tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44664952119787937132024-02-19T16:05:04.796+13:00Future Imperfectaleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-79962715454634190712022-01-06T16:51:00.001+13:002022-01-06T16:51:43.039+13:00The Matrix: Resurrections Review<p><span style="font-size: large;">There’s no glitch in The Matrix to be found in Resurrections; only déjà vu.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;">The original 1999 movie is a classic which everyone should see, a distillation of the dreams and anxieties of the dawning digital age which has had a tremendous impact on popular culture. Its immediate sequels were, unfortunately, a convoluted and forgettable mess, and remain difficult to recommend to anyone but the most diehard franchise fans.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;">After two decades on ice, <em>The Matrix Resurrections</em> had an opportunity to do something fresh and bold with the franchise. The trailers looked promising, hinting at a film which leans into exactly the kind of self-aware meta-commentary which might justify another sequel as more than just a cynical cash grab. So many people, myself included, really <em>wanted</em> that film.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;">Unfortunately, that’s not the film we got, though its first hour (by far its strongest section) does put up a pretty good pretense of meta-ness before abruptly departing into a rote retread. By the time it’s given us a shot-by-shot remake of Neo’s pod-birthing scene - his face once more aghast in shock and horror as he looks out, with the audience, over the endless human battery farm, an iconic establishing shot which somehow lacks the same impact after three films in its now well-established and much-imitated setting - that pretense has worn pretty darn thin.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;">From thereon out, it’s a paint-by-numbers Matrix film; gun-fu action set-pieces interspersed with lengthy villainous monologues explaining their nonsensical plans by way of techno-mystical word salad. None of its plentiful action scenes stand out from anything offered by the previous trilogy, and the film passes up almost every opportunity to subvert audience expectations.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;">It insists on exhuming and recasting beloved characters who are presented to us as versions 2.0 of their namesakes - sensibly, the new actors don’t attempt to emulate their predecessors, but nor are they given enough room to breathe as new iterations of the characters. As is, they serve only to desperately tick a studio wish-list.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;">The few fresh ideas the film introduces - the Human-Sapient alliance; the idea that Neo could be seen by some as merely a pawn of the machines - are left woefully underdeveloped.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;">Given its tortured production - and how many times the Wachowski Sisters had previously turned down Warner Brothers’ requests for another sequel - perhaps <em>Resurrections</em> slyly self-effacing opening act is better read not as a manifesto for what follows, but as an apology.</span></p>aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-72197733243361566772020-06-11T14:17:00.000+12:002020-06-11T14:18:58.202+12:00Doom Eternal review<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Well, I just loved <em>Doom Eternal</em>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It's hard to describe the cathartic bliss of deep, bitter frustration and exhilarating reward this game suspends the player in from beginning to end. It is not an easy game. It is not <em>Dark Souls</em> difficult - it is more forgiving than that, certainly on the <em>Ultra-Violence</em> difficulty which I played during my campaign - but that influence is apparent in <em>Doom Eternal</em>'s constant demand for attentive, thoughtful, precise play. 2016's <em>Doom</em> was itself a difficult (and brilliant) game, but with a focus on rhythm combat which felt more akin to the <em>Arkham</em> series - you could get away with button-mashing to a certain degree, so long as you kept yourself moving, dodged heavy fire and glory-killed your way to victory. That game of "combat chess", of positioning and mobility is still ever-present here, but both you and your enemy have far more elaborate means available to control the battlefield, many more threats demanding our attention, many more cool-downs to keep track of.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Yes, there are a lot of cool-downs and a lot of buttons. Not content with 2016's chainsaw-for-ammo glory-kill-for-health contrivance (an acceptable one), <em>Doom Eternal</em> adds a flamethrower which ignites enemies, causing them to drop armor shards. The game does not deign to explain to us that carbonised demon flesh actually forms an incredibly powerful kevlar-like compound or any such nonsense, thankfully. There's also an ice bomb, which freezes enemies, a grappling hook (attached to the super shotgun), eight weapons each with two toggleable alternate fire modes, a insta-kill magic sword, blood punch (it's a super-punch you charge by glory-killing), and a frag grenade (returning from 2016).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">At times, it feels like too much, but it's hard to pick an element I'd remove now that I'm enjoying having mastered all of them (enough to beat the game, anyway - I'm not going to be streaming any speedruns anytime soon). <em>Doom Eternal</em> walks a narrow tightrope to keep the player thinking "just one more go, and <em>then</em> I'm torching the Playstation" without them ever <em>quite</em> getting to that point. But I could have, and almost did, and I don't doubt this game will be responsible for some crispy CPUs. The difficulty setting of course offers some consolation to the overwhelmed, but it doesn't change the number of things you have to <em>do</em> or <em>pay attention to</em>, just how often you can afford to overlook them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">There's also platforming. Quite a lot of of it. 2016's <em>Doom</em> used light platforming to spice up play, add mobility, and hide secrets. <em>Doom Eternal</em> makes it a core component of gameplay, both in-combat, and during lengthy, timing-critical jumping sections of level traversal. There is more traversal generally, also; the arena combat of 2016's <em>Doom</em> coupled with interconnecting tidbits of corridor-based gameplay.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It's fair to say that the strength of the arena combat can make those interconnecting tidbits - especially when they drag on as frustratingly as the platforming sections can - feel like you're treading water, waiting impatiently for the next wave. That said, for a game which crams in as many new things as <em>Doom Eternal</em> does over its predecessor, it's astonishing that it doesn't really <em>fail</em> at any of them. At worst, it occasionally over-indulges its lesser successes at the expense of its greater ones.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><em>Doom Eternal</em> is at its core a game of frenetic, adrenaline-pumping, gore-soaked arena combat and I have **never played a game which does that better. Like 2016's <em>Doom</em>, push-forward combat is the name of the game; the key difference here is that one more often "push-forward" in the opposite direction from the Cyberdemon that's just spawned in, not in retreat but rather towards weaker enemies and pickups that replenish your resources before you return to defeat the big bad.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It is incredibly demanding of the player - requiring levels of precision, mindfulness, endurance, and nanosecond-to-nanosecond judgement that very few games could get away with without controllers being hurled at the TV (and it is, by all accounts, somewhat easier with a keyboard and mouse, sadly not an option I had). It does get away with it, though, and the reason is that id Software have been incredibly intelligent with the game's pacing and structure - every encounter functions as a tutorial which prepares you for the next; the <em>entire game</em> functions as a tutorial for the final boss fight, which requires all the skills you've learned up to that point. The first time you face down the Doom Hunter or the Marauder one-on-one - super heavy enemies which require special attention and methods to defeat - you <em>will</em> think "this is impossible". When you eventually prevail it will feel like an accomplishment of herculean proportions. A few hours later, when you find them spawning into combat arenas already filled with countless other threats, you will again think "this is impossible".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But it isn't, and that's the sheer joy of <em>Doom Eternal.</em> People will say this is a game that doesn't hold your hand, but its genius is the extent to which it actually <em>does</em> hold your hand without the player realising it. It constantly puts its players up against seemingly impossible odds and yet - by introducing new elements one layer at a time and punishing you so swiftly and mercilessly for mistakes - it forces you to learn, to become <em>awesome</em> at it, an unstoppable demon-slaying machine against whom "impossible odds" are barely an inconvenience. There are times when it is genuinely transcendent - you hit a blissful flow state, where there is no fear, there is no self, there is only <em>rip and tear</em>. There were at least a couple of occasions where I snapped back to reality with a jolt upon finally completing one of the game's exquisitely hellish slayer gates, realising that I had no memory whatsoever of the battle I'd just fought and somehow won.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Aesthetically, it is absolutely gorgeous. They've doubled-down on 2016's nostalgia, with the addition of many classic <em>Doom</em> enemies and weapons and its returning cast largely remodelled to better resemble their original appearance. The level of detail that has gone into the environment is incredible, particularly given the game's length (and the fact that it is a shooter rather than a walking simulator). There are influences here not just from the original Doom games, but it also draws from classic illustrations from Dante's <em>Inferno</em> and Milton's <em>Paradise Lost</em> (art by Wililam Blake and Gustave Doré respectively) as well as Bruegel's painting <em>The Tower of Babel</em>, to name a few that I spotted. While it is not primarily a story-driven game, the effort id Software have gone to to create a fully realised Doomiverse shines through in every world you explore - and <em>Eternal</em> takes us on a universe-trotting adventure far beyond the familiar landscapes of Hell, Earth, and Mars. The lore of <em>Doom Eternal</em> is much deeper and richer than its predecessor, but it is also mostly optional, told through collectible codex pages which can be read (or ignored) at the player's leisure. There are a few cutscenes where control is briefly taken away from the player, a deviation from 2016's Doom, but never to the degree that I found it annoying (I would have liked to at least pull the trigger on the BFG10K myself, though). It is also utterly and delightfully batshit bananas, leaning fully into its own absurdity and tongue-in-cheek self-seriousness. There's plenty of fan-service here too; not only does <em>Eternal</em> connect itself with the earlier games (albeit, in a way which doesn't make much sense if you dwell on it, but <em>Eternal</em> wisely doesn't) but fans of other 90s shooters may notice subtle allusions to the <em>Heretic</em> and <em>Quake</em> games as well - it's almost as if id Software are teasing a shared universe, avoiding the contrivances that explicitly connecting the dots would require, but providing ample fuel for Reddit fan-theories.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">So yeah, it's great. If you liked 2016's <em>Doom</em> you'll love this. It might take a little patience (particularly if you're not a veteran FPS player) and riding of the difficulty slider, and there will be moments of frustration, but the thrill of overcoming those frustrations is well worth the effort. If I'd been a playtester during the final days of development I probably would have suggested they trim back the platforming sections and simplify the upgrade systems a bit, but these are the only real blemishes on an otherwise sublime gaming experience. I can't wait to see where the Doomiverse takes us next.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b>4.5/5</b></span><br />
aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-60604037542499208972020-03-03T17:10:00.000+13:002020-03-03T17:21:37.467+13:00Covid-19 - Putting facts before apathy & hyperbole<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit;">The information
ecosystem around Covid-19 (aka Coronavirus) is dense and riddled with both
apathy and hyperbole, and attempts by civic authorities to cut through the
social media noise and achieve that delicate balance which encourages alertness
and preparation without inciting panic have been, at best, only partially
successful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Supermarket shelves are
being rapidly emptied by folks preparing their bunker for a 6 month apocalypse
(please don’t). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the flipside, I hear
so many people dismissing worries over the virus as a media beatup, it’s “the
same as a cold”, or “driven by anti-Asian racism”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit;">All of this
is so very frustrating, and I appreciate it’s hard to know what to believe with
all of this flying around, so without telling anyone how worried or not worried
they ought to be, I thought it might be helpful to share some of the basic
facts as they stand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit; mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">There
are several key metrics experts use to determine the risk profile of an
epidemic. One is its reproduction number – its “R0” value – an estimate of, on
average, how many other people will be infected by one carrier of the disease. Measles,
for example, has an R0 of between 12 and 18, which is very high. The various
forms of Influenza, on the other hand, have an average R0 of between 2 and 3.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit; mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit; mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">There
are a number of difficulties involved in reliably determining the R0 of
Covid-19 at this point. Firstly, for most infected, the earliest symptoms won’t
differ significantly from those associated with a common cold or flu, and some
will recover without intervention before it gets any worse than that. Secondly,
it’s possible that those without symptoms (yet) can carry the virus and pass it
onto others. We can only estimate the R0 based on number of diagnoses, which is
unreliable, and only made more difficult by the differences between health
systems and reporting practices across different countries. </span></div>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit; mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit; mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Most models place
the R0 of Covid-19 at somewhere between 1.4 and 3.8, and it seems to be
settling, for now, at around 2.2, similar to flu. This could still change
significantly, but there’s good reason to think it’s probably about right –
namely, that sequencing of the virus has shown that it’s fairly closely related
to the virus which caused the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, which also has an R0 in
that range.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit; mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Another
key metric is the case mortality rate <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>–
what percentage of people infected with the virus are killed by it. Again, hard
to know for sure for the same reasons it’s hard to know the R0. So far though,
the best guess is that around 2% of diagnosed cases have resulted in death.
That might sound low, but it’s twenty times higher than influenza’s mortality
rate of 0.1% – which kills somewhere between about 300,000 and 650,000 people
per year, at a similar estimated R0.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit; mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit; mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">If,
in the worst case scenario, Covid-19 becomes established globally as a regular
seasonal infection.. well, you do the math. Yeah, it ain’t good. While there
are at least 20 vaccines in development internationally, this could take
months, and the further the virus spreads the more mutations we will see which
a single vaccine may not be able to deal with.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit; mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit; mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Panicking,
however, is not going to help. We know that communities that beat pandemics are
ones that pull together, share resources and cooperate. When people freak out,
spread misinformation, or stampede to stockpile for the apocalypse, they only
increase risks for themselves and others. Remember that the vast majority of
people, especially healthy adults, who get Covid-19 and seek medical attention
early will be absolutely fine. Every one of us can play a role in reducing
risk. Practice good hygiene, wash your hands properly and regularly, use
sanitiser if you have it, disinfect surfaces like keyboards/mice or food preparation
areas regularly, ensure (where possible) that you’re set up to work from home if
it becomes necessary or otherwise have a plan if you can’t work for a while (good
employers will generally offer paid discretionary leave in such circumstances
but if you’re a contractor or casual this can be trickier), minimise use of public
transport, avoid densely-crowded spaces and events if you can, make sure you
have a week or so’s worth of surplus supplies but DO NOT PANIC BUY (society is
not going to come to a standstill and hoarding bunker-loads of stuff is only
going to deprive others), and – as should be really freaking obvious – IF YOU
ARE SICK, STAY HOME, keep your damn germs to yourself and contact your doctor as
soon as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit; mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit; mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Symptom-wise, Covid-19
will generally give you a gnarly fever and mess with your lungs – causing cough,
shortness of breath and/or sore throat. If you have those particular symptoms,
it is probably wise to call in advance rather than just showing up to your GPs
office. That goes a hundredfold if you’ve been travelling recently (or been in close contact with someone who has).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit; mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit; mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Keep
in mind that as of 3rd March, there has only been one confirmed case in Aotearoa.
While the official Ministry of Health advice still ranks the risk of a
widespread outbreak as low-moderate, evidence and the experience of other
countries suggests that it is likely we’ll see community transmission at some point over
the coming days or weeks.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="mi-NZ" style="mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span><span lang="mi-NZ" style="mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Here's a really good piece from Dr Siouxsie Wiles on how to prepare your household:</span></span><br />
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<span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit; mso-ansi-language: #0481; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Calibri"; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/science/28-02-2020/seriously-dont-panic-but-we-must-get-prepared-for-the-arrival-of-coronavirus/">https://thespinoff.co.nz/science/28-02-2020/seriously-dont-panic-but-we-must-get-prepared-for-the-arrival-of-coronavirus/</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">You can also check the WHO website for updates and guidance on how to keep yourself and others safe as poss:</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public"><span style="font-family: inherit;">https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public</span></a><span lang="mi-NZ" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-57304957305830819632020-03-03T16:55:00.000+13:002020-03-03T16:55:38.399+13:00Night in the Woods - Review<div style="-en-clipboard: true;">
I enjoyed Night in the Woods, a lot. I found myself deeply immersed in its world, its characters, thrilled with a sense of nostalgia and determined to unlock all of its mysteries as I navigated through the same lovingly crafted environments, again, and again, and again; speaking to the same beautifully flawed characters again, and again, and again to ensure I didn’t miss a line of its hyper-realistic and wacky dialogue. And yet, having finished the game at an underwhelming 29% completion, I confess I don’t feel particularly compelled to return to it.
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The game plays out one day at a time. Almost every day goes like this: your character (Mae) awakes in her room. She might choose to practice bass, via a Guitar Hero style mini-game which, though enjoyable, never really gives her an opportunity to learn the songs before you mutilate them. She can also check her messages - which are usually some variation on “Hi Mae! I’m bored, come visit me in my shop”. Or, she can play Demontower on her computer, a remarkably well-constructed hack and slash roguelike game-within-a-game. She then goes downstairs, talks with her Mom, goes out, and wanders about the town speaking to the townsfolk, eventually meeting up with either of her two closest friends (or occasional another) to perform an activity. Hijinks, minigames, bonding and character development ensure. Returning home, she talks with her Dad, goes upstairs to her room and to sleep, exploring a strange dreamscape where she must find four musicians who are scattered about, her dream ending with her cowering at the appearance of a terrifying, gigantic creature. It’s fun, and the character interactions are great, but as alluded to above it’s more than a little repetitive and frustrating exploring the same areas over and over to see if anything’s changed.
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The game goes on like this for some time, building up the relationships between characters before the real story begins to unfold - a tale of long-dead miners, ghosts, strange cthonic beings from beyond. It’s also a tale of Mae’s slowly deteriorating mental health; as someone who suffers from depression and anxiety, it’s all-too-relatable at times.
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The writing is hands-down some of the best I’ve seen in a video game, at least as far as individual scenes and dialogue is concerned. Unfortunately the wider narrative arc is unfocused and unevenly paced; it spends its first two-thirds or so being a nostalgic and sweet coming-of-age tale about the trials and tribulations of life as a millenial under late capitalism, then rapidly becomes a conspiracy/mystery/supernatural drama which reaches its climax and conclusion rather quickly, leaving many of the previously setup character threads dangling - of course one would not expect a story which leans so heavily on existential themes and millenial malaise to give its characters a “happily ever after” conclusion, but after the game has spent so much time developing its characters, and then put them through such ferocious adversity, you might expect to see a little more change, growth as a result.
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While Night in the Woods tends to get lumped in with narrative-driven games like Dear Esther, Gone Home, What Remains of Edith Finch?, and so on due to its emphasis on storytelling and exploration, it has somewhat more actual gameplay than these - some light platforming, low-stakes minigames and puzzle-solving. None of these are at all difficult, some of it is optional and the game pretty much tells you exactly what you need to do in each case. It’s a grab-bag of various gameplay elements all of which are enjoyable and well constructed - enough so that I found myself wanting more of it. Mae’s movement feels great and the animation is gorgeous as she jumps from rooftop to powerline to rooftop; I can’t help but feel that the developers could have capitalised on this more.
