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Posts Tagged ‘Personal’

Patron of the arts

Posted in art, art appreciation, Bruce Byfield, inspiration, Personal, Uncategorized, West Coast art, tagged , , , , , on January 26, 2008| 1 Comment »

My friend Bob Ley has been an art collector as long as I’ve known him. The office where he practices psychology is carefully decorated with unique paintings and antiques – mostly modernist, with a tendency to primitivism and abstracts, but all of them a welcome change from the endless reprints of 19th century impressionists or the bland corporate art visible elsewhere. “I’ll never understand why my friends will pay $100 for a print of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and then another $400 for the frame,” he says, “When for the same price they could get an original work of art.” After my purchase of a custom West Coast bracelet a couple of weeks ago, I know what he means.

Buying original art may be expensive, but it’s also very satisfying. For one thing, in West Coast art, at least, it means experiencing another level of quality. I’ve long been aware of the vast difference in quality between the bracelets and masks in tourist shops in Vancouver and the true art galleries; you don’t need the price difference to see the difference in quality. But when you enter the world of custom art, you discover a new standard altogether. It’s not that the art galleries are full of shoddy work, or that you can’t find quality pieces in the tourist shops if you search carefully. Rather, there’s a freshness in custom work that you don’t usually see in designs knocked off for the tourist shops, or even for limited editions. Custom work tends to engage the artist in ways that other work doesn’t, simply because it’s unique.

For another, when you commission an original piece of art, you experience the pleasure of being a patron. Besides the beauty of the piece itself, you have the pleasure of knowing that, if not for you, the piece wouldn’t have come into existence. The artist, of course, is the primary creator, but, as patron, you have a minor secondary role. On a small scale, you can glimpse why Lorenzo de’ Medici was such an enthusiastic supporter of artists.

Even more importantly, you can view new art with a clean eye, in a way that’s rarely possible with works firmly enshrined in the canons of great art. Short of a radical step such as the cleaning of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, I doubt that anyone can appreciate works from the high renaissance like da Vinci’s Mona Lisa in the same way that people in the sixteenth century could. We’ve not only seen these works too often, but we’ve been told too often what to think of them. While some appreciation can be gained by seeing such works in person as opposed to in a print or an illustration, for the most part we’ve lost the power to see these works for themselves. With newer, less familiar works, we can still see the accomplishment for themselves.

This ability is important, because living with art enriches and relaxes us. A room designed by an architect of genius is simply a comfortable place to live or work, although many people would be hard-pressed to notice or tell you why. A room decorated with art that you can still see with fresh eyes has much the same effect. Both are at the opposite end of the spectrum from public institutions with deliberately mediocre art. What’s more, such rooms become more comfortable as people spent more time relaxed in them; the way we use room really can create an impression or aura that we can respond to (which is why I don’t frequent the coffee shop in the old gatehouse of the BC Penitentiary – there’s been too much misery, however justified, in the place for it ever to be a place I’d care to linger).

In the same way, with my new bracelet, I walk a little straighter and my stride has a bit more of a bounce because I am always aware of its weight on my arm, and the way it catches the light. Moreover – even better than an artistic room or a room full of art – I carry the bracelet with me, and can enjoy a closer look at the design whenever I want.

That, really, is the ultimate pleasure in commissioning a new piece of art for yourself: You not only have a unique relation to it, but your life is broadened by an appreciation of something breathtaking and new.

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7 (Cynical) Steps for Reducing Stress at Work

Posted in corporatelife, employers, employment, humor, office parties, Personal, stress, Uncategorized, work, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 25, 2008| 3 Comments »

Most articles about reducing stress in the workplace start with the assumption that you can do something to affect your circumstances. But unless you’re a company officer or director, you probably can’t do very much. You’re subject to the whims and cluelessness of the upper echelons, and the company’s main concern is usually to squeeze the most work out of you for the least amount of renumeration — and that means too much work to do, unpaid overtime, and most of the other immediate sources of stress.

At times, you may be tempted to beat yourself senseless, or even chew a leg off to escape these conditions. However, I have to warn you that the last one especially can ruin your chances of doing that half marathon you’ve always dreamed about. Besides, you will still need money, and a handicap pension isn’t enough for anyone to live on.

Instead, here are seven less drastic if cynical ways to minimize work stress. These are ways that the average career expert won’t tell you, because to do so is to admit that most of us work because we have to, not because we have a passion:

1. Never take a full time job when you can be a contractor instead:

Employers may dangle benefits before you in the hopes of enticing you to become a full-time employee. And, at first, you might be lured into agreeing for the sake of security. But, as I like to say, the main difference between contract and full-time work is that, as a contractor, you know when your job ends. You may even have a kill clause in your contract. By contrast, full-time employment can end without warning or any more compensation than required by local laws. The ugly truth that nobody likes to mention is that full-time employment is not much more secure than consulting. It also dulls your instincts for survival besides, so that layoffs hit you harder. Consultants know they can survive, because they’ve done so before.

