In the past couple of weeks, Nigel Farage has had a milkshake thrown over him, David Davies has been called a liar and a traitor, and Chris Bryant has had the word 'traitor' painted across his office in giant red letters. It's also becoming a fairly regular occurrence for female MPs to receive death or rape threats - often from members of the public online but sometimes from other politicians! No doubt this is just the tip of the iceberg; probably countless other politicians have been verbally or physically attacked on the street. It is evident that threats and violence against MPs is at 'unprecedented levels'; some news outlets have suggested that this rise is because of Brexit.
Whatever the cause, it is not just shocking, but shameful, that so many news outlets - even supposedly respectable ones such as the Independent - have branded the Farage-milkshake incident as "funny". Assaulting politicians who are trying to do a day's work is not funny, and it's not OK. Three years ago in June 2016, Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered by a far right lunatic. This was not funny or OK either. If Nigel Farage or David Davies had been seriously injured or killed, would this have been "funny"?
Whether you have left-wing ideals or right-wing ideals, whether you're a Leaver or a Remainer, whether you're online or in person, it is not acceptable to abuse or attack politicians (or anyone).
There may be some extreme circumstances where it is OK - perhaps if the country's leader is a genocidal dictator, and everyone (even his entourage) wants rid of him, and the only way to remove him from power is through violence, then maybe if other possibilities have been exhausted, violence may be permissible (or even right).
But we are light years away from that sort of extreme situation. Nigel Farage is not a genocidal dictator; he is a politician trying to do a day's work to increase support for his party. The same can be said of David Davies, Jess Phillips, the late Jo Cox, and other UK politicians who have been victims of assaults and abuse.
We might disagree with their policies; we might think they will ruin the country; we might think they are liars, dangerous for politics, or even that they are horrible human beings. But that doesn't entitle us to assault or abuse them.
Politicians are just people who are responding to public demand, so if we want to see the real villains who have caused this country's problems, we need only to look around us. We, the British people are the cause of British political problems. If the BNP, UKIP, or the Brexit party are becoming more successful, that is because of the will of the people; the parties and their leader are just fulfilling demand and trying to rise to power by giving people what they want. If no one voted these people in, they would be powerless. The Brexit referendum was promised by David Cameron in 2013 and that promise was at least partly the reason for Cameron's re-election as Prime Minister. It may have thrown our country into temporary turmoil, but democracy involves giving the people what they want, and once the votes have been cast, we should accept the results with some good old British resolve. I don't like the Conservative government, but that's what people voted for and so that's what we've got. Democracy is very valuable, and we can still value democracy while hating it's outcomes.
If we don't like our country's leaders then there are reasonable and unreasonable ways of making our views known:
- voting in elections and referendums = reasonable
- writing to our MPs or other politicians in a firm but non-abusive way = reasonable
- telling politicians face-to-face that their policies are misguided, abhorrent, or problematic = reasonable
- taking to Twitter or other social media to publicly insult and threaten politicians = unreasonable
- throwing food, drinks etc. at politicians in the street = unacceptable
- physically attacking politicians = unacceptable
If we don't like our politicians (and I can't say I do) then we should criticise their policies and show up their policies for what they are (eg. lies, bigotry, nanny state or whatever) rather than attack individual politicians. Last year I wrote this post about why people should stop criticising Donald Trump's hairstyle, skin colour and saying he has a tiny penis; instead they should criticise his racist policies and mysogynistic attitudes. The same is true of Nigel Farage and indeed all politicians; criticise and attack their policies, not the individuals themselves.
In the heat of the moment, it might seem that a rare opportunity to throw a drink at Nigel Farage is something to make the most of, but I can't help but wonder what might have transpired if his attacker had been holding a knife rather than a milkshake. Would people rejoice in the same way they declared "Ding dong the witch is dead!" when Margaret Thatcher passed away?
Whether someone throws a knife, throws a punch, or throws a milkshake, it is still an assault and it won't stop Farage's devoted following. In fact it might even increase his following - he will probably gain at least some sympathy votes out of it (mine won't be one of them though). At any rate, it won't diminish any following he has, and as The Sun points out, "it'll be him who has the last laugh".
Vigilantes are vigilantes, whether they are left-leaning or right-leaning. We may not like our politicians - we may actively hate them - but that doesn't legitimise abuse and violence. Twitter (and other social media such as Instagram) is a forum for the worst humanity has to offer. People get bolder behind their keyboards and say and do things which they might not normally do in person. I wrote about this just recently in this post, in response to a girl who took her own life after 69% of people in an Instagram poll voted that she should kill herself. As I noted earlier, it is reasonably commonplace for female MPs to receive death threats and rape threats via social media. It's just appalling, whatever the policies leanings or policies of the politician. We must remember that even if someone with horrendous policies is elected, they may be unable to push those policies into law. For example if a politician were elected whosee manifesto supported the introduction of Sharia Law, the reintroduction of slavery, and legalisation of child abuse, these policies would not make it through the House of Commons or Lords, and would quite possibly be prevented by international bodies and organisations. Politicians usually only deliver on their most centrist of pledges.
Whatever we may think about politicians and their policies, we need to behave with a certain amount of decorum; this involves civilised discussion, not violence. But if violence is inflicted upon politicians, I support their right to respond with proportionate violence, the way John Prescott did when he punched a man who threw an egg in his face.
Wednesday, 29 May 2019
Sunday, 19 May 2019
Why people encourage suicide online
Many philosophical issues - and many interactions with others - are not matters of life and death. But some are.
Please note that this post contains discussion of suicide, and why some people endorse suicide. If you think you will find this upsetting then you may choose not to read on.
One of this week's headlines involves a 16 year old girl who took her own life after she posted a poll on Instagram asking her followers or others to decide whether or not she should die; 69% of respondents voted that she should die... A few hours later she took her own life.
This is an utterly tragic story. Any loss of life, particularly one so young, is really sad. It's made so much more tragic when the cause of the death is suicide. And worse again that she did so upon the suggestion, encouragement and endorsement of others. Suicide is, in my opinion at least, the most overwhelmingly sad cause of death for family and friends of the deceased. Whenever someone dies it provides some small amount of comfort to know that "he had a good life" "he fought right till the very end" or "he made the most of his life" but these cannot be said when suicide is the cause of death, because the deceased was not just unhappy, but so immeasurably unhappy that they think there is nothing worth living for any more. My son is only young but I know there is no greater fear for a parent. It's the second leading cause of death in children and teens (behind car accidents) in the Western world. It can happen to anyone and is totally preventable and never something which should be encouraged or done flippantly as a result of a poll on Instagram. Suicide is not a hashtag; it ends the life of a person and ruins the lives of family and friends - particularly parents - of the deceased, and I hope if anyone close to me ever feels so desperate, that they turn to me rather than social media.
But this is not a post solely about the tragedy of suicide - the tragedy of suicide is fairly obvious. This post concerns the girl who took her life after the Instagram poll and asks the question: why did 69% of people vote that she should kill herself?
In some sense, people's motives are an empirical matter; their motive is what it is, and that's the end of it. But it's my blog so I can do it if I want, even if it's not "real philosophy", so I'll hypothesise and comment upon some possible reasons why someone might vote yes in a suicide poll.
So here are some possible reasons I think someone might vote yes to a suicide poll on Instagram. I think they're fairly exhaustive but maybe there are other motives too.
- they're using reverse psychology to save her life
- they think suicide is the ideal way for her to end her pain and suffering
- they think suicide is awesome
- they're evil, sadistic bastards
- they don't think she'll really do it
- the distant and impersonal nature of social media makes people say things they wouldn't normally say
Let's consider each of these:
So did people vote yes out of misguided sympathy, or giving the girl what she wants? This is possible, but highly implausible. If someone really cared about the girl, they'd urge her to seek help and go on living.
But do I believe anyone voted yes because they have this viewpoint? It's a distinct possibility. Social media can become an echo chamber and maybe her followers think that suicide is a good thing, as she did.
