Your Friends May Not Be Your Friends: The Dark Side of Recent Trends in Facebook

This has been bugging me for awhile now. I wasn't really sure how to word it, or even if anyone else was noticing it, but I was certain there was something bad going on. Turns out, I was right.

For the last while, I was getting numerous Facebook friend requests from people I'd never heard of before. I'd look at their included profile (or what little of it I could see) and there would be even less information included. In other words, I was getting friend invites from people who I didn't know, and I suspect that none of their other "friends" knew them either.

Turns out, these aren't just lonely people trying to make friends. They're spammers who realize that they can no longer get through your spam filters, so they are now trying to friend you and then open a new door to send you lots of information about products you don't want to hear about. Whatever other motives they might have, like trying to get personal information about you so they can use it to steal your identity and make your life a living hell, well, I'm sure no one would ever do that. Especially some anonymous stranger who has sent you an invite and "wants" to be your friend.

Technology Review has an article about this. Which means, if you've seen the article in the trade press, then the issue is already HUGE, which also means that you're probably already a victim. When CNN picks up the story, which is probably tomorrow or the day after, then you can be assured that if you weren't already informed, you will be informed by your bank when they ask you what all these charges in Arumba are for.

Spammers are getting very good at what they're doing, and they have to be, because there are too many programs designed to circumvent their attempts. I have a friend request I put on hold last week from a very attractive young woman who wants to be my friend. She lives in Georgia, and she has about forty other friends, none of whom I know. Her profile picture shows her with half of her shirt missing (on purpose), which I'm sure is quite useful in getting your average male to think to himself, "hey, she wants to be my friend, so maybe I have a shot at that hot chick" or some other stupid thought process. And that's how someone who is a spammer is going to get onto someone's friends list.

But then it gets even more interesting. Because I'm some horny guy that wants to make it with some hot girl half my age who lives on the other side of the continent, I'll probably be stupid enough to accept her friend request. I mean, what can I lost? Well, then she decides she wants to be friends with a lot of my other friends, which she now does by sending out a mass request to everyone on my friends' list. Then they look at it, realize that she's a friend of a friend, so they click yes when they get her request. They figure that by association (she's "my" friend), she must be safe and quite possibly a forgotten friend of theirs. So, she uses this to continue to break her way into the associations that we have amongst our friend networks, until she has managed to exhaust all avenues of connections. But now she has a huge list of people to spam for her products.

Let's now revisit "her", because odds are pretty good that she's not really a she, nor is she actually a person, but a spammer network that is interested in exploiting connective networks. Without any work at all, they let the previous connections of networks do the work for them, and next thing you know, we're all starting to receive strange correspondences. What you will also NOT notice is that her connection to you seems to disappear, going underground. Oh, she's still your friend, but she doesn't make status updates, so you don't remember she's your friend. She's like a sleeper agent waiting for the right moment to strike. And when she does, you'll never even know she did.

This is the type of thing that will probably bring down the usefulness of a site like Facebook because once people realize they're being scammed and targeted by people in their own networks, they'll do what comes natural: Leave. Why stick around an invite future attacks and continued exploitation?

There is much more to this than these basic points, but I'll leave it at that so people can get back to informing me of how many sheep they've found on their farms.

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The audience as shadow

You might say I've come to a conclusion of sorts. I realized that the whole online thing isn't really working for me. I have a blog, but no one really reads it. I have a Facebook account, but no one really communicates with me on there, and all I end up receiving are notifications of how someone is having a bad day or how someone found a lost turtle in Farmville or something stupid like that.

For me, the whole online thing never worked out. Never found a girlfriend online. Never found conversations. Never got into online gaming, aside from MMORPGs. Really nothing on the social fabric has been my thing through online.

Yeah, I play World of Warcraft. And I still will. I'm just going to take a different direction on everything else.

I'm not leaving online. I'm just dumping everything social networking that's online. Never worked for me. Adds more frustration than anything else.

I shut down my facebook account yesterday. Figure no one will really notice. Or care.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to start to shed my web site as well. I've been paying $10 a month for YEARS to a company that has been getting my business that amounts to me talking to myself. Sure, I have a friend or two who reads the blog, but honestly, I can hold a coversation with those people in person. I don't need a blog to communicate with them.

The website was an experiment in beta for me because it was how I was going to keep in touch with my writing fans. They never materialized. Neither did my career as a writer. I've been writing for vanity alone, and I'm the only one pretty much reading it. What's the use in that? It's like keeping a diary and leaving it out all of the time in hopes that someone will accidentally read it. What kind of game is that?