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It’s always a treat to find games like this - games which put narrative and aesthetics first, which embrace the medium as an artform rather than as mere entertainment. For me personally, as an anxious, mental-health challenged millenial creative struggling under late capitalism with the constant dread of impending civilisational collapse bearing down, as someone who particularly enjoys supernatural/horror/mystery themes particularly against the backdrop of small town Americana - of course I absolutely adore this game, it’s a beautiful tantalising gem which lured me in from its opening scene and wouldn’t let go until the credits. It’s tempting therefore to say nothing but nice things about it. But as a critic, it has to be said that the jumble of ideas the developers fed into this game aren’t as cohesive or well fleshed-out as they might be, with the result that the whole ends up being less than the sum of its otherwise excellent parts. I recommend Night of the Woods, I only wish that its grasp had come nearer to its reach. </div>
aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-61166499526270696662019-07-10T23:48:00.000+12:002019-07-10T23:55:42.268+12:00PERTURBATIONS<span style="font-family: inherit;">This blog has ever been a regrettably infrequent indulgence of mine; and my mind would plainly benefit from indulging it more often. A good friend of mine read my palm on our first meeting many years ago, and told me I'd probably never finished a thought in my life. There is all too much truth to this, hence the countless fragmentary, unshared ramblings which litter every notebook digital and otherwise in my possession.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lately I've been passionately pursuing my once latent interest in all things metaphysical, spiritual, occult, arcane, mystical, and yes, "religious" and magickal. With, I must say, all skepticism intact and a large bowl of salt with which to season anything insufficiently swallowable. I'm only a few steps down this particular road, but it's already been an incredibly fascinating, empowering, and self-affirming journey.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This has included an enormous volume of writing as I have considered and tried to comprehend the various teachers from whom I have learned, as I have tried to apply those learnings and recorded my results, as I have begun to articulate my own imperfect understanding of the inner and outer phenomena which make up experiential reality, and of the source of those phenomena. I want to try using this blog as a place to begin externalising some of those thoughts, and seeing what, if anything, reflects back.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is a piece I wrote recently.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>PERTURBATIONS</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mind is the noise in the silent signal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">A string stretched silently </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">between Force & Form.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Between Being & Non-Being.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">1 & 0.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Creation & Destruction.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Imagination & Realisation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Fire & Water.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Life & Death.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Air & Earth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Thesis & Antithesis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Absolute Reality & Absolute Unreality.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Object & "Subject".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">A string stretched, silent but trembling,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For the wheels of an astral logging truck some four parsecs away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For the beating wings of a Betelgeusian butterfly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">A demonic diva bellowing a bawdy ballad in an outer space opera house.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Or some other such secret, unknowable, far off things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Perturbation piles upon perturbation</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">it becomes a hum, soft and low</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">but soon a ROAR, wild and fearsome</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">and when the bearer of the voice vibrating this cord reaches out a hand and plucks it</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">you'd best be listening.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Because that hand, that voice is yours and it is mine</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">though it sang and played long before we had hand or voice</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">we may sing and play what we Will, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">dIScordiNT</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">or harmonious.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We may continue the song sung by our forebears, and theirs</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">or the song sung by the rocks and the trees, or the birds and the bees</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">or the stars in the sky</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Or we may sing a new song.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But let it not be a lullaby</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Let it not be a lament</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But a song of Light, Life, Love & Liberty</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Let it catch in the ear of all who hear it, that they might sing it too.</span></div>
aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-85368803468304040442019-04-30T01:09:00.000+12:002019-04-30T01:09:30.841+12:00Review: The Long Night (SPOILERS)
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The pivotal moment that captured the public’s attention and transformed HBO’s <i>Game of Thrones</i> from “just another fantasy show for nerds” into <i>the </i>default topic of water cooler conversation for millions was the shock death of Ned Stark - who had hitherto been presented as the show’s lead protaganist - in the penultimate episode of season one, “Baelor”.</div>
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It further solidified its capricious and callous reputation with episodes like “The Rains of Castamere” - featuring the infamous Red Wedding (the scene which motivated the showrunners to adapt the books in the first place) - or the explosive “The Winds of Winter”. But while fans made endless jokes imagining George R.R. Martin cackling away gleefully at their suffering, this wasn’t mere sadism - there was a profound honesty and integrity there that most writers shy away from, in choosing to show the horrors of war without any sugar coating.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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Good people die. Honourable people die. People you care about die. It doesn’t matter if everybody thinks you’re the appointed Chosen One, it doesn’t matter if you have the strongest bloodline and the best claim to power in the whole damned world, it doesn’t matter if you have a vendetta to repay or a prophesied destiny to fulfil - if you make stupid decisions, if you put yourself up against the odds, or if you’re just plain unlucky - you’ll likely end up just as dead as anyone else. The universe isn’t on anybody’s side.</div>
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The gritty socio-political realism of <i>Game of Thrones</i> and its willingness to take a very light touch when it came to its supernatural elements made those elements all the more.. well, <i>super-</i>natural for it, despite being the staple of countless other fantasy stories. Dragons, wights, white walkers, magic, nobody in this world had seen or heard hide nor hair of any of these things for centuries; they occupied the liminal zone between history and myth, existing primarily in some kind of dreamtime into which the show occasionally, thrillingly, dipped. Of course, it was always obvious that those elements would necessarily come to the fore as the story progressed towards its conclusion - it’s just a shame that the show-runners have so heavy-handedly thrown the realism against which those fantastical elements shone under the bus in the process.</div>
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The turn started in season seven, the show-runners having run out of book material to worth with - the pace quickening to breakneck speed, characters communicating or travelling over distances that would previously taken multiple episodes to cross in what seemed like mere hours, making increasingly irrational and out-of-character decisions all to get the chess pieces in place for the endgame, to hell with the rules.</div>
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Knowing that season eight only had six episodes left in which to wrap up the story, I’d resigned myself to enjoying spectacle even if it came at the expense of plotting. Episodes one and two pleasantly surprised me, with their focus on character and wrapping up arcs. With the Battle of Winterfell bearing down in episode three, I figured, well.. maybe they’re going to be bold after all.</div>
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And yet, at the climax of the show’s mythic arc, the show-runners seem to have lost their nerve completely, showing not a shadow of the boldness they once had, swaddling the show’s Beloved Heroes in plot armour so thick and obvious as to strain credulity, allowing them to put themselves in harm’s way again and again, making idiotic decision after idiotic decision (looking at you Jon Snow), only to be spared “Just In Time” by the sudden appearance of some other Beloved Hero from off-screen. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not in it for the death count, and this trope isn’t a mortal sin in and of itself. But it’s exactly the kind of trope that’s most effective when used sparingly, and should be <i>particularly </i>effective in a show like <i>Game of Thrones </i>which has set up an audience expectation that it <i>just might</i> actually drop the dangling sword of Damocles on your Beloved Hero’s head. But this episode at times feels like no more than an endless chain of these “Just in Time” moments - including repeated, dramatic, slow-motion scenes where they show several Beloved Heroes fighting to what seems at any moment could be their last breath against endless hordes of enemies, while literally <i>everyone else on screen </i>who is not a Beloved Hero lies dead<i>.</i></div>
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No, really. By the time credits roll, as far as I can tell, pretty much every unnamed peasant in Winterfell has been slaughtered. With our noble, Beloved Heroes seemingly invincible, their victory feels hollow. Unearned. Cheapened. We didn’t spend seven seasons watching these characters grow and learn and struggle only to see them win by deus ex machina.</div>
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Sure - a smattering of named characters die, all relatively minor ones who’ve been flaunting their red shirts since at least the beginning of the season. But with expectations and anticipations riding so high, there are just so many ways in which <i>Game of Thrones </i>could have shocked us, surprised us, taken things in a direction we didn’t expect, elevated itself once more over its screen rivals. Instead, it played it oh-so-safe, and diminished itself. So much spectacle, so many amazing visual effects.. so little emotional payoff.</div>
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And to be very clear - this episode is spectacular. It’s probably among the most astonishingly well-directed and choreographed battle scenes I’ve ever seen, with some brilliant moments of dramatic tension scattered throughout. It was a rather stressful and unsettling viewing experience, and that’s exactly as it should be. I just wish it hadn’t also been so extremely frustrating from a plotting perspective.</div>
