Dating, how we do it, how on-line is taking over

-how we date (most US couples now meet on line)

-what it means for friendships and discourse 

-what it means for female empowerment and visual signalling

The internet is the primary way couples meet today in the US and I suspect most of the connected rich economies. 

This is already having profound implications on several trends. 

I missed the era of dating apps although I did organise a few speed dating events as a tiny startup experiment.  It was a much less efficient precursor to what we can see in Tinder and the like today. 

Trends amongst many I observe are: 

• Increased power to women (het)

• Increased ease/safety to certain minority groups

• Increased value to “visual signalling”

• Decreasing power to weak friendships and potentially decreasing mixing of different viewpoints within friendships, non-romantic relationships. 

Het women in their 20s now have pretty much the entire age range of men as potential mates and very low cost to switching dates powered by apps and  the web.

The outcomes are many shorter relationships, as people discover red flags earlier and the cost to switching is low. 

Women don’t have to stay within the typical social and friendship hierarchies to find mates. 

The rise of “ghosting” is because the cost of switching away is so low.  Mostly in social cost.  Who cares if you ghost? It’s easier than the awkward (social cost) conversation of telling them you don’t want to see them again.

As initial contact is visual and initial signalling is also visual - mostly Instagram over FB but perhaps some of both, plus messaging - social visual signalling value is on the increase.  Think cosmetics, teeth alignment, rentable fashion perhaps; signalling of experience (selfie).

Also note this phenomenon is not so well understood - on average - by those over 40 who mostly haven’t experienced these phenomena as strongly. (Early Last decade people used to lie if they met online, now it’s the norm they don’t.)

The advantages to gay, same-sex, religious and other minority groups was obvious earlier - with same-sex online  meet-ups being overwhelmingly the main way of relationship formation from last decade. 

There’s initial evidence that potentially marriage stability is now increasing. It’s tentative but it might be that the online selection process is leading - at least for now - to more stable longer term relationships.

The second order downside is - I think - in friendship formation and the creative clashing on meeting people who think differently to you. 

I acknowledge this is costly. Going to friends or friends house parties or after-work drinks with a partial goal of finding potential dates is time, effort and socially effortful.

However it had the side-effect of real world meetings that lead to friendships, networks and increasing social capital. IMO. 

These gatherings enhance social cohesion and capital as different thinkers (classes, politics etc) tend to civility and understanding in real world interactions (over online). 

This social effect is somewhat hard to study but comes under the “contact or extended-contact hypothesis”. That’s typically seen in reducing discrimination and racism under the right circumstances.  Overall, I would see it as reducing “hatred” between, say, left-right or brexit-remain or other clashing groups. These groups continue to clash online and in the media, but my observations is that real world meetings are more benign.

As dating has been moved into a somewhat separate field of endeavour, the spillover for forming friendships or meeting different thinking people has - I think - decreased and won’t be helping civility, polarisation and empathy. Perhaps I extend this too far, but I seem to see a similar effect on some social media platforms. You connect like with like and you are shown things you like or cause you outrage; you are not shown naturally nuanced views which might be somewhat different to your in an engaging way, that you have to engage with - as you might in an after work drinks situation.

It could well be that the benefits particularly to women outweigh the negative trade-offs. But it might also account for why safe interesting mixed live event meet-ups continue or will continue to flourish on a local level. As we still need more of them too. And that’s partly the impulse behind the Mingle I host.

A chart on how women rate men (skewed) vs man rating women (normal-ish)

Source: Dataclysm, (Rudder)

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Links: Next Mingle Details.

The time I went to visit one of the most people on earth the Wana Tribe.

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Cost of living in NYC

NYC.  Wow. It’s been a year but you remain such a concentrated blast of humanity.

I land in the wind. Some planes are cancelled so it’s lucky I make it. 

LaGuardia is under going construction. I ponder if they had any climate protesters.  The cars are jammed packed trying to drop in and out of the airport. It’s so crammed, that groups of us are bussed 5 or so minutes away to a taxi area. 

Yes.  A bus to catch a taxi. An Uber would have been a better idea. 

The taxi driver suggests airport staff don’t really care much about efficiently moving passengers as they are paid by the hour.  Unlike him. 

