Is the NY Times is a Right Wing Front Organization?

The NY Times is running a partisan campaign to attack Joe Biden and destroy the Democrats by creating the fiction that Joe Biden is too old to run.  Aside from being ageist, who gave the NY Times the right to decide who the Democrats will nominate to run for election?  They run their front page articles every damn day, an editorial masquerading as a news article.   

They run this same article, with small variations, every day.  

And of course the NY Times could not care less about reporting on Trump's 34 felony convictions, about how he is unqualified and dangerous as president, about how he will murder Ukraine, about how he has always been corrupt all these years in NY, about his racism, his sexism, his abuse of women.  No.  None of these things matter to the NY Times.  Nor does the NY Times care to report on the illegitimacy of the legal system which is failing to try Donald Trump for his crimes during the January 6 attack on our government.  Nor does the NY Times care one bit about the delays of the case in Florida.  Nor does the NY Times care about women bleeding out from miscarriages that the doctors and hospitals will not treat in a Red State.

I remember when SCOTUS threw the 2000 election to their right wing nut, W. Bush, which caused a trillion dollar war in Iraq and put Alito and Roberts on the Supreme Court.   Not one word of protest from this right-wing rag.  From the day the SCOTUS pissed on the constitution in public, not one word was said about the illegitimacy of the W. Bush administration, its wars, or its judiciary.

There are several mysteries here.  Why do people continue to think and to say that the NY Times is in some way a bastion of progressive thought, the primary outlet for the so called "liberal media"?  That is as obviously false as saying that the Jews control the media, a joke if I ever heard one.  The second mystery is why are they doing this?  Who is telling them to do this?  Well one obvious suspect is that it is the elites of Wall Street and possibly just the elites who run our government, or think they do.  I have heard that Wall Street is all in support of Trump, just like Silicon Valley hates Biden for daring to talk about regulating AI.  

I dont think I know why the NY Times wants to destroy Biden.  I am certainly cancelling my subscription and I am sure the NY Times will not care that I do so, not even a little bit.

A Midjourney impression of unused newspaper printing machinery

Is "OK Boomer" Ageist?

draft

In a word, yes.  I understand that many of the things wrong in this world came from people who are of the "boomer" demographic.  But we did good things too, and I really dont want to be dismissed because of the accident of when I was born.

I think my response to this will be "Laugh while you can, punk".

What Field and Where?

draft

Since my participation in the field of computer graphics and animation is not up to my requirements, although I suppose that could change at any time, the best plan I can come up with is to go to graduate school and try to learn another trade. Many people assume that when I return to school (if I return to school) I will study computer graphics / animation. But why would I do that if the field is not being minimally economically viable? Yes VR/AR is spending a lot of money.  But how that will work out remains to be seen.

No doubt, visualization will be part of what I do in the future, no matter what direction I take. I seem to have dedicated a big part of my life to it, so why not continue?

So what field and where?

1. Field

If it involves computer science, then it might involve computer security, computational biology, machine learning, autonomy, or image understanding. All these fields are very important and interesting. If it involves being able to teach, then a terminal degree in art, the MFA, is useful. It would also be entertaining to get. In a previous life I studied economics and it is clear to me that the world economists are morons and a half, it might be fun to get an advanced degree in it. All my life I have studied history. Why not a PhD in that? Finally, RAND has a graduate institute.  I could probably get in, and try to work on a variety of RAND projects.  I see this as form of regression to a happier time.  The plan is to apply to as many of these as I can afford and have time for. Since I have no money, the final list will no doubt be shorter than the list here.

2. Work

Well one reason one might not want one of these degrees is the fact that I will not get employment after graduation.  But then I probably will not get employment whatever I study. 

3. Where?

All graduate schools are ageist and deliberately so. The ability to get accepted to an elite school such as MIT, Stanford and so forth is zero. I still may apply because I am stubborn and I hate their behavior and I want them to reject me to my face. The good news is that there are many schools where I can get a good education. Any major research university will do. How about UCSC, or NYU, or Columbia, or UNC? Where else do you suggest?