So, I'm going to be shutting down my web site over the next few weeks. I might blog here and there much as a smoker still tokes up every now and then but knows that he shouldn't, even though he swears he quit the habit a long time ago.

I've found the whole social networking experiment to be interesting, mainly because it works for some people, but it didn't work for me. I'm a writer, not a blogger. I need an audience. It's never been about me or about writing for myself. Without an audience, well, I'm nothing. It's like being in the 1991 August coup in the Soviet Union, being Boris Yeltsin and then trying to stop the coup by talking to yourself in the shower. It might make you feel better at the time, but if there's no one listening, it doesn't do any good. If Yeltsin never had his audience, all we'd know about him and those days in August was that some fat Russian guy danced on a tank. But then, we'd probably not even know that. He'd just be some fat guy with a lot of things to say and no one to hear him.

That's what I feel like. I have a lot to say, and no one ever bothered to listen. Oh sure, a few did, but they were just being polite. And I reciprocated by listening to them. That's social networking, not writing. Never been my thing. It's like small talk. Never did it, and it's probably why I don't handle dates well. I hate small talk. It leads to nothing and is irrelevant. I hate irrelevancy, which is exactly what my web page has been all of this time.

I stared this web site with the idea that the audience would eventually come around. It never did. I thought I had a lot to say about politics, being a strange, anarchist political scientist. No one ever bothered to listen. You have to be someone with media clout. That's not me. I write humor. People find that irrelevant. So nothing comes of it. I thought I had a lot to say about writing, but no one cares, and everyone else ia a writer. Just ask them. They think they are. So who cares about what another one has to say? I thought I had a lot to say about communication theory, but again, no one cares.

And like the Pearls Before Swine cartoon where the pig is constantly being reminded by the rat that his blog is irrelevant, I'm tired of pretending it's ever going to change.

So, if you have any final comments, please do so soon, because soon there may not be a place to do so. It's okay if you don't comment, however. I'm kind of used to it. I can go off into the sunset without the attention. I'm kind of used to it.

If this ends up being my last post (which is probably not the case), I wish you all well and hope you find what you're seeking in whatever venue you seek it out. I'm saving myself $10 a month and going back to realizing that only my stuffed animals ever really cared what I had to say. And sometimes I suspect they're just being kind because they have to live with me.

Stuffed animals can be that way sometimes....

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The Art of Lazy Science

I'm still in the process of continuing to read Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How they Shape Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PHD and James H. Fowles, PHD, but one thing I've noticed in a tendency of the authors to resort to what I consider lazy science. The book itself is quite phenomenal in its process but its quoting and reference work is atrocious, leaving a lot to be desired. An example is on page 188, where the authors reference Robert Putnam by stating: "These findings contradict some of the core recommendations made by political scientist Robert Putnam and his colleagues who study the effect of "social capital" on the health of our democracy. It then references Putnam's Bowling Alone, but no specific chapter or passage is included. Nor is there any indication as to what colleagues these authors are talking about, especially when they mention a book that was written by one author. They then continue: "Putnam argues that highly clustered network ties improve information flow and increase reciprocity at a societal level because everyone is looking out for everyone else." If they're going to challenge specific arguments made by Putnam and unnamed "colleagues," perhaps the authors should at least give enough reference information for the reader to be able to come to a likewise conclusion.

Another blatant error comes in the next chapter when they start talking about tit for tat game theory, specifically that put forth by author Robert Axelrod. They talk about his cooperative strategy on Page 219, but when they reference him, they reference his work that has never been created, some strange volume called The Evolution Corporation, which they state he wrote in 1984. I am impressed because that means he put that out at the same time he wrote The Evolution of Cooperation, which coincidentally was written in 1984. In other words, someone should have at least edited this book to get the right titles of books they're references, especially when they're using some of the biggies of political science literature. And no, there is no The Evolution Corporation from Axelrod; I checked, just to make sure I wasn't missing a great volume of his and making a really stupid argument against bad science. When your own theory uses Axelrod as much as mine does, it's pretty hard to miss alternative novels written by him during the exact same year (with almost the exact same title and almost about the exact same subject).

Bad science! No cookie!

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If obesity is contagious, why isn't good health as well?

I'm reading an interesting book right now called "Connected" by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler. I'm reading it as background for my Friendship Over Time theory, specifically to explain the process of how cultural adaptation can occur over time as a process of societal change. But what is really interesting for this post is an argument that is made in Chapter 4, which is that obesity is contagious. They cite a bunch of studies and show that over time obesity can spread in groups, and eventually push itself onto outlier connected groups, up to three degrees of separation.