Later, another taxi driver and I discuss the prices of taxis. He has the unexpectedly wise assertion that everything has a value/price and why would you buy something at a high value/price   Expressing limited sympathy for those driver who bought taxi medallions are very high prices which have subsequently crashed. 

Drivers still have the pulse on certain aspects of a city. The traffic is bad. Speeds are slow and mobility is not great and fairly expensive by taxi or Uber. 

Subway still moves but looks dilapidated and a similar impression vs. Last year of under investment in this area

I ride the A train to JFK on a Friday evening.  The carriage is predominantly black, the dress seems “lower class”, no suits, no obvious wealth. The middle class seems absent presumably in their Ubers or simply not in the A train route. 

I like to walk and ride and bus to find the pulse of a city.  I don’t have the time in my few hours to do that here.  

The centre on Manhattan feels as crowded as ever. Gawping tourists, focused and exasperated locals.

The everyday cost of living seems to have increased again in a year. Milk is $8 in a random shop.

The buffet breakfast a notable expensive and Hotel Staple is over $30 with the tipping reaching 20% levels as a consistent nudge up.

I was in NYC over Sep 11. I’ve only fleetingly passed the world trade centre since but this time I’m deep in the bowels of Brookfield Place / Westfield / World Trade. 

The feel is man made almost space-sci-fi like. Lots of white. These arches and patterns and humans and humans and humans moving and moving and moving.

I sense we must look like ants to any higher beings.

We pass by some of our modern consumer temples occasionally stopping by to give an offering and to receive candles, tea or headphones - a human paraphernalia. 

I’m mostly in mobility or a hotel or an office-temple.

These corporate temples.  Very hard to describe to outsiders. But I invite a handful in to see Thinking Bigly. It goes well only mildly subversive. I joke… It is the closest I’m going to come to Broadway.  

Source: Numbeo / RHS = NYC , LHS = London. Milk turns out to be cheaper in NYC in this. But while there are some super markets eg Trader Joes and the like, there are seemingly more places like Tesco supplying cheap groceries in London than NYC. I sense Londoners might cook more too.

Chatting with my old friends, I’m surprised to find out how much more the cost of living in NYC has become.  Especially in terms of groceries. This was only anecdote about the price of milk and chicken and the like but I went to check it out on comparison websites. These show that NYC is almost 80% more expensive on groceries than London. The gap between restaurants and groceries is closer - perhaps one reason why there might be more takeout in NYC than cooking at home (many NYCers don’t cook much). 

It means for $7000 dollars cost in living standards  in NYC can be had for $5000 in London.

While average salaries are higher in NYC it must be a real squeeze for the  lower earning parts of NYC. 

Still it’s culture is super vibrant- even if you might have to pay for it.

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Free speech, political truth and fake news

Free speech, political truth and fake news 

Mark Zuckerberg’s latest thinking

Aaron Sorkin open letter

Mark Zuckerberg gave a (long) speech setting out how he is drawing the line on FB in terms of policing what people say or not. (Link end) extract here and then Aaron Sorkin’s reply and then Zuck again. 

“...  Our idea of free expression has become much broader over even the last 100 years. Many Americans know about the Enlightenment history and how we enshrined the First Amendment in our constitution, but fewer know how dramatically our cultural norms and legal protections have expanded, even in recent history.

… We now have significantly broader power to call out things we feel are unjust and share our own personal experiences. Movements like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo went viral on Facebook -- the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter was actually first used on Facebook -- and this just wouldn't have been possible in the same way before. 100 years back, many of the stories people have shared would have been against the law to even write down. And without the internet giving people the power to share them directly, they certainly wouldn't have reached as many people. With Facebook, more than 2 billion people now have a greater opportunity to express themselves and help others….

While it's easy to focus on major social movements, it's important to remember that most progress happens in our everyday lives. It's the Air Force moms who started a Facebook group so their children and other service members who can't get home for the holidays have a place to go. It's the church group that came together during a hurricane to provide food and volunteer to help with recovery. It's the small business on the corner that now has access to the same sophisticated tools only the big guys used to, and now they can get their voice out and reach more customers, create jobs and become a hub in their local community. Progress and social cohesion come from billions of stories like this around the world….

