publish or not publish just about anything they want. That’s how capitalism works. So, yes, pulling the books is legal, standard, everyday private sector censorship. Forcing DSE to keep allowing the publication of books it doesn’t want to would be compelled speech, which conservatives allegedly object to.

What’s funny to me is that this type of censorship, pulling books from libraries or publication due to public outrage, is Politics 101 for American conservatives. How many books containing sexuality have they successfully pulled from local bookshelves? How many books have they banned for other reasons? I have no idea, but it’s a lot, and you can read more about that here. My point is that conservatives whining about censorship they themselves engage in with enthusiasm is hypocritical, disingenuous, and more than a little humorous. They practically invented this stuff. Welcome to the world you helped create.

What’s Wrong with these Dr. Seuss Books?

Dr. Seuss’ work dates from during and after World War II, and is inevitably going to reflect a different culture and norms than what we see today. That said, there are still parts of these books that are clearly racist and troubling. So, let’s take a look at the specific issues with each book. (Many of the images here are courtesy of the National Post and other sources.)

UPDATE: You can see all of the books in their entirety on the Internet Archive, at least for now, including all offensive pages.

And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street (1937)

And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street has a young protagonist fantasizing about a parade including “a Chinaman who eats with sticks,” a “Rajah, with rubies” and two fur-wearing people being pulled by a reindeer. So, yeah, that’s a little racist.

If I Ran the Zoo (1950)

If I Ran the Zoo‘s young male protagonist takes an imaginary hunting trip to Zomba-ma-tant where the Asiatic natives “wear their eyes at a slant.”

And the book also shows Black characters from the African island of Yerka, portrayed as pot-bellied, big-lipped monkey folk:

Dr. Seuss - At the Zoo Offensive Page 1

And something Middle-Easterny going on here:

So, again, not much to debate. These are clearly racist pictures of oppressed cultures.

McElligot’s Pool (1947)

McElligot’s Pool has another young boy, this time dreaming of what he’ll catch while fishing, including “Eskimo Fish from beyond Hudson Bay” with little fur collars. You could argue it’s not the image itself that’s intrinsically offensive–How many little dogs do you see dressed up in little coats on social media?–but it’s coupling with the “Eskimo” caption. Either way, yeah…

On Beyond Zebra! (1955)

This one I’m guessing at based on conjecture online (DSE didn’t specify what was offensive in each book). On Beyond Zebra! adds imaginary new letters to the alphabet, and includes an image of Nazzim of Bazzim riding a camel-like creature called a Spazzim. So…yep. I get it.

Scrambled Eggs Super! (1953)

Scrambled Eggs Super! has a kid bragging about crazy rare eggs, because why not, including one from Mt. Strookoo Cuckoo that he obtains with the assistance of turban-wearing Ali. He gets another egg from the Arctic nation of Fa-Zoal, whose people wear fur and paddle skin-covered boats. Another clear reference to native peoples:

The Cat’s Quizzer (1976)

The Cat’s Quizzer seems to be problematic due to an image of a yellow character in a coolie hat captioned with the question: “How old do you have to be to be a Japanese?” There is also some mockery of pygmies, but I can’t find any examples of the offending imagery online.

UPDATE: I found the following image on the Internet archive, but I see no indication of a cartoon with the text quoted above:

Cats Quizzer Japanese Cartoon

The text here might be at issue (“Do the Japanese eat with pogo sticks or joss sticks?”) but I’m not sure.

But Cat in the Hat was NOT Pulled

Best-selling but still problematic books like The Cat in the Hat, which is allegedly inspired by Black minstrel characters, were not pulled, which tells us something. Namely, that DSE is focused on the bottom line, and that they pulled books for strategic economic reasons. 

Publishing is Struggling & Change is Inevitable

Publishing industry revenues have been flat or falling in real numbers for more than a decade. This is due to many factors, including the influence of Amazon.com and self-publishing, but if you can be sure of one thing it’s that these companies are all about finding ways to make more money while holding onto their legacy assets.

Statistica: Publishing Industry Revenues

Statistica: Publishing Industry Revenues

So you can be sure any given book publisher that pulls a book is doing so, possibly for idealistic reasons, but certainly for financial ones. And this includes rights owners as successful as DSE:

The estate of Theodor Seuss Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss) nearly doubled its income in 2020, earning an estimated $33 million in a very Grinch-like year. The bigger payday is thanks to a smart new strategy from the team at Dr. Seuss Enterprises, which transformed the beloved children’s author’s 60-plus books into a multimedia universe.  – Forbes

All of which means that publishers and rights owners including DSE will do whatever they can to grow new audiences while holding onto the old. Hence, why they pulled six relatively unpopular Dr. Seuss books while holding onto equally problematic assets like Cat in the Hat. My guess is they might even update and re-release these books in the future, thus gaining the PR value and sales for the retraction followed by secondary sales of the new versions. That’s just good business, if a little cynical.

