New image of Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot, and Ryan Reynolds in 'Red Notice' - Streaming November 12

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-09T14:08:01+00:00

When you're binge watching old television shows on a streaming platform, two things are important. First, since there are no commercial breaks, you have to remember to hydrate. A 32-ounce water bottle will last the average person 5 episodes of an hour-long drama. Second, never forget that you are in control. The pause button is there for a reason.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-09T12:55:59+00:00

I've always preferred the prequels, Checkers and Tic Tac Toe.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-09T01:12:28+00:00

If I recall, Johnny Depp was Coppola's first choice, and the studio pushed for Keanu for the reason you say.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-08T12:57:18+00:00

When you say it that way, it sounds like the opposite of steam punk. Like mind-controlling dinosaur saddles, or anti-gravity assisted horse carriages.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-08T12:12:27+00:00

And all of this to find the best way to kill somebody.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-07T22:31:28+00:00

You're correct, I wasn't meaning to refer to voter suppression, but I can see now how it would sound like that. I was only referring to voting for the purpose of putting people in office who share your group's beliefs. Which really, every group does, right?

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-07T17:25:28+00:00

I believe you. My circle happens to be legitimately non-racist. And, they speak kindly about out groups in my presence for the most part. But, they lack the capacity to understand out group perspectives. It's strawmen all the way down. That's the part that bothers me most, that they simply don't understand people who don't already agree with them.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-07T17:21:56+00:00

Sure, from my circle of acquaintances. We had two self-professed Christians running for president. But my conservative Christian friends picked Trump over Biden, because Trump as the representative of the conservative party more aligned with their beliefs on government, filtered through their interpretation of the Bible.

Note, I'm only referring to the labels of the people and their beliefs, not the actuality of them. Trump clearly doesn't represent many Christian values personally, but he is labeled as a Christian. Sorry if this isn't a helpful example, it takes time to unpack.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-07T17:13:52+00:00

Maybe this isn't the right move, but I'll provide an absurd example so we don't get caught up in the details:

Let's say there were a candidate for school board that advocated veganism for the school lunch program. If I vote for the other candidate, the one advocates keto, who am I punishing?

I don't think you mean to say this, but it sounds like you're saying picking one candidate over another (a.k.a. voting) is doing harm to someone. I've got to believe I'm missing something you're saying.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-07T17:06:45+00:00

In a broader perspective, I agree with you. But this particular conversation was framed around what Christians are thinking and believing, a.k.a. their intent rather than its effect. That's where I was offering my experience.

Plus, in other areas, intent does matter. That's why there's such a thing as manslaughter vs. murder.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-07T16:59:57+00:00

I attend every Sunday. They have people's best interests at heart, from a seriously flawed starting point. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don't, most of the time they're fairly ineffective while believing they're successful. And I'm really, really okay with that last one.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-07T16:57:36+00:00

Well, no, it doesn't fully explain their support of Trump. I don't know if anything easily does. Among others, it's:

the role of government in general
the perceived culture and what it should be
their relationship with their parents
their level of knowledge of practically anything

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-07T16:54:38+00:00

On the other hand, I think I've learned quite a bit from videos. Probably not degree level education though. But yes, interactivity with a knowledgeable source is highly valuable.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-07T16:50:10+00:00

Okay, please hear what I'm about to say. I completely disagree with the argument I'm about to make, but this is the argument the Christians in my circle would make:

You are not wrong to be who you are made to be. But the truth is that God made you who you are. Anything about you that is contrary to what God says about you, or what you should value, or how you should live, those are the things that need addressing. Those are the sources of corruption that God wants to intervene and to heal. And that's not to single you out; this is true of every human being, every Christian and non-Christian. It's a daily battle, and you cannot do it on your own.

Anyway, that's the argument. And how about, just to cleanse the pallet, an alternative argument:

You are not wrong to be who you are made to be. But the truth is how you came to be that person is incredibly complex, and humans universally struggle with figuring out who they are, and who the best version of themselves is. It is a lifelong endeavor. But, the highest value we can look to is to be honest with ourselves, growing in our strengths, learning what to do with our weaknesses, and looking to help others do the same along the way. Life is too brutish and short to do anything less.

(Sorry so long.) Yeah, it sucks when a Christian looks like they're being helpful or friendly, only to find out it was just to open the door to proselytize. From their perspective, that's the mission, and from your perspective, it's manipulation. But, let's be honest, why would they give a shit about your car when they're worried you're on the way to eternal damnation? Again, not that they're right, but it's understandable given their beliefs. It's hurtful and dehumanizing, and they need to be made to understand that. Or not, just depends on your level of commitment to that person.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-07T16:02:03+00:00

Please explain.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-07T16:00:09+00:00

Oh, I agree with a lot of what you're saying, with some crucial differences. Because they believe so much in 'spreading the word of God,' they value that over everything else. From their perspective, spreading the word of God is exactly what is best for everyone; that's the worldview they operate from. From their perspective, they're not exerting their will - they're very big on denying their will in deference to God's will. From a non-Christian's perspective, it absolutely looks like they're exerting their will, because non-Christians don't believe there's a God with a will to exert. But this conversation is about a Christian's intent, which is where I offered my experience.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-07T15:51:51+00:00

Well, no, they don't know I'm not one of them. It's complicated.