Another big advantage of being a contractor is that you’re usually paid by the hour. That means that managers think twice about asking you to stay late, and that, when you do, you’re being paid — unlike everyone around you. You may still have to put in long hours, but at least you’re receiving hardship pay.

2. Avoid managers and company officers as much as possible:

The most productive and fulfilled people at most companies are those who are actually building the products that the company sells — the computer programmers, graphic designers, and other manufacturers. But somewhere about midway up the management hierarchy, employment stops being about productivity and starts being about ego. That means that, the more remote managers and directors are from what the company sells, the more likely than an encounter with them will be about making them feel good, and not about helping you with any problems.

You may be flattered if such people ask you for details about your work — but, believe me, they won’t remember. They’re not asking because they want to learn more and do their jobs better. Most of the time, they’re looking for a way to kill time. Granted, you might get some wicked stories to tell your co-workers about their ignorance, but that’s a poor return for the time you’ve lost.

3. Keep away from meetings:

Meetings are for those who have reached exalted positions where they are no longer productive. If you haven’t reached that stage, the average meeting will simply cut into your already too-short work time. Should anything important actually happen at a meeting, you can always read about it when the minutes are circulated in an email.

True, by missing meetings, you miss free food. But donuts and other typical meeting fodder only give you a sugar rush to leave you all the more attenuated after you come down. That process is a physical stress in itself.

4. Avoid company functions:

Career experts tell you that company events are a way to network. In fact, they’re a way for human resources managers to look busy (see #2). For others, they are an annoying interruption in a busy day. So, even though you’re dying for an excuse to knock off work, remember that what you’ll be doing is playing ring-toss in the hall or dressing up in a clown suit, and that embarassment is a form of stress in itself. If you’re shy, you’ll suffer agonies, and ditto if you have any empathy at all. Rather than attending a function, book off sick or claim an important task is waiting. Schedule a root canal for the time of the function. If all else fails, duck out early.

5. Go for walks at lunch, or eat out

Eating in a cafeteria — or, even worse, at your desk — only means that people can find you more easily and dump work on you, adding to your stress. Even if someone just want to ask you a question, you’re losing time that belongs to you.

Instead of making yourself a target, go out and remind yourself that there’s a world beyond work. Remembering this fact is one of the most reliable ways to put the pressures of work into perspective. But be sure to vary your walking routes or restaurant, or somebody might still be able to find you.

6. Don’t volunteer for extra work

If you’re feeling stressed because of your workload, the last thing you should do is take on extra work, no matter how good you think volunteering will make you look. This advice especially applies to taking work home on evenings or weekends.

Contrary to what the brainwashed and the ambitious believe, such volunteering rarely helps you get ahead. But it is almost guaranteed to age you prematurely. Even worse, it frequently means you are compensating for the fact that there’s too few staff members, and enabling management to dodge the problem.

Anyway, unless there’s a genuine crisis, you won’t have cleared your To Do list — you’ll simply have removed some items so that they can be replaced by new ones. Unless your company is heavily overstaffed, there’s always more work to do, and, for a surprising amount of it, whether you do it today or tomorrow doesn’t matter very much.

7. Don’t expect that working hard will lead to a promotion

The official myth in our society is that hard work is rewarded with promotion. That’s true in a handful of first-rate companies, but, in most work places, the better you are in your position, the harder time people have of imagining you in another one.

I’m not saying that you should slack off — after all, presumably you need the money, and losing your self-respect will only add to your stress. But if you insist on working hard, make sure that it’s for your own reasons and not for any expectation of reward. The chances are overwhelming that you won’t get one.

You’ll notice that none of these steps actually involve your workflow or work habits. That’s because stress at work is rarely about the work itself, so much as the conditions that surround it. In other words, getting organized, disciplining your email reading habits or any of the usual suggestions you get won’t do much for you.

Instead, recognize that you may be in an impossible position, and that the problem is just as likely to be in what’s around you than in you or your habits. And if that sounds cynical, reflect that, in a bad situation, cynicism is not a negative trait, but a successful survival mechanism. In this case, knowing why a situation is stressful can sometimes help you feel less stressed.

And if the situation continues, or gets worse, remember that sometimes the best way of dealing with stress is to move on. Just looking for work can help you endure your present situation a while longer (so long, of course, as you don’t let your managers know that you’re looking for work by slipping up and leaving your resume by the copier or by taking long phone calls with recruiters at work). Rather than enduring stress because you’re afraid of the unknown, have the courage to actively look for alternatives. If you’re like most full-timers, you’ll probably find that finding new employment is easier than you feared.

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Writing is a collaboration with readers

Posted in journalism, writing, tagged , , , , on January 23, 2008| 2 Comments »

When you are learning to write, your teachers usually blame you for any failure of communication. Considering that you are learning the craft, the assumption is often accurate. The only trouble is, you end up believing unconsciously that, if you find just the right words, you can communicate perfectly, and never be misunderstood. But, if you keep writing, and receive enough responses, you start to appreciate that, not only is perfect communication impossible, but that the baggage your audience lugs along can be just as important as what you say and how you say it. The trick, of course, is to know who is responsible for any particular breakdown in communication.