4. How?

To get into a top school, I need the best recommendations. My grades got me into Harvard the last time I tried, and god only knows how my GREs will go, but the last time I took them I did well. So it comes down to my essay and the recommendations.

As usual, my essay will be brilliant for those who have a brain and hopeless for those who are conventional and are terrified of someone who thinks differently.  But I have no plan to sanitize it for the small brained as it would do no one any good.

I am told that the only recommendations that are considered by admissions committees are recommendations by colleagues and peers: in other words, if you are applying for a CS school, you need recommendations by a tenured professor in CS. Anything else will be ignored. Unfortunately, while I know quite a few professors of CS, only one has agreed to write a letter of recommendation.

5. Other strategies

The MS programs are easier to get into, I might volunteer to go do a MS before the PhD to reduce risk. The average PhD candidate will be offered a fellowship. I will offer to do all this on government loans, that may make it easier to admit me. By admitting me they immediately get a graduate who has won an academy award. I am probably responsible for 1/2 billion in revenue based on my work. I will emphasize that I probably would have had at least 5 patents if I had had the money to file.

6. What happens after?

By the time I graduate, I hope to have at least one if not two books published (The details of that for another time.  The first book is well underway).  I will have social security, maybe a tiny income if I keep writing books.  If I get a job, I can repay my govt loans.  If I do not work, then they can come take it out of me.

Ageism in Silicon Valley:Can't We All Get Along?

This is an attempt to write about a recent incident that involved ageism, or an attitude towards ageism, that I find reprehensible. The first post on this topic was deleted because it was filled with the genuine and honest rage I felt about the situation. Hopefully this second post can narrate the incident and some thoughts i have about ageism, sexism, racism and so forth in our less-than-perfect society without expressing this anger.

But the content of this post is almost banal.  The big idea is that people disagree about issues such as what to do about ageism because they do not realize that they do not share assumptions, and given a lack of shared position on big issues, the little issues "declaring ageism bad" is not so simple.  So I am going to go over the obvious three assumptions that lie at the heart of this debate and observe that indeed not everyone agrees with them.  

The first assumption is that discrimination on the basis of some characteristic such as sex, color of skin, age, and so forth, is a bad thing. When someone is denied a job, or a membership in a society that has an important role in the community, or acceptance to a university because of age, sex, race, religion and so forth, and not on who they are as a person, then an injustice has been done. But there are many people in America who do not agree with me and think that discrimination on some of these criteria, a priori, and without consideration of the individual applicant is perfectly legitimate. There are many people believe it is right to deny someone a job because the applicant is a woman, as she might get pregnant and leave. She might, but she might not. Why not talk to her about it?

This is the central meaning of what discrimination (1) has come to mean: to choose between candidates based on a stereotype or classification that is independent of their worth as a person, or a candidate, or a potential student. Oh, he has funny hair, I dont think we should hire him. We really are uncomfortable with a Jew as member, do we really want to see him in the locker room or at our annual dinners? No we do not. Get that fucking jew out of here.

But I think, and I am sure most of my readers believe, that discrimination on the basis of sex, age, race, religion, etc is wrong. People should be judged on their individual merits and lack thereof. This is the first assumption.

The second assumption is that discrimination of this type exists in our society in important ways. If you do not believe that there is unfair discrimination then obviously you would not be predisposed to do anything to stop it. Many people I know do not believe that there is, for example, discrimination against black men by some of the “local” police forces in America. But I have lived near Los Angeles for most of my life, unfortunately, and every black person I know, mostly men, has a story to tell. They can't all be wrong. I have witnessed and heard about discrimination against women based entirely on their gender. When I hear about such discrimination, I always take it with a grain of salt until I know more, but I have no doubt that it exists and affects the lives of many people. I have no doubt it has affected my life.

Thus the second assumption is that discrimination exists in our society in important ways. In other words, this is not a theoretical concern, but a problem that exists among us right now.

