An interesting case of social engineering

I noticed an interesting thing the other night while I was watching television, in how certain "groups" of people are portrayed.

In African-American circles, there's a lot of outcry about how television wrongly depicts black people as this or that and how American television is actually responsible for a large portion of racism in modern America. From what I've seen and read, that is mostly viewed as borderline conspiracy theory. I'm not so sure I can say that television is responsible, but I do believe that television certainly perpetuates it, or at least doesn't do anything to abate the tide of racism that we have in our country. And really, I'm not so sure that it's television's job to conquer racism, especially Prime Time television. I certainly believe, however, that television should not be promoting racism as it appears to do on a regular basis.

In the past decade or so, a new "group" of individuals has been "showcased" on television: homosexuals. From what I've observed from the shows I've watched and the pop culture I understand, I've begun to see a bit of social engineering.

Just from what I've seen, I think that homosexuals are over-represented on television, just as much as black people are under-represented and stereotyped.

Basically, homosexuals represent a very, very small portion of the population, but they are represented through television in a large portion of shows. If you look at how often black people are represented, you will notice that black people are under-represented. Meaning, that, in real life, you will more likely run into a black person (about 17% of the population) than you will a homosexual (about 3-5%, according to most studies). In fact, it is a bit more likely you will run into say, an atheist (about 9% of the population), than a homosexual, but the representation of atheists on television is extremely small. Of course, that also leads to another question: Atheism is something you can't see, unlike race, as is homosexuality. Why is it such a big deal that some characters are determined to be characterized by something that is practiced in private? Does it really matter?

Additionally, something I've noticed is the kind of representation that homosexuals receive on television. Black people are generally represented as a kind of "token" character, like "we have to have a black person on the show, or else the show won't be believable." But, in a lot of these shows, black people are given every type of character, good and bad.

However, in all of the shows I've seen where a homosexual is in the cast, they are all cast as a "super-normal" individual. No crime. No hang-ups. Just a homosexual trying to make it through life, all the while letting everyone know that they are gay. Not only is this odd, it's completely illogical.

It is unreasonable to believe that homosexuals don't commit crime or don't encounter the same societal issues that the heterosexuals do and if they do have the same struggles as heterosexuals do, it is certainly unlikely that all of them come through it as easily or heroically as portrayed on television.

Why am I getting hung up on television when we all know television is fake? Because we don't all know that television is fake. Yes, we can intellectually understand that television is fake, but psychologically, when we are exposed to the same stimulus over and over again, fake or not, we tend to believe it as reality. We are basically conditioned by television every day of our lives.

So, am I saying that homosexuals shouldn't be portrayed on television as generally good people? Am I saying that homosexuals shouldn't be portrayed on television as much as they are? Not really. What I am saying is that it is completely ludicrous that homosexuals are being portrayed as often as they are, without all the problems that the rest of us face.

Of course, I don't watch every show on television, and I certainly don't watch every show that has a homosexual on it. So, it's possible that I simply haven't observed enough television to make an accurate statement. But, isn't that the point, that the television I do watch, about 2-3 hours a day sometimes, is approximately the same amount of television (at least!) that everyone else watches? Is it really fair that African-Americans get portrayed the way they do, usually with many issues, many times related to crime or poverty, but homosexuals are portrayed nearly as often as African-Americans, but without any of the hangups?

Random Political Thoughts

New Bumper Stickers

Hillary/Obama/Edwards:
Not George Bush since 1776

Guliani/McCain/Romney:
Not George Bush since 1776

Er... wait...

Those who don't trust anyone else cannot be trusted

I think I've figured out the Left/Progressives. I've been trying to figure out what exactly is the core of the Left's belief system and until now, it's mostly boggled me. But I think I've got it now.

Trust. The Left doesn't trust the Average American. Yes, that's scathing. Yes, it's a blanket statement, but walk with me for a minute as I explore this line of thinking.

