Tuesday, May 26, 2015
"The Sell" by Fredrik Eklund: But should I really be able to sell anything to anyone?
Author: Fredrik Eklund, with Bruce Littlefield, and foreword
by Barbara Corcoran
Title: “The Sell: The Secrets of Selling Anything to Anyone”
Publication: 2015: New York, Avery. ISBN 978-1-592-40931-0,
290 pages, hardcover, 3 Parts, 14 Chapters, Foreword, Introduction and Epilogue
The subtitle of this book would suggest that it promotes
hucksterism. But, really, this is a book
that tells you how to sell when you’re already in the right field, and doing
what you want to do, and believe in what you want to sell. That raises a question that I will return to.
The book was written with a publisher’s advance, justified by the author’s well
known reputation in NYC real estate and possibly LGBT circles.
The author is a 38-year-old real estate broker in New York
City, but raised in Sweden. His
interests and background are varied (see Wiki). For example, he briefly starred in
gay porn films under the stage name Tag Eriksson. He also invests in IT companies (more or less
following the example of Ashton Kutcher), appears on reality TV, and writes
novels, although it’s not clear yet what his fiction content will be. He also
married a partner in Florida and will have a child by surrogacy. All that said,
sexual orientation really has nothing to do with his sales philosophy, other
than that he believes everyone needs an adult relationship.
Most of what he recommends makes perfect sense. He gives some tips in negotiation (like
creating “urgency”) which Donald Trump has mentioned before in “The Apprentice”
and in Trump’s own book “How to Get Rich”. (Oh, remember, Trump noted in his
book that Troy McClain took one for the team in allowing his legs to be waxes
in an “Apprentice” segment dealing with “negotiation”.) He talks about good health habits. I think
that concern over diet colas is stretching things, but in the distant past,
anybody who said to stop smoking would have been called a “health nut”. I start to disagree when he recommends
spending a lot of money on clothes and jewelry and hair styling, even if you
don’t make a lot. I think you should
save that 10% for your retirement (after paying student loan debt) and buy
expensive clothes when you can afford them (especially to sell somebody else’s
wares). Really, there isn’t that much
difference. I don't think he recommended that bald men get wigs. (Prince Charles looks good in blue jeans just as he is, as far as I am concerned.)
He hints at the "Always Be Closing" idea (in the 2002 film "100 Mile Rule").
I do recall my own work life in the 1972-1973 period when I
worked for Sperry Univac as a “site rep”, mostly at the Public Service site in
downtown Newark. I had inexpensive and
lightweight but mostly conservative suits, in blue, gray, brown, and black, and
one in light green. Remember the EDS
dress code. (He doesn’t mention IBM’s
insistence on stocking garters in the 1950s, which sound prudish, until you get
on “The Apprentice.”) Yet, a number of
months into the job, management decided I didn’t have a “marketing profile”. I transferred to another division, supporting
benchmarks in Minnesota. Eventually I
wound up working for NBC as a programmer and “content creator”, which led to my
long track career.
Eklund’s career is probably not all about just making
deals. In most places, real estate
brokers generally get into developing new properties, which is about “content”. Watch the PBS special on the new Billionaire’s
Tower. Real estate business needs to be concerned about sustainability (he talks about recovering from the 2008 financial crisis) and resilience, especially to physical disaster (floods, earthquakes, hostility). But there is a real lingering
question about the ethics or desirability of manipulating people to prove you
can sell anything to anyone. I really
don’t believe that. My own father was a
manufacturer’s representative for Imperial Glass (now Lenox) and made these
claims. But he sold only (wholesale) to
department stores along the East Coast in pre-Internet days and made his
reputation on great customer service.
Mother helped him run it and do his books. So I learned honest capitalism from my
parents.
Of course, anyone has to “sell” himself. A job interview is a “sales” experience. On
the job, a programmer will need to sell his ideas internally to others (as when
working in a company like Facebook or Google). A blogger or book author will, in some way,
however indirect (for example, by volunteering) need to consider how to “sell”
to potential readers and become known in a favorable way.
What concerns me is more the idea that selling “anything”
can become a career. Consider how
Comcast advertises its sales positions, “Come show us what you’ve got.” To sell somebody else’s work. Eklund doesn’t really talk about cold calling
or door-to-door, and it seems that these modes are becoming less acceptable to
the public, given both the Internet and greater concerns about security. But it is true that our culture is becoming
more resistant to the idea of people approaching others cold to sell
things. Consider how telemarketing (let
alone robocalling) is resisted. Indeed, “It’s hard out here for a pimp”, but
also for a geek.