The Trolley Problem is a famous philosophical thought experiment involving a runaway train, where a person must make a choice: do nothing and five people will die, or pull a lever and you kill one person (saving five). Most people say they'd pull the lever. In a second scenario, a person must make a choice: do nothing and five people will die, or physically push another person onto the train tracks, and you kill one person (saving five). Here, most people say they wouldn't push the person -- even though the consequences and indeed the motives are identical to the scenario with the lever.
Why?
Probably some sort of proximity effect. Physical contact with the victim brings it much closer to home, and that makes us more mindful of our actions. Knowing that some people died in a faraway land is easier to cope with than knowing that some people died in a nearby area, even when we don't know the victims. News organisations are well aware of this, and the agenda is always local-centric. Translate this into social media and suicide and we might understand that the suicide of someone in front of you in the flesh is more shocking than the suicide of someone far away whom you never knew, and don't see them dying, you don't see their family grieving, and you don't see the aftermath of their death. Analogously, being mean to someone online is 'easier' than being mean to someone in the flesh.
But being mean is still being mean, and encouraging suicide is still encouraging suicide; would a person of good moral standing be mean or encourage suicide simply because they're online? I don't think they would. It seems to me that the anonymity of the Internet coupled with the ease of making comments without dealing with the consequences merely makes people say things they kind of want to say anyway, but they stop themselves because of social convention. Social media is a bit like a "truth serum" inasmuch as people who are nasty at heart show themselves to be nasty when online. Nice people don't encourage others to commit suicide simply because they've gone online. For example, before social media, when chat rooms and online forums were a thing, I frequently corrected people's spelling, grammar, and apostrophe usage, I pointed out flaws in their arguments, and I told them when they'd got their facts wrong. The Internet didn't make me become such a pedant; I am a pedant, and the Internet gave me the means to say the things I always felt like saying, but was (often) too inhibited. In other words, it showed me up for what I really am. Analogously, the people who endorse suicide online almost certainly have a nasty streak in them, and social media has merely brought it out for all to see. The distancing effect of the Internet does not on its own explain people who voted yes to the suicide of a girl. The idea that people say things online which they wouldn't normally say is only a partial explanation, and must be coupled with some underlying personality trait or belief such as the ones mentioned above (eg being an evil bastard, or thinking she won't do it) in order to be a full explanation.
Please note that this post contains discussion of suicide, and why some people endorse suicide. If you think you will find this upsetting then you may choose not to read on.
One of this week's headlines involves a 16 year old girl who took her own life after she posted a poll on Instagram asking her followers or others to decide whether or not she should die; 69% of respondents voted that she should die... A few hours later she took her own life.
This is an utterly tragic story. Any loss of life, particularly one so young, is really sad. It's made so much more tragic when the cause of the death is suicide. And worse again that she did so upon the suggestion, encouragement and endorsement of others. Suicide is, in my opinion at least, the most overwhelmingly sad cause of death for family and friends of the deceased. Whenever someone dies it provides some small amount of comfort to know that "he had a good life" "he fought right till the very end" or "he made the most of his life" but these cannot be said when suicide is the cause of death, because the deceased was not just unhappy, but so immeasurably unhappy that they think there is nothing worth living for any more. My son is only young but I know there is no greater fear for a parent. It's the second leading cause of death in children and teens (behind car accidents) in the Western world. It can happen to anyone and is totally preventable and never something which should be encouraged or done flippantly as a result of a poll on Instagram. Suicide is not a hashtag; it ends the life of a person and ruins the lives of family and friends - particularly parents - of the deceased, and I hope if anyone close to me ever feels so desperate, that they turn to me rather than social media.
But this is not a post solely about the tragedy of suicide - the tragedy of suicide is fairly obvious. This post concerns the girl who took her life after the Instagram poll and asks the question: why did 69% of people vote that she should kill herself?
In some sense, people's motives are an empirical matter; their motive is what it is, and that's the end of it. But it's my blog so I can do it if I want, even if it's not "real philosophy", so I'll hypothesise and comment upon some possible reasons why someone might vote yes in a suicide poll.
So here are some possible reasons I think someone might vote yes to a suicide poll on Instagram. I think they're fairly exhaustive but maybe there are other motives too.
- they're using reverse psychology to save her life
- they think suicide is the ideal way for her to end her pain and suffering
- they think suicide is awesome
- they're evil, sadistic bastards
- they don't think she'll really do it
- the distant and impersonal nature of social media makes people say things they wouldn't normally say
Let's consider each of these:
They're using reverse psychology to save her life
Sometimes I can't decide between A and B, so I flip a coin to help me decide. Sometimes when it turns up A, I feel disappointed, and that tells me that what I really wanted was B, so I do B. Similarly, sometimes when you can't decide something, having another person suggest a course of action can actually persuade you to do the opposite; it makes you realise what you actually want. Perhaps some people were attempting this sort of 'bluff' to make the girl confront the reality of suicide so as to realise that she did in fact want to live, in the same way that sometimes telling a child to give up X-ing makes them try harder to X. It's reverse psychology at its simplest. So yes it's possible that people were trying to do this, but I don't think there are many people who would want someone to live and therefore tell them to commit suicide; it's too risky a bluff. But it could combine with another reason below such as they don't think she'll do it.They think suicide is the ideal way for her to end her pain and suffering
It's possible that some people voted 'yes' to the girl's suicide out of some sort of misguided sympathy. They saw someone in mental anguish and felt sorry for her; they wanted her pain to end. In the same way that someone might see a dog in extreme pain and conclude that it's better for the dog to be euthanised so its pain ends. This sort of mentality relies on the mistaken assumption that staying alive will be bad, and is almost certainly the faulty reasoning which suicidal people utilise. Even if something terrible has happened in your life, suicide is never the answer. There will be some bad parts of life but life is still precious and suicide only ruins the lives of others. Except in cases of painful terminal and degenerative illnesses, life is better than death. Most people know this, and enjoy most of life. I'm not trying to be flippant, as I've felt suicidal before, but life got better and now I have an awesome life.So did people vote yes out of misguided sympathy, or giving the girl what she wants? This is possible, but highly implausible. If someone really cared about the girl, they'd urge her to seek help and go on living.
They think suicide is awesome
I suppose there are some people who think suicide is a good thing. Perhaps because it rids the world of sad people, and it's just basically cool and decadent, that it's done by celebrities, and a way of gaining notoriety. This is a ludicrous viewpoint. Anyone who thinks suicide is good is serously mistaken; it's the worst thing in the world. I don't think that any living person genuinely thinks suicide is cool and a great thing to do, but if they do they need to turn to family and friends and mental health services to seek help (some links are at the bottom of this post).But do I believe anyone voted yes because they have this viewpoint? It's a distinct possibility. Social media can become an echo chamber and maybe her followers think that suicide is a good thing, as she did.
They're evil, sadistic bastards
This is the go-to reason which most of us assume when we hear that people voted yes to someone contemplating suicide. There have been polls (I don't have any references though) where people have said that if murder was legal or they knew they wouldn't face punishment then they would probably do it. I guess many people who have that feeling are thinking it with a particular person in mind. They don't want to kill just anyone, they want to kill their ex or someone who bullied them, for example. But yeah there are undoubtedly people who just want the experience of killing. Maybe they've killed insects and small animals and enjoyed it and they fancy killing someone but they don't want to go to prison... but then up pops an Instagram poll and they get the chance to cause someone's death just for fun, and so they click yes. All the fun of a murder, without the prison time (however it's worth noting that encouraging or helping someone to take their own life is a crime in the UK.)
I think the "guiltless murder" mentality probably (sadly) accounts for some of the yes votes.
I think the "guiltless murder" mentality probably (sadly) accounts for some of the yes votes.
They don't think she'll really do it
Many people who see a poll about suicide probably doubt that the poster will really follow through, but that alone wouldn't explain them clicking yes. It would have to be teamed with another belief, like "I don't think she'll do it, so I'll call her bluff" or "I don't think she'll do it, so it doesn't matter if I click yes". Even so, either of these motives are taking a very risky and very flippant attitude towards life and death. Because it shows that the person voring hasn't really grasped the gravity of the situation. Yes the girl who posted the poll might be bluffing, but are we so sure that she's bluffing that we're willing to bet her life on it? If yes then we fall into the "evil sadistic bastard" group above, and if no then we would not click yes, just in case she means it. I doubt that the butcher would stab my mum, but if he's stood there with his knife and asks if I would like her to be stabbed, then I'm not going to call his bluff. We wouldn't risk someone else's life on the basis of a hunch unless we kind of wanted the death to occur, or simply didn't care one way or the other, in which case, we're evil sadistic bastards.