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Ultimately the show’s declining quality in its final seasons is not a reflection on the show-runners’ abilities - after all, they’ve brought GRRM’s work to life unlike almost any other screen adaptation, playing to the strengths of the medium while still showing incredible attention to detail around characters and world-building - the first season in particular manages to be an almost perfect facsimile of the book from which it’s drawn. It’s a reflection on the brilliance of GRRM’s imagination and the skill of his word-craft. Once the show-runners no longer had that inspiration to draw on, <i>Game of Thrones </i>became a victim of its own success - they could not live up to the expectations they’d set. It is still extremely watchable, it is still beautiful, it still has an astoundingly talented cast, it is still exciting, it is still the greatest high fantasy tale I’ve yet seen committed to screen. But it has lost that something special which once allowed it to transcend its genre; content instead to settle near its pinnacle.</div>
aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-24981432960340881342018-10-22T01:29:00.000+13:002018-10-22T01:29:32.551+13:00The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix) - Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I approached Netflix's "The Haunting of Hill House" with great trepidation. The 1959 novel by Shirley Jackson is, after all, one of my favourite books, and the premise of "reinventing" such a beloved tale via modernity in serial TV format with an entirely new story and characters seemed.. daunting, no doubt even more-so for Writer/Director Mike Flanagan.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">My fears were occasionally realised. But so were my wildest hopes. It's confusing.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Flanagan walks a difficult line between adhering to the spirit of the source material (which he clearly understands deeply), and satisfying the expectations and attention spans of a 2018 TV audience. Often this succeeds spectacularly, demonstrating beyond my wildest dreams the unsettling power of terror over mere horror, more-so by a staggering margin than any other modern attempts at on-screen gothic horror. It regularly verges on genius, the season's mid-point in particular. But too often, it slips towards shock, spectacle, and cliche, its attempt to deliver the requisite number of scares-per-episode undermining its more subtle psychological groundwork. There were moments in the latter half of the season where I wondered whether they'd pulled in Jan de Bont, director of the 1999 Razzie nominated film adaptation (it wasn't even good enough to win that), to guest direct.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The book itself is retconned into the show as the childhood memoirs of celebrated author and paranormal researcher Steven Crain, an explicit erasure of Jackson that I found disrespectful to her memory. Almost as disrespectful was the jarringly out-of-context and random insertion of chunks of the novel's flowery prose into the mouths of characters who otherwise speak like they live in 2018/198? (poor Mrs. Dudley gets some of the worst of this). It's an odd tic for a show which otherwise has such confidence in its own vision.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The book itself features many spooky happenings, but no actual apparitions. When the show introduced these, I was pleasantly surprised to see them at first presented tastefully and with a surreal flair that made them seem, indeed, as beings from a dream. And yet as the show progressed it came to rely more and more on these horrors, who became increasingly kitschy and ghoulish, an increasing weight on the show's suspension of disbelief.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Part of the problem is that horror, as a format, tends to narratively progress in a more-or-less straight slope from "everything's mostly okay!" at the beginning to "everything is the worst imaginable and we're all dead/insane!" at the end. This makes long-form horror difficult to pull off; you stretch that line too far and it starts to feel pretty flat. You cannot keep "upping the ante" in the horror realm without eventually approaching absurdity. Hill House more than dips its toe into it by its conclusion.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">And yet, for all of those significant frustrations, I'll be good-goddamned if this isn't the most effective TV horror I've ever seen. I am a genre veteran. I am rarely shook. I have seen everything. I hadn't seen this. I had to sleep with my light on last night. That's a first for adulthood.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">On that note, the show delves deeply and unrelentingly into mental illness, trauma, grief, suicide, substance abuse, depression, anxiety, child abuse, PTSD, and other such cheerful and uplifting topics. There is stuff in there which may be triggering for some of my friends. There is stuff in there which will be upsetting for most human viewers. It's frequently fucking harrowing - one of the opening monologues had me pausing mid-way through to catch my breath and watch funny YouTube videos for a while. It's very, very good, but it's not for everyone.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It's a shame that the only ray of hope the show provides for its characters is so jarringly saccharine; copping out on its own setup at the last mile and mutilating Jackson's sacred words to deliver a fake and forced "happy ending". It did not surprise me in the least to learn that Flanagan originally had a darker ending planned, before a last-minute change of heart. He absolutely should have stuck to his guns. The show as a whole is significantly weaker for that one directorial decision.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Still, if you can handle scares and difficult themes (and they are.. difficult), and especially if you're a horror fan, you absolutely MUST watch this show. Fans of the novel or 1963 film will need to check their expectations at the door lest its liberties/atrocities detract from the experience. Fans of the 1999 film will need to put down that glue IT'S NOT FOR EATING.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">There are 10/10 moments and 1/10 moments. Forgiving the latter is more than worth it for the former. I'm feeling both stingy and generous when I give it a 9/10. Really, it's an "it's complicated" out of 10. The series is as schizophrenic as the house itself.</span></div>
<br />aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-77633061136023740492016-10-17T16:20:00.002+13:002016-10-17T16:20:56.413+13:00Review - Lost (SPOILERS)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I’ve been intrigued by <i>Lost</i> ever since I saw its pilot episode way back in 2004. I’m a sucker for magical realism and narrative ambiguity, both things which <i>Lost</i> possesses in spades. Yet for some reason I never did pursue it past that first episode, and the flak it received from critics for its ever-increasing incoherence over the years left me reluctant to make the commitment to watch it retrospectively.
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A few conversations with friends of good taste over the past year or so finally convinced me to take the plunge. Some suggested that its claimed incoherence was really a result of lazy viewing - that close watching and a willingness to use one’s imagination could fill in all the apparent plot holes, that the entire show and its mythos was actually meticulously planned from beginning to end and obviously so to any true fan. And I thought - hell, I’ve made similar arguments defending of some of my favourite shows (looking at you, <i>Twin Peaks</i>) against the same criticisms, so I might as well give it a shot and form my own opinion.
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Several months and six seasons later, I can definitely say it was worth the commitment, although it frequently tested my patience along the way. On the one hand, it often felt that the writers were simply throwing shit at a wall to see what stuck; on the other hand, they’d throw in just enough clever callbacks to hints dropped in previous seasons to make it seem like maybe, just maybe, they’d planned it all this way from the beginning. Ultimately, I kept telling myself, it would either all be justified by its final act or the whole thing would come tumbling down like a house of cards.
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Some like to say that the journey matters more than the destination, but that’s never been my philosophy when it comes to storytelling. A good ending gives meaning and context to what has come before; it provides thematic and narrative resolution and satisfies the core conflicts. I’m even more particular about endings to “mystery” stories like <i>Lost.</i> A good mystery ending doesn’t have to give us all the answers - personally, I like having a few loose ends to reflect on - but those loose ends should be resolvable <i>in principle</i>, that is, there should be a right answer (or several possible right answers) which can reasonably be inferred from the information we have been given, rather than just being left dangling because the writers couldn’t figure out what to do with them either. And where it does give answers, they should <i>make sense</i>, that is, be consistent with the clues we’ve been given previously and with established themes, and it should not rely on deus ex machinas arbitrarily introduced at the last minute such that even the most astute viewer could not possibly have figured things out for themselves. I like to call this “Horcrux Syndrome” - after the Harry Potter books’ all-important vessels for arch-villain Voldemort’s soul which must all be destroyed in order to defeat him, a plot device which is not introduced or even hinted at until the final book and which would have been so much more compelling had it been developed or at least foreshadowed sooner that the only plausible explanation is that Rowling was simply making it up as she went along. I digress, but my point is, <i>Lost</i> suffers from a SEVERE case of Horcrux Syndrome, particularly in its introduction of “The Heart of the Island” in its pen-penultimate episode, a device which is supposed to serve as the ultimate motivation for all that has hitherto transpired.
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It’s not just the hackneyed nature of the Heart’s introduction (along with many of the other revelations in the show’s final season) that bothers me, it’s that the very existence of an Ultimate Answer, of an objective Good Guy (Jacob) and Bad Guy (The Man in Black) is just completely at odds with the thematic setup which occurs in the show’s first five seasons.
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Okay, so there are a lot of themes in this show. Good vs Evil. Science vs Faith. Life, Death, Rebirth. Coincidence vs Fate. From the beginning of Season One the Island is set up as a “battleground of the soul” - a purgatorial, cathartic world in which its characters must overcome their egos, shed their baggage (as revealed through flashbacks), and do penitence for their sins. Its characters (particularly Jack and Locke, although the former more obliquely than the latter) are on a constant quest for meaning and purpose in the face of the chaotic and mysterious forces which reign on the Island, a quest which parallels the viewers’ attempts to piece together the disparate clues the showrunners have thrown at us. Again and again we hear them say “This is what I’m supposed to do”, “This is what the Island wants”, “This is my Destiny”, and again and again their zealous pursuit of their objective ends in disaster, futility, and/or disillusionment. There’s a brilliant and subtle existentialism in this, a commentary on the way we necessarily construct meaning in our quest for it, and a cautionary tale about the danger of conviction untempered by doubt and the blind seeking of validation from others. True purpose isn’t given to us from on high, it comes from within, a message which is reinforced as each successive “man behind the curtain” steps out and we discover them to be as clueless as anyone else to the true purpose of the Island and its goings-on, a pretender following orders which they themselves barely understand.
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See, a satisfying resolution to all this would be one in which the characters develop a self-awareness about the inherently fickle and meaningless nature of existence and learn to find their inner purpose without the need for higher validation. Instead after blindly stumbling from one misguided venture to another it finally transpires that there was actually a Right Answer all along and that the man behind the man behind the man behind the curtain knows what’s up and is (along with his evil twin) responsible for everything. He’s the Good Guy - even though his followers served as antagonists for much of the show and inflicted untold cruelty on our heroes - and his brother is the Bad Guy. All the crazy things that happened over the past five seasons - the plane crash, the time travel, the leaving the island only to come back again, the dropping-a-nuke-down-a-well, etc. - were just part of an inordinately contrived and elaborate scheme to pick a replacement Good Guy and stop the Bad Guy from blowing up the universe.