He talks about how to use social media. His favorite platform is Instagram, and least
liked is Twitter. Facebook seems too
complicated. But modern social media
didn’t really become important until around 2007 (although MySpace had been
around since 2003). But social media has
also made a “double life” impossible (a
major reason the military had to drop “don’t ask don’t tell”). But it also makes it difficult or impossible
to express political opinions in public spaces on a range of topics and sell
for someone else, without creating a conflict of interest. But that issue really goes back to Web 1.0
and the rise of search engines, very relevant in my own “second career”.
Various times, after my own books came out (starting in
1997), particularly after “The Layoff” in the post-9/11 world at the end of
2001, I got lots of calls from companies wanting me to give up my writing and
pimp for them. My own public reputation,
by the nature of arguments I had made to supporting lifting the ban on gays in
the military, more or less made that impossible. Some of the “opportunities” were more
legitimate than others, but the people pushing them really had to believe in
some ideas that seemed way overstated and not very objective.
Can you sell and tell the truth?
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Should self-published authors provide returnability to physical bookstores?
Recently, I have been contacted about the possibility of
purchasing a returnability program for my books. Self-publishing companies offer a variety of
programs to authors that cost between $750 to $1400 a year. Generally, after purchasing the service,
Ingram will show the book as having up to 100 virtual copies available, and
bricks and mortar stores will have more incentive to order, because they know
that unsold books can be returned to Ingram for refund. It is that refund that the author is
indemnifying by purchasing the program, which is a kind of “insurance” against
low sales.
It appears that the author normally needs to take the
initiative to encourage the large bookseller chains (like Barnes and Noble) to
purchase books in quantity for local stores.
In “Current Affairs”, which is where my three books would fit, typically
a large chain retailer would show 3-5 copies of a new hardcover or larger
softcover books. But “Current Affairs”,
other than books my major politicians and journalists, are relatively small as
a part of books that consumers actually buy when visiting stores. “Current affairs” tends to do better online,
relative to physical stores, because it tends to be less “popular” and appeal
to the sort of audience that looks for material online. Or, consumers may be more likely to view such
books on Kindle or Nook, which is usually cheaper. Similar, the same consumers are more likely
to purchase mp3 files online from iTunes or Amazon than buy CD’s of music. It’s a similar issue.
Visiting local independent stores may help where I know the
people, but generally it’s not as important in non-fiction current affairs of a
“global nature”.
There is also a question of how trademark works, if an author
has a series. Typically, only the most
recent book gets stocked, unless the series is very popular and sold in
packages or boxes (like Harry Potter). I
covered that May 19 on the Trademark blog. It appears that a series may already
have an automatic trademark (as applies to a book or media series only), but if
the author wants to apply to USPTO to reinforce the mark, he or she needs to be
in the active business of retailing the books with a separate operation. But I will check further into this.
I have been criticized for not spending more time on “sales”
of an existing product, especially the physical, old-world (non digital) items. Instead, I’m moving on to finish other media
projects (fiction, screenplay, documentary, music) and networking with specific
individuals and entities on these – “you know who you are” – like in social
media and by phone discussions). Also, I
could be seen as “competing with myself” by allowing it the books to be viewed
free online in HTML or PDF. Recently, I
uploaded the final story (“The Ocelot the Way He Is”) to my doaskdotell.com
site. I could call this the “It’s Free” problem. But how many people really would read an
entire book on PDF’s on a smart phone?
If they were inclined to, they might buy Nook or Kindle. But right, they probably won’t buy the book
in a store. But keeping something scarce
and expensive is not a way to be known.
I remember this problem, in parallel, back in the 1990s, when putting out a newsletter for Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty. Some people asked, why a physical paper when you can just have an email listserver and do everything digitally with no capital?
There's also a good question, what can make a "me" popular enough to showcase in a bookstore. I could say "It's hard out here for a pimp" or for a nerd. By take on "gay rights" is not easily made into a commodity. My "overcoming" my own "setback" early in life doesn't make me a hero in an easily understood sense. My message is ambiguous, and for the intellectually curious, not so much for just the faithful. I can not make "you" all right. If you catch a problem early, youstill need the social supports to deal with it.
The four major general purpose book chains (besides Amazon, which swallowed Borders), for which I have links, seem to be Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million,
Half Price, and Powells. I wouldn’t have
links in the smaller specialized chains like Christian book chains.
Friday, May 15, 2015
"The Great Divide" (William Gairdner): why liberals and conservative talk past one another (and this book is similar to my own DADT series)
Author: William D. Gairdner
Title: “The Great Divide: Why Liberals and Conservatives
will Never, Ever Agree”
Publication: Encounter, ISBN 978-1-59403-764-1, 264 pages,
hardcover (also paper), 264 pages, indexed, 4 parts, 17 chapters.
Amazon link is here. The publisher is characterized as a
“conservative book publisher” belonging to the non-profit Encounter for Culture
and Education. The author's own site is here.