The distant social media effect
This is the notion that the distant and impersonal nature of social media makes people say things they wouldn't normally say, and although I think this is probably true, it still does not fully explain people's actions.The Trolley Problem is a famous philosophical thought experiment involving a runaway train, where a person must make a choice: do nothing and five people will die, or pull a lever and you kill one person (saving five). Most people say they'd pull the lever. In a second scenario, a person must make a choice: do nothing and five people will die, or physically push another person onto the train tracks, and you kill one person (saving five). Here, most people say they wouldn't push the person -- even though the consequences and indeed the motives are identical to the scenario with the lever.
Why?
Probably some sort of proximity effect. Physical contact with the victim brings it much closer to home, and that makes us more mindful of our actions. Knowing that some people died in a faraway land is easier to cope with than knowing that some people died in a nearby area, even when we don't know the victims. News organisations are well aware of this, and the agenda is always local-centric. Translate this into social media and suicide and we might understand that the suicide of someone in front of you in the flesh is more shocking than the suicide of someone far away whom you never knew, and don't see them dying, you don't see their family grieving, and you don't see the aftermath of their death. Analogously, being mean to someone online is 'easier' than being mean to someone in the flesh.
But being mean is still being mean, and encouraging suicide is still encouraging suicide; would a person of good moral standing be mean or encourage suicide simply because they're online? I don't think they would. It seems to me that the anonymity of the Internet coupled with the ease of making comments without dealing with the consequences merely makes people say things they kind of want to say anyway, but they stop themselves because of social convention. Social media is a bit like a "truth serum" inasmuch as people who are nasty at heart show themselves to be nasty when online. Nice people don't encourage others to commit suicide simply because they've gone online. For example, before social media, when chat rooms and online forums were a thing, I frequently corrected people's spelling, grammar, and apostrophe usage, I pointed out flaws in their arguments, and I told them when they'd got their facts wrong. The Internet didn't make me become such a pedant; I am a pedant, and the Internet gave me the means to say the things I always felt like saying, but was (often) too inhibited. In other words, it showed me up for what I really am. Analogously, the people who endorse suicide online almost certainly have a nasty streak in them, and social media has merely brought it out for all to see. The distancing effect of the Internet does not on its own explain people who voted yes to the suicide of a girl. The idea that people say things online which they wouldn't normally say is only a partial explanation, and must be coupled with some underlying personality trait or belief such as the ones mentioned above (eg being an evil bastard, or thinking she won't do it) in order to be a full explanation.
Conclusion
We're a highly evolved species, but for all our advancement we still have some very primitive drives within us. The drive to be successful, and to out-compete others is right up there with the drive to procreate as one of our most primitive urges. One way to out-compete others is by making yourself look better; another is by making others look worse. That explains bullying (in a very clinical and woefully inadequate way). When people think they can improve their social standing - eg by being nasty to someone else - they may take the opportunity to do so. And when people think there is no possible way for them to ever improve their social standing, they may perceive that there is just no point in anything any more. People are the best thing in the world, and the worst thing in the world. But there is never a good reason to encourage another person to take their own life, and there is never a time when suicide is the only or best choice. There is always, always something that can be done, and someone who can help.
Here are some useful links if you are feeling unhappy, depressed or suicidal, or you know someone who is:
The Samaritans website or phone 116123
Child line website or phone 0800 1111
Mind website
And of course, if you feel you can't keep yourself safe right now, call your GP for an emergency appointment, or 999.
Here are some useful links if you are feeling unhappy, depressed or suicidal, or you know someone who is:
The Samaritans website or phone 116123
Child line website or phone 0800 1111
Mind website
And of course, if you feel you can't keep yourself safe right now, call your GP for an emergency appointment, or 999.
Saturday, 11 May 2019
Should sports segregate by sex? If so, how?
A couple of weeks ago, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled against South African athlete Caster Semenya. The findings about her case in particular are supposedly confidential, but based on the ruling, it is easy enough to work out what her sexual situation probably involves, and it has been all over the news. It is thought that she has a disorder of sexual development (DSD); such people are commonly referred to as intersex because of their ambiguous genitalia or mixed sexual chromosomes. Semenya has hyperandrogenism - unusually high levels of testosterone for a female. Women with hyperandrogenism might have external genitalia resembling standard female genitalia, but internally, they may have testes, and they may have XY chromosomes, unlike most women who have XX chromosomes.
Semenya has been subjected to over a decade of speculation and testing of her sex, to determine whether she is "in fact" female. The ruling earlier this month states that she must lower her testosterone levels (via drugs) if she is to compete in female events.
Below I argue that we should have sex segregation in strength / stamina sports and as such, it is fair and reasonable for sex testing to occur and for sporting adjudication bodies to make rulings regarding the sex of athletes. Although it might be annoying for Semenya herself, it is fair for Sport that the ruling reached the decision it did. (For the flip side, there's a great article here giving 10 reasons why the ruling is flawed.)
Let's get back to first principles: why do we have sex segregation in sports? We have it because on average, men are stronger and faster than women. That's not to say all men are stronger or faster than all women, of course; if we take some top female athletes I'm sure they'd be faster than most men with office jobs.
I recall when I was at Keele University doing my undergrad degree back in the 90s, some of the female sports teams had an idea to prove how great girls are, which rather backfired. The idea was this: the female teams would play male teams from other sports clubs at the female team's own game - so for example, the female football team would play football matches against the male hockey team and the male rowing team; the female athletics team would play athletics events against the male rugby team and the male swimming team. As I said, it backfired horribly, as the women's teams lost at their own games a startlingly high number of times. What was intended to show Girl Power instead only showed that men were better at sports - even ones they'd hardly ever played - than the women who practiced them every week! It was a tough bullet to bite (I was on the hockey team and we got trounced by the male cricket team in a hockey match). It showed us that men were faster and stronger than women were, and that gave them a huge advantage over us.
If men were to compete "on a level playing field" against women, then Olympic teams would probably consist of over 95% men. There are some events - say, shooting, horse riding, diving, synchronised swimming and a few others, where strength and speed are not so important and women could fare well again men. But for the most part, men will outperform women in almost every sport. Most people think that because of this, there should be men's events and separate women's events. This seems fair in the same way that we wouldn't expect a primary school football team to compete against a university football team; the primary school team should play other primary school teams, to make for a fairer contest.
So let's go with the idea that it's not fair for men to compete against women because men have greater strength, speed and possibly stamina too.
Now for a trickier question: what is a man, and what is a woman? In the old days this was an easier question to answer: at birth, babies with a penis were called boys, everyone else was called a girl, and that sex stayed with the person for their whole life.
Now things are a little more complicated. There are people whose sex doesn't correspond to their gender identity; there are people with ambiguous genitalia; and there are people whose sex hormone levels are unusually high or low. Of course, such people have probably existed throughout human history, but weren't recognised. Quite simply, way back when, if you were deemed to have a penis at birth then you were a man, and if not then you were a wonan, end of story. So those who had female bodies but felt they were male, were still classed as female. Those with ambiguous genitalia were classified at birth and that was that. People who had, for example, testes inside the body, no uterus, but an externally "normal" looking vulva would have been classified as girls, and it would probably never have been discovered that they had testes. And the same goes for those with female genitalia but abnormally high testosterone levels - they would have been classified as girls and probably no one would ever have discovered their high testosterone levels.
But that's not the world we live in today: those things can be discovered, and then we have issues for people such as Caster Semenya.
Let's ask ourselves what it is that makes men stronger and faster than women. I'm not an anatomist, but the people in the know suggest that it's because men are taller and have proportionally greater muscle mass than women do (both of which are caused by testosterone levels) and that testosterone levels themselves increase endurance and oxygen transfer or something or other. I don't really know, but the experts do know, and they say that higher testosterone levels give athletes an advantage over others with lower levels.