Let's go with Gun Control first. The Right generally supports the Second Amendment. There are some that want everyone to have guns. They are idiots. Not everyone (criminals, mentally ill, underage, etc.) should have guns. But the more level-headed realize that it is our right to have guns and that "an armed society is a polite society." (Thank you, Robert Heinlein!) The Left, from what I can generally gather is the polar opposite. No one (except for the military and police) should have guns. Period. There is plenty of research out there that confirms that guns do not cause crime. In fact, that same research explicitly proves that if the citizenry is armed, crime is reduced, and if the citizenry is disarmed, crime increases. It's like magic! This is proven over and over again. So, what's the deal?

Well, I've already made my major point in that it's a matter of trust. The Left doesn't trust "other people" with guns. Right after the VA Tech massacre, there was a short debate about gun control and basically as soon as it was demonstrated that a single student with a gun would have stopped the whole thing, the conversation was pretty much dropped from the news. I was listening to someone talk about gun control and they stated, "I don't think I would feel safe if an entire major American city's population was armed." Er... why? Because they'd all be violent, crime-loving barbarians as soon as they bought the firearm? Hardly. It's because he didn't trust anyone but himself. Rest assured that more people carry concealed weapons than you probably realize.

This is kind of like how, for a long while, pretty much everyone believed that everyone else on the internet was some kind of homosexual, child-stalking, porn-watching pervert or something.

Let's move on to another topic: Poverty and the welfare state. What's the deal with the Left always wanting to raise the minimum wage and put more folks on welfare? Remember, welfare was supposed to eliminate poverty. I guess in one way, it did. Our poor have more stuff/money/resources than the rest of the world's poor. So, we have the richest poor in the world. But it's all relative. The poor (and the Left) measure their "poorness" against the "rich" and their "richness." The average family in poverty has a microwave, TV, cell phone and a car. The average rich family? Well, I don't know. But I can use my imagination and choose to believe that they have a better microwave, a larger TV, more minutes per month on their cell phone plan and better and more cars. Whether that's true... I don't know.

But, getting back to the point, the massive expansion of our welfare state was caused by the Left. Why? Because they didn't trust the Average American to take care of the Less Than Average American. Now, I don't know if that is really true. But what does it matter? The Left scored a huge voting block because of this. However, I am inclined to think that if The Church (yes, the Christian Church) spent more time taking care of the poor then, we wouldn't have so much of a poverty problem now. Basically, and I have no facts to back this up, I believe that The Church fell down on the job and that is why the Government decided to step up. Now, I concede that it is possible that The Church could possibly have been doing very well at caring for the poor and the government just wanted to score that big voting block, but I guess we'll never know.

Next topic: Affirmative Action. In short, the government doesn't trust the private sector to hire enough people of race (whether they are qualified or not) so the government stepped in and dictated how many of every race you must hire. Or else.

Abortion: Well, I haven't quite figured this one out. I do know, however, that calling it a "women's rights issue" is bogus. It's all about the money. Sure, it may have started as a women's rights issue, but that's not the case any more.

So, now that I've given you a prism through which to view politics of the Left, see if you can take an issue and break it down this way. See if you don't get as ticked off as I do about it.

My Dream Republican Ticket

Romney/Gingrich or Gingrich/Romney

Gingrich totally excites me. He's the most intellectual person I think I've ever seen on television. Check out the Contract with America to see some of his handiwork.

Romney is smart, looks good, has great Christian values and doesn't say "nuk-u-lar," at least I haven't heard him say it.

50% of something is better than 100% of nothing

I heard someone say that today on the radio. He was referring to Guliani, and how he is pro-choice, and how many conservatives won't vote for him because of that. Sad, really. Put it this way, you don't have to vote for Guliani in the Primaries, but you had better vote for him the general if he's the nominee. What would you want more:

Guliani, a pro-choice Republican who shares a few of our values, will be strong on terror and crime and will be a strong presence in the White House

Hillary/Obama/Edwards, pro-choice Democrats who share none of our values and will appease and attempt to negotiate with terrorists (including probably passing laws to make it illegal to detonate a nuk-u-lar weapon inside a U.S. city)

What do you get if you don't vote for Guliani because he's pro-choice? A Democrat who is pro-choice. You lose.