...People having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world -- a Fifth Estate alongside the other power structures of society. People no longer have to rely on traditional gatekeepers in politics or media to make their voices heard, and that has important consequences. I understand the concerns about how tech platforms have centralized power, but I actually believe the much bigger story is how much these platforms have decentralized power by putting it directly into people's hands. It's part of this amazing expansion of voice through law, culture and technology….

...So giving people a voice and broader inclusion go hand in hand, and the trend has been towards greater voice over time. But there's also a counter-trend. In times of social turmoil, our impulse is often to pull back on free expression. We want the progress that comes from free expression, but not the tension. ..”

In riposte -

Aaron Sorkin wrote an open letter in the NYT. 

“...Most people don’t have the resources to employ a battalion of fact checkers. Nonetheless, while you were testifying before a congressional committee two weeks ago, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked you the following: “Do you see a potential problem here with a complete lack of fact-checking on political advertisements?” Then, when she pushed you further, asking you if Facebook would or would not take down lies, you answered, “Congresswoman, in most cases, in a democracy, I believe people should be able to see for themselves what politicians they may or may not vote for are saying and judge their character for themselves.”

Now you tell me. If I’d known you felt that way, I’d have had the Winklevoss twins invent Facebook….”

And Zuck quotes Sorkin back at him:

This will be a pivotal debate of our times in terms of how internet platforms for content are regulated or not. 

Sorkin in NYT

Zuck on free speech (via FB). 

FWIW I don’t know enough to know who’s right, but I sense they both authentically think they are right.

A beginner's guide to Japan

One of my most memorable trips with my bae was to Japan. Not as physically challenging as my trip to the Indonesian jungle but filled with much otherness all the same. 

I was much moved by meeting one of the last traditional bucket makers of Japan (blog here).

I’ve started reading: A Beginner's Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations by Pico Iyer.

It’s brought back memories. 

It’s carefully observed and skilfully written. 

In the “non-fiction” narrative it even manages to evoke to me Sei Shonagan’s Pillow Book in some fashion

Here’s the beginning:

“I’ve been living in western Japan for more than thirty-two years, and, to my delight, I know far less than when I arrived. A land of streamlined surfaces gives you very much what you expect—and so much you didn’t expect, under the surface, that you don’t know what to do with it. The home of collected inwardness has also shown me daily how much, as Proust observed, “a change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world, and ourselves.” 

I’ve never studied Japan or worked here, and I stay in Nara on a tourist visa to remind myself how out-of-it I remain. I speak the language as a two-year-old girl might, since such Japanese as I know I’ve picked up from my wife, and in Japan even the word for “I” is different for a woman and a man. But I’ve been with my Kyoto-born wife—and our entirely Japanese kids—for more than thirty-two years now, most of them in an anonymous suburb where no other foreigners are to be seen. I seldom speak English in Japan, and in any case Japan has taught me how deeply the truest things lie beyond the reach of any language. 

Much of this book may infuriate anyone who knows Japan; it infuriates me most of the time. Assertions in one section seem to contradict those in another, and what appears to belong in the temple appears in a section on the love-hotel, and vice versa. A lot of what I ascribe to Japan clearly applies to much of East Asia, and some of what I see in Kyoto you’d never find in more rural areas. No matter. These are simply provocations, opening lines designed to quicken you to better comebacks of your own. “The opposite of a great truth,” as they say in the temples of Kyoto, “is also true.” 

I’ve tried to order my salvos so you travel, as most of us do, from the noisy, congested streets to impeccably well-made-up interiors to, at last, that private domain where you can’t even think in terms of “Japan” or “the West.” But if you read out of sequence in this fan-shaped book, now on a jam-packed train, now in a noiseless temple, you’ll be taking in the country as most of us do, bumping from the strange to the familiar and back again. I call this a “beginner’s guide” not only because it’s aimed at beginners, but mostly because it’s written by one. Being in Japan has taught me to say, “I wonder,” more often than “I think.” The first rule for any foreigner in Japan is not to talk of this-or-that; the second is never to take anything too seriously. 

ON THE STREETS THE ENIGMAS OF ARRIVAL 

There are eleven arrows on the sign above you, as you disembark in Kyoto Station. They point left, right, straight ahead and backwards. In the middle is a question mark.