I bought this book in a physical store, at a Barnes and
Noble, this week, when I visited to ponder placing my own third “Do Ask, Do
Tell” book in physical stores (rather than depend just online). The book is one
of the closest I have ever come to articulating my own concerns with the way
progressive causes are argued by the “liberal establishment” and the author’s
material, while organized differently, comes quite close to my own territory
(especially the non-fiction Epilogue in my own DADT-III book).
The author, curiously, is Canadian and prospers in a
“blue-state” society.
Right off, the author depicts modern western liberal society
as a mixture of private libertarianism and public socialism. He never seems to take the “obvious course”
of Cato, Richard Sincere, David Boaz and others – why not be “socially liberal”
and “fiscally conservative” at the same time – the idea behind the Nolan Chart
(Is that “Nolan” from “Revenge”?), or “The World’s Smallest Political Quiz”. In fact, he refers us to another quiz, “YourMorals”,
which the visitor can join and take the quiz, here.
Gairdner also expresses the conviction that liberty and
equality are essentially incompatible, or at least in tension with one
another. (There goes the French
Revolution!) To me, this sounds a bit
like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of quantum physics.
At this point, I have to note that this is rather a book in
epistemology. I reminds me of a young
man on the Metro a few months ago, a college undergraduate (GWU?) built like a
MLB baseball pitcher reading “A History of Philosophy”, or perhaps of a friend
in Minnesota almost two decades ago who help set up my talk on my own first
book at Hamline University in St. Paul, himself a graduating philosophy major,
with another friend there now a prominent writer at Vox Media. I fact, I now recall Professor Schlagel at GW
back around 1964 in my own Philosophy 101 course, his essay exams (I got a
“B”), his constantly asking, “how do we really know what is right?”
The book lays out, in many charts (one in each chapter) the
differences between liberal (socially libertarian but bureaucratically
authoritarian) and conservative (mainly socially conservative) positions on
many issues. Many times, the positions
seem to talk at one another. This also reminds me of the “Opposing Viewpoints”
series of books I have discussed here before.
What’s missing from the charts is the more Cato-like libertarian view. I found myself on the conservative side maybe on two-thirds of his points.
The two most notable ideas at issue is the way “liberals”
over-depend on “reason”, and the nature of freedom itself. And Gairdner, having already admitted early
on, that he has tended to migrate toward conservatism, seems to spend his
greatest attention to the conservative arguments. Since English doesn’t conjugate verbs in a
subjunctive mood the way French does, it’s a little hard to be sure if these
are his own personal beliefs, or just assertions. (Taking foreign languages in
high school is very good for critical thinking skills.)
Gairdner goes through Jesus (perhaps Moses and Mohammed as
well as “The Golden Rule”), then Bentham (utilitarianism), Mill (“do no harm”)
and Hume, examining how we know what is good and right. The discussions sounds like one in
theoretical cosmology or physics. Ultimately,
he seems to side with the conservative and religious view that right or wrong
is something inherent in nature and is created for us, and is beyond
reason. What? “Morality without thinking?” (p. 149). But it isn’t hard to see that
reason alone can lead us to what seems “evil”.
For example, one can “rationalize” not letting the disabled live (like
Nazi Germany), or something like Mao’s Cultural Revolution. So some things seem
intrinsically wrong. Of course, murder
and robbery. But these have
victims. Chattel slavery. That has
victims (which radical Islam doesn’t seem to care about). Gairdner talks about
consuming pornography, but let’s focus in child pornography for a moment. You can’t consume that unless it was produced
by abusing an underage person. So reason
will prove that wrong (without any deeper postulate). But then it gets
harder. How about homosexual acts, or
even indulging in fantasy, or expressions?
Gairdner questions whether experience and reason, even together, can
guide us on matter like this one. Social conservatives used to say this
attacked a traditional underpinning of morality and decency (“universal principles
and religious commands”, p. 155) without giving anything more specific (OK,
procreation). We’ll come back to this.
I do agree that "reason" doesn't give us all our moral values. We takes as a "postulate" (like the Axiom of Choice in mathematics) that human life is sacred -- which can sometimes call for sacrifices from people outside of choice. Should everyone be expected to be able and open to sharing body resources (blood, organs for transplants) to save the lives of others? That is more pertinent today (with medical advances) than maybe it once was, but reason alone won't answer it. Do we all have a moral obligation to future generations, not just the unborn but the as yet unconceived? (Can people who don't yet exist make moral claims on us?) Should everyone stand ready with the skills to raise kids, even they don't have their own? Again, that's a judgment of society. But it does accept the idea there can be obligations as well as rights. Should "non-human" people (like dolphins and whales) have the same rights as us? Would extraterrestrials? Some day we could have to answer questions like that.