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And yet.. for all my frustration, I enjoyed the hell out of this show. The character development is absolutely brilliant, heightened by the non-linear storytelling with flashbacks and flashforwards (as well as flashsideways and actual time travel although these do get a bit tediously convoluted) constantly adding new layers of depth to their stories and unexpected twists and turns which give new context to events we’ve already seen. It’s in the carefully woven connections between their lives on-and-off Island that the show really shines, where their on-Island struggles against nature and supernature become an elaborate metaphor for their off-Island struggles against their inner nature. It is uneven, to say the least - Season 3 was probably my least favourite season overall, yet its last few episodes were among the show’s best. I disagree with critics who claim the show’s Pilot to be its highlight - sure, <i>Lost</i> started strong, but it was the slow-burning revelation of the hatch and the subsequent introduction of the Dharma Initiative during Season 2 which really hooked me on it. The freighter arc in Season 4 is also among the show’s strongest. And maaaan, Jacob's Cabin was so sinister and mysterious and awesome, it’s just a shame they dropped so much of that setup when Jacob was finally revealed.
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Benjamin Linus has got to be one of my favourite villains of all time, even if his motivations (and the protaganists’ repeated willingness to overlook his past deceptions and betrayals only to be deceived and betrayed yet again) never entirely made sense. His gradual redemption over the course of Season 6 was one of the few resolutions to character storylines I found genuinely satisfying.
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On the less satisfying side, some of the romantic pairings were extremely contrived. Jack/Kate, Sawyer/Juliet, and Sayid/Shannon all went totally against type and made no sense whatsoever. It clearly should’ve been Jack/Juliet, Kate/Sawyer, and Sayid/Nadia. Jack/Kate is kind of plausible, okay, but Juliet and Sawyer had literally zero setup or chemistry (it’s just “THREE YEARS LATER surprise they’re together now!”) and Sayid dedicated his entire adult life to finding Nadia and being worthy of her. He’s a hardened, cold-blooded killer and ex-torturer with an enormous weight on his conscience and his soulmate is the spoilt whiny brat who won’t lift a finger to help anyone? Yeah, not buying it.
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<i>Lost</i> is a good show. Occasionally, it’s a great show. It’s hard not to grieve for what might have been had tighter plotting and narrative/thematic consistency prevailed. But it’s just as hard not to fall in love with the sheer audacity of it all, its reckless willingness to keep piling on weirdness after weirdness until the whole thing collapses under the weight of its own gratuitous ridiculousness. It’s the hottest, messiest mess out there. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But there’s nothing else quite like it.</div>
aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-91178952474483581962016-07-15T13:27:00.000+12:002016-07-15T13:27:25.485+12:00Review - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Ultimate Edition)<i>NOTE: This is a review of the Ultimate Edition of Batman v Superman, which contains about an extra 30 minutes footage. I haven't seen the theatrical release, so that may account for my difference of opinion with most critics of this film.</i><br />
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Finally got around to watching Dawn of Justice. Gotta say, after all the hate that's been levelled towards this movie I was.. kinda pleasantly surprised to not hate it? There's no question that it's massively flawed. It tackles way too many things, takes itself way too seriously, misreads the characters making Batman into a thug (he straight up wastes so many dudes without batting an eyelid - HAH batting) and Superman into Batman, and refuses to pause for breath or take moments of levity which would provide some much-needed contrast to the relentless wall-of-noise the film (along with Zimmer's hyperdramatic score) throws at its audience.<br />
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On the other hand, this is a beautifully shot movie which fully embraces the mythopoeic nature of its source material in a way which distinguishes it from Marvel's offerings, and its many iconic set-pieces are by and large extremely impressive, well-executed and impactful. The problem is with everything that happens to connect those set pieces. Rather than developing our characters, establishing pathos, and giving them plausible motivations for their actions, the film relies heavily on weighty "themes" to hold everything together - God vs Man, Power vs Responsibility, Angels and Demons, Falling Fallers Who Fall and are Fallen, etc. - which is fine when these themes actually dovetail with the story you're trying to tell, when the film actually has a perspective to offer on those themes, a "moral" if you like. Dawn of Justice doesn't, though - all of its lofty ruminations are ultimately in vain when the thing that finally unites God and Man is the fact that their mums both happen to have the same first name. One gets the feeling that if Snyder hadn't crammed so damn much into this movie, he might have been able to tie its parts together a little more convincingly. As it is, one feels that one could randomly reshuffle many of the film's scenes with little consequence for the storytelling.<br />
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Ben Affleck is a *superb* Batman, and his scenes were the highlight of the film for me, wanton slaughter notwithstanding. The same goes for Jeremy Irons as Alfred. Jesse Eisenberg unfortunately overacts the role of Lex Luthor something dreadful, apparently attempting to channel Heath Ledger's Joker via Mark Zuckerberg in a manner that is unlikely to win any Oscars but will surely guarantee his continued typecasting as "generic mad genius". Henry Cavill is, again, well cast as Superman, but again spends most of his time moping rather than actually being Super so it's a little hard to tell.<br />
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On the one hand.. this is a joyless movie. It's pretentious, incoherent and too-often collapses under the weight of its needlessly self-imposed literary burdens. If this were a solo Batman movie - and it's very clear that Snyder is attempting to emulate Nolan's style - that might work, and indeed the Batman-driven scenes are the best parts of the film. On paper though this is Superman's story, but he never really gets to offer the much needed counterpoint of hope and heroism to Batman's cynical grimdark; instead we get both characters presented through the same gloomy lens and that corrodes the core of Superman's character.<br />
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On the other hand, it's hard not to be swept away by the sheer mythic spectacle of it all and I can't help but have a begrudging appreciation for Snyder's boldness in deconstructing Superman before his fans - if he'd just taken a bit more time to build him up before tearing him down, or if he had some inclination to put him back together again afterwards (like "sure let's tackle the problematic aspects of this character, BUT in the end hope is a pretty important thing which is ultimately worth clinging to and sometimes we do need heroes to inspire us") it might have worked out a little better. Hell though, for all its nuttiness, I enjoyed it. 7/10.aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-67201679005169066122016-07-07T19:20:00.002+12:002016-07-07T19:20:46.910+12:00Wherefore Rationalia?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2096315-a-rational-nation-ruled-by-science-would-be-a-terrible-idea/?utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=SOC&utm_campaign=hoot&cmpid=SOC%7CNSNS%7C2016-GLOBAL-hoot" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">New Scientist - A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea</span></a><br />
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Inane though Tyson's suggestion is, I can't help but cringe when people like Jeffrey Guhin (see article above) invoke Godwin's Law to attack "scientism" - a label which is itself problematic because while yes, there are certainly overzealous science enthusiasts out there, the term is too often used to attack anything its user doesn't like which happens to come from the mouths of scientists or science communicators, which makes it a tool of unreason and anti-science as often as it's a tool for legitimate critique of the overzealous.<br />
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Anyway, while I think the goal of a rational society is laudable, the trouble is it's never entirely clear what is meant by that. If we mean rational in the narrow sense of "sensible, intelligent, shrewd, judicious" etc., then of course this isn't a very contentious suggestion. Is anyone going to argue that society should be run senselessly/foolishly/unintelligently? This doesn't actually get us anywhere though because as soon as we start asking which policies are most sensible/intelligent/shrewd/judicious we're right back to square one, and while it might be a good start if we could agree to ground that discussion on empirical evidence, politics simply doesn't lend itself towards the kind of reductionism that hard scientists are used to - it's almost impossible to control for external variables in studying any substantive policy question, and it is very easy to find studies which will support almost any policy position you can think of, including ones which contradict each other. Don't get me wrong, empirical data is the best tool we have for testing the viability of political hypotheses, but you don't often get unambiguous answers.<br />
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The backlash to Tyson's comments though comes I think from a not-unjustified suspicion that his "rationality" entails something else, either a) the dubious assumption that the correct methodological approach to policy making would resolve this ambiguity, and/or b) a world-view, that is, a pre-established set of doctrines about what is or is not true which the architects of Rationalia have deemed fit to smuggle in under the umbrella of "rationality", as every utopian architect has done since the dawn of modern science.<br />
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Maybe Tyson is - in his own way - simply calling for a greater respect for reason and evidence in public debate and policy making, which I can 100% get behind, but if you want to advocate for a new form of government you need to actually apply that reason in order to develop some idea of how you're going to get there and what its institutional arrangements are gonna look like. Just saying "we should use reason" isn't very insightful, and it's a shame so many of science's more vocal advocates seem to think otherwise.aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-34198512186550471322016-07-05T00:59:00.003+12:002016-07-05T01:01:50.683+12:00Review - The Conjuring 2<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="6eo84" data-offset-key="91o1i-0-0">