 • 

Platform 0 is close to Platforms 31 and 32, and a large “Restaurant Guide” board informs you that there are one hundred and seven dining options around the station alone. There are also twenty-two hotels in the immediate vicinity, just one of which offers fifteen banquet halls, five hundred and sixteen rooms, a halal menu, a clinic, a photo salon and a church.

 • 

So much is available, almost nothing can be found. You’re in a living Web site of sorts—boxes and links popping up on every side, leading to art gallery and “Happy Terrace,” to six-story post office and thirteen-floor department store—but nobody’s given you the password. 

•

There are snatches of English, French, German everywhere, but serving almost as decoration—like colors or sounds—and surrounded by characters in three non-overlapping alphabets. The net effect is of a hundred and one people speaking a thousand and two languages, none of which they understand. 

• 

There are no addresses, it’s said, in Japan—or, worse, there are collections of numbers, but sometimes they refer to the chronology of construction, sometimes to something else. When my daughter, my wife, and I write down the address of the flat we’ve all shared, each one of us inscribes a completely different street name. 

• 

Before the West arrived, there were twice as many T-junctions and dead ends in Tokyo as there were thoroughfares. A castle town needs to confound invaders. After World War II, the city was reconstructed along the pathways that had come up around the rubble of bombed buildings, rendering the terrain even more impenetrable. 

• 

On the train into Kyoto, I point out to my Japanese wife a sweet ad full of teddy bears, one sporting a badge, another next to a bright-red ambulance. “Yes,” she says. “It says that if you see a child who’s been beaten, please call that number. If you do not, the child may die!” “And that picture of the cute fox and bear exchanging whispers?” “A lawyer,” says Hiroko. “If you have some kind of accident, he can help.”

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Amazon link to book here.

My trip to the Indonesian jungle 

I was much moved by meeting one of the last traditional bucket makers of Japan.

Do we need more Joe Rogan?

-I look at why Joe Rogan is appealing

-I touch on the “male crisis”

-I conclude his range of subjects is more positive than you might think

I’ve been vaguely aware of the Joe Rogan phenomenon. A recent Atlantic review article (see end, by Devin Gordon) brought him to my attention more closely.

By some commentators, men and masculinity is in a crisis. It’s intersectional with many factors but it’s notable to me that poor white American men have recently peaked in life expectancy and recent trends are downwards.  (See fascinating White / Case paper link end).

Life expectancy is one rolled up blunt figure that can point to problems and these problems revolves around suicide, drugs and alcohol abuse.  These in turn have causal factors embers in our social capital (or lack of). 

So - where are men turning to for their role models? Some would suggest Donald Trump.

Others might point to another phenomenon in Jordan Peterson.  

But, I’d like to suggest that a significant number are listening to Joe Rogan. 

As Devin Gordon observes Rogan interviews a vast array of people.  These people are thinkers as well as extreme sports and entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk or Twitter’s Jack Dorsey. 

Rogan’s Musk interview is famous for the spliff smoking but it may well end up as one of the only public glimpse of a complex extraordinary man when he is not on corporate show. 

I was most touched by the comments left on YouTube. 

If you take a typical Bill Gates post or video on climate change or some worthy impact cause.   Typically in the comments a fair portion are vitriolic and mean. In many types of videos do I see that.  It’s part of the problem that online gives you. 

I randomly turned to this video of Rogan interviewing David Goggins. I glanced the comments and sure there were a bunch of jokes but nothing mean (maybe there’s moderation) but also a fair number of comments were along these lines:

David Goggins gives you his life story about how he turned himself round from an unfit fearful person who caught cockroaches for a living from a difficult family background to an ultra althete and elite solider.  Goggins uses familiar - and admittedly cheesy - tropes - the clip of a Rocky about never giving up; the film platoon - the idea of fail, fail, fail again until you succeed.

In edu-consultant speak the “growth mindset” is talked about.  Goggins gives you his real life experience of it.

Sure, there will be more extreme and alt-right people who follow Rogan. But, there will also be people who are not racist.  (And maybe many of those people will be the poor people referenced above). Goggins indirectly comments on this in his early life and takes an intersectional look at racism and the military. He moved to a town where there were good people but also racist people. 