What never made any sense to me in their study was how come this doesn't happen with positive circumstances, like good health? How come good health doesn't spread to three degrees of separation of people?

My guess is that what they are showing is that bad things tend to spread much easier than good thing, much like communication theory shows that it is easier to push a negative message than it is a positive message. In my thesis study, when I was showing that Boris Yeltsin's message of 1991 Soviet Union's past was negative rather than the putsches' message of it being a positive past was easier to push to the public, I think there's something there. Physics shows that chaos theory tends to push disorder rather than order, meaning the universe has a tendency to spread itself out rather than contain itself in order, so why should ideas and concepts be any different?

What this means is that in order to get your friends to all want to lose weight, you have to put serious energy into the central depository of information, meaning that the state of rest for information should be one of "do nothing" and that potential energy is always there to do negative actions, pushing towards disorder, such as gaining weight and leading to less healthy outcomes. In order to turn the message, you need to put energy into the mix to achieve a higher level of valiance of energy states (so that potential energy will yield kinetic energy that leads to positive results).

So mathematically, if you want to achieve better results from your social groups, you have to put in positive energy that is stored as potential energy that can yield kinetic results that spread out to a higher level of order. In other words, energy goes uphill, requiring effort to achieve positive results, while it is very possible that if your goal is negative attributes, your potential energy required is already stored at a state of rest and is just waiting to be released.

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Why I Was Not Meant for Academia

I just received an email from the National Communications Association concerning its annual conference. I have to share a few paragraphs that were included for the big conference speech.

This year's Carroll C. Arnold Distinguished Lecture, "Discursive Struggles of Relating," will be presented by Leslie A. Baxter, F. Wendell Miller Distinguished Professor at the University of Iowa on Thursday, November 12, 5:00 - 6:00pm. in the International Ballroom South at the Hilton Chicago.

Relating is a cacophony of disparate, often competing, discourses. Meaning-making emerges out of this dialogic agitation in which discourses bump up against each other in ongoing interplay. This view of relating is the central tenet of Relational Dialectics Theory, a theory of communication and relationships developed by Baxter and her colleagues and grounded in the philosophy of dialogism articulated in the 1930s by Russian literary and cultural theorist Mikhail Bakhtin. Baxter will discuss the discursive struggles that animate relating in a variety of relationship types and will discuss, as well, some broader implications for how we can approach the study of communication from a dialogic lens.

It's this sort of thing really bites at me every time I think about the fact that I'm part of this academic community. First off, who are we trying to attract to this discipline if we keep making the discipline so ridiculously complicated sounding? One of the first lessons I learned as a writer is WRITE SO THE AUDIENCE UNDERSTANDS. One of the things that really gets on my nerves with academia is the desire for academics to sound really smart and really intelligent by using big 5 dollar words when dime and penny ones will work just as well.

What is this lecture about? Um, after reading it about ten times, I think it means that this professor, who studied a lot of stuff by a Russian professor named Bakhtin is going to talk about how difficult it is for people to talk to each other; essentially, if you talk to someone long enough, you start to develop meaning in your conversation. Yeah, of course it's difficult to talk to each other when you use words and sentences that nobody else understands!

I wrote a paper years ago that pretty much pissed off every academic reader who read it. It was entitled, "How Political Science Has Brought About the Demise of Political Science". Basically, it said that we tried so hard to be "science"-like that we made simple things complicated. In the end, we excluded other people from joining the discourse (conversation, for those who have not attended Dr. Baxter's lecture), because we wanted people to think we were really smart.

I'm starting to realize why I was never really meant to be an academic. I understand it all, and I love learning more about what we don't know, but I can't stand the posturing and the desire to be perceived as smart. I'm a Socratic (the early kind) who truly believes that not knowing something is so much more beneficial than claiming to know something. I guess that's why my calling was to be a writer. I like to communicate with people (not search for meaning-making through dialogic agitation). I like to be able to say what I want to say so that many people understand me, not just the people who work hours and hours trying to get through my sentences. To academics, I'd be somewhat of a luddite, if you interposed technology to be a desire to communicate, I guess. But what do I know?

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The frustration of bratty little foreign kids

Sometimes the job can be all right. Other times, it can be just massively frustrating. Yesterday, was one of those times.

Most people who know me know that I'm pretty easy going on most things, but there are some specific issues that I do find myself to be passionate about. One of them reared its head in class yesterday when one of my little snot nose kids decided he had a new insult word he wanted to start using throughout the entire class. The word was Nigger.