Publishers Know Controversy Equals Sales

Just look what happened to American Dirt, a novel by a white female author about a Latina woman running to the USA to escape a Mexican drug lord. It has all the immigration porn stereotypes, and BIPOC authors and readers objected to its promotion when it wasn’t written by a LatinX author (See #OwnVoices). Did the publisher pull the book? No, possibly for principled or legal reasons, but also because it knew sales would boom, and they did. American Dirt sold far more books due to the controversy than it would have otherwise.

Publishers Change Book Titles & Content All the Time

One of my favorite examples is the popular and archetypal murder mystery And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. This book was originally published under the title Ten Little Niggers (sorry), and Ten Little Indians in the US, until they finally stopped finding new ways to be offensive and came up with a completely new title. Was this censorship? Well, I guess if you really wanted a book with an offensive title, but no. It’s just good business and a good if slow awakening to moral reality.

We Should Support Publisher & Owner Changes

Lots of authors write at a time when something arguably bad is acceptable, or when they have too little editorial oversight, or they just get away with stupid stuff. One great example is Stephen King’s It, a fantastic horror novel featuring one of the stupidest and most exploitative scenes you can imagine — children having sex (a gang bang, really) in a sewer to keep the group together. I would love for SK to authorize an update to It without this idiocy.

And the same is true of The Stand‘s portrayals of African Americans (e.g., the infamous ‘black junta’ scene) and its caricature of mental disability. If these changes are not made, the assets that is SK’s legacy will fade faster than it has to, publishers will lose money, and we’re all worse off for it. In other words, if you really want older and “classic” works to survive into the future, you have to admit that (a) some of them are problematic in non-trivial ways and (b) allowing them to change is the only way to save them.

My guess is many books and book series will be pulled or updated in the coming years, not to censor them but to allow the greater body of the authors’ works to survive into the next century. This is a good thing, inevitable, and hardly new. Numerous other books have been pulled or updated based on newer standards of representation, including:

  • And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie for its original titles (see above).
  • Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder for its depictions of Native Americans, including the line, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
  • Should we Burn Babar? by Herbert R. Kohl, which appears to celebrate colonialism when the MC returns to the jungle to “civilize” other animals.

And so on. All of these changes seem both reasonable and necessary, not censorial.

There’s a Much Bigger Problem for Dr. Seuss

And that is the true goal and motivation of many Seuss-haters, the thing that DSE is fighting against, not the removal or changes to a subset of Dr. Seuss books — it’s the wholesale removal of all Dr. Seuss books from school curricula, etc., due to the problematic nature of some and the history of Theodor Geisel himself.  Because for every antifascist cartoon we like to remember him for…

Theodor Geisel America First Nazi Cartoon

…there is a blatantly racist portrayal of Japanese, Black and other people:

Theodore Geisel Racist Island Cartoon

As a result, there are many who argue with passion that all of Dr. Seuss’ works are tainted and should be removed or at least de-prioritized on school reading lists. And this is the real problem. DSE is trying to appease a group of people with a far larger axe to grind, and this token removal of a few books isn’t going to appease them. The question is whether it should. In other words, do we want a country or world in which entire bodies of work are removed or disparaged due to a (truly) problematic history of the artist and/or a few examples of (legitimate) bigotry? Because that’s the larger question being asked as we squabble over these six books.

Rap Music & Misogyny or Homophobia

Don’t get anxious. I’m not saying anything is or isn’t equivalent to anything else. I’m just asking a question. Let’s look at some troubling rap lyrics just by way of example. This is Dr. Dre rapping in N.W.A.’s “One Less Bitch:”

Yo, I tied her to the bed
I was thinking the worst
But yo, I had to let my n*ggas fuck her first, yeah
Loaded up the forty-fo’, yo
Then I straight smoked the ho

Which you can see and hear here if you like:

My question isn’t about this song or any number of other songs by Black or white artists, whether misogynistic, homophobic, or just violent and ugly. My question is about principles. If our principle as a diverse society is that an artist and his or her entire body of work should be ignored / not purchased / de-listed / censored or whatever the contextual syntax is, based on a subset of that work, then we should apply that consistently.

In other words, if it’s morally right to denigrate all of Theodor Geisel’s work, then we should do this universally and consistently. All of N.W.A.’s music and all of Dr. Dre’s work should be unpublished and removed from distribution by the owner. Any artist who has ever made a substantial negative comment or contribution toward any group, or displayed bigotry of any kind, should have all work taken down and pushed into obscurity, forever. Because that’s the slope we’re sliding down.

So What are our Principles?

I couldn’t care less that DSE had some some problematic Dr. Seuss books unpublished. No, that’s not right; I’m glad they did. I have no problem if they do the same to Cat in the Hat because of it’s problematic history. No one, and especially not children, should be forced or encouraged to read or listen to anything that fills their minds with racism, sexism, misogyny or bigotry generally.