Testosterone is what causes bodies to develop into a male physique - taller, more muscular, broader shoulders, and so on. And of course, high testosterone levels are closely correlated with external male genitalia. So we usually see higher testosterone levels in men than in women. I haven't been able to find the exact details of Semenya's testosterone levels, but I'm guessing they must be closer to normal male levels than to normal female levels - or at least, that she has substantially more testosterone than most women or most female athletes.
So if it's testosterone which gives a person an advantage, (and which is usually correlated with being a man), then it seems right that someone such as Semenya whose testosterone levels are excessively high is prevented from competing against other women with a more average level of testosterone.
But then, so the argument can go, what about people who have an advantage because they are tall, sturdily built, have long legs, long arms, a bendy body etc.? They have an advantage that was afforded to them by a mere whimsy of genetic chance, but they are permitted to compete against other smaller, chubbier athletes as if it were a fair contest. Also, it cannot be denied that some ethnic groups seem to have an advantage over others in particular events: the Jamaicans do well in sprint races, but not so well in swimming; the Kenyans do well in marathons, but not so well in sprints ... so if we want to make things fairer by counteracting genetic traits, we'll have a lot of work to do with regard to non-sexual genetic traits.
But the point is this: we don't (thank goodness) segregate events based on ethnic group or height - although some events such as judo, boxing etc do separate events based on weight, because weight is an advantage in such sports. But we do - universally in the world of sport, I think - separate events based on the sexes.
If we think it is fair and right to prevent men from competing against women because they have a physical advantage, then we need a way to determine the sexes in a definitive way so that it is clear - for the purposes of competing in the sport, at least - who is in which category. I think it would be fairly universally agreed upon that women should not have to compete against men. (I imagine even staunch feminists would agree on sex segregation - especially if they were to experience humiliating defeats at the hands of men in the same way my university colleagues and I did!)
So if we want sex segregation then we need a segregation method. The Court of Arbitration for Sport have used testosterone levels as one method of segregation, and there are many people - including Semenya herself - who say that testosterone levels is not a fair method of segregation, so what are the alternatives? Here are three possibilities:
- external genitalia
- genetic sex chromosome testing
- gender identity
None of these are unproblematic.
First of all, external genitalia. Imagine the indignity and the personal intrusion and embarrassment of having a sports adjudicator judge the status of your genitals to see if they are female enough to run in a race! But embarrassment aside, it would not be an unequivocal test which satisfied everyone, would it? Because there are people with ambiguous genitalia who would then be test cases for whether a penis is penisy enough to be called a penis. Also, because if a male sportsman were so inclined, in a bid to win medals, he might decide to have surgery to give him a vagina. Unlikely but probably some might try it (see my argument below about gender identity and the danger of fake transsexuals).
Sex chromosome testing is an option rather similar to what they are currently doing, where unseen genetic markers are used to determine an athlete's sex. A potential problem with this is that there will probably be some people who are physically male and identify as male and are trying to make it as sportsmen - and perhaps not succeeding - and then a test reveals that they have XX chromosomes and suddenly they can compete against women - even though they are physically male. Then they are suddenly a really successful athlete! This is far from ideal. Besides, this is unlikely to please the people who support Semenya's case because it is thought that she has XY chromosomes, so if chromosome testing is the decider, then she should compete against the men.
Gender identity has been a buzzword (well, a buzz phrase) for the past decade or two, even though people with gender dysphoria probably existed throughout human history. In everyday life - shopping, the workplace etc - it is nice if we respect people's gender identity, even if this means that we let people who are physically male into female areas such as toilets because they identify as female. And aside from (probably unfounded) worries about sexual predators, this doesn't really cause a problem. It doesn't make much difference whether the person in the cubicle next to mine is a cisgender man, an intersex person, a non-binary person, a transsexual woman, or a cisgender woman... but it does make a difference if these people are competing against me in a race. This is because - as noted above - testosterone levels enhance performance. The average cisgender man has higher testosterone than the average cisgender woman. I don't know enough about gender dysphoria or non-binariness to know whether they are correlated with differences in sex hormones, but if it turns out that a transgender woman (whether or not she has had gender reassignment surgery) has testosterone levels which are normal for a cisgender man, then that person has an athletic advantage over cisgender women athletes. Simply claiming to identify as a woman cannot be sufficient reason to allow that person to compete against women. Or else the event is not an event for women, but for anyone who decides to say they're a woman. Boxing weight categories are based on boxers' actual weights, not merely the weights they claim to be - and the same should be true for sex. "Ah, but gender is different because if one identifies as female then one is female; but identifying as a Featherweight does not mean one is a Featherweight. The two are not analogous" I hear you say. And that is true, but the point is that anyone can claim they identify as female and we would just have to take them at their word. This is fine in most aspect of life, but in sports we'd have to let them compete as a female sportsperson. A (largely unfounded) worry about transsexuals and toilets is that straight cisgender men could gain access to female bathrooms by claiming to identify as women. What would such men gain from pretending to be transgender in a bathroom situation? Some say they'd gain the chance to hurt or rape women; this seems like very little "gain", given that a man can walk into a female bathroom to rape women at any time without claiming to be transgender. A would-be rapist would not be deterred by the woman symbol on the door. So a bad man gets almost no gain from pretending to be transgender. But what could a man gain from claiming to be a transgender sportswoman (if gender identity is what counts in sport)? Well, he could gain thousands or millions of pounds. Consider: the US Open tennis championship has $3.8 million for the winner of the women's singles. Are there any half decent male tennis players with little moral integrity? Why yes I would think there are (and yes he might only need to be half decent to beat a top ranking female tennis player). And that is a second reason why gender identity cannot be the only factor to decide in which event one competes. (The first was mentioned above - namely that transsexual women may well have male physiques and testosterone levels in the normal male range, giving them a physical advantage over cisgender women.) Gender identity should be respected in everyday life, but should play no part at all in sporting sex segregation. When huge sums of money are involved, any man can claim to identify as a woman, win a few huge cash sums, and then 'revert to being male again. It would be immoral, but allowed under te rules if we were to say that gender identity is what counts.
So where does that leave us? We could let men and women (and all the people who have gender dysphoria, disorders of sexual development, and everyone else) compete against one another without restriction, and thus confine almost all female athletes to obscurity... or we can accept that men and women should compete against their own sex. Some sort of 'middle ground' could involve a handicap system such that all people have their testosterone levels, chromosomes (or whatever we decide) assessed, and are given a handicap score or a head start. This would certainly change things drastically, and could mean that the fastest and strongest people no longer win the events... This would seem odd, not to mention confusing to watch (I like to watch the Paralympics but I do find it frustrating when the person who comes first in the race is deemed not to have won because of his disability score; sometimes I give up watching the races and just read the results. This could happen if everyone has a testosterone score which deducts or adds points to their score: how would we know who'd won?! It would perhaps be fairer, but a lot less compelling.)
If we choose to clearly segregate by sex into just two categories, then there must necessarily be a way of discerning who competes against whom, and whatever method is chosen, some people will be placed into a category which they or others might see as objectionable. Unfortunately that is the price to be paid. Chromosome testing and testosterone levels seems as good and as scientific method as possible, and so although it may not please Semenya and her coach, it is reasonable, and it protects women's sporting events from competitors who have genetically male hormone levels and/or chromosomes, which gives them an advantage on a par with a man.
Semenya has been subjected to over a decade of speculation and testing of her sex, to determine whether she is "in fact" female. The ruling earlier this month states that she must lower her testosterone levels (via drugs) if she is to compete in female events.
Below I argue that we should have sex segregation in strength / stamina sports and as such, it is fair and reasonable for sex testing to occur and for sporting adjudication bodies to make rulings regarding the sex of athletes. Although it might be annoying for Semenya herself, it is fair for Sport that the ruling reached the decision it did. (For the flip side, there's a great article here giving 10 reasons why the ruling is flawed.)
Let's get back to first principles: why do we have sex segregation in sports? We have it because on average, men are stronger and faster than women. That's not to say all men are stronger or faster than all women, of course; if we take some top female athletes I'm sure they'd be faster than most men with office jobs.