I do agree that "reason" doesn't give us all our moral values. We takes as a "postulate" (like the Axiom of Choice in mathematics) that human life is sacred -- which can sometimes call for sacrifices from people outside of choice. Should everyone be expected to be able and open to sharing body resources (blood, organs for transplants) to save the lives of others? That is more pertinent today (with medical advances) than maybe it once was, but reason alone won't answer it. Do we all have a moral obligation to future generations, not just the unborn but the as yet unconceived? (Can people who don't yet exist make moral claims on us?) Should everyone stand ready with the skills to raise kids, even they don't have their own? Again, that's a judgment of society. But it does accept the idea there can be obligations as well as rights. Should "non-human" people (like dolphins and whales) have the same rights as us? Would extraterrestrials? Some day we could have to answer questions like that.
Gairdner also talks about freedom or liberty, in the
conservative world, as “social freedom”.
On p. 117, he defines it as “the freedom of civil society to carry out
its social and moral functions of teaching, restraining and permitting certain
behaviors” (in a chart). He presents the
view that society itself has rights (something my father used to say). It’s probably more accurate to say that
social subsets, acting as groups, have some rights. That sounds like you want when you’re talking
about “The Natural Family” of Carlson and Mero (Sept. 18, 2009). But I can see how it can be “twisted”,
pretzel-like, into, say, justifying reparations for African-Americans “as a
group”. On p. 59, Gairdner gives an
effective discussion of “social bonding” as requiring sacrifice (or readiness
for it), subordination, commitment, and (finally) privilege. The implication is
that some benefits, or even compensation, in a properly free society should
come through immediate social groups, which places an onus on the individual to
“fit in”, somewhere. Examples of this
idea were the “family wage” of the past, and the debate over paid parental
leave today. It can mean that the
childless and/or unmarried are sometimes called upon to make personal
sacrifices to benefit those with more “responsibility” (from marital sexual
intercourse) – but then eldercare comes into play. "Social freedom" does encourage individuals to build more resilience, and make their social groups (and larger society) more capable of dealing with external challenges, from nature (like climate change) or from enemies.
“Social freedom” might apply to stages of history. The American Revolution was based on a
variation of this concept (freedom of the colonists as a group from British
rule) but then went through another stage with the Civil War and then Civil
Rights.
The idea of social bonding makes "logical" sense in that no individual's own personal accomplishments, even achieved alone, are meaningful until other people "consume" them. And outcome inequality is inevitable (as it is in nature), so, yes, there has to be some kind of social order, and heeding of leadership.
The idea of social bonding makes "logical" sense in that no individual's own personal accomplishments, even achieved alone, are meaningful until other people "consume" them. And outcome inequality is inevitable (as it is in nature), so, yes, there has to be some kind of social order, and heeding of leadership.
I am somewhat uncomfortable, however, with the concept. It
pretty obvious that it can hide authoritarian abuse (consider Vladimir Putin’s
behavior). I think we can represent a
“social right” as a more nuanced construct from individual rights (again,
almost thinking like a physicist), and tie the definition of "social right" to the basic source of morality in terms of both postulates and then reason.. Go back to Mill’s “Do no harm”. That becomes more useful if we fully consider
“indirect” or “downstream” harm. (including the “setting of examples” when a
partially appealing but evasive behavior is viewed publicly as OK). For example, some “self-serving” behaviors,
if allowed to be OK, send a message to the less fortunate that the rules of
civilized behavior, even in an individualistic culture, cannot give them a fair
shake. So while some of the inevitable
inequality that comes with individualism may help with innovation (and “trickle
down”), it can also lead to instability, through indignation and resentment,
which can result eventually in “revolutionary” violence or expropriation (as
has happened in history). Or it might
mutate into malignant doctrines exploiting religious beliefs.
In the last section, Gairdner lays out in some detail the
sides on homosexuality, abortion, and euthanasia. I can see the “indirect harm” idea if
euthanasia is accepted, because gradually the vulnerable elderly could be pressured
into it. That confers some positive
obligation on all of us to learn to care for others, regardless of our own
private choices – and that does seem to be a part of “social freedom”. As a gay man myself, I’ve never felt very
affected by the abortion debate – I can feel smug, and that isn’t such a good
thing. As an only child, did I have a
responsibility to procreate anyway?
On the debate on homosexuality, I must say that for most of
my life, the debate has been more about being “left alone”, not about wanting
equal benefits that I am very unlikely to need or use. (I can certainly have an important
relationship that does not need to be called or have the benefits of “marriage”
and I have never expected these benefits.)