The third assumption is that we, as individuals, as local governments and as the federal government, have a duty to work to end this discrimination in order to create a more fair and just society. This assumption is hotly debated among segments of our polity for many reasons. Among those reasons are those who do not hold the two assumptions above, as well as those who benefit from these discriminations in a direct and tangible way and wish to keep them. Other people who disagree do so because they have a vision of what government means and do not want government involved in this area of life and business. Still others disagree because they do not see that they as individuals have a duty to stand up to this injustice, that it is someone else's problem. And others disagree with this because they are afraid that they might be discriminated against if someone complains about it.

In summary, the assumptions are that discrimination is bad, that it exists in our society, and that we all have a duty to do something about it, both as individuals and as government.

Now we get to the specific incident. A friend of mine, who is a right-wing republican through and through, has lived off his stock-options for a decade and finds that having spent all his money he needs to get a job. He has no doubt that he will immediately get a job, at whatever company he wants, at his perceived level of worth, in spite of being out of the job market for so long. Whenever he does not get a job or might not get a job, it is someone else's fault, which it very well may be. One place he is applying is Google, which he considers an easy place for him to get a senior job, but he has one concern, and that is ageism at Google.

Well, he is right to be concerned. Famously, throughout the world, Google has earned a reputation for ageist hiring practices and career development. In an industry, technology, which already has a strong age bias, Google stands out for being explicitly and radically age biased. Or so, I read, and so I have heard. Is this a fair accusation, I have no way of knowing. In general, however, when you hear things like this as strongly as I hear them about Google, then in fact there is something to it. My guess is that the ageism exists among the lower levels mostly, in other words, when you have a senior person pitching for you, then you are ok at any age. But when you are left to the tender mercies of middle management, then indeed they are explicitly ageist. That is my guess.

Whatever is true here, whether truly there is fire to all that smoke, one dismissed person in marketing took Google to court about it. And win or lose, that is where my friend looking for a job comes in.

His model of the world is that because someone dared to oppose Google on the basis of age after being dismissed, that he, my friend, would have trouble being hired, because Google would be concerned about hiring someone over 50 in case they got sued.

Thus the cause of this ageism is not Google's egregious and world-famous policy of discrimination, but because a victim of it protested his fate.

If only the victims of the unjust world would accept being fucked, my friend is saying, it would be better for me, because then they would hire me. But if they do not hire me, it is not my fault, it is because of that asshole who got fired who sued.

My friend has no concern about the justness of this discrimination, does not even really believe it exists, and could not care less about it except as it affects him. And it only exists in his mind because someone used this anti-discrimination law and used it to unfairly sue Google.

I find this attitude appalling but there are two good things to say about.  First, it is consistent with his other beliefs.  I like consistency in matters of principle.  The second good thing is that everyone has a right to their opinion even if they disagree with me and thus are obviously wrong.

But given this diversity of opinion about something I would think would just be obvious, we, the forces of good, must work extra hard to.end discrimination in our society.  It won't happen, apparently, unless there is a mass movement to change things.

_____________________________________

Notes:

1. Discrimination used to be a word that simply meant to choose based on some criteria. It was not a bad thing, it was a neutral thing. One might discriminate between two marbles because one was a cat eye and one was not, it did indicate preference but not unfair preference.

Interesting Article on Ageism in Silicon Valley

Every once in a while we will just refer to an article or articles that we think are interesting and hope our readers will as well.  This one is on ageism in Silicon Valley.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117088/silicons-valleys-brutal-ageism

Further Issues With Hiring More Experienced Workers (MEWs)

[updated 7/27/2013]

In a previous post (see here), we discussed issues that may become apparent when you hire a more experienced worker, or MEW as they are known in the literature, such as their tendency to fail to fall for your lies and a stupid desire to learn from experience. These are bad enough, but there are others that can be added to the list and we have some of them here.

I should first mention that not all experienced workers suffer from these character flaws, but the very possibility that they might should be enough to see that MEWs are never hired.

1. More experienced workers tend to mutter to themselves.

After all they are subjected to the most obvious and abusive ageism by your younger workers on a daily basis, they are likely to have some sort of verbal response. This is unacceptable and any MEW that mutters to themselves should immediately be fired.