Teachers, incidentally, experience the same revelation – or, at least, I did. When I first stepped in front of a class, I imagined that I fully controlled the experience. As a result, my first semester teaching post-secondary was almost my last. I needed to learn that, while some students wanted to learn, I needed to cajole or entertain others before they would even try to absorb my lesson. Still others were either not willing or perhaps not ready to learn, or couldn’t learn from me. Even when, cured of illusions, I received consistently high evaluations from students, beyond a certain point, I couldn’t make everybody in a class learn. All I could do was provide an opportunity to learn, and tempt students to take advantage of it.

To say the least, the revelation was humbling. At times, it was profoundly discouraging, too.

In the same way, the most you can do as a writer is your best. You can articulate original or insightful ideas, choose your words carefully, and structure your thoughts in a way that would make Aristotle proud – and still, how readers receive your words will be dependent to some degree on what they bring to the experience. If anything, the possibility of not engaging your audience is even greater than with teaching, because you’re generally not face-to-face with your readers, so you can’t adjust your words to entice them better.

No matter how careful you are, some readers will dislike what you have to say because your topic is personally painful because of a trauma they experienced when they were four years old. Others will criticize you because you’ve written a commentary instead of an essay that proves your argument point by laborious point. Some will object because of what they think you said, but didn’t. Given half a chance, some will try to pick a fight with you if you’re accessible. The careless will misread what you say, take a phrase out of context, or in their minds transform what you said into something altogether different. the humor-impaired will miss your jokes. The paranoid will think you’re talking about them.

Even when you’re praised, the experience can be just as devastating. People will praise you because you are echoing something their much beloved great-aunt used to say, or because your throwaway phrase gave them the courage to leave their boyfriend. They’ll find a wisdom you didn’t intend, and make you feel stupid compared to the clever person they imagine you to be. They’ll praise an accident in your phasing, and ignore the parts you meant to be witty. And so it goes, each time you publish, until at times you’ll wonder how humans ever communicate.

The important thing to remember is that, as group therapy leaders are supposed to say, this isn’t about you. Or, not necessarily. You can never completely ignore what people have to say because at times, impartially-speaking, some of the ways that people misinterpret actually do point to a flaw in your work – especially if a majority make the same misinterpretation. But, at the same time, you can’t always give reader reactions undue weight, either. Often, the reactions will be based on nothing that you control. All you can do is write with what Balzac called “clean hands and composure,” absorb what is useful for improving your craft from the reactions, ignore the rest – both the good and the bad – and try to do better next time.

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The new face of business networking

Posted in Blogging, Bruce Byfield, careers, corporatelife, Joomla!, Personal, social networking, Uncategorized, work, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 22, 2008| Leave a Comment »

A few years ago, the mechanics of business networking were simple. You attended an event – a cocktail party, or perhaps a seminar – and circulated like mad, collecting business cards. All that is still an important part of networking, but, thanks to the social Internet (AKA Web 2.0), it’s just the beginning.

This awareness has been growing in me for over a year, but I only became fully aware of this change last Saturday, when I dropped in at the end of the documentation camp for Joomla! that Rastin Mehr had organized in Vancouver. Like many of those at the event, Rastin is a computer consultant, and he quite frankly saw the event as a change to socialize with his associates. But was what was interesting to me was how he – and everyone else — went about it.

One of Rastin’s vocations is photography, so he took dozens of shots of the event, and immediately posted some of them to Flickr, the photo-sharing site. Naturally, many of those at the event logged on for a look, either at the event – since most people were carrying laptops – or in the next few days afterwards. Some made comments, and Rastin provided links on FaceBook. (He also took some videos using the built-in webcam on his laptop, which has the effect of showing everyone at their foreshortened worse as they peer up at the lens).

Meanwhile, several attendees blogged about the event, including Rastin and Monica Hamburg. Rastin’s blog was especially interesting as a form of networking, since he included his pictures of everyone, and wrote short biographies about those depicted (mine, which accompanied a picture that caught me with my eyes open, described my new West Coast bracelet as a chronoplate and me as a kind of journalistic Doctor Who – a comparison that delighted me, since I’ve been a fan of the regenerating Doctor for years). Naturally, people commented on those, too. Jeanette Duguay did something of the same, borrowing a picture from Rastin to illustrate her blog. People at other Joomla! doc camps also logged in, extending the networking to those who not only weren’t at the event, but who lived on other continents.

(Now, of course, I’m doing something of the same, writing about these blogs and linking to them – although not, in my case, with pictures).

As I write, Rastin has yet to post his video interviews, but I imagine that they will provide the same opportunities for continued interactions among the attendees.

And, as if the blogs weren’t enough, instead of dropping the business cards they had collected into a pile destined to be forgotten in a corner, people took those cards and made LinkedIn and FaceBook connections with them. Connections on such sites are sometimes dismissed as shallow – and many times rightly so – but they do have the advantage over business cards of keeping people automatically in touch, providing that they login semi-regularly.