Who do we want people watching and learning from ? They are not going to watch Oprah. They are not going to watch Bill Gates.  They don’t trust the mainstream like the NYT.

I’m sure they can find hate videos. 

Or, maybe they can learn about some like David Goggins.

Having watch some Rogan - I don’t think I will be watching that much again - though who knows with the range of guests he has - but I end up on the same page as Devin.

I think we might need more Rogans not fewer but don’t make me drink Mushroom coffee. 

Link to Atlantic article here: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/08/my-joe-rogan-experience/594802/

link to life expectancy studies

My new old writing desk, a small piece of British industrial design history

My new old writing desk £23 on ebay and a small piece of English design history.

I bought my new old writing desk this week on ebay. As a metaphor for my life, my last writing desk is currently buried under a mountain of keep sakes, special education needs puzzles, games and paraphernalia, miscellaneous bric-a-brac of life, toys we should have given to charity shops but have somehow kept... and is stuck in my "writing" shed that has no more space to write in. The shed itself looks beautiful from the outside. The inside is awkwardly packed with items we stubbornly cling to. That must be another metaphor for something. Unsure quite what.

This desk is cheaper than IKEA. Its re-use is "circular" economy, a more sustainable consumer strategy.

The desk (designed for children) happens to be a more perfect size for a 5 Ft 4 / 163 cm sized person (me), as typical modern "Western" furniture are designed for taller humans.

The desk and associated chair (also included in the £23 but with a broken seat) hark to an era of industrial British design.

Pressed aluminium frame and plywood. Sturdy yet light. Relatively inexpensive but can survive decades.

Putting the chair in its place in British history the V&A suggest it reflects a vision of "design for the many" and should be seen in the wide projects for a democratic post-war prosperity

"...Alongside its great success as mass-produced school furniture, it was also celebrated in the British press as an example of good industrial design (see, for example, Design [January 1949], p. 5). This combination of critically-acclaimed design with public life reflects a particular, mid-20th century vision of British modernity. Part of a broader aim to provide good design for the many, the furniture is deeply embedded in wider projects for a democratic post-war prosperity. As such, it should be seen alongside late 1940s schemes for New Towns, social housing, and the provision (under Clement Atlee’s Labour government) of universal free education and healthcare...."

There's a decent market for re-used furniture. Design classics do well but lesser known pieces or even re-used IKEA saves money and contributes to a more sustainable way of living.

Perhaps it takes a little more time, but should be considered more often as a way of consuming that's a "double bottom line" impact (money and environment).

A detailed design note is below (via V&A)

Historical context note

This desk and associated chair  were part of a group of school furniture designed by James Leonard in 1947/8 for the British company Educational Supply Association (ESA). Other designs in the group included a larger chair for older children and a teacher’s armchair and desk. All of the designs combined a lightweight cast aluminium frame with moulded plywood or solid wood (in the case of the child’s desk) parts. The chairs and school desks are particularly distinctive for their use of a one-piece frame with splayed back leg. The form of this frame has strong resonances with the work of French designer Jean Prouvé – Prouvé had been experimenting with splayed legs in metal seat frames since the mid-1930s, although Leonard’s chair bears closest comparison to his ‘Compas’ tables and chairs, designed from 1950 onwards.

The chair is an early example of the use of moulded plywood in British post-war furniture, and must be seen in relation to the broader and very widespread adoption of plywood in 1940s and 1950s domestic design. Strongly influenced by the work of American designers Charles and Ray Eames, moulded plywood was adopted by furniture designers around the world as one of a raft of ‘new’ post-war materials – seen to have proved its worth during the war through its use in aeroplanes and boats, plywood was widely celebrated as one of the peacetime rewards for wartime technological advances.

Similarly, aluminium was strongly promoted in late 1940s Britain as a modern material for post-war design. This was helped by the fact that (unlike solid wood, which remained restricted until the end of the Utility scheme in 1951) there were no limits on its use: aluminium had been crucial to wartime aircraft manufacture and furniture designers were encouraged to adopt re-smelted aluminium after the war as a means of using up excess stocks. Leonard’s cast aluminium frame relates to other contemporary designs in the V&A’s collection, most significantly Ernest Race’s aluminium-framed BA-3 chair. Race’s chair was shown at the V&A’s ‘Britain Can Make It’ exhibition (1946) – a clear indication of the resonances that aluminium had with modern design and post-war industrial recovery.