HOWEVER, and that’s in all caps for a reason, I strongly object to the idea that an artist’s entire life work and body of creation should be purged from common distribution because of this. This would be true cancel culture that would make reactionary book-banning conservatives…right. And that’s freakin’ intolerable. Sadly, it also seems like that’s where we’re heading, and this process began long before DSE’s recent announcement.

once-ler-unless

See, I told you this wasn’t about what you thought it was.

Peace.

Planet of the Apes Tragic Ending

Top 10 Dystopian Predictions for 2021

By

On March 3, 2021

In Blog, Ideas

It’s not hard to find dystopian predictions about the future. We’ve all been doom scrolling on social media for so long that anxiety, fear and mistrust feel like part of our DNA. We no longer wake up to see what’s on the news; we check the news to see what’s coming for us. Is it a new pandemic? Economic collapse? Hordes of armed lunatics in the other party? Maybe all of it, all at once, immediately followed by the collapse of society and global cannibalism.

It sounds like a joke, but it doesn’t feel like it. And this is something I’ve been struggling with during the COVID pandemic like everyone else. Is the world more broken than ever, or does it just feel like it? And if it is all falling apart, what the heck can any of us do to about it?

Well, I’m not here to tell you it’s all in your head. Some of the threats we’re facing are not only real and very bad, but are also like to get much worse in the near future. Sorry. That doesn’t mean it’s all doom and gloom, but it does mean that if we don’t want to end up in a dystopian world filled with some pretty terrible things, we have to be more focused on the real threats and do something about them as soon as possible, meaning…now.

So these are some of the legitimate threats we should be focused on if we weren’t too busy being a violent, childlike specifies with the collective attention span of a gnat:

Ten Dystopian Predictions

These are nominally arranged form least-worst to worst, but this is entirely subjective and humanist. If you’re an endangered lemur,  prediction 10 is probably far worse than 1, but then lemurs probably can’t read this even if their tree has internet access. Learn to read, lemur! Just kidding; that would be weird. Now here’s the list:

10. Climate Change & Global Overpopulation

Given how climate change is talked about as an existential threat, you’d think this would be higher on the list; however, as real and terrible as it is, climate change will primarily impact poorer nations and people and richer nations and people will do little about it. We’re going to see sea-level rise, species extinction, vast ecological changes and collapse, and we’re probably not going to do much about it other than talk and point fingers. The things we could do (consuming less, moving to renewable energy, changing to less-meat-intensive diets, having fewer babies, etc.) we’ll do if and when they makes economic sense (profit for someone), but international treaties will do little to move this along. It’s a serious threat, but we’re not going to do anything to stop it until it’s too late.

If you’d like to know more about climate change, here’s one of many great videos from Kurzgesagt. If you want to be more informed about nature and scientific issues, I’d seriously recommend watching all of them:

BTW, if this seems fatalistic, it is, but I’m not suggesting we stop trying to reduce the impact or speed of climate change. I’m just saying we missed our window to prevent it, and our species really only reacts to things once they’re so bad we have no choice.

Note on Mass Extinctions & Overpopulation

There can be little doubt that we as a species are killing off or degrading most other species on Earth, or at least those that don’t serve us (we’ve done a remarkable job increasing the population of cows and chickens).  Whether you care about this or not is of course entirely based on your moral compass, and while I think these losses degrade our experience of the natural world and make ecosystems more fragile, I don’t think they pose that great a threat to humanity or human society. If we want to live in a monocultural world, we probably can. But, to me, this is genocide–the narcissistic slaughter of anything and everything humans can’t be bothered to value monetarily. Sir David Attenborough seems to feel the same way, and with far greater experience to back him up:

Will we do anything about even this one issue? I doubt it. We’ll save some pretty things, the charismatic mega-fauna, the usual fungi, and some things we like to hunt and eat. But there are simply too many human beings generating too much need, waste and toxins to stop the slaughter. As long as our population grows, and our per capita consumption rises or remains flat, the natural world is just going to shrink and die. I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt it.

For example, we could all decide to have fewer babies or become vegan or vegetarian, and choose locally-grown foods, but we haven’t and we won’t. We’ll instead opt-in to synthetic meats, and hopefully that will help over time, but this just shows the nature of our society: we will not sacrifice our lifestyles to help others, but we will gladly wait around for a technology to do it for us. (For a different perspective on overpopulation, Kurzgesagt has a great video).

9. Privacy Reduction by Automated Surveillance

Every time you agree to, say, use a Progressive Snapshot in your car to get lower rates, use your Fitbit or iPhone to get lower health insurance rates, etc. you’re also helping accelerate us toward the time when all of our behavior is monitored and results in monetary reward or compensation. And this includes everything from wearable tech to the electronics in your home.