I recall when I was at Keele University doing my undergrad degree back in the 90s, some of the female sports teams had an idea to prove how great girls are, which rather backfired. The idea was this: the female teams would play male teams from other sports clubs at the female team's own game - so for example, the female football team would play football matches against the male hockey team and the male rowing team; the female athletics team would play athletics events against the male rugby team and the male swimming team. As I said, it backfired horribly, as the women's teams lost at their own games a startlingly high number of times. What was intended to show Girl Power instead only showed that men were better at sports - even ones they'd hardly ever played - than the women who practiced them every week! It was a tough bullet to bite (I was on the hockey team and we got trounced by the male cricket team in a hockey match). It showed us that men were faster and stronger than women were, and that gave them a huge advantage over us.
If men were to compete "on a level playing field" against women, then Olympic teams would probably consist of over 95% men. There are some events - say, shooting, horse riding, diving, synchronised swimming and a few others, where strength and speed are not so important and women could fare well again men. But for the most part, men will outperform women in almost every sport. Most people think that because of this, there should be men's events and separate women's events. This seems fair in the same way that we wouldn't expect a primary school football team to compete against a university football team; the primary school team should play other primary school teams, to make for a fairer contest.
So let's go with the idea that it's not fair for men to compete against women because men have greater strength, speed and possibly stamina too.
Now for a trickier question: what is a man, and what is a woman? In the old days this was an easier question to answer: at birth, babies with a penis were called boys, everyone else was called a girl, and that sex stayed with the person for their whole life.
Now things are a little more complicated. There are people whose sex doesn't correspond to their gender identity; there are people with ambiguous genitalia; and there are people whose sex hormone levels are unusually high or low. Of course, such people have probably existed throughout human history, but weren't recognised. Quite simply, way back when, if you were deemed to have a penis at birth then you were a man, and if not then you were a wonan, end of story. So those who had female bodies but felt they were male, were still classed as female. Those with ambiguous genitalia were classified at birth and that was that. People who had, for example, testes inside the body, no uterus, but an externally "normal" looking vulva would have been classified as girls, and it would probably never have been discovered that they had testes. And the same goes for those with female genitalia but abnormally high testosterone levels - they would have been classified as girls and probably no one would ever have discovered their high testosterone levels.
But that's not the world we live in today: those things can be discovered, and then we have issues for people such as Caster Semenya.
Let's ask ourselves what it is that makes men stronger and faster than women. I'm not an anatomist, but the people in the know suggest that it's because men are taller and have proportionally greater muscle mass than women do (both of which are caused by testosterone levels) and that testosterone levels themselves increase endurance and oxygen transfer or something or other. I don't really know, but the experts do know, and they say that higher testosterone levels give athletes an advantage over others with lower levels.
Testosterone is what causes bodies to develop into a male physique - taller, more muscular, broader shoulders, and so on. And of course, high testosterone levels are closely correlated with external male genitalia. So we usually see higher testosterone levels in men than in women. I haven't been able to find the exact details of Semenya's testosterone levels, but I'm guessing they must be closer to normal male levels than to normal female levels - or at least, that she has substantially more testosterone than most women or most female athletes.
So if it's testosterone which gives a person an advantage, (and which is usually correlated with being a man), then it seems right that someone such as Semenya whose testosterone levels are excessively high is prevented from competing against other women with a more average level of testosterone.
But then, so the argument can go, what about people who have an advantage because they are tall, sturdily built, have long legs, long arms, a bendy body etc.? They have an advantage that was afforded to them by a mere whimsy of genetic chance, but they are permitted to compete against other smaller, chubbier athletes as if it were a fair contest. Also, it cannot be denied that some ethnic groups seem to have an advantage over others in particular events: the Jamaicans do well in sprint races, but not so well in swimming; the Kenyans do well in marathons, but not so well in sprints ... so if we want to make things fairer by counteracting genetic traits, we'll have a lot of work to do with regard to non-sexual genetic traits.
But the point is this: we don't (thank goodness) segregate events based on ethnic group or height - although some events such as judo, boxing etc do separate events based on weight, because weight is an advantage in such sports. But we do - universally in the world of sport, I think - separate events based on the sexes.
If we think it is fair and right to prevent men from competing against women because they have a physical advantage, then we need a way to determine the sexes in a definitive way so that it is clear - for the purposes of competing in the sport, at least - who is in which category. I think it would be fairly universally agreed upon that women should not have to compete against men. (I imagine even staunch feminists would agree on sex segregation - especially if they were to experience humiliating defeats at the hands of men in the same way my university colleagues and I did!)
So if we want sex segregation then we need a segregation method. The Court of Arbitration for Sport have used testosterone levels as one method of segregation, and there are many people - including Semenya herself - who say that testosterone levels is not a fair method of segregation, so what are the alternatives? Here are three possibilities:
- external genitalia
- genetic sex chromosome testing
- gender identity
None of these are unproblematic.
First of all, external genitalia. Imagine the indignity and the personal intrusion and embarrassment of having a sports adjudicator judge the status of your genitals to see if they are female enough to run in a race! But embarrassment aside, it would not be an unequivocal test which satisfied everyone, would it? Because there are people with ambiguous genitalia who would then be test cases for whether a penis is penisy enough to be called a penis. Also, because if a male sportsman were so inclined, in a bid to win medals, he might decide to have surgery to give him a vagina. Unlikely but probably some might try it (see my argument below about gender identity and the danger of fake transsexuals).
Sex chromosome testing is an option rather similar to what they are currently doing, where unseen genetic markers are used to determine an athlete's sex. A potential problem with this is that there will probably be some people who are physically male and identify as male and are trying to make it as sportsmen - and perhaps not succeeding - and then a test reveals that they have XX chromosomes and suddenly they can compete against women - even though they are physically male. Then they are suddenly a really successful athlete! This is far from ideal. Besides, this is unlikely to please the people who support Semenya's case because it is thought that she has XY chromosomes, so if chromosome testing is the decider, then she should compete against the men.
Gender identity has been a buzzword (well, a buzz phrase) for the past decade or two, even though people with gender dysphoria probably existed throughout human history. In everyday life - shopping, the workplace etc - it is nice if we respect people's gender identity, even if this means that we let people who are physically male into female areas such as toilets because they identify as female. And aside from (probably unfounded) worries about sexual predators, this doesn't really cause a problem. It doesn't make much difference whether the person in the cubicle next to mine is a cisgender man, an intersex person, a non-binary person, a transsexual woman, or a cisgender woman... but it does make a difference if these people are competing against me in a race. This is because - as noted above - testosterone levels enhance performance. The average cisgender man has higher testosterone than the average cisgender woman. I don't know enough about gender dysphoria or non-binariness to know whether they are correlated with differences in sex hormones, but if it turns out that a transgender woman (whether or not she has had gender reassignment surgery) has testosterone levels which are normal for a cisgender man, then that person has an athletic advantage over cisgender women athletes. Simply claiming to identify as a woman cannot be sufficient reason to allow that person to compete against women. Or else the event is not an event for women, but for anyone who decides to say they're a woman. Boxing weight categories are based on boxers' actual weights, not merely the weights they claim to be - and the same should be true for sex. "Ah, but gender is different because if one identifies as female then one is female; but identifying as a Featherweight does not mean one is a Featherweight. The two are not analogous" I hear you say. And that is true, but the point is that anyone can claim they identify as female and we would just have to take them at their word. This is fine in most aspect of life, but in sports we'd have to let them compete as a female sportsperson. A (largely unfounded) worry about transsexuals and toilets is that straight cisgender men could gain access to female bathrooms by claiming to identify as women. What would such men gain from pretending to be transgender in a bathroom situation? Some say they'd gain the chance to hurt or rape women; this seems like very little "gain", given that a man can walk into a female bathroom to rape women at any time without claiming to be transgender. A would-be rapist would not be deterred by the woman symbol on the door. So a bad man gets almost no gain from pretending to be transgender. But what could a man gain from claiming to be a transgender sportswoman (if gender identity is what counts in sport)? Well, he could gain thousands or millions of pounds. Consider: the US Open tennis championship has $3.8 million for the winner of the women's singles. Are there any half decent male tennis players with little moral integrity? Why yes I would think there are (and yes he might only need to be half decent to beat a top ranking female tennis player). And that is a second reason why gender identity cannot be the only factor to decide in which event one competes. (The first was mentioned above - namely that transsexual women may well have male physiques and testosterone levels in the normal male range, giving them a physical advantage over cisgender women.) Gender identity should be respected in everyday life, but should play no part at all in sporting sex segregation. When huge sums of money are involved, any man can claim to identify as a woman, win a few huge cash sums, and then 'revert to being male again. It would be immoral, but allowed under te rules if we were to say that gender identity is what counts.