Leonard’s ESA furniture was produced in very large quantities into the late 1960s. Alongside its great success as mass-produced school furniture, it was also celebrated in the British press as an example of good industrial design (see, for example, Design [January 1949], p. 5). This combination of critically-acclaimed design with public life reflects a particular, mid-20th century vision of British modernity. Part of a broader aim to provide good design for the many, the furniture is deeply embedded in wider projects for a democratic post-war prosperity. As such, it should be seen alongside late 1940s schemes for New Towns, social housing, and the provision (under Clement Atlee’s Labour government) of universal free education and healthcare.

Place of Origin

Stevenage (manufactured)

Date

1947 (designed)

Artist/maker

Leonard, James (designer) 
Educational Supply Association (manufacturers)

Materials and Techniques

Moulded plywood, solid plywood and cast aluminium, painted

Marks and inscriptions

ESAVIAN / ESA / MADE IN BRITAIN

Dimensions

Height: 63.5 cm, Width: 51 cm, Depth: 43 cm

Source: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1428065/desk-leonard-james/

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Ideas that don't make sense, Rory Sutherland

Rory Sutherland  (advertising exec, Oligivy) on his book exploring similar themes on why human stuff works. For instance, we brush our teeth to feel/look good, not to fight teeth holes. We buy more stuff some times when prices go up. That we are really not “rational” most of the time.

His rules...RORY’S RULES OF ALCHEMY: 

The opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea. Don’t design for average.

 It doesn’t pay to be logical if everyone else is being logical. 

The nature of our attention affects the nature of our experience. A flower is simply a weed with an advertising budget. 

The problem with logic is that it kills off magic. 

A good guess which stands up to observation is still science. So is a lucky accident. 

Test counterintuitive things only because no one else will. 

Solving problems using rationality is like playing golf with only one club. 

Dare to be trivial. 

If there were a logical answer, we would have found it.

*

Chimes with the study showing in the real world, people hand back wallets with money over those with no money… https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2019/6/29/civic-honesty-wallets-with-money-more-likely-to-handed-back

I wonder what the Founder of Oligvy would have thoughts: https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2017/7/29/oglivy-principles-of-management

The book along with Messy by Tim Hartford well worth a read.

In defence of Arts Education investment

"...The returns on investment in performing arts are significant, but the strength of any country and its people is about far more than the financial wealth it generates. We must challenge the dangerous narrative that equates success with the level of a graduate’s income and which reduces education to a financial transaction. If we don’t, we risk losing the next generation of artists and all that they contribute to our wellbeing and society…”

David Ruebain makes the case for protecting arts and creative education not only because of a financial return but because of its creative and social capital. This is a move that New Zealand is trying to capture more of by setting its budget by more than only looking at GDP.

The conservatoire David leads has one of the only Circus perfoming arts schools in the UK in its federation. The teaching of this art form we may be losing due to continued cuts to arts education.

His op-ed here: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/may/20/if-we-dont-protect-arts-education-well-lose-the-next-generation-of-performers

On New Zealand and non-financial capitals: https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2019/2/24/new-zealand-looking-at-non-financial-capitals

And here you can see a YT of the Circus School:

Asian American, published and tours Asia, Winnie Li

Here my friend Winnie Li shares an opinion essay about the types of narratives Western publishers/platforms expect of Asians and Asian-American creatives  - and how work can be perceived differently on the other side of the world. Touches upon identity and the narratives we tell.