We will all be watched, always, and soon thereafter forced to comply with both economic and government standards of behavior (see Liberty Reduction). Our TVs, PCs and phones watch us, determining what content we deserve and what ads we should see. Our credit card and e-commerce companies monitor our behavior to assess risk and predict buying patterns.

It’s not hard to see the appeal; this technology can save lives. It can call for an ambulance when you fall or have a heart attack. And of course, it can be used to aggregate user data to improve insurance plans…which this is the problem with tech like this. We want the benefits, so we ignore the downside, and then all of us lose privacy and liberty. Is it worth it? Time will tell.

8. Liberty Reduction by Mechanized Surveillance

We’ve long been fighting a war for privacy and regulation via everything from GPS monitoring systems to traffic cameras, but usually observation and control are separate. A traffic camera sees, but a government issues a ticket. This is not always true, of course (e.g., trucks can be automatically speed-throttled to optimize fuel efficiency), but new automation entirely eliminates this barrier.

In Singapore, for instance, Boston Dynamic a robot dog (Spot) was used to enforce social distancing regulations during the COVID pandemic. It patrolled the park and notified people about issues and, while it didn’t attack or subdue violators, it’s easy to see how it could. Note: Spot is still remotely controlled, not autonomous.

And just this month, we learned that the New York Police Department (NYPD) announced plans to use Digidog in city policing:

So, the future is here. Congresswoman AOC may object to what the NYPD is doing, but until we have strong national regulation on the use and deployment of robot police and surveillance systems, they’re just going to keep coming.

Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union, said empowering a robot to do police work could have implications for bias, mobile surveillance, hacking and privacy. There is also concern that the robot could be paired with other technology and be weaponized. – NYT

The problem with these systems is not that they have no positive value; it’s that they are far, far too appealing. They cost less than human cops (or will), can cover more range, work 24/7, take risks humans won’t, and won’t every unionize. They can also be armed, carry recording devices that violate pretty much everyone’s privacy, and create a surveillance police state where we’re all watched, all the time…and then told to move along by the thing surveilling us. And Digidog is just one example among many. Here for instance is a nifty little drone police are looking to deploy to the airspace right over your head–which is funny, because it’s a late-to-the-market made-in-the-USA competitor to Chinese DJI drones already in use today.

Smile. You’re on police TV.

See my novel Ascendance for how some of this technology will soon be used by police and schools.

7. Job Displacement by Robots & Automation

This covers everything from automated mail sorting to complete construction automation (and probably far more). The threat here is real, current and almost unavoidable. It might be that some societies or unions push back against mechanization via neo-Luddite regulation and legislation, but there is so much money to be made by eliminating humans from the cost of goods that it’s almost unstoppable in a capitalist society.  We’ve all seen the dancing Boston Dynamic robot by now, showing its moves to Do You Love Me and generally making humans look obsolete (but in a really adorable way). But the greatest threat to human jobs and labor is not multipurpose humanoid robots like this one:

The next video shows just few examples equally advanced but more task-oriented robots, including one that can pack pallets in a warehouse…and do a pretty damn good job of it. Given that they can work all day and never need a bathroom break, it’s hard to see companies resisting these temptations. Blue-collar jobs are going to vanish remarkably fast.

And this the first case on the list where (a) something bad is coming for human jobs (and there’s not much you can do about it) but (b) it doesn’t actually have to be a bad thing. In the long term, no human job is safe from machines and artificial intelligence (more on this below), so we must come up with a society where humans can prosper despite having no way to earn a living in the conventional market. I’m not sure what this is yet–what do they use in Star Trek?–but whatever it is, the time to figure it out is now. Until we do, things are going to get ugly.

6. Job Displacement by Artificial Intelligence (AI)

This covers all the ways machine learning, artificial intelligence and related digital technologies can (a) break human labor into automatable parts and (b) use that information to automate portions or all of a human’s job. There are many benefits to this, such as faster and more accurate cancer screening, removal of humans from dangerous work, and of course increased productivity–but all of these mean less work for human beings.

As shown in this video, this process is ongoing, accelerating, and inevitable. We just need to figure out how to deal with it.

Look at a complex job long and hard enough, and you’ll find that it’s really just many narrowly defined and predictable tasks one after another. Machines are on the brink of becoming so good at breaking down complex jobs into many predictable ones, that for many people, there will be no further room to specialize. We are on the verge of being out competed.” – Kurzgesagt

This Kurzgesagt video mentions but does not name a consulting company in San Francisco that uses machine learning systems to get middle management to train AI to replace them, but the same model is referenced here in the Harvard Business Review:

“…executives tend to assume that their underlings will bear the main brunt of changes to the future of work, while their own positions are immune. They are incorrect. We have chosen to publicize our work with iCEO to highlight the hard reality: It will not be possible to hide in the C-Suite for much longer.” — HBR

And this fact, that AI will impact middle and upper management sooner rather than later, is actually good news; it will mean people who have money and power will feel the threat that only blue-collar and factory workers have felt before. And maybe they can come up with a new economic model that keeps these changes from driving us all into poverty and unemployment.