So where does that leave us? We could let men and women (and all the people who have gender dysphoria, disorders of sexual development, and everyone else) compete against one another without restriction, and thus confine almost all female athletes to obscurity... or we can accept that men and women should compete against their own sex. Some sort of 'middle ground' could involve a handicap system such that all people have their testosterone levels, chromosomes (or whatever we decide) assessed, and are given a handicap score or a head start. This would certainly change things drastically, and could mean that the fastest and strongest people no longer win the events... This would seem odd, not to mention confusing to watch (I like to watch the Paralympics but I do find it frustrating when the person who comes first in the race is deemed not to have won because of his disability score; sometimes I give up watching the races and just read the results. This could happen if everyone has a testosterone score which deducts or adds points to their score: how would we know who'd won?! It would perhaps be fairer, but a lot less compelling.)
If we choose to clearly segregate by sex into just two categories, then there must necessarily be a way of discerning who competes against whom, and whatever method is chosen, some people will be placed into a category which they or others might see as objectionable. Unfortunately that is the price to be paid. Chromosome testing and testosterone levels seems as good and as scientific method as possible, and so although it may not please Semenya and her coach, it is reasonable, and it protects women's sporting events from competitors who have genetically male hormone levels and/or chromosomes, which gives them an advantage on a par with a man.
Saturday, 6 April 2019
Should human pilots be able to override autopilot?
All over the news this week is the Boeing 737 crash in Ethiopia, which has killed all 157 people on board. The cause of the crash, it seems, is the same as the cause of the Boeing 737 crash in Indonesia last year: a malfunction in the AI autopilot system which is supposed to keep the plane level. It seems that if a plane climbs at an angle greater than 10°, it is likely to stall, and so the AI system (known as MCAS) detects if this is about to happen, and automatically pulls down the nose of the aeroplane, thus preventing it from stalling. That's what is supposed to happen, anyway. Apparently, in both the Indonesia and Ethiopia crashes, the problem was that the MCAS system wrongly detected the angle of the plane (thinking it was angled upwards more than it actually was) and compensated by pulling the nose of the plane downwards. This caused the plane to nosedive and crash.
According to news reports, in both fatal crashes, human pilots had fought against the AI system, trying to regain control of the aircrafts, but failing to do so because the AI system was built to override human input. So we have two cases where the AI was in error, but the human was right, but the AI system 'won', with fatal results. In those cases, if humans had been allowed to override the AI, lives could almost certainly have been saved. But should humans always have the power to override AI?
Why do we create AI systems or machinery in the first place? For two main reasons, it seems:
According to news reports, in both fatal crashes, human pilots had fought against the AI system, trying to regain control of the aircrafts, but failing to do so because the AI system was built to override human input. So we have two cases where the AI was in error, but the human was right, but the AI system 'won', with fatal results. In those cases, if humans had been allowed to override the AI, lives could almost certainly have been saved. But should humans always have the power to override AI?
Why do we create AI systems or machinery in the first place? For two main reasons, it seems:
- To free up human time
- To be better than humans / other methods
We invented spinning and weaving machines which could produce cloth more quickly, cheaply and accurately than humans could. We invented the motor car to go faster, further and for longer than a horse can pull a carriage. And presumably we invented the MCAS system for aeroplanes because it can judge angles of ascent and compensate for them more consistently and safely than a human pilot can.
Sometimes, people make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes are fatal. But it is part of human nature to make mistakes sometimes, even when one is trained to an exceptionally high standard. But we seem to more readily accept human error than AI error. We seem to have a tendency to believe that AI should be flawless, and anything less than 100% perfection is unacceptable. I don't know the stalling statistics of planes prior to the MCAS system; if human error on the issue was higher than AI error, then shouldn't we just accept that, although some people have died as a result of the MCAS system, many more have been saved? If human error on take off used to cause 300 deaths a year, and endanger many more, then an AI system which 'only' causes 160 deaths a year is an improvement, isn't it?
But we are loathe to accept that, because we have a sentimental idea that AI should be flawless, and it's unrealistic. Sometimes people make mistakes, and sometimes machines malfunction or misjudge situations. What's particularly sad about the Boeing crashes is that the human pilots were right, but had been locked out from overriding the AI system. So why not alter the MCAS system so that pilots can override it? The answer is that an override function reintroduces the possibility of human error. There could be a take off where the human pilot wrongly believes the MCAS system is malfunctioning, overrides it, points the nose of the plane higher, the plane stalls and crashes and everyone dies. Then we would call for humans not to be able to override the AI. But we can't have it both ways: either we live with human error, or we live with machine malfunctions. AI seems to make fewer mistakes, but we are less accepting of its flaws than we are with human error. Where we'll go with the human versus AI pilot is anybody's guess. But no system is flawless, and whether we rely on humans or machines to fly our planes, there will sadly be some fatal crashes.
Saturday, 30 March 2019
Repetitive strain injury
Five months into my PhD, and I've hit a rather large - not to mention painful - snag. I have a rotator cuff tear (a torn tendon in my shoulder) from repetitive strain injury. And I got it from typing so much stuff for my PhD. I've had jobs before where I've spent time at a computer but I guess I've not done it as intensively as I have been doing lately. And I've previously always sat at a desk to use the computer, but over the past few months I've taken to sitting either on my sofa or on my Ikea poang chair. Ironically, the reason I've been sat on my sofa or my chair is because they're more comfortable than my (old) desk chair, so I thought it'd be better for my back and shoulders to sit somewhere comfy so that I didn't get aching muscles!
I always thought that if a position felt comfortable then you wouldn't get RSI from being in that position... I guess I was wrong.
It's been too painful to type (or write by hand) for nearly two weeks. Earlier this week the doctor gave me some strong painkillers and anti-inflammatories which are doing a great job with my shoulder.... but they are making me so spaced out and nonchalant that I can't think straight enough to do any phd work even if my shoulder was up to it. There's a CFP deadline in a few days that I was intending to respond to, but getting my mind in gear to edit a 3500 word paper is, at the moment, beyond my capabilities (though I am trying). My wonderful son has said he'd do my typing (of the entire PhD!) for me if I just tell him what words to write! At this stage, I think the 3500 word paper would turn out better if I got him to write it himself!
I'm waiting for some physiotherapy on my shoulder, but my other shoulder has started to hurt too now. I hope I don't get another injury in that shoulder, because I'm using my left hand more than I would normally.
I've bought a new chair for my desk which will hopefully eliminate the problem of bad posture typing, but I need to let my injury heal first.
I hope my shoulder gets better soon as I don't know what to do with myself. Watching TV is boring and I just want to get back to writing about robot ethics. But at the moment I've got a choice between either being in too much shoulder pain to be able to type, or being too spaced out to be able to think. ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜
I always thought that if a position felt comfortable then you wouldn't get RSI from being in that position... I guess I was wrong.
It's been too painful to type (or write by hand) for nearly two weeks. Earlier this week the doctor gave me some strong painkillers and anti-inflammatories which are doing a great job with my shoulder.... but they are making me so spaced out and nonchalant that I can't think straight enough to do any phd work even if my shoulder was up to it. There's a CFP deadline in a few days that I was intending to respond to, but getting my mind in gear to edit a 3500 word paper is, at the moment, beyond my capabilities (though I am trying). My wonderful son has said he'd do my typing (of the entire PhD!) for me if I just tell him what words to write! At this stage, I think the 3500 word paper would turn out better if I got him to write it himself!
