Author Archives: middletonreynoldsjames

TL;DR: assuming Squid Game is a commentary on capitalism, it also says that in capitalism mothers are expected to be passive non-entities and only exist to support (emotionally, financially, physically) their children.

Disclaimer: there are some posts on Reddit about this topic–this was written without reading any.

Dying Alone

Think about it: after lying to his mother, stealing her money, failing to see her rapidly worsening diabetes, and breaking her heart by not supporting her beloved granddaughter (not to mention obviously forgetting his mother’s birthday), Gi-hun allows his mother Oh Mal-soon to die alone–probably of a diabetic crisis, and probably thinking that her son has abandoned her.

Her Character Doesn’t Even Have a Name

Ssang-Woo’s mother is a bit more jovial: she has a shop, she seems to be healthy, and she is a proud mother of (she thinks) a successful son (did you know he was top of his class at SNU?!?). But in the last episode we watch Gi-hun bring her a boy she never asked for and a suitcase full of cash, as if those two things can make up for the obvious loss of her previous store and of her son.

Of course she’s written to be a self-sacrificing angel, so she cheerfully takes this mysterious North Korean orphan under her wing. We are supposed to feel warm fuzzies that Sae-byok’s brother has a loving home–and never question whether what Ssang-woo’s mother needs in her time of obvious crisis is an orphan to be completely dependent on her.

A Counter-point?

The contrasting example, love her or hate her, is Han Mi-nyeo. We learn she has a child in the episode where she asks to stop the game–but she obviously chooses to come back.

If you’re in club “I don’t like Han Mi-nyeo,” you probably want to make some statement about how she’s annoying or selfish.

If you’re in club “I do like Han Mi-nyeo,” you’re probably aligned with the narrative that she’s scrappy, resourceful, and all-around under-estimated.

Consider this: she’s the only mother in the series to make choices about her fate. Yes, they seem like questionable choices. But as someone once observed about those who succeed in free market capitalism: they didn’t make good choices, they were GIVEN good choices.

Han Mi-nyeo made pro-active choices within the parameters she was given: to return to the game, and to end it on her terms–with an additional sweet benefit of revenge.

No, The House Always Wins

At first, it seemed like the obvious foil characters were Mi-nyeo and Ji-yeong, the women who decided their own fates in the game. A simplistic interpretation (probably from the “I don’t like Han Mi-neyo” camp) is that Ji-yeong is a self-sacrificing martyr, Mi-nyeo a selfish harpy.

But Ji-yeong’s purpose in the story is to help us better understand Sae-byok (and also gain a little insight into the insidious and truly terrible ways Christianity wreaks havoc in South Korean society and perpetuates cruelty to women–but that will have to be a different post).

Han Mi-nyeo is the foil to Oh Mal-soon and Ssang-woo’s poor nameless mother–but her tragic end simply underscores the point that in capitalism, motherhood is expected and required of women, but entirely expendable to the “VIPs” who pull the strings.

And so we end the series with a dramatic cliffhanger about Gi-hun, having been encouraged to forget what he did to his mother, be lulled into complacency about Ssang-woo’s nameless mother’s new life, and we don’t even question it.

Why do the mothers get mistreated, lied to, left behind, stolen from, and drained of life? Because that is what capitalism expects.

This article receives periodic updates as the discussion around Stochastic Parrots evolves.

At least for the immediate future, humans create technology.

But what is it that we choose to create?

The authors of the Stochastic Parrots paper asked this question about large language models and discovered some interesting answers.

Their conclusions were enough to get one of the researchers fired from her corporate job. When corporations try to cover something up, it inherently indicates a potentially groundbreaking insight.

Even without a deep understanding of the methodologies described, the paper is worth a read for the clear and cogent way it frames implications of the development of these models.

Continuing the theme of moving from the virtual algorithmic space to the physical world, Atlas of AI provides us further illustration for the problem statements in “Stochastic Parrots.”

What do all the words in these articles mean?

MIT has a handy guide.

What are some other implications?

You might not immediately leap from NLP to Bitcoin, but consider the following: cryptocurrency mining is energy intensive. In fact, it is so energy intensive that even the general public is starting to question the climate implications of this energy usage.

Inherent in Dr. Gebru’s work is the question, “do the creators of technology represent the users?”

Or, more specifically, “do the privileged, mostly male and WEIRD creators of technology realize that there are very serious, real-world implications for their technology, especially the ways in which they reinforce existing social norms and oppressions for marginalized communities?”

Cryptocurrency represents the ability to fundamentally transform a key concept of modern society: money. One of the most touted benefits of it is the fact that it is “peer-to-peer.”

