| Emotions and Organizations |
[May. 17th, 2009|01:35 am] |
In my observations of people, their attitudes, and their statements, a certain pattern has become particularly clear regarding the emotions adults tend to hold towards certain types of organizations, particularly businesses. Casual anecdotal evidence would seem to suggest that the feelings held by people towards companies, particularly franchised or national/multinational corporations, tends to be disproportionately negative in nature. Quite simply, in general people tend to hate more businesses, to a greater degree, than the number and degree of businsesses they like and feel affection for.
Which leads to the question of why people seem naturally averse to businesses, but not, say, sports teams. After all, any given sports fan will rave about their favorite teams, and badmouth their rivals, but outside of the cultists on the far edge of the distribution (read: MINI Cooper owners), most positive feelings towards companies tend to be quite mild. No one goes around talking about their heartfelt love for Autozone stores, or how they spent their weekend putting in volunteer hours at Cracker Barrel. But yet there seem to be many people who are vocally, vehemontly opposed to various corporations and companies, for whom it's perfectly normal to go out of their way to avoid or spite for personal moral/ethical/political/religious/undeclared reasons. If Bill Gates donates a hundred million dollars to a charitable cause, he'll get a nice one-paragraph blurb on page 14 of the paper. But if Burger King doesn't increase wages by a penny, protestors will blockade their stores all day long with signs, even at their own personal cost.
Perhaps the difference between evoking positive and negative emotions from a faceless entity is rooted in evolutionary pressures (there aren't many positive non-human aspects of the wild, but there are certainly many harmful and dangerous ones out there-best just to play it safe). Or perhaps my impressions are biased themselves. In either case it would be interesting to see studies performed on how people tend to feel towards various entities. At the very least there's got to be some nice juicy government grant money in there somewhere. |
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| Ending |
[Mar. 21st, 2009|02:14 am] |
BSG is finally over. For three years I've looked forwards to Battlestar, always awaiting answers. The acting, the plots, have improved and they've gradually set the bar higher with each season.
And to throw it all away on a deux ex machina ending, explaining every long-running mystery with "God did it", leaves me seriously sad inside. Religious epiphanies have no place in filling plot holes, damnit.
I feel betrayed. |
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| Rumination |
[Jan. 17th, 2009|12:30 am] |
"As you adequately put, the problem is choice. But we already know what you're going to do, don't we? Already I can see the chain reaction, the chemical precursors that signal the onset of emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic, and reason. An emotion that is already blinding you from the simple, and obvious truth."
There's nothing quite like that sinking sensation of certainty settling in amongst your vitals, as you become aware that you've already made up your mind, you already know how much it's going to hurt down to the last grain, and the only thing left for it is to see this thing through.
Free will is the illusion we create for ourselves to allow us to live our days as they are. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 17th, 2008|03:26 am] |
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"If you find yourself agreeing with everyone around you, then you're probably all wrong." |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 5th, 2008|12:22 am] |
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.
The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre - the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
H. L. Mencken |
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| Writer's Block: Neuromancer |
[Oct. 2nd, 2008|01:17 am] |
Frank Herbert's Dune definitely had a major impact on science fiction, if not perhaps as much of pop culture as Neuromancer did. Between Blade Runner and Neuromancer, the early 80s were the pinnacle of cyberpunk...it's just a shame that no one's ever really captured the heart of it again since then. |
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| 06/12/08 |
[Aug. 17th, 2008|02:28 am] |
Goblin Valley State Park is a tiny-ass speck of land in Utah approximately seventy miles east of nowhere:
View Larger Map
( Exploration ) |
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| Route 66 |
[Mar. 3rd, 2008|11:16 am] |
Ed's Camp & the rustic Kactus Kafe. We never really figured out if there was someone still living there or not..there was a car or two parked next door beside another shack, but no obvious sign that this was an actual commercial establishment..or had ever been one.
( Kactus Kafe ) |
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ltwesjanson's journal
discontent