If you want to see the real impact automation and other factors are having on real human wages, there is a great article on “Wage Stagnation…” from the Economic Policy Institute:

Wage Stagnation EPI

Wage Stagnation EPI

This article makes no mention of AI, machine learning, computers or any other reason why productivity would increase without wages growing in tandem. This article and many others, however, lay the blame directly at the feet of our future machine overlords:

The steady decline in the relative prices of robots and automation equipment over the past few decades have made it increasingly profitable to automate. In this environment, workers may be reluctant to ask for significant pay raises out of fear that an employer will replace their jobs with robots.

And this is the same argument being used against the $15 minimum wage; that raising wages will just accelerate automation and job destruction. Just as outsourcing overseas used to be the stick used to intimidate labor, now its machines…or both, working together.

5. Loss of Objective Truth to Deepfake Content

This is a huge topic, but hopefully requires little explanation. New and increasingly powerful “deepfake” technology is able to render audio and video of apparently real people doing and saying apparently real things…that they never did. The most recent example is this Tom Cruise TikTok video:

This video demonstrates two things. First, how it may be impossible to know what a person really said or did not say in the future (in everything from revenge porn to murders). Second, how an entire industry of actors and extras may soon be licensed and reproduced without ever needing human beings at all. The first is a threat to objective truth, the second a threat to artistic labor. Both are real and coming soon, but many of you will also remember this earlier Obama deep fake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ54GDm1eL0

And this demonstrates a third threat posed by deepfake technology; the ability of anyone in any political party or group to put words in the mouths of their opponents, thus feeding into fake news, misinformation and the growth of conspiracy theories. Making it worse is how difficult it is to fight and regulate this technology without stepping on constitutionally protected freedom of speech:

Early October (2019), California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into legislation AB730, which makes it illegal to create or distribute fake videos, images or audio of politicians within 60 days of an election. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Electronic Frontier’s Foundation (EFF) have already disagreed with the law, arguing that it could negatively impact free speech.  — Forbes

So, my prediction? Deep fake political videos will have some impact in the US 2022 midterm elections, and a substantial impact in 2024 presidential elections. And it will just get worse after that. In a few years, it will be almost impossible to know what you, me, or any politician ever said, and even harder to find the truth amidst an endless barrage of deepfakery.

See my novel Ascendance for how some of this deepfakery could be used in horrific crimes.

Note on the Related Death of Art

Protect Human ArtOne of the hardest things in today’s world is to produce art that stands out, and to make a living as an artist or a creative. But when AI can churn out books, articles, photographs, videos and animations in seconds rather than hours or years, the value of this human-created art will plummet (lower than it already has). And the only thing that will save it is knowing if the artist is human or not…if consumers really care. In the future, it won’t be “Made in the USA” that matters, but “Created by a Human Being” and it will be just as hard to regulate.

If this is something you care about, check out my petition on change.org to protect human art from AI.

4. Designer Babies and the (True) Rise of Genetic Class

Eugenics is the study of how to improve human beings by, well, breeding better human beings. Nazis loved this stuff, as did many Americans long before the Third Reich was even a thing. Up until this point in history, however, eugenics was  just a terrible idea heralded by terrible people. Race and gender were not deterministic. Intelligence was not the soul purview of any one group. But this is about to change.

This change is being driven by CRISPR and other advances in bioengineering that will, soon, allow for wonderful things–cures for genetic diseases like ALS–and terrible things–picking your child’s social, intellectual and physical traits so he or she can be the perfect little child you always wanted. And it will be almost impossible to regulate, as shown in this quote from Designer Babies…

“Zaret suggests three additional regulatory steps that could help close the gap: the revocation of the federal ban on funding, the creation of a committee to report legislative recommendations, and the creation of a federal entity that would have authority over both public and private sectors.[16] The collective goal of these three steps is centralized regulation. A federal body would be able to research the social and ethical issues created by embryonic research and not only impose regulations but educate the public. It could be broadly expanded to promote public access to reproductive health and encourage dialogue about neoeugenic uses of gene editing.”

All of which means, government regulation of designer babies will be slow, lag technology development and be easily circumvented by those with the resources to travel internationally. Within a generation, the rich will be having stronger, faster, smarter and otherwise modified children, and there’s really nothing you can do about it. Movies like Gattaca are not science fiction, they are now naive and almost utopian predictions about what’s going to happen in your lifetime.

What’s important to understand is that it doesn’t matter if designer babies are a good or bad thing in the abstract; what matters is how this technology will be distributed economically. And that’s obvious: the rich will have almost unlimited access, and the poor almost none. The result will be, for the first time in history, the alignment of genetics and economic class. If we don’t do something, within a few decades at most, the rich really will be better (stronger, smarter) and the rest of us will be relegated to a permanent underclass defined by our DNA. I, for one, do not want to be a hideous Morlock bowing before the perfect an beautiful Eloi. I just have no idea how to prevent it from happening.