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<span data-offset-key="91o1i-0-0">The Conjuring 2 is a technically competent but otherwise underwhelming sequel. The first film was a brilliantly crafted love letter to 1970s horror which perfectly walked the line between homage and pastiche while adding a few cinematic innovations of its own. The second obviously has similar intent - even opening with an interior shot of the famously odd windows at 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville - but while Wan still knows how to shoot a great horror movie, he's apparently forgotten how to write one. All innovation is gone, and the film's attempt at homage is undermined by the countless tropes borrowed from other recent horror films. The storyline is plodding and nonsensical - I'd anticipated a twist which I'm convinced would have made for a significantly more satisfying resolution, and the fact that it's heavily foreshadowed by earlier events in the film makes me suspect that the original ending was sabotaged by studio-driven last minute edits, because they instead go with a Diabolus Ex Machina which tries to raise the stakes by throwing dramatic CGI at the screen but otherwise fails to bear any relevant connection to the rest of the story, notwithstanding Lorraine's "visions" earlier in the film which equally feel like last-minute additions.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="67vih-0-0">The film generally feels very half-hearted in everything it sets out to accomplish. It wants us to care about the Warrens, so it throws out some superficially mushy dialogue about how they got together and has Ed gaze into Lorraine's eyes while he sings Elvis to some children, while completely failing to allow them to behave in any way like real human beings. Neither of them seem to show any particularly extraordinary expertise when it comes to dealing with the supernatural, either - they spend a lot of time rattling futilely at locked doors and Lorraine has a remarkable tendency to break down into a screamy teary mess anytime she sees something scary, not a particularly desirable quality in a paranormal investigator. The film also makes numerous nods towards the angst and desperation of the Thatcher-era, but just doesn't really.. do anything with it. "Hey look, these characters' struggles exist within a broader social context" - is that going to be relevant to the story in any way, directly or indirectly, literally or metaphorically? Hell no! But gosh, isn't it scary when the ghost forces the little girl to watch Maggie's speech on TV.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="9ftt-0-0">It's frustrating, because somewhere during the process of writing and editing this thing I'm sure there was a really good film. That's not the film they released, though. As it is, it's entertaining, and succeeds at being scary, because Wan's well and truly mastered the stock tricks of the genre at this point. It's a shame it can't do more to justify its existence, though, because there are a lot of superficially entertaining scary movies out there, and we know Wan can do much better. I'll give this one a 6/10.</span></div>
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aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-2417760206813060762016-02-02T09:40:00.000+13:002016-02-02T09:40:14.197+13:00Place your betsAll politics nerds' eyes are fixed upon Iowa today as the first match in the Free World Cup kicks off.<br />
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In the blue corner we've got Hillary “What's the establishment?" Clinton vs. Bernie "Hope and change but for realsies this time" Sanders, with polls showing a narrow but dwindling lead for Clinton as the match approaches.<br />
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In the red corner we've got Donald "Nobody builds walls better than me" Trump vs. Ted "Green eggs and ham" Cruz, with Trump holding a fair but not insurmountable lead in the polls.<br />
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Although Trump's edge over his opponent trumps (heh) Clinton's, both races remain highly competitive. While Iowa is but one of many contests to come, these early races promise valuable media coverage for the victors as well as boosting their perceived electability among primary voters, increasing their chances for future victories.<br />
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The safe bet is on a Trump/Clinton victory, although Sanders' poll trends and demographic advantages (especially in a high-turnout scenario) could yet get him over the line. Results should be in by this evening.aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-38701375554380398872015-12-22T00:41:00.001+13:002015-12-22T00:46:17.203+13:00Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens Review<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 14px;">
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The gratuitous Special Editions, the embarrassingly dreadful prequels, even the occasionally entertaining animated series - suddenly they all seem like nothing but a dimly remembered bad dream. <i>Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens</i> is the first truly authentic <i>Star Wars</i> experience since Lucas closed his seminal trilogy with 1983’s <i>Return of the Jedi</i>.
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Some of this authenticity comes at the cost of originality, and there are times where Abrams' creation steps dangerously close to the line between homage and plagiarism. But for all that this film owes to 1977’s original <i>Star Wars,</i> it in turn owed just as much to old science-fiction serials and samurai films, and for those who have delved into the (admittedly now defunct) EU, the cyclical nature of the universe’s Good vs. Evil narrative has already been well-established.
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I’ll concede, though, that the inclusion of a third world-destroying super weapon - largely incidental to the storyline - did smack of laziness. It’s clear the scriptwriters were aware of this - their brazen rehash of the mission briefing scenes from <i>A New Hope</i> and <i>Return of the Jedi</i> tries very hard to smooth things over by being self-consciously tongue-in-cheek, but instead feels rather forced. Further compounding the issue is the fact that neither we nor any of the film’s characters have any personal investment in the worlds destroyed by said weapon, which diminishes the satisfaction we receive from seeing the First Order receive their eventual comeuppance. Nevertheless, it’s a minor quibble, and it certainly suffices as a vehicle for story elements which we *do* care about.
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And it’s a ripping yarn, not to mention a remarkably convincing continuation of a story arc long thought finished. Covering 30 years of exposition without pausing for breath is no mean feat, although its breakneck pace may require a second viewing to pick up on some of the details the film leaves implicit. The new protagonists are as compelling and loveable as the old heroes they fight alongside, although Harrison Ford steals the show, defying his age by slipping effortlessly back into Han Solo’s boots. Kylo Ren, our main antagonist, is a far more human and conflicted villain than we’ve seen before - in other words, he’s precisely what Anakin Skywalker <i>should</i> have been. Abrams took a big risk in including a villain who wears his weaknesses and insecurities on his sleeve, complete with the adolescent mood swings audiences found so obnoxious in Anakin - but the strength of the script and of Adam Driver’s stellar performance makes the character believable where his predecessors were not, and somehow he’s even scarier for it. Ren is the anti-villain to Han’s anti-hero, and I’m just as curious to see where his path leads as I am in that of our protagonists.
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<i>The Force Awakens</i> is a thrilling, action-packed nostalgia trip and the most satisfying theatrical experience I can remember having. It lives up and even exceeds the hype, and should go a long way towards restoring the franchise to its former glory. While its frequent callbacks to the originals are occasionally heavy-handed, the risks it does take pay off in spades thanks to the stellar performances of its cast, both old and new. There has indeed been an awakening, and if you haven’t felt it yet you should probably book tickets immediately.
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aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-60587282671957186432015-05-30T15:58:00.001+12:002015-05-30T15:58:40.827+12:00The writing on the wall<p dir="ltr">I don't know whether it's plausible that a Cabinet Minister would leak <a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html">what</a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html"> </a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html">appears</a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html"> </a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html">to</a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html"> </a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html">be</a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html"> </a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html">an</a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html"> </a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html">entire</a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html"> </a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html">transcript</a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html"> </a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html">of</a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html"> </a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html">a</a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html"> </a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html">cabinet</a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html"> </a><a href="http:// http://m.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-rolled-by-his-own-ministers-over-stripping-terrorists-of-citizenship-20150529-ghcuxf.html">meeting</a> - possibly it's just a deleted scene from House of Cards with the names changed, which is certainly what it reads like. The contempt Abbot displays here towards his voters, his ministers, and rudimentary constitutional principles is truly appalling.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The political henchmen of the 0.1% are systematically dismantling the basic constitutional principles that prevent the arbitrary use of state violence against their citizens, and their citizens are kept willfully ignorant of our steady institutional decline by a complicit media, repeating government press releases verbatim (no time for journalism with a 15-second news cycle) which frame these changes - which are taking place simultaneously (if at varying pace) in every English-speaking country in the world - as matters of national security.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The irony is that they are matters of security. The security of the few against the many. They've seen the writing on the wall. They know that their global ponzi scheme can't survive another recession. They know the chaos and desperation that our changing climate is bringing upon the world's populations. They're preparing for class warfare on a global scale, and doing everything in their power to keep the rest of us oblivious and unprepared. </p>
<p dir="ltr">It'll soon be too late to change course. While there's still any chance at all, we must try - billions of lives hang in the balance. But we must also start preparing ourselves and each other for what's coming if we fail.</p>
aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-90094015665441607902015-04-30T16:02:00.000+12:002015-04-30T16:04:04.031+12:00Bernie throws his hat in<a _blank="" href="http://mic.com/articles/116827/why-bernie-sanders-running-for-president-is-great-news-for-democrats">Why Bernie Sanders running for President is great news for Democrats</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Glad to hear he's running. <span style="line-height: 17.8666667938232px;">Of course, a Sanders presidency would almost certainly be no less disappointing than Obama's - he's playing to an audience as much as any other politician, and the realities of the US political system make meaningful change from within all but impossible. At any rate, </span><span style="line-height: 21.466667175293px;">he's unlikely to be a real contender, but he's got a big enough support base in the party (especially once Elizabeth Warren gives her endorsement, which seems likely) to seriously outflank the Clinton campaign on the left and force them to seriously engage with the inequality issue. I don't expect anything that's said during the campaign to translate directly into actual Clinton administration policy, but anything that raises the visibility of the issue is a positive.</span></span>aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-11490354656972356492015-04-25T09:02:00.002+12:002015-04-25T09:03:16.728+12:00Lest We ForgetHuuuuuuge turnout for the dawn service in Christchurch today. Kind of a surreal experience. Momentous occasion for the vets no doubt and it really is a day for them first and foremost - born as I was 70 years after World War I I wouldn't expect it to cater to my ideological preferences. Nevertheless, I can't help feeling that the pomp and ceremony with which we honour the fallen on ANZAC day also insulates us from contemplating the true horrors of war, and I'm not sure that their memory is well served by maintaining the pretence that their blood was the price of our freedom rather than the cost of reckless decisions by sheltered politicians desperate to save their crumbling, squabbling empires, and the credulous nationalism that drew us into their quagmire at the opposite end of the earth. The best way we can honour our fallen heroes is to ensure that we never again allow our leaders to send our youth to die in vain on foreign soil. Lest we forget.aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-26194892206287083132015-04-23T11:56:00.002+12:002015-04-23T12:12:59.286+12:00"A bit of banter" - and then someI didn't think this story could get any worse. I was wrong. <a href="http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/04/23/update-the-prime-minister-and-the-waitress-part-2-dirty-politics/" target="_blank">It just got much, much worse</a>.<br />