Gairdner’s charts (“Where do you stand?”) tend to conflate the two parts
of the debate (look at “sexual privacy”
and “harm” on pp 216, 217). Gardner says that socially conservative arguments "are not aimed at particular individuals" but "are aimed at exposing the liberal case for homosexuality." Still, lack
of equality can cause someone to come knocking.
Sometimes we have to take on responsibility we didn’t choose (eldercare,
or raising a sibling’s child) and the lack of equality results in sacrifice
anyway. There have been times in my life when I was definitely not “left
alone”, like with my 1961 college expulsion from William and Mary for admitting
“latent homosexuality” when pressured by the Dean of Men. Some of the feedback that I got during those
difficult years was the idea that straight men felt like I would “scope” them
and make them feel uneasy about their own future ability to procreate. Is this real, or a bit of a stretch? Plausibly, it’s a kind of “indirect harm”
which to some people seems very real, given their upbringing. Or, this is
something that others have “gotten over” with more modern society. I personally found the debate over gays in
the military (which motivated my first book) more relevant than gay marriage. The author briefly mentions the public health concerns from the 1980s with STDS, particularly HIV.
The author argues away most of the common defenses of gay equality, including immutability and altruism; he also feels it is fine for traditional heterosexual marriage to be privileged (which the unmarried pay for) even when sterile, because it sets the "right" example for youth. In my own DADT book, I had suggested a "compromise": give marriage privileges only when there are actual dependents (pregnancy can count). That is, use results as qualification, not just symbols.
The author argues away most of the common defenses of gay equality, including immutability and altruism; he also feels it is fine for traditional heterosexual marriage to be privileged (which the unmarried pay for) even when sterile, because it sets the "right" example for youth. In my own DADT book, I had suggested a "compromise": give marriage privileges only when there are actual dependents (pregnancy can count). That is, use results as qualification, not just symbols.
I would like to see his comments on eugenics, contraception,
bullying, and even the historical male-only military draft.
What I think really matters is not so much “social freedom”,
but more a question, how should the individual who is “a little different”
really be expected to behave? Because
these ideas have real consequences in real individual lives.
Note: The book should not be confused with Joseph E. Stiglitz, "The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them" (2015), which looks interesting indeed. I'll have to look into this soon.
Monday, May 11, 2015
Luca Rossi: "The Branches of Time" (Volume I): what if time were like the other dimensions available to us from string theory?
Title: “The Branches of Time” (First Volume)
Author: Luca Rossi
Publication: Self (apparently, no company listed), ISBN
978-149743868-2, 151 pages, paper, 46 short chapters (Chapter 40 is the shortest book chapter of all time).
I typically don’t respond too well to authors or filmmakers “pushing”
their work directly to me on social media, but I did take this author up this
time and ordered the fantasy novel from Amazon.
The author, apparently born in Italy, seems to live and
write in Los Angeles today, and be near Tinseltown. He has a collection of
short stories called “Galactic Energies” set in another universe with different
laws of physics. And this novel appears
to be the first of series. The author appears to be interested in developing
fantasy or science fiction series for cable channels.
In my own mind, there are differences between fantasy and
science fiction, and gradations within science fiction where the writer
proposes a scenario that just could happen, if some day we have some new
epiphany on the way cosmology really works.
A novel or movie, for example, could propose what it would be like if
aliens really landed publicly and if life (including our political and
religious cultures, and economic systems) really could keep going on as
usual. That would take some of the
sensationalism out of a film like “Independence Day” (1996). That’s why I like television series like NBC’s
“The Event” or ABC’s “Flash Forward”.
J.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” (I do have a
hardbound copy) is fantasy, but Clive Barker’s “Imajica” is science fiction by
this characterization, as the latter imagines Earth’s suddenly (or more
gradually) coming into direct contact with four other planets (one of which
houses “Heaven”).
In fantasy, we live in a parallel world, with no contact
with Earth, but with beings similar to us.
Maybe it’s another solar system, or maybe it’s in another universe – and
I’ve talked about “multiverse” here before (March 7).
In Mr. Rossi’s novel, we do seem to be in a parallel
universe, with different laws of physics, at least slightly. It’s possible to imagine a universe without
the “weak force” (called “weakless”) with the consequence that there could be
no heavy radioactive elements. It might
be peaceful. But in Rossi’s universe,
time behaves more like a spatial dimension (our of string theory); it is
sometimes possible to go backwards and change things.
Mr. Rossi seems concerned about the moral consequences of
such an idea. The novel starts with an apocalypse. Most of the people on an
island state of Turios (on a planet that seems to have a mild, Mediterranean
climate) have suddenly been killed and their corpses are disappearing. The
three main survivors are a knight Bashinor, his wife Lil, and a priestess
Miril. The entire kingdom, Isk, is ruled
by an evil King Beanor whose values sound more or less like those of ISIS
today. There are wizards and magicians
who control some of the military capacities.