In a dry, finance bro sense, this means “ownership is decentralized,” and in a right-wing cowboy sense, the implication is, “screw the government.”

In an optimistic and intellectual sense, it is more like what Brice Berdah calls out in Hackernoon: “who better than the future users themselves could design the currency the most fitted to their needs?”

If Dr. Gebru is right, and the end users of a technology are not defining it (or, really, those who are defining it aren’t actually considering the lived experience of the end users), then what we end up with is a grand promise falling flat: ARE the future users themselves designing the currency most fitted to their needs?

What would it mean to REALLY involve non-cryptographers, non-techies, non-bitcoin-farmers in the conversation?

Given the lack of centralized authority, it probably means giving more people access to the technology–and I don’t mean by making it mainstream through standard trading mechanisms like an ETF.

I mean that all the crypto enthusiasts, if they really want to make change in the world, should go out and teach, or provide coins and access to people around them. Start solving the day-to-day problems of poor people with little technology access, and they will not only make the better case for their own beliefs but also make the world a better place.

What would it look like for “decentralized” to mean, run by the people?

What would it look like to finance public works projects, schools, libraries, firefighters, EMTs, and other institutions that support the public good?

…and then we can start brainstorming about what to do if, in fact, this broader access creates an energy crisis that accelerates climate annihilation.

Update: 7/16/2021: The founder of Dogecoin seems to have a philosophically similar take on what I argue above, but with different phrasing: “I believe that cryptocurrency is an inherently right-wing, hyper-capitalistic technology built primarily to amplify the wealth of its proponents through a combination of tax avoidance, diminished regulatory oversight and artificially enforced scarcity.” 

In other words, the decentralized/screw the government element means that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, because by removing it from the commonly established markets, it loses all sense of civic obligation. It also becomes a vector for fraud.

His powerful concluding sentence sums up a relevant philosophy of technology: “New technology can make the world a better place, but not when decoupled from its inherent politics or societal consequences.”

This year, I plan to spend this diary considering the meaning of liberty.

It is a word that has become a litmus test for an individual’s political beliefs, moral beliefs, ethical beliefs, and cosmic beliefs, whether used in face to face discussion or in endless argument comment threads with strangers on the internet.

It’s in fashion now to bash the year 2020, and to say that the turning of the Gregorian calendar from December to January means something. It’s a type of catharsis that we need in order to focus on the present.

What I hope to do is to use the theme of liberty to start building a vision for the future, grounded in the present.

Where do we go from here?

This will get periodic updates as new developments occur.

Last update: June, 2021 (G7 agrees to address the issue of space junk; China sends first astronauts to space)

In the 1960s, the United Nations created the Outer Space Treaty, which forms the basis of much subsequent discussion and legislation on the topic of the rights and privileges of humans in Space and on other planets.

Since then, both non-profits and for-profit corporations have declared their own interpretations of the principles under which we as a species should operate.

While the original treaty was clearly geared towards preventing nuclear war, I think it has some really valuable grounding principles. Outer Space should be approached as somewhere shared by all of humanity, where the rights, privileges, and opportunities are defined by as many representatives of as many walks of human life as possible.

We are more similar to each other than to any possible other Life out there.

What about a Mars Shot?

We face some truly daunting problems here on Earth, but that doesn’t mean that the solution is for us to move to Mars.

However, Mars presents an admirably distant–yet relatively achievable with current technology–destination for us to focus on as we articulate goals and purposes for humans in space. So with that in mind, why NOT say that our goal is to move to Mars, if only to help give us direction and purpose in our scientific endeavors?

What is worth noting about the evolution of “space programs” is how much more closely private enterprise is explicitly and implicitly woven into policies, programs, and approaches in the 21st century than they were in the 20th. These are policies, programs, and approaches that have a stated purpose of being focused on the good of humanity, but have some interesting nuances baked in.

On my birthday in 2020, the United States issued an outline for a space policy which states a goal “to explore and learn, and to support peace on Earth and in the stars.”

This is an admirable purpose, but the document also makes clear the methodology: “The United States will create an environment that energizes our industry to create innovative commercial approaches…”

It also makes explicit that the USA will work with “likeminded partners,” which is an interesting qualification.

The implementation for much of this policy lives within a program called Artemis which is prepping the USA for our (literal) next moonshot. Much of the detail about how this will be accomplished is available publicly, and a very central element of its operations include public-private partnerships.

Finally, there is, of course “Space Force,” an accurately but humorously named arm of the US military.

Taken all together, what we see is a coalescing approach that is US-centric, capitalism-centric, and where the interests of the United States and US-style free market capitalism will be enforced by the world’s richest military.