If you don't vote, we will lose.

God vs. Science

There's been some talk about a couple Christian guys getting ready to debate a couple atheist guys and how the Christian guys are going to prove God exists through Science and without the Bible.

Ugh. I hate it when Christians (or atheists!) think they can do this. I have a bad feeling the atheists are going to take their lunch and walk all over the Christian guys, but not because God doesn't exist, but because the Christian guys are... well... dumb for trying this.

Let's get one thing straight. You can't prove or disprove God with science. Period. Anyone who thinks they can clearly has no idea what science actually is and risks basically making a fool of themselves. I say this for both sides. Atheists can't disprove God with science, either, because that's not the way this works.

I like to define stuff, so let me define science.

1 : the state of knowing : knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding
2 a : a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study science of theology> b : something (as a sport or technique) that may be studied or learned like systematized knowledge science>
3 a : knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method b : such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena : NATURAL SCIENCE
4 : a system or method reconciling practical ends with scientific laws science and an art
5 capitalized : CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

I added the bold in definition 3. Basically, science is the study of the observable, what is around us. Additionally, it uses the scientific method to describe and prove/disprove concepts, events and theories. This is not how to prove God exists.

Revelation 12:11 says, " They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony..." That is how to do it. You're not going to prove anything about God in 10 minutes. If it was possible to do so, it would be done over and over and over again. Plus, half of the Bible would be useless because we would no longer need faith. Also, if science could do it all, why would Evangelism even be a gift of the Spirit? People don't instantly get convinced that they need Christ. They get convinced that they need what Christians have. This takes time and some folks will never be convinced of that. That's just the way it is.

Anyway, science uses methods to prove concepts. There are many divisions of science, like physics, chemistry, meteorology, astronomy and the like. In every single one of those divisions, there are theories and concepts and principles that follow rules that don't change. F=MxA (Force equals mass times acceleration) is one. The Laws of Thermodynamics are others. Over and over and over again, these can be proven.

The problem is, many people think that a Theory is something that is not provable, that it is a "belief" that scientists have. (Actually, that's criminally oversimplified.) A Theory is a belief, but not because there's no evidence to prove the Theory and scientists need "faith" to understand said theory. A scientific theory is called a theory because there are parts of the theory that aren't quite understood or haven't been figured out quite yet or predict how something is supposed to act, but we haven't had the chance to prove it. A large (or small) part of a scientific theory follows the laws that should be followed, but there are some parts that are missing, and those parts are expected to follow whatever laws should apply. Okay, let's make this more complex.

Relativity. Wait! Stop! Keep reading! It's called a Theory because it best explains the behavior of an object inside a gravitational field. No one else has a better explanation, and the principles stated within General Relativity best explain what happens to objects that are affected by gravity. In fact, parts General Relativity can be proven over and over and over again and have been. However some parts, specifically relating to, say, black holes, are only predictions, since we can't actually visit or even really see black holes. However, we expect them to act a certain way, and no one has any reason to believe that they won't. That is how theories work. Okay, done with Relativity.

You can't prove/disprove God with science because that's not how He works. Besides, if God created science, why would he allow Himself to be disproved by it and if he wants us to use faith (as evidenced by the many times in the Bible it says so) why would He allow himself to boxed into being proven by a simple scientific experiment?

So, good luck guys. I hope you know your stuff because I think you are going to get trounced.

Oh, and to anyone who may think so: SCIENCE IS NOT EVIL. Period. And I'll debate anyone who thinks so... as if anyone actually reads this blog....

A Prediction

Okay, I want to predict something. I know I can and probably will be wrong, but if I'm not, I at least want to be able to say that I predicted it.