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It would appear that the waitress's employers have colluded with a journalist who is known to have a close relationship with the PM and other National party figures to assist her in writing an article which reframes the issue (and of course reveals her name, which I've rather futilely redacted):<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 21px;">Her bosses, Hip Group owners Jackie Grant and Scott Brown, told the </span><i style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; max-width: inherit; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Herald</i><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 21px;"> they were disappointed Ms <span style="background-color: white;"> </span> - who they say has "strong political points of view" - went public rather than coming to them directly with her concerns. However, they are hoping to "put this all behind us" now.</span></blockquote>
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The waitress spoke at length with Rachel Glucina of the NZ Herald under the pretence that she was a PR consultant working for the café. When she discovered that she had been conned she immediately contacted the Herald. Glucina (who has a tabloid background) claimed that her employers had known who they were dealing with (which they deny, not very plausibly) and that she had no control over whether the article would be published. Bomber contacted the editor of the NZ Herald late last night to ensure that he was aware of the situation. <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11436978" target="_blank">They have published regardless</a>.<br />
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I wish I had words to express the enormity of this. The most widely read newspaper in the country is all-but-openly colluding with the National Party in attempting, with the most underhanded and illegal of tactics, to discredit stories that tarnish Brand Key. The most terrifying part is the flagrancy of it all - the Herald knew exactly what they were doing. I can think of only two explanations - the first is that they (and their National party sponsors) were genuinely arrogant enough to think that this wouldn't come to light; the second scarier possibility is that they think they'll get away with it regardless, presumably thanks to their political connections. I should state that there's no direct evidence at this stage that Key or anyone in the National party approached Glucina about writing the article, but "suspicious" would be a rather understated way to describe it given the fact that she's not only a <a href="http://www.waikatoindependent.co.nz/2014/07/who-is-rachel-glucina-and-why-is-john-key-always-phoning-her-up/18938/" target="_blank">close friend of John Key</a> but acted almost immediately once the original story broke. It's certainly grounds for the Ombudsman to take a serious interest.<br />
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We are sleepwalking down the road to tyranny. I am terrified that, once again, people will not be paying attention, that the rest of the media will decide the story is not "entertaining" enough to pursue, that the political opposition will decide that it's a "beltway" issue and fail to hold the PM to account. I really, really don't want to see that happen. If we allow this to stand the powers that be will take it as license to accelerate their agenda of turning our once independent media into a outsourced National party propaganda machine. Please, inform yourself about this, read the Daily Blog articles, and please share and discuss.<br />
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UPDATE: The Herald article's now added a statement from the editor, Shayne Currie. The tone protests innocence but nowhere does it contradict the waitress's claim to having been deceived, which effectively confirms it.aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-14670861611927349542015-04-22T18:35:00.002+12:002015-04-22T18:35:28.745+12:00"A bit of banter"<br />
That's the PM's excuse for repeatedly and regularly <a href="http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/04/22/exclusive-the-prime-minister-and-the-waitress/" target="_blank">physically harassing a waitress</a> over the course of several months, pulling her hair (is he 6?!) despite being asked to stop, repeatedly, both by the waitress in question and by his embarrassed wife. She literally had to threaten him with physical violence for the message to sink in, to which he eventually responded with a token half-hearted apology and two bottles of JK-brand red wine. How lovely.<br />
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This would be absolutely appalling behaviour from any individual. Invading somebody's personal space like this without their consent is bad enough, but if it had been a one-off incident one could perhaps pass it off as a simple faux pas. Misunderstandings do happen. It's the repeated nature of it - after being quite explicitly told that she didn't like his behaviour - that makes this really offensive.<br />
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Being treated this way by somebody in a position of authority is always incredibly stressful, given the potential repercussions that can come from speaking out. Over the next few days she will be subjected to an enormous amount of media attention and have all sorts of awful misogynistic things said about her by the talkback radio crowd. Her anonymity is unlikely to hold for long. Going public about this is an incredibly brave move, and I don't envy her situation.<br />
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Those in high office are expected to set an example through their public conduct. Key's conduct brings the office of the Prime Minister into disrepute, and shows shockingly poor judgement from somebody who's been in that office as long as he has. Even his <a href="http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2015/04/inappropriate_if_accurate.html" target="_blank">usual</a> <a href="http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2015/04/about-john-key-and-todays-ponytail-hit-job/" target="_blank">cheerleaders</a> aren't defending him. Slater's comments are particularly interesting - while he tries to downplay the incidents, he does so by claiming that Key has covered up far more serious crimes which are more deserving of media attention. The cynic in me suspects that this is an attempt to deflect attention from a matter of established fact to matters of speculation which the PM could plausibly deny. If his beef with the PM was genuine, why be so vague in his accusations?<br />
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Further developments notwithstanding, chances are that he'll weather this storm - the waitress hasn't indicated any intention to press charges, and it's unlikely that it would meet the legal threshold for criminal harassment or assault. But if Key held himself to the same standard that he claims to hold his MPs to, he'd resign. At the very least, he ought to make a public apology for his misconduct and take it as an opportunity to raise awareness of harassment and the importance of consent. Not gonna happen, though.aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-17538840203339839472014-10-19T23:02:00.000+13:002014-10-19T23:03:46.650+13:00How to get to the next era of history in one piece<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">A good friend of mine posted some interesting thoughts (bolded) on </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/futureimperfectnz" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;" target="_blank">my Facebook page</a><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">, which I felt compelled to reply to here given that it covers a range of my philosophical concerns - and hey, new blog needs content!</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">How to get to the next era of history in one piece:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">• Economic growth needs to be replaced with economic conservation.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I'd say supplemented rather than replaced, given that humans are unlikely to stop breeding or wanting more stuff; I don't think sustainable growth is necessarily an oxymoron. Agree with the sentiment though, yup.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">• Technological progress needs to be rebalanced by tradition. </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Whose tradition? I agree that we need to bring our moral (and thus our political) progress into line with our technological progress, as we're still stuck in regressive modes of thinking, but I'm not sure that embracing "tradition" is a solution to that; rather, I'd suggest a complete revaluing of values along welfarist lines.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">• Rationality needs to replaced with Post-Rationality. </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have some idea of what you mean by this from our past conversations, but I'd argue that the things you identify as "post-rational" fit pretty comfortably under a post-positivist rationalist umbrella.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">• Reductionism needs to be rebalanced with Process and Network science. </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I don't think the pejorative connotations of "reductionism" that are often implied in these discussions have much resemblance to the way the term's actually used in the sciences or associated epistemology - I agree though that breaking things down into component parts shouldn't obscure our view of the bigger picture, and sometimes it does. That doesn't negate its value as a methodological principle - if you want to explain a physical system, the more you can break things down into components, the better your empirical understanding of that system's going to be.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">• Hard scepticism needs to be replaced with Pragmatic magical thinking. </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Hard scepticism is a pretty small niche though; it's hardly a dominant philosophy in our society. There's plenty of magical thinking out there already, though much of it's not very pragmatic. It requires a certain degree of self-awareness to be able to balance things in one's mind the way folks like you can, and while I think that's a valuable thing to encourage I'm not sure I'd agree "lack of ability to engage in pragmatic magical thinking" outweighs "lack of basic reasoning skills" as a problem in modern societies.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">• Laws and rights need to be rebalanced with faith-based values. </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Not sure if you're trolling with this one, haha. The obvious trouble with involving faith in lawmaking is that modern multicultural societies feature a wide range of diverse religious and moral views, and if you want to be able to convince anybody of another tradition that, say, "marriage should be between a man and a woman" (obviously that's not your position!), you're going to have to appeal to common values to make that sensical to them - "here's the empirical evidence that it degrades the family unit" is going to be a far more compelling line of argument to pursue than "it says so in my magic book". 'course, in the real world, conservative religious groups can't produce any such empirical evidence, so they quite rightly get ignored by most everyone else.</span></div>