In short, what social sites have done is to extend this networking event long past the hours in which it was held. Moreover, while they have provided ways to follow up on the encounters and perpetuate them. Whether in the long run they will help to make the connection more meaningful I can’t tell yet, but they certainly have created a better chance of lasting connections.

Most social network sites, of course, were developed for teenagers and young adults as an extension of their leisure time. They still serve that function, and probably always well. All the same, seeing how working professionals are using them, I can’t help thinking that the social sites have proved themselves at last Far from being frivolous, as mainstream dilettantes are always maintaining, they’re becoming ways to enhance the power of networking.

If you’re a professional seeking contacts, a FaceBook account is now as important as being decently dressed. And what you lose in straight forwardness, you gain in effective networking.

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Intimations of the uncanny

Posted in Bruce Byfield, childhood, dreams, Fantasy, imagination, Personal, uncanny, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on January 18, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Freud suggests that a feeling of the uncanny (or unheimlich, as he calls it) is a momentary reversion to a child-like perception of the world as vast, mysterious, and beyond your control. I can speak for anyone else, but, in my case, the observation is correct. Two of my strongest early memories are so imbued with the uncanny that they may explain my lifelong interest in fantasy and science fiction.

In the first, I run out the door of my parents’ house, and descend the upper lawn. I am about to jump off the low stone wall to the lower lawn when I see a huge green and black snake coiled in the grass at my feet. Its body is about four inches thick, and it is slowly raising its head. I start giving it childish insults, calling it, “Sucker” and worse. Its forked tongue starts flicking in and out. For a moment, I am absolutely paralyzed. I think of leaping over it, but I don’t want it behind me in the grass. Finally, I turn around and race back inside. A while later, my family walks down to the car. I am careful to keep my eye on the grass as I go down the walkway, but I see nothing.

In the second, I am walking along the hallway of my parents’ house. I turn the corner, and Captain Hook from Peter Pan is there. He wears a black frock coat, and is well over six feet tall. I can see a bandoleer of bullets and a sword at his side, and he is brandishing a silver hook the size of his head. He shouts and starts advancing towards me. I give a great shout of my own, and my parents come running, but he is already gone.

Needless to say, Vancouver simply doesn’t have such large snakes, and people didn’t keep snakes as pets those days. Nor have I ever found a snake that matches the description of the one I remember. As for Captain Hook – well, I hardly need to explain the unlikelihood of anyone or anything in my childhood home being mistaken for such a figure. Both memories are undoubtedly of dreams, perhaps combined with sleepwalking. Undoubtedly, too, I have embellished them as the years went on, and I developed an even greater imagination.

Yet that’s not how either one feels. Intellectually, I can explain the memories away. But, deep down where the instincts and nightmares dwell, I know that they happened exactly as I’ve described. To this day, a coiled snake makes me profoundly uneasy, although a snake in any other position doesn’t bother me and I have even handled some.

Nor can I suppress a sudden tightness in my chest when I see Captain Hook portrayed in either animated or live action. In fact Dustin Hoffman in Pan made me faintly but definitely uneasy.

I wonder, too, what could have provoked such dreams. I’ve looked in the books I was read as a child, and none of them are likely sources of either memory. Could I have seen something on TV? I doubt I could have made them up entirely on my own, and  my inmost conviction remains that I didn’t: I saw them because they were there.

 No wonder that, when I read The Lord of the Rings seven years later, I took to it so avidly. I was already primed to respond to the fantastic. If Wordsworth had intimations of immortality, I’ve intimations of the uncanny ever since – and, despite some moments of uneasiness, I wouldn’t trade with him if I could.

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Public relations spammers

Posted in Bruce Byfield, Business, corporate communications, corporatelife, marketing, Personal, PR, Public Relations, spam, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 15, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Spam techniques have now become standard in public relations. I’ve come to this realization over the last couple of years as I’ve watched the dozens of emails from communication managers that arrive daily in my mailbox. Probably, the senders don’t think of what they are doing as spamming. Very likely, some even imagine that they are doing their jobs efficiently. Yet they might as well be spammers, for all the effectiveness they have. An increasing majority seem to think they’ve done their job if they’ve sent their news to every remotely possible recipient.

This attitude frequently has ludicrous results. For instance, you might think that one look at the free software sites for which I write would tell PR hacks what the sites are interested in: Free and open source software, and the GNU/Linux operating system especially. Yet out of an average of maybe sixty news releases that I receive daily, at least two-thirds of them on any given day are likely to contain news about the Windows or Mac platforms or proprietary software – often both. Either the PR people don’t know enough about technology to know that the editors don’t want this news, or they don’t care.

Even more surprisingly, some releases aren’t about computer technology at all. Probably the senders are working from a general list of news outlets, and haven’t bothered to figure out which ones might want their news.