As far as I can see, the political atmosphere is like this:

The Democrats desperately want to liked by the rest of the world and don't care what the Republicans think about them. They (Democrats) use the whole "the world hates us because of Iraq" thing and the media gives them way too much airtime for it. Nothing America does will never actually be the right thing to do, according to the rest of the world, which is why the Democrats take that tone, too. The rest of the world has disliked us for one reason or another since WWII, whether it's because we're such a young country and are so powerful and rich so early, or because we just have the best looking girls, or just because Donald Trump is from the US, and not, say, Germany.

The Republicans desperately want to be liked by the Democrats and don't care what the rest of the world thinks about them. They (Republicans) don't understand that this sort of inferiority complex is actually a media bias and have yet to understand that about 95% of the media favors Democrats. Nothing any Republican will ever do will ever be right, even if they actually compromise or agree with the Democrats. Therefore, the Republicans will always compromise their values in order to score points with the Democrats, only to find themselves at square one... again... and then trying to figure out what happened. Just remember, the Democrats don't care about being liked by the Republicans. They just want to be liked by everyone else that isn't American.

So, enough funny stuff. Keep my expert analysis in the back of your mind as you read the rest of this, though.

Basically, Iraq is going to come down to a hellacious nightmare. (Not there. Here.) We're going to fight about it for the next two years, until the next president is elected, which will probably be a Democrat.

I predict that at some point, Russia (and maybe a few other countries) will seize on all our infighting and "volunteer" a bunch of troops in order to "help" us with Iraq. This will happen once the Surge has been reasonably effective.

After we get the message that Russia wants to help, the next administration (likely a Democratic one) will take credit for restoring the world's faith and trust in us and will gladly allow Russia to put some troops in Iraq so that we can bring a large portion of our guys home. It's a win-win. Everyone else likes America again, the Democrats shove this down the Republicans' throats, who agree to allow the Russian conglomerate to take a larger role in Iraq just so they can show the Democrats how bipartisan they can be.

Once the transfer is complete, Russia will "suddenly" become friends with Iran. You can guess where that will lead: an Iran/Russia-ruled Iraq.

Remember that Russia has been the sort of go-between for Iran and the rest of the world. Russia has played it cool with them, offering to help the rest of the world sort out the different impasses we've had with Iran.

So, there you have it. I hope I'm wrong.

Pacifism isn't what you think it is...

One of my favorite conservative pundits that I have ever known is Michael Graham. (His blog is on my links section.) Back when I lived in SC, he was a radio host on the local station. He was funny, irreverent, but really, he was very, very smart and he knows the business of politics. He's never run for office, that I know of, but I know he has participated in a few campaigns.

So, moving to the point. Somewhere, he got involved in the VA Tech massacre discussion and said something incredibly profound and now there's a bit of a backlash. To make a long blog short, he simply asked the question why no one in VA Tech actually did anything to stop the killer. During that brief time, where he killed 32 students and then himself, he came into contact with dozens, possibly hundreds, of students. And not one of them did anything to stop him.

Apparently, no one tried to talk to him. No one tried to physically apprehend him. No one tried to rush him. No one tried to band together, a la Flight 93, to end his murderous rampage. That is an important question, I think, because it says a lot about what our parents are teaching our children.

In this discussion, he's been placed in the line of fire by a Lefty group, Media Matters. They posted a story, linked in Michael's blog, to what he said and what others have said.

One comment summed up what I think is the crux of how many people feel about violence. "I've never met a parent who did not teach their kids that it's OK to protect themselves and others. My wife was a pacifist and she and I raised our children to never fight, unless there is no other option." Sure, it sounds nice and makes you feel good. But it's dumb.

I've been trying to think of a word for stuff like this, for incomplete thoughts, or positions held about a certain idea that are just so out in left/right field that they are actually dangerous. The best I can come up with is "Not Thought," as in, not thought out, or not educated enough about a topic to be able to think something through. Tune in to future blogs for other Not Thoughts.

First, let me define Pacifism. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines it as:
1 : opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes; specifically : refusal to bear arms on moral or religious grounds
2 : an attitude or policy of nonresistance

So, right off the bat, this is not pacifism. It's non-confrontationalism. Or passiveness. Or just plain wimpiness.