Bashinor feels his own manhood is threatened – and the book
makes a lot of how important the possibility of permanent lineage is for many
men for marital sex to work reliably. In
that sense, the book reflects, in a curious way, the culture war debate about
marriage here on Earth. (Do other
planets have traditional marriage?) Priestesses don’t sleep with husbands, or
even former spouses. It’s possible to be
born as a priest or priestess, or to go through some cleansing ritual to become
one. (I have to recall a friend in NYC
back in the 1970s who called one of his cats “The High Priestess”, who really
liked me.)
Later, though, the big picture emerges. The magicians have the ability to rewind
time, and remove people from past existence (which equates to a kind of
permanent existence in Stephen Hawking’s concept of space-time). This means that the people who loved you may
never have existed, in this alternate universe.
Toward the end, Bashinor has to contemplate the relationship between Lil
and Miril, which seems lesbian. Yet, he
can prove that his manhood survives, as will his progeny.
The ending of the book is curious, but probably only because
there is a sequel.
The intimate scenes are explicit in spots (rather like that
of an “R” movie), and the descriptive technique and metaphors reminding one of
Clive Barker.
A list of all the characters would help, as would a drawing of the island and the geography of the island and the entire kingdom.
Tuesday, May 05, 2015
National Geographic series on dolphins: non-human people with an alien civilization in our oceans, with an "economy" based on "free fish" and absolute communism
National Geographic has started a three-part series “Understanding
Dolphins: Intelligence, Captivity, Culture”, by Joshua Foer, with photographs
by Brian Skerry, on page 30 of the May 2015 issue, with a bold cover title “Thinking
Like a Dolphin: Understanding one of the smartest creatures on Earth”.
Dolphins are cetaceans, an unusual mammalian order that
includes whales, and that broke off from land mammals as long as 95 million
years ago. Orcas, or killer whales, are the largest and likely the smartest of
all.
The reason for the breakoff seems to be, as expressed in one
of Reid Ewing’s short films, “Free Fish”.
Food supply (perhaps as a result of a climate cycle) was more plentiful in
the ocean than on land. Dolphins
innovated by evolution of their bodies rather than by making tools with their
hands and brains. Their brains support a
complex sonar, which amounts to forming a biological Internet. They are enormously communal and social
creatures, where socialization replaces the need for money currency as in human
society – but that’s also partly because food and shelter are “free” – a deep “political”
point of Mr. Ewing’s 2012 films (for those familiar with them).
Dolphin brains are larger than human brains (usually) and
have about the same processing power for problem solving. Human innovation ability (in tool making) passed
dolphin capacity about 5-10 million years ago, according to a chart in the
article. Dolphins have the ability to
put half their brain to sleep at a time, a process we could barely fathom
(maybe like coming in and out of a dream, like in the movie “Inception”).
The article asks not, “how smart are dophins” but “how are
dolphins smart”?
The very long period of separate evolution, in a totally
different environment (an aquarium of infinite volume and living space – the world’s
oceans) evolved what amounts to an “alien civilization” in our oceans – maybe as
close as we will come to meeting “ET” for quite a long time.
Dolphins apparently use their sonar to assign individuals
names – the only other animal besides man to name individuals. But we’re not sure if they have a grammatical
language like ours (where maybe sonar signatures work somewhat like pictographs
in Chinese or other Asian languages).
The social structures are so strong that they are said to
have a “distributed sense of self” (source, based on "Blackfish" movie here, Movies, July 29, 2013) and sometimes have mass beachings because
one member gets in trouble.
The evolution of the dolphin, parallel to that of primates
in a different environment, raises the idea that evolution of intelligent
species may indeed be common on other suitable planets. Imagine a society of dolphin-like creatures in the sub-ice oceans on Europa, Ganymede, or even Titan. It also raises profound ethical and perhaps
legal questions. Think about how we used
whale oil for lights in the 19th century! Does a creature with our level of
intelligence deserve full legal rights?
What if a “Clark Kent” really did come here from another planet
somehow. Would he have the same rights
as any human? I know, some people claim
that Mark Zuckerberg is an alien, who has conquered our planet peacefully by
writing computer code, with Facebook giving us the functionality or an orca’s
sonar.
We could mention the 1969 novel "The Day of a Dolphin", by Robert Merle ("A Sentient Animal" or "Un animal doue de raison"), adapted loosely into a movie in 1973 with George C. Scott, about a dolphin who, after training, is kidnapped and used in an assassination plot. I read the translated boo when in the Army.
We could mention the 1969 novel "The Day of a Dolphin", by Robert Merle ("A Sentient Animal" or "Un animal doue de raison"), adapted loosely into a movie in 1973 with George C. Scott, about a dolphin who, after training, is kidnapped and used in an assassination plot. I read the translated boo when in the Army.