See my novel Ascendance for how we may react to the advent of designer babies, or Run Lab Rat Run for where this might take our society in the future.

3. Tribalization and the Death of Empathy

Tribalization just means we’re all splitting into smaller and more hermetically isolated social and political groups, each of which is defined by “what is good” (us) and “what is bad” (them). It doesn’t matter if the tribe is right or wrong in this context, what matters is that it exists an increasingly vital source personal identity, thus placing all of us in opposition to anyone not in our tribe (the Other).

This tribalization process has endless causes. You could learn more by reading Bowling Alone, researching the Fairness Doctrine or you could just turn on the news and say, hey, this sucks. Because it sucks. Progressives hate MAGAs, MAGAs hate GOP moderates, GOP moderates hate liberals, liberals hate progressives, and if we’re honest, everyone hates Dave. Screw that guy.

And even groups that seem to be fighting systematic division end up supporting it. Progressives, for instance, oppose systematic racism, but they very much favor systematic tribalization, segregation and safe spaces. All of which is understandable in the context of tribal needs, separating them from the actual or perceived threat of the other, and yet the resulting tribalization remains utterly destructive of social unity.

Above you’ll hear about political tribalization. Below, you’ll hear about social media cognitive bubbles.  What these and other videos all have in common? We’re all living in our own realities, defined by our own facts, and increasingly hateful of anyone not in the same cognitive space.

 

The news media is even worse. The following chart shows the polarization of news media organizations, leading to both misinformation and accelerating social tribalization:

Media Bias Chart

Media Bias Chart

All of which you already know unless you’re living in a very small bubble in the woods without windows, which sounds nice. The problem with this process of social segregation is that it makes collective action impossible. It makes the idea of cooperating with the other impossible. It makes the Other, the group most opposed to your group, not merely different but evil. And this is where we get to the death of empathy.

Liberalism long held empathy as a core value. You must try to understand others. You must try to help others. Because we’re not that different, and any of us could need help at any time. Progressives and MAGAs have no such values. Empathy is replaced by political alliances, by collaborating with those who hate the Other as much as you do. The idea of caring about of helping Others is not merely counterproductive, it’s morally repugnant and sufficient to get you evicted from the group. Empathy is treachery.

The result? Collaboration and cooperation are signs of weakness. Unity is capitulation. And this means democracy itself, an institution based on the ideal that most people will do the right thing most of the time, is kind of a joke. What good is democracy if it doesn’t serve your group and smite the Other? And so on…

If you’re wondering why I ranked tribalization so highly, it’s because it’s not merely a threat unto itself. Tribalization prevents effective collective action, and that makes it impossible to solve any other problem on this list. If we allow technology, media, corporations, political parties, religious beliefs and so on to divide us into squabbling, hateful tribes, then we’re screwed now and forever. We might as well just hand things over to the machines and get back to killing each other.

2. Capitalist Authoritarianism (The Chinese Model)

The model demonstrated by China, and to a lesser extent Russia and Brazil, is that of a nominally capitalist economy coupled with a highly intrusive and authoritarian government. China has proven that democracy and capitalism are not necessary partners, and that democracy may be less effective at driving capitalist economic growth than political authoritarianism, a lesson the German Reich (aka Nazi fascists) knew but no one cared about because they lost the war.

China is thus a threat not only because it is a competitor to the USA in the global market, but because it offers an alternative geopolitical structure to the ruling and wealthy classes. Instead of controlling people and labor through the illusion of self-control, you simply control them the old fashioned way. And as long as they make enough money to feel safe and comfortable, people are more than willing to ignore the loss of personal freedom. This is not completely true, of course, but it’s true enough to work and that’s all that matters in the real world.

So if some of the most economically successful countries are not even vaguely democratic, what keeps more democracies from failing? There are a lot of answers to this, of course, but this is the first time in history when the Chinese alternative has existed, and thus poses a very real threat to democracy itself. How many nations would gladly choose less freedom for more wealth (and less poverty)? My guess: most of them. Especially if China acts as a generous sponsor as America withdraws from the international stage.

And what’s happening the USA today is leading in this direction, helped greatly by anti-democratic conservative efforts, thereby turning one-person-one-vote into one-dollar-one-vote. The more power is concentrated in fewer hands, the more wealth held by fewer people, the smaller the gap is between democracy and authoritarianism. What, after all, is the purpose of supporting democracy if you can be just as rich and more powerful without it? People are just so whiny.

1. Economic Genocide & the Fall of Liberal Democracy

Wow, well, economic genocide sounds scary. Run away! But in all seriousness, if you look at the prior nine items on this list, they all lead to one collective outcome: a world with fewer jobs for human beings, more power in the hands of centralized authorities, complete powerlessness and subjugation of the non-rich, the inability to do anything without those authorities watching you.