Then, just to make matters worse, they don’t just send the initial release. Some of them send exactly the same release the next day. Others send “just a note to see if you got my news yesterday.” A few repeat the process several times with every release.

Some, having picked up the idea that they should target a name, address their news directly to a person who works for the site. The only trouble is, they never bother updating their contact lists. I know at least one site that regularly gets email addressed to people who haven’t worked there for several years – sometimes in addition to the general ones sent to the editors’ mailing list.

All in all, it’s getting so bad that my little finger is getting repetitive stress injuries from hitting the delete key so many times in a day.

Admittedly, the sender don’t conceal their names or use malware to send email from other people’s computers, but, if what they’re doing isn’t spamming, the difference is hard to distinguish.

In particular — and what really should concern the senders – the results they get are the same as those from spam. Before long, their emails are added to everyone’s spam filters, so if they ever do have news the site can use, nobody is every going to read it. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if some writers and editors resist using information from certain PR agencies or people, simply because they’ve become so annoyed by them.

Yet when someone – usually out of cynicism or a wicked sense of amusement – lets the senders know that they’re wasting their time, most of them don’t change their behavior. They’ll apologize, express their gratitude for the correction – and then, at the very next opportunity, do exactly the same thing. I sometimes wonder whether the effectiveness of PR these days is being judged by the number of outlets it’s sent to.

When a news release is sent out, the ideal situation is that the news is used. The company gets the publicity it wants, and the news outlet gets the material it needs. But, when spamming techniques are used, nobody wins. The PR hack gets unofficially blacklisted, the company fails to get its publicity, and the journalists get angry and look for copy elsewhere. And why? Because too many PR hacks are too lazy or ignorant to do their jobs properly.

Needless to say, not every communications manager uses spam techniques. I know several who carefully target their news releases, and work hard to make sure that everyone on both ends of a release wins. These are the real pros of communications, and I am always grateful for their competence – if only because of its increasing rarity.

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The failure of resolutions to exercise

Posted in Bruce Byfield, exercise, Personal, resolutions, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 11, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Eleven days into the New Year and already the throng that appeared in the exercise room on January 2 has disappeared, leaving only the regulars. I can’t say I’m surprised; just looking at them, most people would have predicted that they would break their resolutions quickly.

You could see in their faces that they didn’t want to be there. The fact that they had screwed themselves up just to go to the gym could be seen in the wary way they approached the exercise machines, almost as if the machines were animals that would turn and savage them. There was a doggedness in the way they pushed the pedals around or plodded along the treadmills, and a twist to their features and a slump to their shoulders that showed their reluctances. And when they finished, they did not so much walk away as drag themselves, held up largely by their wills, looking faintly disgusted by their own sweat on the designer clothes they had bought for their efforts.

I’ve got back into shaped so many times in my life that I sympathized with them – I really did. The trouble with starting an exercise regime is that it’s at the start, when you really need the encouragement, that you feel the most discomfort. Later, it gets easier, but in the first few days after exercising, when your throat is dry and your legs feel deboned, when you think at the end that your whole body is about to burst out in the shakes, any relief seems far away. And if you haven’t been through the experience before, so that you know that your sense of humiliation will be slowly replaced by a sense of confidence, you don’t have very much to keep you going. I considered telling one or two of them that it gets easier, but I didn’t think they appreciate a stranger observing their difficulties.

Besides, they weren’t likely to stick around, as I said. Most of the people who suddenly appeared with the New Year were at least in their early thirties to mid-forties: Young enough to remember the resilience of youth, but old enough to have lost it if they hadn’t kept physically active. For some, it may well have been the first time their bodies hadn’t lived up to their expectations – a milestone of aging that’s uncomfortable for anyone.

Experienced or strongly motivated people might stick out the discomfort to win through to fitness. But, to do that, they would need an ability to take pleasure in using their muscles, and most of them manifestly couldn’t do that. They used iPods and magazines while they were exercising, but they got bored anyway. To them, the exercise bikes were a chore, somewhat more pleasant than housetraining a puppy, but not very much. Not being used to exercise, perhaps they didn’t even imagine that there might be some other form of exercise they might enjoy. All they could think of was that getting into shape was something that needed to be done, so they marched down the gym, braced for the failure that became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It seems to me that New Years’ Resolutions are a cruel custom, because they encourage people to try to make changes, while everything in our culture says that the likeliest outcome is failure. Having seen all the cartoons and jokes about breaking resolutions, people expect to fail to change their lives in January. Perpetuating such a vicious cycle seems a needless refinement of cruelty, especially when the average person has enough failures in their life.

For me, I don’t mind so much. Now, I can get on the exercise bike when I want to, instead of waiting in line while someone struggles through their self-appointed misery. But other people’s disappointment in themselves does seem a high price to pay for my convenience.