I'm waiting for some physiotherapy on my shoulder, but my other shoulder has started to hurt too now. I hope I don't get another injury in that shoulder, because I'm using my left hand more than I would normally.
I've bought a new chair for my desk which will hopefully eliminate the problem of bad posture typing, but I need to let my injury heal first.
I hope my shoulder gets better soon as I don't know what to do with myself. Watching TV is boring and I just want to get back to writing about robot ethics. But at the moment I've got a choice between either being in too much shoulder pain to be able to type, or being too spaced out to be able to think. ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜
Monday, 25 February 2019
What goes on in a writing workshop or training session?
Picture the scene...
You're feeling nervous, unsure, even a little apprehensive. You've driven to unfamiliar territory, parked your car in an unfamiliar location (will you get clamped? are you sure??) and found your way to the venue of the training session. You look for Reception; thankfully it's located by the door, where you would expect. "Excuse me, can you tell me where Room B304 is please?" you ask. "Of course," the receptionist replies, "you just go along this corridor, through the second set of double doors on your left, up the stairs, then turn right, along the corridor, and it's there on your left opposite the lifts." You say thanks and set off along the corridor she pointed at, having almost instantly forgotten her instructions, looking for some stairs or lifts... finally you find B304. You're 5 minutes late - people are already sat in there looking at a speaker at the front - what will happen when you enter? You push the door open...
Well, I've had this experience twice in the last couple of weeks (one time the lateness was my fault; the other it was not). I went to a half-day session teaching one thing, and a separate unrelated full-day session teaching something else. Both sessions were good, engaging and useful, although neither gave me exactly what I was hoping for.
The first (half-day) session was not what I expected at all; to be honest it was really good, but its description did not match what it delivered, which was a shame as I imagine that the people there - myself included I suppose - didn't get out of it what we were hoping for. I went along wanting and expecting to learn X, but came away having practiced and learnt how to do Y. It's useful being able to do Y, but I was hoping to learn to do X that day, and I've come away still not knowing how to X. If the session was relabelled "How to do Y" instead of "How to do X" then I think more people would get more out of it. I'm talking in vague, general terms here because I don't think it would be fair to criticise an individual or a workshop in the public sphere. Especially since it was useful and enjoyable but just mis-described.
The second session was a one-day writing workshop. I like writing, and I write prolifically: diaries (I've written a diary almost every day since I was 12, and I still do) along with all manner of other stuff like ideas, rants, stories, letters, poems.... and as I'm a hoarder too I've still got just about all of these things. I had a quick look through my box of books a year or so ago and I estimate that I've got about 10 million words in those diaries, poem books and thoughts/rants. That's not including my work from school / college / uni, and my work stuff (teaching materials), books I've written, emails and other digital stuff. That's probably another 5-10 million words. Quite a lot, huh? As a child/teen I wanted to be an author, and I heard someone say "If you want to be a writer, then write - diaries, poems, thoughts, anything - just write, and you will become a writer." So yes in one sense I already am a writer (I've published a few books already which I guess most people haven't accomplished before they start their PhD).
...But in another very real sense, I am not a writer, because the majority of what I write is rubbish. I can write about what happened at the weekend when we went to the park, and I can make up witty poems by replacing the words of songs with other words, and I can write down thoughts I'm wondering about, but is this really a useful PhD skill? I'm not sure that it is. I don't think this is impostor syndrome - it seems genuinely true that my diaries etc are 99% drivel.
Of course, some people - most people, it seems - struggle to write their own stuff; they read and read and read and make notes, but then putting forward their own argument is a battle for them, and it must be a very real battle; I'm not saying it's not, because writing 100,000 words is no mean feat when you sit and stare at a blank page / screen and don't know what to write.
But my problem is sort of the opposite. I write so much, and then I have to sift through it to find the gems. There are some gems in there, but I have to get my metaphorical hands dirty sifting through seven tons of shit in order to find them; that's bad enough, but knowing that I'm the one who piled all the shit on there in the first place can make it doubly irritating!
I think the writing workshop was geared more towards people who struggle to find their 'voice' or to put something of themselves into their research, but as with the other half-day session, I got something useful out of it. it was suggested that we write out our thesis onto big paper (A0) with coloured sticky notes. I've mapped out my thesis with pen and paper before, but I did it anyway, and suddenly realised that the order of my thesis is back-to-front: the order would work better - and as a narrative - with harm at the front (the 'problem') and consent as the latter chapters (the 'solution'). the sticky notes or the environment or the course leader or something or other helped me realise this.
We also practiced freewriting, which is writing continuously for a set time like 5 minutes, and not stopping. Even if you don't know what to write, write anything at all which comes to mind, and if nothing comes to mind then write that nothing is coming to mind! Since I'm an over-writer I thought freewriting would be my worst enemy, adding more shit onto the already massive shit pile that is my writing - but I think it worked well actually. One of the freewriting briefs was to think of my thesis as a movie and what would be the opening scene (my freewriting on this is shown below - not bad for 5 minutes of braindumping!) Another freewriting brief was to only write questions - again really useful.
Both sessions were useful actually, but for different reasons, and although neither gave me the magical thesis-writing epiphany that I was (perhaps unrealistically) hoping for, they will push me forwards to do better. Both sessions have made me think of the thesis as a creative piece as much as it is a work of fact. I can tick all the boxes while still producing something which is fairly dull, or I can still tick the boxes but make it more engaging - the latter may be more difficult but probably more rewarding and more appealing.
One thing I took away from the sessions (besides a couple of biscuits and an apple) was to have a dramatic opening - I tried to recreate one at the start of this blog post. Did it draw you in and make you excited to learn more? (In case you're wondering, I didn't get clamped at either place, thankfully, but the £12 car parking fee which I forked out to park at one of the sessions wasn't far off the price of a parking ticket!)
These training sessions for uni have shown me (or re-shown me, as I think I've thought this before) that sometimes, you get out of it what you put into it. I don't just mean that because I spent £12 on car parking, I got £12 worth of food out of the day, although that may well be true - mmm, biscuits! I mean that even when I didn't get what I expected or hoped for, I got something which I can use to move forwards.
You're feeling nervous, unsure, even a little apprehensive. You've driven to unfamiliar territory, parked your car in an unfamiliar location (will you get clamped? are you sure??) and found your way to the venue of the training session. You look for Reception; thankfully it's located by the door, where you would expect. "Excuse me, can you tell me where Room B304 is please?" you ask. "Of course," the receptionist replies, "you just go along this corridor, through the second set of double doors on your left, up the stairs, then turn right, along the corridor, and it's there on your left opposite the lifts." You say thanks and set off along the corridor she pointed at, having almost instantly forgotten her instructions, looking for some stairs or lifts... finally you find B304. You're 5 minutes late - people are already sat in there looking at a speaker at the front - what will happen when you enter? You push the door open...
Well, I've had this experience twice in the last couple of weeks (one time the lateness was my fault; the other it was not). I went to a half-day session teaching one thing, and a separate unrelated full-day session teaching something else. Both sessions were good, engaging and useful, although neither gave me exactly what I was hoping for.
The first (half-day) session was not what I expected at all; to be honest it was really good, but its description did not match what it delivered, which was a shame as I imagine that the people there - myself included I suppose - didn't get out of it what we were hoping for. I went along wanting and expecting to learn X, but came away having practiced and learnt how to do Y. It's useful being able to do Y, but I was hoping to learn to do X that day, and I've come away still not knowing how to X. If the session was relabelled "How to do Y" instead of "How to do X" then I think more people would get more out of it. I'm talking in vague, general terms here because I don't think it would be fair to criticise an individual or a workshop in the public sphere. Especially since it was useful and enjoyable but just mis-described.
The second session was a one-day writing workshop. I like writing, and I write prolifically: diaries (I've written a diary almost every day since I was 12, and I still do) along with all manner of other stuff like ideas, rants, stories, letters, poems.... and as I'm a hoarder too I've still got just about all of these things. I had a quick look through my box of books a year or so ago and I estimate that I've got about 10 million words in those diaries, poem books and thoughts/rants. That's not including my work from school / college / uni, and my work stuff (teaching materials), books I've written, emails and other digital stuff. That's probably another 5-10 million words. Quite a lot, huh? As a child/teen I wanted to be an author, and I heard someone say "If you want to be a writer, then write - diaries, poems, thoughts, anything - just write, and you will become a writer." So yes in one sense I already am a writer (I've published a few books already which I guess most people haven't accomplished before they start their PhD).