See also my main blog, Dec. 20, 2014.
Update: June 15, 2015
The June 2015 issue of National Geographic has a followup article on p. 58, "Born to Be Wild", by Tim Zimmermann, said to be the second of a three-part series "Understanding Dolphins", "Captivity", showing programs to release them back into the wold.
Update: July 20 2016
The July 2015 issue has part 3 on p. 80, "Feeding Frenzy", by Virginia Morell, explaining how matriarchal pods of orcas hunt for "free fish", train the young, and engage in "carousel feeding", even forcing sea lions to beach.
Update: June 15, 2015
The June 2015 issue of National Geographic has a followup article on p. 58, "Born to Be Wild", by Tim Zimmermann, said to be the second of a three-part series "Understanding Dolphins", "Captivity", showing programs to release them back into the wold.
Update: July 20 2016
The July 2015 issue has part 3 on p. 80, "Feeding Frenzy", by Virginia Morell, explaining how matriarchal pods of orcas hunt for "free fish", train the young, and engage in "carousel feeding", even forcing sea lions to beach.
Labels:
animal intelligence,
national geographic,
science
Saturday, May 02, 2015
Independent bookstores are making a comeback
The Washington Post is reporting on “Independent Bookstore
Day”, and particularly on the comeback of independent bookstores, in an article
by Ron Charles, in the Style Section, here. The demise of Borders is said to
have eliminated a lot of their “competition”.
I’ve often written about how independent book stores have to
deal with competition online, as well as the chains stores. The LGBT bookstore, like Lambda Rising, has
been one of the casualties. Could it come back? Right now, Kammerbooks on Dupont Circle is indeed one of my
own favorite spots.
In an article on my main “BillBoushka” blog April 30, I did
discuss why I don’t make more effort to market my own books to retail
outlets. This has become a sore point
with some people, but a lot of it has to deal with just my own time, and the
finite limit of 168 hours a week. I find
spending time on new projects and other media more productive now. Selling books “for their own sake”, as items,
by themselves, has become controversial as a business and personal priority
matter.
Update: May 8
One of the companies called today and offered a book returnability program for $1300 a year, which would work through Ingram. The sales pitch included the idea of "local authors". I don't know if, in my circumstances and content, I would have the "popularity" for this to work, given the time it takes to visit and talk to stores. Of course, that's what my own father used to to (with glass). I think that working with more content in other media and with situation-specific networking is much more effective, given time constraints and lack of scale. I might visit a specific store for some specific reason (knowing the people there, or who visit there), but not do this as a regular strategy enough to justify the investment.
It does disturb some people that I would publish a book and then not "pimp" it as a consumer item (or wholesale item), but "publishing" has come to mean something much broader than just selling instances of one kind of item. "As the world turns."
Update: May 15
I visited a large Barnes and Noble Tuesday. I was told that stocking should go through corporate, perhaps from the publisher. But the wording of the returnability email seems to encourage working with smaller, independent stores.
I did notice that BN stores do keep a number of copies of more popular books on shelves (sometimes up to 20). There was only one case of "current affairs" but each book had three or four copies. So trying to stock them nationally could definitely make sense. My book would look good on the current affairs display. Most all of the books in the Current Affairs area on display were less than two years old. However, older books were present in "how to" sections as well as, of course, fiction (especially genre).
There's also a good question as to whether all three should be packaged together -- although I do not have the popularity of Harry Potter. There would seem to be a question about trademarking my catch phrase. I see that USPTO has just added a lot of new advisory material to its website and will look at it soon.
Update: May 16
Barnes and Noble does have a link for how small publishers should get their books in its stores, here. There is also a link on bookfairs here. For an author with a series, there would be a question on trademarking the series name, which I discussed on my trademark blog today.
Update: May 27
I have signed on to an Indepedent Bookstore pitch campaign. More details here.
One of the companies called today and offered a book returnability program for $1300 a year, which would work through Ingram. The sales pitch included the idea of "local authors". I don't know if, in my circumstances and content, I would have the "popularity" for this to work, given the time it takes to visit and talk to stores. Of course, that's what my own father used to to (with glass). I think that working with more content in other media and with situation-specific networking is much more effective, given time constraints and lack of scale. I might visit a specific store for some specific reason (knowing the people there, or who visit there), but not do this as a regular strategy enough to justify the investment.
It does disturb some people that I would publish a book and then not "pimp" it as a consumer item (or wholesale item), but "publishing" has come to mean something much broader than just selling instances of one kind of item. "As the world turns."