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Writing about conspiracies

Posted in Bruce Byfield, computers, Free Software, freesoftware, gnu/linux, linux, opensource, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 7, 2008| 32 Comments »

The fallout from my blog entry, “Conspiracy theorists and free software” continues. With all the people baying for my blood – some of whom, frankly, sound disingenuous in their demands for proof – the entry could easily take over my life, so in the last couple of days, I’ve withdrawn from active discussion of it. Frankly, the discussion is not that interesting to me, and (mercenary soul that I am), if I’m going to participate in more than my courtesy two email exchange with people, I’m going to get paid for doing so. And probably I will in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, since I have an unexpected free half hour as I wait for a call to be returned, I’ve been reflecting on the various reactions the piece received.

To start with, I notice that Brian Profitt’s suggestion that I was lashing out at some negative criticism I received has been seized on by some commenters as a reason to dismiss what I said. However, although that was a shrewd suggestion on Brian’s part, it’s only true to the extent that the entry was inspired by someone asking me what I meant by conspiracy theory. Going into my fourth year as an online journalist, I long ago became immune to the insults and accusations of bias from both sides that often threaten to overwhelm thoughtful responses and legitimate corrections of mistakes. In fact, I maintain a page on my web site where I list choice bits of abuse for visitors’ amusement. I may sometimes respond, but I’m not much interested in flame wars. I have an anarchistic temperament, and, so long as I have my say, I’m perfectly willing to let others have theirs, even if theirs don’t have a lot of love for me.

That’s not to say that I don’t find people’s reactions fascinating – and more than a little intellectually distressing, since I’m an ex-university instructor who once spend his days trying to help people develop their abilities to argue coherently. A surprising number of people leaped to the conclusion that, despite a clear statement to the contrary, I was only talking about attitudes towards Microsoft (perhaps because I recently wrote an equally misread article that suggested that, since the free software was strong enough to defend itself, we could be wary of Microsoft without being paranoid). Even more seem to think that proving that there were reasons to distrust Microsoft in some way validated the attitudes and styles of arguments that I was condemning. Many, too, do not seem to believe that it is possible to mistrust corporation or organization without expressing unrelenting hate for it.

Clearly, what people brought to their reading was as important – and, in some cases, more important – than what I wrote. That’s their right, but, as I’ve often lamented in the past, if someone wants to disagree with me, I wish they would at least disagree with what I actually said, rather than what they imagine I said. At times, people seem to be arguing with their own reflections to such an extent that I feel extraneous to the process.

But I think my favorite response was from a commenter who assumed the responsibility of giving me elementary advice about how to write. I’m always willing to learn, but, considering that last year I sold roughly a quarter million words about free software, now I know the spirit in which Lauren Bacall responded a few years ago on hearing that she had been voted one of the sexiest elderly women in film. “That will certainly pep up my career,” she said (or something to that effect). “I can’t wait to tell my agent.” While not at the top of my profession, I’m not at the bottom, either, so I can’t help but be bemused by unasked advice from an unknown and relatively unproven writer — especially when I personally wouldn’t give writing advice unless specifically asked.

However, the most troubling thought to me in all the reactions is that I’ve apparently lost my anonymity online. This blog is modestly successful, but its readership is generally many times below what an article on Linux.com or Datamation receive. I thought it useful as a sandbox, a place to express my thoughts-in-progress without any fuss. If anything, I expected to get a few responses from friends and acquaintances.

But, as readers of the entry rise into the thousands, I realize that I was naive. Regardless of what merits I do or don’t have as a writer (and nobody could be more critical of my work than me, believe me), apparently some people do notice what I have to say about free software. Some of them may hate it, but they notice. That’s a humbling and frightening thought (and leads me to mutter repeatedly about the blind leaning the blind).

Even more importantly, it means that, unless I start writing under another name, I have to assume a greater responsibility for what I write publicly. No more working out of ideas publicly for me – from now on, I need to make sure that I state my assumptions clearly, and address opposing views in more detail, and not publish on certain subjects until my ideas are fully developed. People are still going to make invalid inferences, no matter what I do, but I feel the responsibility all the same, even while I tell myself that I’m being arrogant in feeling the obligation.

In a week or so, perhaps I’ll revisit the topic. Meanwhile, thanks for everyone who has commented or blogged in response. It’s interesting, and I’ve learned, even though I don’t have the time to respond in detail to everyone.

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Conspiracy theorists and free software

Posted in Bruce Byfield, computers, Free Geek, Free Software, linux, opensource, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 2, 2008| 59 Comments »

No one can be involved in the free software community to any extent without stumbling across conspiracy theorists. Like the mad wife in the attic, they’re an embarrassment to the community, clinging to attitudes appropriate to the days when free software was new and vulnerable, and providing an easy means for outsiders to discredit the rest of the community. They can also waste a lot of your time if you let them, so you should learn how to identify them for your own sake.

You remember the scene in Apocalypse Now when Colonel Kurtz mumbles his story? You may remember leaning forward, straining to hear him – only to realize with a cold thrill that what he is saying is insane. Conspiracy theorists are like that. If you’re not careful, you find yourself being slowly drawn into their world, either accepting their ideas or arguing with them. The result is the same, regardless of whether you’re face to face or on IRC or email — either way, you lose.