2. More expereinced workers tend to exhibit diversity in opinions and ideas.

The most efficient workplace is one in which there is no dissent because the workers are cut from the same conforming cloth, everyone knows that. Unanimity should come not through discussion of the best approach, but because the worker units believe that there is only one way, their way, what they have been programmed to believe, thus they can proceed without discomfort or thought. By having more experienced workers who may know other ways or have contrary opinions based on genuine experience, you potentially open your organization to inefficient discussion and debate.

Remember, debate is weakness. Unthinking unanimity is strength!  

3. More experienced workers after being subjected to abuse might show some sign of anger at being treated like garbage.

Any who do so should be fired at once. Management should have no fear of being subjected to any penalty by government because the government supports ageism in all ways, that is obvious. Thus MEWs can be fired with impunity.

4. An MEW might be better educated than the "stupid morons" (1) companies hire as management and thus this management might suffer from insecurity which might affect their ability to be stupid.

Imagine the poor 20 or 30 something management, stupid and shallow as they are, spitting teeth in frustration if they had to deal with a MEW who might actually use a big word that our stupid management did not understand. Oh Gods! Forbid this gross unjustice !

I think we have established without doubt that our government is right in supporting ageism in all its forms and that an older and more experienced worker must never be hired.

_____________________________________

1. A "stupid moron" is an innovative personal insult and a colloquialism that is not in common usage in English, but was innovated by the author to communicate a higher degree of "moron"-icity than one might normally experience.   English is a Germanic language and it is a natural part of the language process to create new terms from existing words to extend the language.   Thus "stupid moron" is obviously a way of saying "a particularly unintelligent person of low intelligence".

Some Issues with Hiring More Experienced People

[in progress 7/9/2013]


I apologize.  I wanted this essay to be much more sarcastic and biting and self-deprecating, but it just has not come out that way.  It is mostly just serious and with a little sarcasm about American industry and the importance of lying to workers to motivate them.   Maybe the essay will evolve into something more vicious later, with time.


In America, ageism is everywhere.   And American industry is very ageist in its hiring policies.   But are there potentially good reasons for this discrimination?  Is there perhaps a dark side to hiring an older, more experienced worker, one with a reputation in the field, and a style and name that goes along with it?  Are there genuine good reasons to stay away from such people?

Yes, there are such reasons and we know that a priori because in America the actions of business are the leading indicators of right and wrong in our society and they are certainly ageist.

In America, the company is always right because the company is endowed with the test of efficiency in a perfectly competitive market.  Therefore if the company is ageist in their hiring practices, as nearly all of them are, then it has to be for a good reason.  Anything that the company does not want to do, e.g. hire older and more experienced workers,  must ipso facto be inefficient and lead to the destruction of America and its way of life.  It is up to us to explain why ageism is the right thing by examining the case studies provided us by industry.

Technically, ageism in hiring is against the law.  But the law is deliberately written to make this impossible to enforce and so practically there are no serious legal impediments to discrimination on the basis of age.

It is commonly said that older workers are not hired because they are more expensive.  I don't think so, I think that the older and more experienced but out of work professional will absolutely compromise on salary compensation without a moment's hesitation if it meant getting a serious position for a serious company that allowed him or her to do their work, whatever that may be.

But there *is* a dark side with hiring older, more experienced workers.   In some ways, an older worker can be like a disease that contaminates the corporate ethos, and may unconsciously or consciously undermine the esprit de corps that the corporation is working so hard to establish.

Here are some of the ways in which having an experienced worker can cause problems.  

1. Its harder to lie to a more experienced worker.

Go team, this will change the world! Burn yourself out and you will be recognzied for your achievement and establish yourself! But the older worker is living proof that this is a bad strategy.  These workers *did* burn themselves out, they did do groundbreaking work, and they didn't get shit for it, nor are they the least bit recognized for their achievements after a few years. As we say in Los Angeles, that and $3.50 will buy you a decaf espresso in this town.  Thus the older worker may act as an impediment when the time comes to lie to the workers and exploit them because that worker is a living example of what their fate may be.