This could easily lead to a world of authoritarian China clones, with high-tech capitalist markets serving only the wealthiest and largest corporations and impoverishing everyone else. Or it could lead to something else.

I’m just genuinely concerned that I’ve heard no one, and I mean no one, talk about a credible alternative to this collective dystopia. I’ve heard people claiming it won’t happen, and I’ve heard others hoping it will (burn it all down!), but literally the only policy solution that seems viable is a guaranteed minimum income for everyone based on taxing the small percent who still have jobs. Which is, of course, only one measure and only a stopgap.

Even videos like the following about a so-called (alternative) Ownership Economy, and the underlying theories the drive them, are more about changing people than systems, and thus offer no way forward other than wishful thinking. I’m not trying to denigrate their thought process or very chill presentations; they just don’t seem to offer realistic options in the world as we know it.

Which leaves us in a scary place. Democracy cannot stand if most people are living in poverty or unable to support themselves. Society cannot hold if it does not offer some degree of hope and dignity to most of its citizens. So what is the real, practical alternative to increasing income disparity, economic stratification, unemployment and authoritarianism?

I have no idea.

Things Not to Worry About

Several of the usual scary things aren’t on this particular list of things to worry about because they’re either so far in the future (relatively to other threats) that it’s not worth worrying about, or we have little influence over them anyway. These include:

AI Super-Intelligence & the Rise of the Machines

Robots with giant brains and bigger guns? Run away! I mean, if Elon Musk says we should be scared, we should be scared, right?

And he’s not wrong. We should be scared. It’s just way down on the list of things we should be focused on today. And a robot uprising is entirely avoidable if we’re not complete idiots, but I do love Terminator, so…enjoy:

“I’ll be back!” No, seriously, he will be…eventually. This is like the Zamboni of threats.

Volcanoes, Meteors and Aliens, Oh My!

There are plenty of valid and massive threats out there, including eruption of giant super volcanoes or massive meteor strikes like the one the killed off our beloved dinosaurs. But let’s be honest; we’re not going to do anything about any of these, so keep praying and don’t look up too often.

The End of Everything

And of course you can always just skip ahead the heat death of the universe, evaporating black holes, and true blackness at the end of time to remind yourself that if you take a really long view (you know, trillions or even quadrillions of years), none of this really matters. We’re all gonna die. Everything’s gonna die. YOLO!

 

But that’s a recipe for anarchy, immorality and existential dread, and who needs that?

Choosing a Better Future

Whatever you think of this giant sad list of terrible things with a few tiny good things to prevent collective suicidal ideation, you have to admit we’re heading in a pretty bad direction with no particular focus on how to prevent it. We’re blithely walking to the edge of every cliff we can think of, and just assuming we won’t fall or we’ll be dead before we get there (like the national debt, it’s someone else’s problem). This is not a plan. This is the definition of denial.

Sadly, the only thing that can prevent these outcomes now is that we each and collectively decide to accept them, face them, and deal with them. They will not solve themselves or go away. So my question is, what would it take for us as a society and, more generally, a species, to become something capable of addressing these issues? And I don’t know. I mean, I know it’s theoretically possible. I know societies have solved problems in the past. But I also know we don’t seem interested in these things anymore. We would rather throw rocks and scream while the world burns. It’s easier. I get that.

But what a you going to tell your children? See that stone in the ashes over there, honey. That one, no, the black one with glass on it. That’s the one. I threw that. If you look real closely, you can see a little blood on it. I took that bastard / bitch / thing down. Why didn’t I fight the fire? It was too late. It was too big. There was no water left. I didn’t start the fire. I’m not a fire fighter.  Just don’t inhale, and you’ll be fine. Now, let’s go take a closer look at mommy’s / daddy’s rock.

Of course, there is another choice–the conservative / right wing pretend it’s all a left-wing dystopian fantasy option, and you’ll find plenty of videos and information online for every point above showing why they’re fake news or actually a positive thing. Prager University will be glad to tell you why income inequality is good. I’m not convinced their perspective is always wrong or just lies made to protect those who benefit from the current system. I am convinced they would say the same thing either way. You should do your own research and self-education and hopefully realize that none of what’s happening is solving real human problems in the long term.

And then, hopefully, you / we / all of us can choose to do something about something before the choice is taken away from us. And if you happen to find a realistic alternative to the false binary options of capitalism and socialism (or the tyranny of authoritarian capitalism), that’d be great too.

Peace.

Various Books & Such – Q1 2021

By

On February 11, 2021

In Blog

This is just a tracking list of books I’ve read or not read and related comments I’ve made or not made, and thus might or might not be of interest. It’s not. It’s really not.