Recently, I forgot that simple axiom, until I brought myself up with a start. I won’t mention the people in question, because I don’t want to dignify their antics with more attention. But, while the experience is still fresh in my mind, here are some of the signs that should put you on your guard:

  • An obsession about a single person, corporation, or issue to the exclusion of everything else: Conspiracy theorists will spend an inordinate amount of time researching and blogging about the object of their obsession. Although Microsoft is a favorite object of free software conspiracy theorists, I’ve also come across people with an obsession against Richard Stallman, the Free Software Foundation, the Open Source Initiative, or even a particular project, such as KDE or GNOME. But, no matter what topics a discussion with them begins with, they will always find a way to bring up their obsession, often straining to do so. At the first hint of news, they will rush to blog about it, filling in gaps with speculation.
  • Extreme paranoia directed at the object of the obsession: The object of the obsession is viewed as vastly more powerful than the free software community. It is conceived as moving constantly in the shadows, recruiting dupes, spreading money when it has some and laying long range plans to subvert some or all of the community. Sometimes, these plans may make direct business sense, but, just as often, they are for dubious benefits. Should the object of the obsession deny an accusation, the conspiracy theorists simply regard the denial as a sign of how clever the enemy is.
  • An either / or mindset: For conspiracy theorists, no middle ground exists. Unless you are in complete agreement with them, you are in the enemy camp – and probably in the enemy pay. Even an attempt to qualify their argument will mark you as part of the problem. So will suggesting that they work to change or influence the object of the obsession where that is possible. The conspiracy theorist’s identity is bound up with being in opposition to the object of their obsession that anything except whole-hearted hatred is unacceptable to them. Key phrases: “There can be no truce with [insert object of obsession here]” and “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.”
  • An inability to summarize other viewpoints with any accuracy: Convinced that they are on the right side, the average conspiracy theorist is either unable or unwilling to report other people’s ideas with any accuracy. Instead, they seem to report what they imagine others are saying, or is convenient to believe that others are saying.
  • A refusal to modify opinions, even in light of new evidence: Conspiracy theorists’ beliefs are so important to them that to change them would risk losing identity. So they don’t, ever. When offered new information that might challenge their basic position, they will either try to discredit it or change the subject immediately, perhaps raising a peripherally related point but not addressing the new information.
  • The use of decontextualized evidence: Conspiracy theorists see information that supports their central belief, and are prone to miss information that challenges or contradicts it. They will take a phrase out of context – for instance, take a comment on a technical issue to be about a political one — or even ignore basic grammar such as the serial comma in order to find support for their beliefs.
  • A refusal to consider alternate explanations: Coincidence, circumstance, and human stupidity do not exist for the conspiracy theorist. For this reason, they make no effort to discount them, not even to strengthen their own arguments. The one explanation that conspiracy theorists accept is malevolence.
  • A lack of civility and a quickness to give and take offense: The free software community is not the politest place in the world. However, even by its standard, conspiracy theorists are abusive. They’re quick to hurl insults, or to take insults personally. Their writing leaves an impression of emotion held barely in check, the words rushing out of them as fast as they can manage in their anger.
  • A disregard for the rules of evidence: The wise pundit looks for evidence that would hold up in a court of law – that is, establish a point beyond a reasonable doubt. By contrast, conspiracy theorists have no such restraint. For instance, if a company has hired a former Microsoft executive, that is proof that the company is controlled by Microsoft. Never mind that Microsoft is so large that any North American company has a good chance of hiring a former Microsoft executive – the one tenuous connection is enough to establish proof for a conspiracy theorist. Key phrase: “Can it be coincidence that . . . ?” (Sometimes, yes)
  • A scattergun approach to evidence: Instead of building up an argument point by point, conspiracy theorists tend to bury you in a random collection of related facts. They can take this approach, because their obsession causes them to have hundred of points ready at any given point. But instead of the rational building of an argument, the result is not logical persuasion, but an impressionistic, often highly emotional view of the situation.
  • A lack of self-reflection: Many of the sort of people I’m talking about know that “conspiracy theory” can be negative term, and are insulted if you apply it to them. However they don’t have the least idea of why it is appropriately applied to them. Accuse them of paranoia, and they will explain that they are only be sensible, and everyone else is living in a fool’s paradise. Suggest they have a cavalier attitude to evidence, and they’ll say much the same same. Don’t expect a sense of humor, either – that’s usually lost with the self-reflection. If they call you a “Microsoft shill” and you ask, “Where can I send an invoice?” they’ll assume you’ve just revealed your true allegiance, not that you’re making a joke.

This isn’t a pop quiz of the “Should you quit your job?” or “Which Tolkien character are you like?” variety, and still less a guideline to psychiatric assessment, so I can’t tell you exactly how many of these behaviors are needed to diagnosis someone as a conspiracy theorist. In fact, I’m tempted simply to say that, when you meet one, you’ll know. Still, the more of these traits you see, the greater the likelihood that you’re dealing with a conspiracy theorist. If you see more than half, then the likelihood becomes a near-certainty.