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| Amount of stuff I've written |
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| Amount of good stuff I've written |
But my problem is sort of the opposite. I write so much, and then I have to sift through it to find the gems. There are some gems in there, but I have to get my metaphorical hands dirty sifting through seven tons of shit in order to find them; that's bad enough, but knowing that I'm the one who piled all the shit on there in the first place can make it doubly irritating!
I think the writing workshop was geared more towards people who struggle to find their 'voice' or to put something of themselves into their research, but as with the other half-day session, I got something useful out of it. it was suggested that we write out our thesis onto big paper (A0) with coloured sticky notes. I've mapped out my thesis with pen and paper before, but I did it anyway, and suddenly realised that the order of my thesis is back-to-front: the order would work better - and as a narrative - with harm at the front (the 'problem') and consent as the latter chapters (the 'solution'). the sticky notes or the environment or the course leader or something or other helped me realise this.
We also practiced freewriting, which is writing continuously for a set time like 5 minutes, and not stopping. Even if you don't know what to write, write anything at all which comes to mind, and if nothing comes to mind then write that nothing is coming to mind! Since I'm an over-writer I thought freewriting would be my worst enemy, adding more shit onto the already massive shit pile that is my writing - but I think it worked well actually. One of the freewriting briefs was to think of my thesis as a movie and what would be the opening scene (my freewriting on this is shown below - not bad for 5 minutes of braindumping!) Another freewriting brief was to only write questions - again really useful.
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How to write: Put your pen on the paper and move it around,
making circles and lines which people recognise. Easy, huh?
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One thing I took away from the sessions (besides a couple of biscuits and an apple) was to have a dramatic opening - I tried to recreate one at the start of this blog post. Did it draw you in and make you excited to learn more? (In case you're wondering, I didn't get clamped at either place, thankfully, but the £12 car parking fee which I forked out to park at one of the sessions wasn't far off the price of a parking ticket!)
These training sessions for uni have shown me (or re-shown me, as I think I've thought this before) that sometimes, you get out of it what you put into it. I don't just mean that because I spent £12 on car parking, I got £12 worth of food out of the day, although that may well be true - mmm, biscuits! I mean that even when I didn't get what I expected or hoped for, I got something which I can use to move forwards.
Freewriting: If my thesis were a film, what would the opening scene look like?
(I corrected the spelling mistakes but left the content intact).
Robots, their red eyes glowing, emerging from the blackened and bloodied bodies piled high, dismembered body parts everywhere, screams and groans from behind them. The robots trampling with their metallic feet onto the dead faces of humans - children, the elderly, disabled people, all being cut to pieces and walked on by robots, the robots destroying people, shooting laser beams in the distance, onto people, into the bloodied eye sockets of dead people, their faces with horror expressions, the way they looked when they died. Then the camera pans out, and we see that it is faded, unreal, in a memory cloud or imagination of an old person, smiling to herself, laughing even, telling her daughter that that’s what she’d imagined when she’d heard that she was going to be looked after by a robot in her old age. The horror of it. The Terminator, I Robot, killer robots, all these fears that the robots would go crazy and hurt people and trample on their bodies and their feelings, couldn’t have been more wrong, because here she is surrounded by human carers working alongside care robots, who are courteous, diligent, and yes even caring. They bring her her food, they take her for a bath, they are polite in their conversations and they are always punctual, never angry, they can play games and have a joke, they always remember the things she says and the way she prefers things to be done, and so in many ways they are far better than human carers, who have their own lives, who can be forgetful, annoyed, or irritable or just having a bad day. The robots aren’t like that.
Monday, 11 February 2019
"You're so lucky!"
I have a few posts which I've labelled with the tag 'stupid things people say'. "You're so lucky" should be placed front and centre. Of course, there is such a thing as luck, and so there are times when "You're so lucky" is an entirely appropriate thing to say.
My lucky dip numbers came up on Lotto.
"You're so lucky!"
"You're so lucky!"
I happen to have been born in a country where medical treatment is free at the point of delivery.
"You're so lucky!"
"You're so lucky!"
I won a game of Snakes and ladders.
"You're so lucky!"
"You're so lucky!"
All of the above are indeed examples of (good) luck, and "you're so lucky" is an appropriate and true thing to say; I have no complaints about events such as these being attributed to luck, as these are genuine examples of luck.
My gripe is when things happen in my (or someone else's) life which are not due to luck, but people say "you're so lucky" nonetheless.
For example, after I finished my undergrad degree, my then boyfriend and I decided we wanted to go travelling. I worked a rubbish job earning £5 an hour, and I took overtime whenever I could. We didn't go out at all for over a year, except for a curry once a fortnight costing £5 each. We seldom drank alcohol, we spent less than £20 on clothes during that year, we had one vehicle between the two of us, and we lived in a shared house which was cheap because it was skanky and in a rough area. I managed to save up £2500 in a year, and we went off to Australia, New Zealand and Thailand. And it's funny, the people who'd called us 'boring' and even 'weird' for really tightening our belts that year were the very same ones who said we were 'lucky' to be able to go travelling abroad. It made my blood boil. No one called us lucky when we were scrimping and saving.
And I get the very same things said to me now. (And I'm sure other hardworking people also get this said to them, and it's so offensive.) I don't have a job at the moment because I'm doing a PhD. So I stay home reading articles and writing stuff on the computer.
"You're so lucky!"
Well no, I'm not lucky. I've always worked hard at my studies and that's why I'm now able to do the PhD.
"Yes but you're lucky that you don't have to worry about money."
"Yes but you're lucky that you don't have to worry about money."
No it's not luck. All funded placements are funded on merit; they don't just roll the dice and fund people randomly.
"Yes but it's lucky that your mortgage and bills are low enough to allow you to survive on a £15k stipend."
"Yes but it's lucky that your mortgage and bills are low enough to allow you to survive on a £15k stipend."
No, I have a small mortgage because I bought this house with a big deposit of my own money which I'd saved up by working hard and spending little. I could have chosen a more expensive (and bigger) house with larger mortgage payments, but I chose not to. So it's not luck that I have low mortgage payments. And I still choose not to spend frivolously; I buy budget brands and I don't go out for expensive meals and nights/days out. That's not luck.
it's so offensive when people say that career success and academic success are down to luck; it's a way of saying "you don't really deserve your success - it's just luck that you're successful". If someone has got rich by winning the lottery or inheritance, then yes that is lucky, but most people are where they are in life because of what they've done with their lives. That goes for people at both ends of the spectrum. it is lucky that David Beckham had a successful football career or that Ed Sheeran is having a successful music career? Someone doesn't become an amazing footballer or a have albums selling tens of millions of copies because they're lucky. Equally, someone doesn't become a heroin addict or a murderer by chance/luck alone. People might genetically inherit a small amount of 'natural talent' or an 'addictive personality', but they make the choice to practice football, promote their singing, or to take heroin. There are a few exceptions to the rule: people who were injected with heroin against their wishes, or people whose family have had enough money to help them on their way to success, but these people are the exceptions rather than the rule.
In fact there are few things in life which are genuinely and completely down to luck. I concede that it was lucky for me to have been born in England in the late 20th century to hardworking parents who loved me and looked after me. I've also had the lucky privileges of being white-skinned, average-looking, and heterosexual. Whether these lucky privileges are cancelled put by the 'unlucky' facts that I'm female, working class and I've been disabled/in poor health for half of my life, I don't really know. But it seems to me that by and large, our lives are what we make them, and not a lot of luck is involved in repeated success or failure.
People should think twice before saying "you're so lucky" because much of what happens to us in life is not due to luck: attributing someone's success to mere luck is just another way of telling them they don't deserve to be where they are. It that's what you want to tell someone, then fine, go for it, as there are definitely cases of people who haven't worked for their success (or haven't worked to avoid their failure) but the lives of most of us regular people are affected far more by effort than luck.
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