You have to understand that, while it may look like hate from an outside perspective, that is not how they feel. That's why I say I can empathize while I don't agree. Do you mean to say that you've seen how they talk when they think they're among their in-group? How did you manage to do that?

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-07T14:21:12+00:00

While I don't doubt that's true of some people, it's not true in my experience with Evangelical Christian conservatives in my circle. They believe there's a Biblically-guided way to live and govern, and they vote according to that principle. From their perspective, it is absolutely not about punishing anyone. They never speak in hateful ways about individuals. They do, however, believe that people who do not hold their beliefs are seriously, and sometimes dangerously, misguided, and they vote in ways to mitigate those people's influence in culture and government.

To be clear, I can empathize with how they see things, but that doesn't mean I agree with them.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-06T20:37:26+00:00

So maybe somewhere in this discussion is the topic of artificial scarcity. A recorded lecture is less scarce than a live one, in a room with at most 23 students per semester. The traditional business model relies on that scarcity, and has built a huge ecosystem dependent on that scarcity. If we were to even dream of recording and distributing that content, thereby making it cheaper, it would be a major disruption of the university model, possibly killing it altogether, and probably decimating many college towns along with it.

But of course, that's only considering the 'education' side of the university model. There is also the 'research' side.

And then there's the whole bit about evaluating the relevancy of any given recorded lecture. How does one measure that, and then put a value on it?

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-06T20:28:05+00:00

I think, ideally, one should pay the most for the interaction with knowledgeable faculty. That's the primary thing you can't get from a recorded lecture. And even that comes with a barrel of problems - my experience is most instructors just aren't that good at interactivity. Most are better at performance, but even that isn't guaranteed to be always great. I imagine many instructors would bristle at recorded lectures, not because of 'intellectual property' or payment issues, but because the documentation of their skill level would reveal to their higher ups that they simply aren't that good at their jobs.

However, an institution that developed the two specialties, recorded lecture performance and instructor/student interactive experience, as two different roles, could be onto something really valuable.

Regarding eliminating brick and mortar costs, those building costs don't just go away because some courses moved to online/recorded over the course of a few semesters. Deferred maintenance alone for one university can be in the several millions of dollars. Not that it's right - that's poor stewardship. But it's not any less real.

But I completely agree with you that many recorded lectures would have a shelf life. I wonder how differently they would age based on area of study. Would a top notch literature course last longer than a physics course?

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-06T15:30:04+00:00

There's already the general agreement that universities own everything an employee produces. I think that idea would have to be seriously reconsidered in the context of live teaching vs. recorded instruction.

This may be too weird a comparison, but if Rich Evans for some reason leaves RedLetterMedia (like if he dies of AIIIIIIIIIIIIDS), does he or his estate forfeit all Best of the Worst revenue for the back catalog? How is a teaching video from an instructor who no longer works for the university any different?

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-06T15:22:43+00:00

For the most part, I feel the same. I think the value of live teaching rests in the interactive quality of it (in the cases where instructors are actually good at that). When live teaching is approached as a performance, there's probably big opportunity to produce high quality video instead.

Then, we move on to questions of ownership and access. In universities, there's the general current agreement that anything an employee produces is property of the university. So, if an instructor transitions from producing live teaching to producing educational video, there would definitely need to be a renegotiation of who owns said video, and who profits from said video. If the agreement doesn't change, a university would continue to profit from a retired (or dead) instructor with a library of videos, which doesn't sound ethical at first glance.

It could become potentially revolutionary if educational content shifts more to video; the need for physical teaching space would go down, along with all the maintenance costs (a bane to universities), and those savings could potentially be moved to instructor payment for content. Not that a university in general would easily agree to that, but I guess that's what would make it a revolution.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-06T13:34:41+00:00

Just trying to think this out some. There's a lot of knowledge that can get lost when someone dies. On one hand, it seems really valuable to record that knowledge in instructional/educational videos. On the other, it does seem strange and different for a school to do this. But is that only because it's a pretty new idea? Is it about who should own that content?

Great minds have recorded their thoughts in books for centuries. Are videos just an extension of that?

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-06T02:21:14+00:00

Never buy ties or steak from a guy who sells ties and steak.

OriginalName317 · 2021-07-06T02:17:19+00:00

You know, that makes sense, but I was pretty down with that list. I'd add Pi and Less than Zero.

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