And then what should you do? The problem is nicely summarized by two verses of Proverbs 26. The first is: “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.” The second is: “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit”. In other words, you don’t want to be dragged down to a conspiracy theorist’s own level, but you don’t want them to continue unchallenged and perhaps convince others who aren’t paying enough attention to realize the kind of person they are facing.

Answering is always tempting, but you have to put a limit on your answers. Whenever I receive comments on an article I’ve published, with few exceptions I restrict myself to two exchanges, regardless of whether I’m dealing with a conspiracy theorist or not. That way, I show politeness and respect to someone who has taken the trouble to contact me, but I don’t use up all my spare time in answering people. If your time is valuable, you might want to do the same.

However, you should also bear in mind that you can’t win. Try to refute a conspiracy theorist, and you simply prove to them that you’re the enemy. In the end, the best thing you can do for yourself – to say nothing of free software – is to stop responding to the conspiracy theorist as soon as you realize the type of person you’re dealing with. The time you spend dealing with a conspiracy theorist will be put to much better use writing code, persuading a friend to try free software or dealing with the real threats to the community instead of the imaginary ones.

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My Crusoe ledger for 2007

Posted in Bruce Byfield, Free Geek, Free Software, imperial realms, journalism, new years, opensource, Personal, Robinson Crusoe, T. H. White, Uncategorized, writing, year end, tagged , , , , , , , on December 31, 2007| 1 Comment »

I now began to consider seriously my condition, and the circumstances I was reduced to; and I drew up the state of my affairs in writing, not so much to leave them to any that were to come after me – for I was likely to have but few heirs – as to deliver my thoughts from daily poring over them, and afflicting my mind; and as my reason began now to master my despondency, I began to comfort myself as well as I could, and to set the good against the evil, that I might have something to distinguish my case from worse; and I stated very impartially, like debtor and creditor, the comforts I enjoyed against the miseries I suffered.

– Daniel Defoe, “Robinson Crusoe”

 

The year end lists in newspapers and blogs always leave me bemused. The ones that list top stories for the previous year always leave me feeling that I’m either living in an alternate universe or that I’ve missed everything important while preoccupied with the business of living. As for the ones that predict the coming year, they seem purest fantasy – my own included. Still, like Robinson Crusoe, I find it useful to look to my karmic accounts now and then. So, as the last hours of the year wind down, and I wait to leave for tonight’s party, here’s my accounts for the last year:

On the negative side, my mother-in-law and her sister died within a few days of each other last spring. Neither death was unexpected, since they were both in their nineties, but when you’ve known people for decades, they leave a large gap. I also lost a friendship, apparently irretreivably, although I don’t quite know why and I’m irked at my ignorance of the causes. And, most important of all, my partner’s illness continues to be chronic, with me helpless to do anything about it.

On the positive side of the ledger, I made a few new friends for the first time in a year or two, and have become marginally involved in Free Geek Vancouver, one of the worthier causes I’ve encountered recently. I’m a firm believer that volunteer work is as good for my psychological health as any advice I’m able to give might be to the recipients.

However, the largest addition to the positive side is my development as a writer. Although I dropped my efforts at fiction about May, 2007 has been by far the best year I’ve ever had for writing.

Just in terms of volume, I wrote about 245,000 words of articles on free software, or about 185 articles. I also wrote about 45,000 words for the Imperial Realms online game divided into 17 articles and about 55,000 words spread over 135 posts. That’s a total of roughly 345,000 public words alone.

By other measures, my writing year was also successful. During the year, I found new sources for my work, and I now make as much money freelancing as I ever did as a communicatins consultant (good thing, too: I’m getting too old to learn how to knot a tie again). I was interviewed four or five times over the year, either as a writer or as a subject matter expert. I also returned to an academic project that I started years ago and abandoned. And, just as I was typing this paragraph, I received an email from a friend telling me that an article of mine had been Slashdotted, making the perfect end to the year. So, in many ways, I think that 2007 marks my first real understanding of myself as a writer.

Looking over the paragraphs above, what strikes me is the imbalance between the personal and the professional. Not that the personal was particularly awful, but it seems thoroughly overshadowed by the professional. If I were superstitious, I’d be tempted to say that there’s only so much karma to go around. Or, from a psychological perspective, perhaps I’ve been practicing the fine old Freudian tradition of sublimation.

And what do I see looking ahead? I can’t even begin to guess. But there’s a scene in T. H. White’s The Once and Future King where Lancelot says that, after an encounter, he got down on his knees and “thanked God for the adventure.” I’m not religious, but I hope that I can must the same combined sense of stoicism and adventure as I face what’s waiting for me in 2008.

Upon the whole, here was an undoubted testimony that there was scarce any condition in the world so miserable but there was something negative or something positive to be thankful for in it; and let this stand as a direction from the experience of the most miserable of all conditions in this world: that we may always find in it something to comfort ourselves from, and to set, in the description of good and evil, on the credit side of the account.

— Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

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