Mar 9 / The Time Machine by HG Wells (****)

Re-read this due to working on WIP with consumption of meat as theme, and also just as a reminder. Like most of the classics, it seems good for what it was at the time it was, but clearly not a style that would be popular today. I sometimes forget the explicitly philosophical nature of old books, like the story was just a way to engage in a thought exercise, and I kind of miss that; nowadays, the plotting and drama of novels necessary to ensure sales gets in the way of thoughtful whimsy. That said, the Time Traveler in this book is a babbling idiot who blunders around time like a reckless child, so it’s hard to care that he vanishes in the end…spoiler?

Mar 7 / Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (***/*)

Read this for research on a WIP, largely for the handling of cannibalism, but was excited given the 5-star ratings and buzz. So…I don’t know. It felt like a fast and melancholy march toward an expected end. People suck. They do terrible things. It’s worse than you think. Sigh. As if there’s not enough darkness in the world.

Feb 28 / Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (***/*)

Fairly mixed feelings on this book. Loved the snarky tone because, well, that’s pretty much me as a teenager. The plotting and tone is also pretty cool. However, I never really felt like I could visualize what was going on (the description was almost mocking the concept of description?), there were a lot of characters I really didn’t care about, and the climactic fight scene went on, and on, and on…until I assume the they used up all the bones. So many bones. So, 3.5?

Feb 13 / Circe (2nd Time) by Madeline Miller (*****)

One of my favorite books of all time, re-read unintentionally while studying her prose style, which is light and flows like water. She writes like someone who loves writing and what she’s writing about, Greek mythology, and does both well. A bit envious of how easy it sounds, but maybe that’s just the result of hard work. I’d recommend this book to anyone even if you don’t care for mythology; it’s just a great and very personal story about one woman’s journey.

Feb 11 / The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky (***)

I keep hoping for something as original and enjoyable as Children of Time, but this was not it. It was like a freakin’ stew of science fiction creativity, diversity in overdrive (seriously, one of everything), and a weird political message about how we’re all better together and blah, blah, blah. I don’t mind political messages, but this was a sledgehammer disguised as novel. Also, just kinda boring. And hard to connect to the characters in changing POVs. Bleh.

Feb 10 / The Terror by Dan Simmons (***)

Finished all 700+ pages of this last night, but kind of a slog and I skipped a lot of the middle and end chapters. I enjoyed the exploration / horror aspects at the beginning, then got bored of all the detail, then skipped all the prayers, and then found myself in a different book about Inuit culture that seemed only vaguely related to the first book. Feels like the book could have been 350 pages with better overlay of explorer / Inuit themes and a lot less…well, just a lot of extra words and long scenes that didn’t move the book along. Feels a lot like Stephen King books that could have used an assertive editor. Haven’t seen the series yet, but might watch to see how they adapted the book for TV.

Also, and I hate saying this b/c I’m really tired of everyone being so sensitive about everything, the book has some odd homophobic and misogynist themes that were avoidable. The shittiest character in the book didn’t need to be gay, and the very few women didn’t have to be quite so sexualized. I realize this is grist for the white male explorer mill, but it was still overdone.

Feb 10 / Pet Sematary by Stephen King (****)

Finished re-reading this b/c working on some horror elements in a new WIP. Every time I read SK now, I just get…bored. I loved his writing when I was younger, and still like his prose, but if feels as if he just needs someone to say, “Whatever your wrote, cut it in half” and instead his books get longer and longer. Anyway, this had a pretty good pace and build of tension until about half-way, and then it goes from let’s establish the crazy backstory to let’s use that backstory to explain a series of increasingly improbable but scary events.  For some reason, just got bored at that point, but maybe b/c I knew what was coming. And I’m forever damaged by the movie…and the other movie.

In trying to learn how to write “good” horror and suspense, what I picked up from this book was that SK does a lot of telling and not showing; he tells the reader the MC is scared, and why, and how it feels, in ways that make utter nonsense sound spooky. But it was hard for me to get a feel for the scares b/c I just wasn’t that into it by the end. Skipped a lot of pages. Like, honestly, how much can you read about someone traveling from Chicago to Maine?

Feb 9 / Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist (****)

Another horror read for comps / genre background. Not a big fan of vampire novels, but I was enjoying this until I realized I’d already watched the series. Both book and series are good, but it ruined the surprise for me. That said, I found it less horror than violent / thriller, with a lot of interesting family and bullying themes that were scarier than the vampire. Part of me always has trouble believing that people are as terrible as they probably are, so the monsters and humans seem reversed (as in a lot of things I read). People suck. Book does not. Still, a bit long.

Feb 8 / Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (*****)

Re-read quickly for understanding of children’s-book plot structure and spider treatment, related to WIP. Still a charming book. Obviously aging, but adorable, with some gender dynamics that will probably be problematic in the near future. Sigh. But some cool spider dynamics and homage I can use. Or maybe I should just write children’s books; they seem much happier.

 

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