2. The older worker is by their very nature a failure, and failure is hard to have around.

We want a rah, rah, don't think just do as you are told culture here. Part of that culture has to be the belief that what the worker is doing will lead to their success, ultimately. Sure they may not own any of the upside of their work, being disenfranchised workers in the classic sense, but ultimately, the story goes, this effort will lead to their fame and fortune, trust me. But the company will eventually go under, as most of them do, or be acquired and under new management, as the rest of them do, or had layoffs as all of them do. And all but a few ended up with their paycheck and that is it. People who DID good work and took care of people, and then just got fucked and discarded and had to find a job. Well that person is not only a failure in the eyes of America, but even worse, it is possible that the younger workers would realize that the career path they are on may very well lead to the same result. Well, that is not a good way to get people to mindlessly and enthusiastically do as they are told.

3. Older workers bring a history with them.

Good or bad, older workers have done things in their life.  That means they know people, and some people like them and usually some people don't.   And people are competitive, and frankly, some people are just fucking crazy.  But when you hire an older worker you also hire a person who has a network of people in the field who have made up their minds about the person you have hired.  Maybe it would be better to just hire a new person who has no history and keep things simple.

4. Older workers bring other company cultures with them.

Corporate culture is real.  Building a culture is critical to building a company.  If someone does not fit in, possibly because they have done things differently in other companies, then that person may represent an obstacle to building the culture you desire.    Better to hire someone with little background, they will be easier to indoctrinate into the company way.

5. The older worker may expect, stupidly, to be able to learn from their experience.

We are told such stupid things as we are growing up "he never made the same mistake twice". I am here to tell you today that I have been compelled to make the same mistake over and over again because I had no choice, it was either take the job or not. But the more experienced worker, innocently thinking that it is part of their life and work to be able to learn from their mistakes, may not realize that no one wants to fix the problem.  Telling your management what you have learned and about a way to proceed that you think is better, or about what the problems are with their approach is exactly the wrong thing to do.    You may never be forgiven.    It will either annoy them because their tiny ego can not stand being wrong about something, or it will annoy them because they knew that already and they want you to shut up and do it their way, or it will annoy them because they do not understand a word of what you are talking about and that scares them.

So hiring a younger worker is much better, they have no experience to mention and therefore are much more likely to comply and do as they are told, which brings us to our last issue.

6. Younger people are less of a political threat

Maybe if you hire the older worker, who is qualified to be your boss or your boss's boss, something weird will happen and they will end up with your job. Since you know that you are a worthless piece of shit that does not deserve the job you have, this is a real and practical concern.  Of course, you may also be replaced by one of the younger people you hire as well, so it is not clear what this buys you.

In conclusion, it seems clear that the younger worker will be more pliable, have less history, and won't try to tell you how to do your job.   The answer is clear.   One should hire younger workers, burn them out, then discard them so that they can go away to live the rest of their life in misery and poverty.

That is the American Way.

Why Are So Many Pioneers of Computer Animation Chronically Unemployed?

Needs to be revised.

The people that I know in computer animation, who can be said to pioneer the field, fall into a number of categories.   Some are well entrenched in academia, some seem to have jobs for life at the one or two stable companies in this field, some go from job to job every 5 or 10 years, and some, quite a few, are chronically unemployed and financially ruined, or nearly so.

I think it is sensible to discuss why this might be so.  It will have implications later on when we discuss recommendations for SIGGRAPH and other topics.

Of course this is my own opinion.  So far as I know no one else discusses or is interested in the phenomenon.

My intuitive take on this matter is that it involves a lack of respect for one's elders, goddamnit.   We had to walk through the snow every day to do computer animation.  When we needed a computer we had to build our own.  We thought 250 MBs was a lot of disk.   We were excited by getting 800 vectors on the screen 15 times a second.  You kids are just spoiled, cough, cough.

Unfortunately, the rest of the essay is serious.

My first general observation is that the reasons for this chronic unemployment is that it is not just one thing, or one mistake, unless that mistake was to go into computer animation at all.  The reasons for the problem are many, with some applying to one person, but others to a different one.   The list below is an attempt to mention the major topics but not all of these topics apply to every person.

The second observation is that many of the issues below are not really mistakes at all, they are in many cases a natural result of being in this field when it was early, or other circumstantial things such as being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Also, whatever the issues are here, I do not think it is about the current economic depression we are in that the government denies exists.  Perhaps that depression and the dot com bust has made things worse, but its not the primary cause.