The problem is, pacifism equals no violence. Period. Gandhi was a pacifist. MLK Jr. was a pacifist. They faced personal danger and death many times and at no time did they physically defend themselves. At any time, their opponents could have killed them with no resistance from Gandhi or MLK Jr.

What the person in the comment above is talking about is nonsense. See, in an effort to shield their children (and everyone else) from violence, they have not taught them how to use violence to actually defend themselves. No Karate. No Concealed Weapons permits. Heck, they probably don't even watch the Three Stooges. So, when the time comes to actually defend themselves, they are impotent, incompetent and inept. That is, of course, if they can actually discern when the time is right to defend themselves.

In a effort to pacify others, these so-called pacifists have taken away or paved over a person's primal instinct to defend themselves. (More on that later....) For years, this person has been taught that in no situation is violence appropriate. What do you think is going to happen when the "acceptable" time to use violence occurs? If a person has been trained to not defend themselves at any time, that is exactly what they will do. Furthermore, as we humans are terrible at determining risk to our own safety AND we see others as we see ourselves, it is unlikely that a pacified person will actually know when a situation is dangerous enough to actually defend themselves. And if the situation warrants a defensive action, well, the person has no tools to do so.

But let's go deeper than just conditioning. Let's move into the brain for a moment. There is a part of our brain that separates us from our dogs/cats/fish. It is the fore-brain. It is in the fore-brain that we rationalize, that we set goals, that we experience guilt and have the ability to socialize with others. Our dog can't do that on the level we can.

All animals have what is called the mid-brain. This is the instinct part of our brain, where we have fight-or-flight, or where we process certain instances of danger and how we determine that we are hungry or need to reproduce. Humans are the only animal in the world that can override their mid-brain... because we have a fore-brain.

It is the mid-brain that causes a snake to bite you when you step on it, or a dog to attack with no warning when you enter its territory. It is absolutely instinctual for an animal to react violently when its life is threatened. There is no overriding this because they don't have the capacity to do so.

(Also, as a side-note, nearly every other animal, maybe except for primates, has some method of self-defense: Fangs, teeth, claws, horns, antlers, hooves, etc. Humans have no such defenses. Don't tell me about punching and kicking, either, since most folks have no idea how to do that right without hurting themselves. Our primary method of self-defense is... yup, you guessed it, our fore-brain, since unlike animals, we can generally discern what is truly life-threatening and what is not, unless of course we have been conditioned otherwise.)

Another thing that separates us from animals is that we are virtually the only animal on the planet that kills its own kind. Snakes don't kill other snakes of the same species, even though they could. Dogs rarely kill other dogs. Virtually no other animal will kill another animal of the same species because the most important facet of an animal's being is the perpetuation of the species. There's some really fascinating reading on this subject if you care to go into it. I won't for the sake of time.

That said, in our mid-brain, we understand this. Call it what you want- spirituality, lawfulness, common sense- but we just know that it is wrong for us to kill another human being. It's deeper than that, but if you strip away all of the rationalizations, you basically will come to, "It's just wrong!" with most people. But remember what I said about our fore-brain?

As humans, we can override our mid-brain with our fore-brain, just as our mid-brain can sometimes override our fore-brain. This is why we are virtually the only species on the planet that will kill another of the same species: because we can rationalize it away.

So, where am I going with all of this, and how does our fore-brain overriding our mid-brain have anything to do with pacifism? Simple: we can become pacifists because of our fore-brain.

In other words, it is counter-instinctual to be a pacifist. I'll leave you to figure out the ramifications of the points I have just made. As you may be able to tell, you can go many directions with this.

But specifically pertaining to this point about what was said way up there about raising kids to be pacifists, by continuously overriding instinct, almost irreparable psychological damage has been done to a person. Judgment is altered. Reactions are altered. Discernment of risk is altered.

And that is one reason why no one stopped the VA Tech massacre... even when he stopped to reload.

Do I really need that?

Advertising... what has it become and how stupid can it get?