In the article linked above, Peter Martinez, the director of the Secure World Foundation, puts it perhaps more eloquently: “…space is already a domain dominated by civilian and commercial actors…so the new space race is really not so much a race among military rivals as it is a race among civilian commercial rivals to access an increasingly congested and contested domain, and we need to think about what this means for safety, security and stability in space, for all actors, both military and civilian.”

While we like to think of space as the final frontier, however, it’s important to remember it isn’t a completely blank slate–especially where capitalist enterprise is concerned.

Why Regulate Space? One Answer

Take the story of the “Chinese space debris,” from April 2021.

After days of wondering where some Chinese space debris would fall, with delightfully wild speculation and amazement from everyone (Twitter: who had this on their 2021 bingo card?), it finally landed in the Indian Ocean.

In an appearance on CNN, retired astronaut Mark Kelly explained that for many satellite operators (private companies, likely motivated by standard shareholder capitalism), it’s cheaper to shift defunct satellites to a slightly different orbit than to bring them back to earth. This makes room for new satellites in geosynchronous orbit, and minimizes the costs to the company and therefore the impact to the bottom line.

But get enough profit-motivated companies moving enough satellites to this orbital location, and you end up with an almost impenetrable wall of space junk.

To Kelly’s point, to get to Mars, we have to get through all the crap we’ve already put in space–and that is no easy (or cheap) navigational task.

For anyone familiar with the tragedy of the commons, this is a stark example. Space is, well, SPACE. At apogee, you can fit the entire solar system between the Earth and the Moon. Surely there’s enough room to just leave one more satellite? Because, I mean, we can’t go into our quarterly earnings call and explain that we spent millions to bring back a satellite when we DIDN’T HAVE TO–I mean, who will enforce consequences on not doing so, anyway? And we aren’t going to simply CLEAN UP out of the goodness of our hearts. (so I imagine the thought process of a COO deciding whether to sign off on satellite retrieval).

If we’re honest about environmental protections, it often doesn’t happen until after a disaster. And sometimes what happens is still not enough.

Why wait until another piece of space debris comes hurtling to earth?

Why not acknowledge that in this case, international cooperation to create rules of engagement in space helps everyone?

It keeps Earthlings safer, and it will allow our billionaires to live out their space cowboy dreams more cheaply.

Update from June, 2021: the G7 countries have finally agreed to terms to address space debris!

What does Space Diplomacy look like?

Chinese astronauts are banned from working on the International Space Station, so China has created their own space station and sent astronauts to it.

What does it mean for those of us here on Earth that we isolate a major global power in space?

I believe that liberty is the ability to make free choices within a given system. The limits on those choices are the boundaries where they move from simple acts of free will and become harmful to other people.

We have free will, but we are not free from consequences.

We have freedom to express ourselves, pursue our dreams, have fun, make money, and do all the wonderful things that make us human. We have the ability to stand up for ourselves, and for what we believe in.

But we should be conscious of how our decisions affect others, whether they are our immediate community or the world at large. And when those consequences have harmful or deadly effects, we should see that we have reached a boundary on our freedom.

This is perhaps where I differ from others: I believe that Liberty is not some unquestionable absolute. It is not an end that justifies all means. There must be a philosophy of the common good, equality of opportunity, and the rule of law (as well as equality before the law), to help us see where our choices do and don’t affect others.

I think a lot of the discourse around liberty today is wholly over-simplified and defined by a small handful of truly limiting ideas.

I do not think any single religion has conclusively (or solely) defined Liberty.

I do not believe that “self-made” people are paragons of Liberty, because there is no such thing as “self” made.

And I do not think that the Constitution of the United States, although it enshrines Liberty, is the best guide to how to enact it in our politics, communities, or personal choices.

I do not equate freedom of private, for-profit enterprise with Liberty.

There is no economic system that guarantees liberty.

I think it is overly simplistic to only think of it as “the individual’s unfettered desire to do whatever they want,” or, “the individual’s unfettered ability to make money at the expense of other people, the planet, or the future,” both of which seem to be common interpretations of the meaning of Liberty by people who call themselves “Libertarians.”

At the beginning of this post, I stated that Liberty exists when we can make choices.

I believe the “choices” an individual can make are also constrained by their circumstances, in addition to the philosophical limits I describe above. If you inherit an emerald mine, your choices in this system are different from someone who did not.

To say otherwise is to adhere to principle at the cost of ignoring reality.

So what does Liberty MEAN?

I think there is nuance to the answer depending on what part of society we are examining, but at a high level it means we should all be able to live in peace and safety.

Other posts on this site will look at specific social issues, but the main point is this: how do we define what allows each individual the peace and safety to reach their highest potential and have the best life, and allows everyone around them to do the same?

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus your own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.