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aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-84238761533393394282014-10-19T21:00:00.000+13:002014-10-19T21:00:07.316+13:00101 Ways to Secure the Plutocracy: #1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihyphenhyphen1fHny_9uDNLidPd1BaUMDkyf73nSgikvo8THtRJcnLMRir_GFhRffcH8X6eNWtzfDttOSxSZQ_eheIUsdEWBSM5P-Q5YGgVL3e8HZ9m0dfP5R4OQewhrKKVytLR2-nUf6KhFzQOByay/s1600/WikiLeaks-TPP-IP-Opposing.png" imageanchor="1" style="display: inline !important; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihyphenhyphen1fHny_9uDNLidPd1BaUMDkyf73nSgikvo8THtRJcnLMRir_GFhRffcH8X6eNWtzfDttOSxSZQ_eheIUsdEWBSM5P-Q5YGgVL3e8HZ9m0dfP5R4OQewhrKKVytLR2-nUf6KhFzQOByay/s1600/WikiLeaks-TPP-IP-Opposing.png" height="640" width="581" /></a></div>
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From Wikileaks, via <a href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2014/10/new-tpp-leak-canada-emerges-leading-opponent-u-s-intellectual-property-demands/" target="_blank">Michael Geist</a>.</div>
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Glad to see that New Zealand's putting up a fight on the patent issue, but sorry to see us so complacent on everything else - enforcement is our next most contentious category, and we're still behind almost everyone else on that. This will include the provisions leaked in earlier drafts (assuming they're still in the current version, which they may not be) for international corporate tribunals with the ability to penalise nations for domestic laws which adversely affect their profits. I hope that little dark pink square represents at least some reluctance on the part of the National government to sign our sovereignty away, but I wouldn't count on it.</div>
aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-36497779192032664232014-10-04T15:40:00.002+13:002014-10-04T15:40:55.157+13:00Special votes are in!<div style="text-align: justify;">
Apologies for the lack of updates, have been rather snowed under with study.</div>
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<a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/election-results-2014/10580208/National-loses-majority-Greens-pick-up-one" target="_blank">National loses majority</a></div>
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Significant leftwards swing in the special votes, which has seen National lose one seat and the Greens pick up one. National no longer has a majority, and will need to rely on its support partners to pass legislation. In practical terms it's unlikely to make a huge difference to the way they govern, but it's great to see that the Greens have managed to make gains in Parliament after all.</div>
aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-71578911622778162282014-10-01T21:56:00.003+13:002014-10-01T21:56:42.026+13:00Lies, damned lies, and statistics.<br />
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Ok, so there's been a whole lotta graphs floating around on the blogosphere recently purporting to show how absolutely disastrous the trend has been for the left and how totally unprecedented and awful things are for Labour.</div>
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Given that we live in an MMP environment, I thought'd be interesting to see the trend for left vs. right overall, rather than looking solely at the major parties.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR1qbPhRVowjf_MVevikAH_2kL-H8AcTMaUEvkPcP41SEoMHK93JVY5b8dV6cr2Wl2BCt9IZnlXg5_5pl4a1JNl7ZIeWKi24JjAnkizuPhj7YBphm4p2RnRsVJJM8jRqt7qktyw-ft_A4q/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-10-01+at+9.39.03+pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR1qbPhRVowjf_MVevikAH_2kL-H8AcTMaUEvkPcP41SEoMHK93JVY5b8dV6cr2Wl2BCt9IZnlXg5_5pl4a1JNl7ZIeWKi24JjAnkizuPhj7YBphm4p2RnRsVJJM8jRqt7qktyw-ft_A4q/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-10-01+at+9.39.03+pm.png" height="417" width="640" /></a></div>
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It's interesting comparing this to the <a href="http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2014/09/labour_1938_-_2014.html" target="_blank">other</a> <a href="http://lindsaymitchell.blogspot.co.nz/2014/09/national-1938-to-2014.html" target="_blank">charts</a>, and it paints a somewhat less depressing picture for the left*. The downward trend for the left pretty much begins in the 1980s, which I don't find particularly surprising. Also interesting to note the huge advantage of the left bloc from the 1950s through to the early 1990s, despite National's dominance in government over this time. Yay for MMP, basically!</div>
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*I've taken "left" to include Labour, Democrats/Social Credit, Values, Greens, NewLabour, Alliance, Progressive, and Mana/IM. "Right" includes National, NZ Party, ACT, and Conservative. "Centre" parties, which are left out of this graph for simplicity, but includes NZ First, United Future, and Māori. Parties which have failed to poll > 1% for at least two successive elections have been consigned to the "other" category, and also left out.</div>
</span>aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-63735541491834024222014-09-29T14:02:00.002+13:002014-09-29T15:32:33.908+13:00To the right, and downwards<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Labour-eletion-results.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Labour-eletion-results.png" height="417" width="640" /></a></div>
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The above image from <a href="http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2014/09/labour_1938_-_2014.html" target="_blank">Kiwiblog</a> reinforces, I think, what I was saying yesterday in my previous post. Over this time, Labour (and the global left in general) has progressively moved away from its working class, democratic socialist roots by attempting, unsuccessfully, to outflank the right on its own turf. The reasons for this are complex and multifaceted, but much of it has to do with the right's superior ability to promote its narrative as a result of its stronger ties with the corporate sector, and the financial and media might that comes with that. The unstated motto of the establishment left has become: "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em".</div>
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Frankly, I don't know how best to address that, but I suspect the answer lies in taking greater advantage of alternative forms of communication. The left can do a lot more to leverage social media and engage with grassroots activists on the ground (rather than joining with the right in uncritically denouncing them as radicals). I doubt, though, that it's possible for the left to truly re-establish itself as an active force for meaningful, positive change without concerted, organised efforts from outside the bounds of the parliamentary system; there's simply no incentive right now for those on the inside to rock the boat. Why risk your career in the short-term for something as intangible as long-term cultural change? Even those entering politics (and there are more than a few) who truly understand structural inequality and care deeply about addressing it will find their concerns swiftly sidelined by their party's more immediate electoral agenda - even though, as we can see, that short-termism actually compromises the party's long-term viability.<br />
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EDIT: Interesting to note, though, that <a href="http://lindsaymitchell.blogspot.co.nz/2014/09/national-1938-to-2014.html" target="_blank">National's trend is similar <span style="color: white;">[link]</span></a> - though not as steep.</div>
aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466495211978793713.post-46284226778186810842014-09-28T20:50:00.002+13:002014-09-29T14:46:48.674+13:00"Reclaiming the centre" - a toxic narrative<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11329470" target="_blank">Steve Maharey: Journey to the centre of real world</a> (link)</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Maharey blames Labour's recent electoral woes on having drifted too far to the left.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">All I can say to that is NO, NO, a thousand times NO. It worries me to see this narrative getting so much traction, because this stuff is really important.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In 2008 New Zealand had seen nine years of Labour government, one which had overseen New Zealand's highest growth rate since WW2 and had been highly popular throughout most of its tenure. They were defeated after their third term by a National party with a wafer-thin policy platform, who had campaigned on public distrust in the government after a series of minor scandals, and effectively branded themselves as "Diet Labour", promising to keep in place the socially progressive policies implemented by the Clark government (despite their ideological opposition to them).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Clark government had shifted the political centre in NZ significantly towards the left during their tenure, partially reversing the rightwards trend seen over the 80s-90s. National's need to move their brand towards the centre to win in 2008 is proof of this, and signalled, to me, a significant victory for the left in winning over hearts and minds, if not elections. While there were certainly some lessons to be learned PR-wise (It's about trust? Seriously?!), taking into account the rarity of four-term governments in NZ, it seemed to me we'd done rather well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet the party at large immediately went into panic mode. Why didn't NZ love us anymore? What had we done wrong? The answer trickled down through the party hierarchy (being pushed, I suspect, by certain factional interests) - Labour had moved too far to the left. We cared too much about social justice issues, we were too focused on minorities, and not enough on middle NZ. To be electable, it was said, we had to move back towards the centre.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I suppose the appeal of such an explanation to the membership was that it presented us with a clear problem which could be easily corrected going forwards, and was more satisfying in that sense than the idea that swing voters tend to shift their allegiance every few years, we ran a pretty dysfunctional campaign and middle NZ was hyped up on the "time for change" rhetoric after an historic US election. We were swimming against the tide in 2008, and we'd forgotten how to swim.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That overwhelming propensity for self-flagellation by the Labour party and the failure to learn the real lessons of the campaign was a large factor in my decision to leave. So it's saddening to see, six years on, that very little has changed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here's the rub: modern elections, for better or worse, are not won or lost on policy. It matters, certainly - radicalism will be punished by the media and by voters - but the kind of moderate centre-left platform advocated under Cunliffe's leadership is well inside acceptable political norms. The criticisms I have been hearing of Labour over the past few years - both in the media and among my acquaintances - are not about policy, but about negativity, inconsistent messaging, an incoherent platform, internal dysfunctionality and apparent incompetence. Now I do think that the party lifted its game dramatically during the campaign, but those few weeks couldn't undo the negative impression the last six years have left in voters' minds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Reclaiming middle NZ is, indeed, essential for victory in 2017. Doing so means presenting a credible image of a competent government-in-waiting. It means stable leadership and consistent messaging. It means articulating a clear egalitarian vision for NZ's future which resonates with voters, and a sound, coherent policy platform which works towards that end. Most importantly, it means doing *all of these things* for long enough to solidify voters' trust, which has been undermined by years of in-fighting and directionlessness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Labour can continue on the path that it has, swinging wildly about the political spectrum and playing musical chairs with the leadership, but it won't make an iota of difference in the polls unless they get the PR basics right. In my opinion, capitulating rightwards is both totally unnecessary and totally counterproductive if the left actually wants to shift the broader narrative away from the neoliberal dogma that been force fed to voters since the 80s, which is essential if we want any "social democratic project" to succeed in the long-term.</span></div>
aleph_naughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11328493702558342726noreply@blogger.com0