1. Most of the pioneers are colorful individuals who took chances, in a world which expects everyone to be like everyone else and not take risks.  So when they are considered later for employment, people who are not their peers judge them by saying they are too colorful, or controversial, or take too many risks, and they are not hired.

2. In inventing the field they made unconventional career choices or worked for companies with very short lives, and thus have a non-traditional employment history.  Again they are judged negatively and not employed.

3. Computer animation/graphics/3D turns out to be a niche field.   The few companies that advertise for 3D people are generally looking for production people to use tools, not to do new kinds of work.

4. The relationship between computer graphics technical knowledge and other related fields, such as user interface design, is not recognized.  Furthermore, even areas which use specific computer animation/3D technology have split off to form their own fields with their own credentials, such as medical imaging, or scientific visualization.

5. All of the early computer animation companies made mistakes.   Those who stayed in business were able to show that they had learned from their mistakes, those which did not were tarred with the brush of those mistakes.   

6. Many if not most of the pioneers of this field were/are multidisciplinary, and by definition multidisciplinary people are a hard sell, because they have a confused marketing image. There is lip service to something called the Renaissance Man (or Woman), but it is just that, lip service. It has no niche in the employment market.

7. Many of the pioneers ignored formal credentials because they were not relevant to inventing the field. But when the field became mature, those credentials became required for employment, so the pioneers were out.

8. Many of the companies that the pioneers worked at are no longer in business, which means that one can not return there, nor are the people to see that you get the appropriate awards, credit, etc. 

9. The field is very competitive.  People from the early days are generally slandered, unless they are in a position of power which does not describe the people who are unemployed.

10. People and companies in this field are not the least bit interested in where ideas came from, nor do they care to invent new ideas or techniques. Even if they were there is no belief that those who did the original work will do new work that matters.   Doing good work buys you nothing for the future is the lesson I have learned.

11. By definition, the people who invented the field are autodidacts and learned what they needed to learn in the process of doing. Today, people are only hired if their resume and work experience show exactly what is required and nothing else.   That does not describe the pioneers.

12. As the field matured, it became wildly oversubscribed. The tsunami of new people have no idea who or how the field was invented and could not care less.  The companies who hire have lots of choices and also could not care less.   

13. The companies that survived are generally run by people who are very competitive with the people who are out of work.

14.  Pioneers often have the problem of not being able to show new work, since their skills were often tied to proprietary software which is no longer available to them.

15. It is easier to hire someone new, recently from school, then to hire someone with experience.

16.  Jobs are limited because so many have been off-shored.

17. Ageism.   Computer animation is one of the few industries I know (along with the music industry and the game industry) that proudly admits it is ageist.

18. There is no noblesse oblige in the computer animation industry.

Are there lessons to draw from this?  Yes.  In America, to be early in a field such that you are not able to profit from it is to be wrong.    Second, it is true what they say, there are no prizes for second place.

____________________________________

1. There is a longer topic lurking in here, that I am skimming over in the interest of not making an already over long post even longer.   And that topic is why not do something entrepreneurial?   That is a very good question and deserves a very serious answer.  For the sake of this discussion, we are leaving the entrepreneurial issues until later.   A brief version of my take on it is that in fact there are some entrepreneurial opportunities, but that they are dicey.

[revised 6/9/2014]

Commentary on Ageism by Louis L'Amour (1908-1988)

I first became aware of the problem of ageism when reading an interview with the great American author and philosopher, Louis L'Amour, in an airline magazine.

Sometime in the late 70s, flying on Pacific Southwest Airlines, an airline which is now sadly out of business, I read an interview with Mr. L'Amour  whose work I had seen in hundreds of grocery stores and whom I had never read, and he advised:

Never tell your age. There is too much ageism in America.

Although I was in my early 20s, I somehow knew that I was hearing the voice of experience, and that I should take his advice.

Louis L'Amour at his typewriter in Los Angeles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_L'Amour

http://www.louislamour.com/aboutlouis/biography.htm

revised 8/7/2016