Update: May 15
I visited a large Barnes and Noble Tuesday. I was told that stocking should go through corporate, perhaps from the publisher. But the wording of the returnability email seems to encourage working with smaller, independent stores.
I did notice that BN stores do keep a number of copies of more popular books on shelves (sometimes up to 20). There was only one case of "current affairs" but each book had three or four copies. So trying to stock them nationally could definitely make sense. My book would look good on the current affairs display. Most all of the books in the Current Affairs area on display were less than two years old. However, older books were present in "how to" sections as well as, of course, fiction (especially genre).
There's also a good question as to whether all three should be packaged together -- although I do not have the popularity of Harry Potter. There would seem to be a question about trademarking my catch phrase. I see that USPTO has just added a lot of new advisory material to its website and will look at it soon.
Update: May 16
Barnes and Noble does have a link for how small publishers should get their books in its stores, here. There is also a link on bookfairs here. For an author with a series, there would be a question on trademarking the series name, which I discussed on my trademark blog today.
Update: May 27
I have signed on to an Indepedent Bookstore pitch campaign. More details here.
Friday, May 01, 2015
Leonard Susskind: "The Black Hole War", making the universe safe for information retention (and maybe the afterlife)
Author: Leonard Susskind
Title: “The Black Hole War”
Subtitle: “My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World
Safe for Quantum Mechanics”
Publication: 2008: Hachette/Back Bay, ISBN 978-0-316-01641-4,
470 pages, paper, indexed
Amazon link.
I picked up this book, in conjunction with one by Brian
Greene (March 7), out of interest in the basic for spirituality, religion, and
the afterlife, to the extent that cosmology can support it. This book is a little older than the Greene
book.
Stephen Hawking had somewhat startled the world of physics a
couple decades ago when he said that information would be lost forever inside
black holes. He has since changed his
mind somewhat, at least partially. This
book by Susskind is a lengthy and heavily illustrated exploration (along with
the histories of various meetings and conferences) of the way the author
followed up on the problem over many years.
The essential components of the cosmos that must interact seem
to be energy and entropy, which itself is a logarithmic measure of the number
of specific states or combinations of undetermined information can exist. Entropy is the reason we have ideas like
probability and statistics. Entropy also
explains why we cannot completely predict, for example, whether a tornado will
form over a specific location (my house) during a severe weather outbreak. Both concepts are related to heat.
Other ideas that he gets into would include black hole
complementarity (almost with a twinge of Vatican morality), and D-branes. He gets into string theory late in the game,
and isn’t as interested as Greene in the multiverse idea. Susskind also
rehearses the old depilatory theorems:
Black holes are hairless enough for Men’s Health (which may sound like
an unfortunate pun). But that may not be
true after all. They may be more like
beards after neat grooming and trimming after all.
The basic idea, in the end, is that quantum mechanics
eventually leads us to black hole evaporation, of Hawking radiation, which
could release the information back to the universe, however scrambled. In terms of quantum physics, burning a book
doesn’t destroy its information.
The subject is further explored in the April 2015 issue of “Scientific
American”, titled “Burning Rings of Fire”, p. 36, by Joseph Polchinski, link here (paywall subscription required). (I found this mag in a Harris Teeter, hidden by a "17" issue with a cover of Ansel Elgort!) Princeton
physicist Juan Maldacena has more calculations and theories, which come closer
to resolving the controversy. One
confounding idea is that a black hole could be surrounded by a “firewall”, or “ring
of fire”, which obliterates anything that hits it, and separates the interior
from space-time completely.
In general, very large black holes could be inconspicuous. Entering one out of self-indulgent curiosity
could be a non-event. You just can never
leave – a kind of life-without-parole. Theories have suggested that the entire
solar system could be inside a black hole and we would never know until we got
too close to the singularity in the center and were suddenly obliterated like “Lot’s
wife” in Genesis). But the firewall idea (thanks to Webroot,
maybe) trashes this hope.
Micro black holes might exist because of the way other
unused dimensions (in string theory) allow gravity to work (and Susskind goes
into a lot of discussion about why gravity is so “weak” compared to other
forces). They would be likely to
evaporate quickly into Hawking radiation.
Could a firewall “protect” a micro black hole?
All of this matters, because information storage (in Planck
units of 10 to the -70 power square meters per bit) is always related to area,
not to volume (p. 140 of the book). The
relation of area to volume of a sphere seems to be 3/r. It would seem that tiny black holes could be
efficient in storing the “information” of someone’s personal consciousness and
provide a conduit to reincarnation or afterlife.
Another idea is that the three dimensions that we experience
in daily life really are a mathematical hologram projected onto two dimensions
(maybe like a 3-D movie), since information is based on area.
Pictures: Does my train set (where UFO abductees are “trained”),
whatever its three dimensions (with the chutes) look like a hologram?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)