Interesting Links for 13-01-2015

[andrewducker]

• Finally, a guide to successfully interrogating terrorists
  (tags: terrorism interrogation psychology )
• We have experienced anarchy like this before. We should not over-react to it
  (tags: liberal anarchy terrorism violence law politics )
• £300 for a job reference is the latest outrage in the exploitation of interns
  (tags: work OhForFucksSake

Comments

10 Things You Should Never Apologise For

[danieldwilliam]

I think number 8 about not apologising for how much you earn has quite a lot wrong with it from the point of view of Marxist economics and a rational approach to the universe.

Re: 10 Things You Should Never Apologise For

[andrewducker]

At what point should you start apologising? Having more than the global median income (£11k)? Having more than necessary to not starve when other people are starving? Being in the global 1% (about £22,500)?

Re: 10 Things You Should Never Apologise For

[ext_2864067]

The earnings thing: I'd say one certainly should not apologise. That's a fruitless waste of effort, meaningless to those affected.

If one cares about it, one should campaign to change the systematic inequities that it represents.

Re: 10 Things You Should Never Apologise For

[danieldwilliam]

The problem is that money is not an exchange for energy.

It’s an exchange for a) according to classical economics a balance of demand and supply influenced by marginal costs and marginal benefits of productive labour or b) a more Marxist view that it is an exchange or return for being in a position of power - such power might be derived from being the only person willing and able to do the job as per classical economics or it might be a more perfidious use of types of political power.

The other problem is that apologising for how much you earn is not a signal to the universe to turn off the abundance - or do anything about the abundance. The universe is not listening. I think it is incapable of listening.

Basically boat number 8 is sailing close to mystical hooee.

[despotliz]

I can't find the post I was looking for to leave in this comment, which is one from David Gaider talking about how he goes about writing a character for a video game, and it had a whole bunch of flow charts and diagrams in and it was surprising to see just how much of the process is driven by budget and the total number of lines they can afford to have in the game. This post also goes into it a bit although without the diagrams. So I suspect part of the answer to why you can't play as a male or female protagonist is it would add a surprising amount to the budget and for most game developers this is not a high enough priority - even given the choice less than 20% of games played Mass Effect 3 as a female Shepherd, and maybe they don't think it's worth the cost to make content for that 20% when they can spend half the money and keep the 80% happy.

(Those 80% are weird and wrong though, because female Shepherd is THE BEST.)

[andrewducker]

She certainly is!

[ext_2864067]

Femshep is far superior, certainly

[octopoid_horror]

Fallout: New Vegas handles diverse sexuality very well, without it involving player romance (although you can get shagged by a rather assertive robot, if that's your thing)

It also has a bisexual character who isn't portrayed as a sex-hungry slut, which is nice.

Mass Effect chat: since Bioware for some reason didn't allow for human/Krogan romance, it's still pretty cool that you can get together with Jaavik. Very awkwardly, admittedly.

It's also very neat that romance blossoms between two of your crew if you don't get involved with either of them.

[bart_calendar]

Wait. The Last Of Us - where the main character is certainly female - sold well over 7 million copies and yet publishers don't think people will buy a game with a female lead?

[andrewducker]

Yup. People consistently go and see movies with female leads, but movie makers are convinced that nobody wants them too!

Same with Legend of Korra - Nick were convinced that people wouldn't watch an action-oriented animation with a female lead, and yet they did!

[bart_calendar]

All I know is I will buy this game to support Square Enix for publishing it. (And pray they use the money to make the next Final Fantasy game less of a piece of shit than the most recent one.)

[bart_calendar]

P.S. Look at the trailer for that game.

It' looks awesome!

http://lifeisstrange.com/

What's weird is that it's not listed on Amazon.co.uk at all even as a pre-order. I would think Amazon would list anything by Square Enix.

[bart_calendar]

#7 in the things to not apologize for is just plain wrong.

If your three year old is running around a bar, knocks into my table and spills my pint on me you should apologize (This happens to me at least six times a year.)

And if your five year old is blasting around on a scooter around cafe tables and runs over my foot (once in 2015 to me already, at least four times last year) you should also apologize.

Another example from last year. Someone had their toddler running around the pub and the only word it had learned to say was "putain" (whore) and it kept pointing at people and screaming "whore" at them. I think that deserves a "sorry" as well.

[ext_2864067]

I'd agree, though the article writer did state 'Unless they are throwing their own poo around in a restaurant or yelling out vulgarities to others', so she's partially, though not entirely, on the same page as you there.

[bart_calendar]

There is a wide range of behavior between throwing poo and knocking over drinks.

[ext_2864067]

I was more talking about the vulgarities bit.

[major_clanger]

The point about not apologising for what you earn got my attention as I've recently realised that I am self-censoring my online posts - even friends-locked ones - because I find myself feeling uncomfortable even alluding to the fact that I have, by most of my friends' standards, a relatively high income. So many people I know are eking out a hand-to-mouth existence, or are commenting that they are (for example) no longer attending conventions because of lack of money, that I've begun to feel awkward about making posts that indicate that I have a disposable income because so many people I know don't.

[andrewducker]

I also get embarassed about that. I earned around £50k last year, which is well above what most of my friends earn - and knowing that some of them are existing on much lower amounts of money does trouble me.

But self-censoring doesn't strike me as an answer to that - that seems to lead to people not having open discussions about why the situation is as it is, and what can/should be done about it.

[bart_calendar]

Yep. Once in a while I'll post what I made on a given freelance job. And one of the reasons I do that is that many people are trying to get into online freelance writing and have no clue at all what kind of money they can ask for - so they end up asking for much, much less than the market will actually bear.

I've found this out through people messaging me "A potential client is offering $50 for xxx, is that a good deal?" and me being like "Um...no...the industry standard for that is $350 and some clients will pay up to $500."

[octopoid_horror]

I think some of the awkwardness around salaries is because, in the UK at least, they're somewhat personal.

What I mean by that is that my salary relates directly to me - someone else in my department doing the exact same job gets a different salary because of factors like how much budget there's been in years when they've got a raise, what salary they were brought in on, whether their team as a whole did well, how long they've been with the company. The salary is related to them, not the role, in effect. What someone else in the same role earns has little impact on my salary.

I would be more comfortable if salaries were widely known, and very closely tied to the role (possibly with a % increase for length of service although I'd argue length of service doesn't really equate to skill) but bonuses of whatever kind were not public and were the more individual part of this