Advertising has always been a curiosity to me. I mean, I understand why companies advertise, but the methods have made me wonder what what going through the heads of the folks in the advertising department.

As far as I can tell, advertising has one specific, overlying goal: brand recognition/awareness which makes the consumer comfortable with the product. The reason for brand recognition/awareness is obvious: you won't go out and buy something you don't know exists. So, companies get their product out there with clever placement, specifically going after that target consumer. Commercials and ads are refined to make a convincing argument to that target customer to purchase that specific product. The whole process is very complex, so I'm not going to go into it. Plus, I'm just a layman, so I'd probably screw it up.

The other benefit of brand recognition is making the customer comfortable with their product. In our primal brains, we tend not to venture into unknown territory. When exploring an unknown area, we experience anxiety and certain parts of our brain don't function as well as when we are uncomfortable with our environment. (I've just stated a lot of oversimplified psychology, so do a bit of research on something called schema if you want more information.) If you don't believe me, think about the last time you bought soda.

Most people buy the same soda over and over again. Why? Because it tastes good, right? Well, maybe. But, I'm willing to bet it's because that's the soft drink they have bought for a long time. Next time you are at the store, instead of grabbing that Pepsi/Coke, go for the store brand or the alternate brand, like R/C cola or something. When you are reaching for that alternate cola, notice how you feel about it. You second guess yourself. You wonder if you are making the right decision. You hope you will like it. And you'll think about that bottle of cola in your cart the whole time you are shopping- and it only costs a buck! If you don't like it, what have you lost? A dollar? The time it took you to buy the soda and take it home? Negligible consequences, but for a lot of people, the brain doesn't see it that way.

So, companies spend lots of money making sure your brain knows the name of the product they are trying to sell, so that when you go to buy a product in that category, you will pick their product over another product because you are familiar with that company's product. Plus, if they can present a great argument for you to overcome your dissonance (another psych word) about choosing a new brand, you will buy from them and cease buying from their competitors. Coupons work this way. A company overcomes some of a customer's anxiety about buying a new product by compromising a bit. Once you have the product and are using it, unless it just absolutely sucks, you'll continue to buy it because you are familiar with the product- until you get a coupon from a competitor.

So, I said all that to come to the actual point: what the heck is going on with advertising these days? I see so many ads and commercials that are just absolutely pointless and do not convince me to buy a product. (Maybe I'm not the target consumer, so it doesn't work on me....) In fact, many advertisements just make me say, "What? Is that supposed to make me want that?" I'll use an example from when I worked in a grocery store so very long ago.

A bread company, Merita, I think, delivered their bread every other day to my store. On the side of their truck was their slogan: Baked while YOU sleep. I've never quite understood why that was supposed to make me desire their bread. Was I supposed to be impressed that their bread-baking employees were working while I was sleeping? Or was I supposed to get the idea that their bread was somehow fresher than everyone else's bread because the magical bread fairies that only came out at night made their bread fresher? I never figured out how that worked. (One could argue that by having such a dumb slogan that I remembered the brand of bread over other brands and hence, the advertising worked.... except I've never bought that brand of bread.)

Okay, another thing that gets me: children and babies in advertising. Again, maybe I'm not the target audience, so maybe I'm just not getting it. But, I hear lots of commercials on the radio ("Come shop at my daddy's store for the best prices!") and I see quite a few commercials on TV that, quite frankly, just annoy me. And in some cases, they just plain freak me out.

Quizno's had an ad campaign a while back where they had this talking baby promote their food. I like Quizno's, but I refused to eat there while that talking baby was their spokesperson. Maybe it's just hard for me to suspend disbelief, but I know that a baby can't talk, and I know a baby can't eat Quizno's. Despite all of that, I simply don't see how a talking baby can convince me to eat at Quizno's. I don't know... maybe I just take stuff too seriously.

I'll likely write a part two to this at some point in the future, but for now, I hope you can get what I'm saying. I know that pretty much every concept for a commercial has been done already, so many companies are getting desperate for the consumers to recognize their name. I just don't understand how some of the ideas made out of the board room.