“...I am glad my Korean publishers recognized the value of promoting an Asian American female author to Asian women readers, but our readerships shouldn’t be limited by race.  It is truly a shame if Western publishers perceive a problematic gap between the race of an author and the race of a book’s intended readers—because there are readers of all ethnicities in the West, and we are all capable of empathy.  And literature, after all, is meant to transcend such human particularities. As a Taiwanese American girl growing up in the U.S., I certainly identified with characters who didn’t come from a world anything like mine: Scout Finch, Holden Caulfield, Bigger Thomas. And indeed, it works the other way around. I’ve had white male readers say that reading Dark Chapter made them understand a bit better what it’s like to be a woman, who cried reading the scenes of the heroine’s experience of the criminal justice system. So if they can identify with a Taiwanese American heroine, then that’s already one step towards progress….”

https://electricliterature.com/being-published-in-asia-changed-everything-about-my-asian-american-writer-experience/

Dreams, one of the best games of its generation

“...But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” Yeats

Dreams might be one of the best video games of this generation. It’s a game for our times because at its heart it’s about creation over destruction, it’s about community over disunity, it’s about our hopes and dreams over our fears.

The older generations have trouble understanding the community of younger generations. Youth find this perplexing because weren’t the old, young once?

My generation had no mobile phones at university. Instant messaging did not exist. There was no Minecraft.

My parents didn’t understand the music I listened to. I imagine much like their grandparents. And so it will come to pass with me and my children.

There is a similar effect with games.  The parents of Mats Steen were astonished about the community that Mats found and nurtured and nurtured him within World of Warcraft.*

That’s not to belittle the importance of a physical game like Tag or It. A game all generations can understand but grownups rarely play anymore. (Why have we grown up and lost our play? See Bernie De Koven)**

The older generations should ask themselves why more than 200 million mainly younger people (I assume) watched the finals of League of Legends. Millions more play e-sports and viewing figures for e-sport finals dwarf all sporting games now except soccer/football.

You give people - especially younger people - tools of imagination and creation, you give them space to tell their stories and you encourage a community to grow then you have the human ingredients to create a uniquely special way of expression.

How does Dreams give you the tools to create? And how does it compare to Minecraft and Super Mario Maker and the like?

The open architecture of Dreams is a quantum step above the sandbox of Minecraft.

Like the restrictions of the sonnet form in poetry, one can argue that the rules and restrictions of a world such as Minecraft (or Little Big Planet or Super Mario Maker) can spur creativity to produce game forms that can sit within those worlds.

However, a larger blank blob of clay gives a wider variety of stuff to create.

The downside of that is if you thought the learning curve for Minecraft was moderate to steep, then the tools of Dreams are more complex. Some won’t have the mentality to learn and practise these tools. As in games, as in life.

It’s a mistake of the old to assume the young can not concentrate that our attention spaces have shortened, that we misunderstand a slower way of life.

Our riposte is that we do far more, we assess far more, and discard far more but when we dive in, we do it with as much passion as any generation before us.  Our attention is sound when we want it to be.

And so, the tools of dreams allows painting and modelling; it allows platforms and story quests, it allows shoot ‘em ups; fighting, exploring, mech combat, animations…. . it allows the quirky imaginations to go wild.

Even if you don’t fancy yourself a creator, you can surf others Dreams. And in a few short weeks, this is what you can find (random surf collection):

Some very realistic looking eggs

A game of billiards

A simulation of being on a toilet

First person shooters – Prometheus

Explorers – Underwater submarine adventure

Quirky Platformers

Instruments out of your controllers (no Labo needed)

Freefall skydiving

Music Videos, Ambient music rigs

A Game of Life

Ninja pigs adventures

…Almost anything you can imagine and some things you can’t….

(OK maybe I made one of those up)

Video from fairly famous YouTube StampyLongCat on playing Dreams, with quite a lot of DreamSurfing.

From the point of view of the world, it’s a shame Dreams is restricted to PS4. Cross-platform would open it up to so many more. The more Dreamers and players the better.

From the world view again, it’s a crazy kind of astonishing that - call it - about 100 people working over several years can create something which is going to touch millions perhaps into the tens of millions if it takes off and out of the those eleventy-bazillion dreams created – so of those might just go on to change the world or at  least the world of one little dreamer.

It’s hopeful that out that we have the innovation and creativity to raise us above the unintentional messes we are making.

*The Story of Mats Steen: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/disability-47064773

** How to live well by a play master: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2017/12/20/how-to-live-a-life-well-lived-bernie-de-koven

The Dreams trailer from MediaMolecule: http://dreams.mediamolecule.com/

A “proper” review here: http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2019/04/hands_on_dreams_is_an_inspiring_mesmerising_wonder