First, it took me a few hearings of this to even realize what he was saying, and then I just stopped the class and told him that word was MASSIVELY inappropriate. Well, tell this to a 12 year old kid, and suddenly it's THE WORD to use. I then stopped class completely and explained in what had to be a five minute diatribe about how some words are swear words and kids can find them "cool" to use. I didn't give examples, but he was quite willing to produce a few of them to fill in the swear word gap we were obviously having.

I then explained that the word is not something you "insult" your friend with because it's not that kind of word. I then went on to explain about how the word is used specifically through hate, that to call someone that name is to truly hate that person. Not to be mad at him and think you've come up with a good insult, but to REALLY, TRULY WITHOUT A SHADOW OF DOUBT, AND FOR ALL TIME hate that person and everything he or she stands for. You would have to hate that person so much that you would want them dead and would be willing to give your life to make sure that person dies. THAT MUCH HATE.

I then went on to explain that not only was it about hate, but that anyone who would use this word towards another, at least in the United States, would reveal how little education he or she has, how disgusting a creature that person would be, and how no good person would ever have any respect for that person ever again. I said, if that's the kind of person you want to be, then you should be the kind of person to use that word. I had to keep stopping them, especially him, from interrupting me with an attempt at using the word as a joke until they got the picture. About four minutes into it, I think they finally realized this was NOT a word to be used in Duane's class EVER again.

I, of course, didn't get into the whole situation of how African-Americans sometimes call EACH OTHER that name, because that would just confuse them and somehow make them think it was "cool" to use somehow.

Again, I'm usually pretty easy going in these classes. Hearing that word coming from a little 12 year old kid really just set me off to no end.

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Back to my log of my latest novel, Rumors of War. I am now at 9797 words.

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The Election of Obama, the Healing of America, and the Future of Cooperation and Friendship with the Rest of the World

The election was a very long one, and a lot of people are exhausted, finally getting through this process that has managed to prove how divided a nation the United States really is. We knew we were divided some time ago, when each subsequent election showed that half of America wanted one party while the other half wanted the other. In a winner take all system like we have here, that meant a lot of people being completely misrepresented by a party not their choosing. This allowed the Republicans to run the White House, and so many others to continue to control the halls of government of this once great, shining country.

But when it came to the election, people became so divided that they stopped seeing clearly. Instead of seeing people who disagreed with them as the other side of the family that loves you but holds you in check, people saw anyone who disagreed with them as enemies, as people who not only had to be defeated, but had to be disgraced, dishonored and, if possible, destroyed. This has been politics in this country for some time now, and right now, things can get better, or we'll be turning over a cesspool of political disfunctionality to those who come behind us. It's our choice, even though we sometimes make it without thinking about exactly what we are doing when we finally do it.

The United States has suffered greatly because of the misguided intentions of a few who believed they had the best intentions at heart. And they probably did. But their thinking was archaic and outdated. Their thinking was confrontation leads to solution, but that's 19th century thinking that led to 20th century destruction. The future needs to be something different, and unfortunately, people have been swimming in the same muck for so long now that they are no longer capable of thinking about alternatives other than what someone may have tried before. Unfortunately, hitting the same nail into a board only goes so far before you're just breaking wood. The future needs something different than what we are capable of achieving with our think tanks of old ways and diplomats of ancient ideas. The world has been crying out for a future direction, and all we keep hearing is old ways that rarely worked in the past as if they will somehow work some day in the future.

What the world needs is directed cooperation, not mandated imperialism or negotiated compromise. In interpersonal communication literature, one of the final achievements of success in successful communication with another person is not the predicted compromise, but an understanding with the other person that together both of you can achieve a combined learning process that leads you both to a successful outcome that is not a compromise for either but achievement for both. People still don't think that way. Even counselors rarely think this way, telling people that one person must compromise so that two people can reach a commonality (although it is usually directed at both partners, so that both compromise).

The future can be one of successful cooperation, but only if the most powerful nation on the planet realizes such a future can be achieved. Right now, we live in an era where our diplomats play catch up games with international affairs. If someone treats us unfairly, we treat them unfairly in return. If someone does something nice for us, we produce easier trade routes into our borders. That may seem, on the surface, to be the answer to achieving successful economic stimulation, but it is really only temporary, and in most cases does not produce friendships that are long-lasting but develops trade relationships that last only as long as it is economically viable for both sides. In a game theoretic framework, this means that we continue to prosper as long as our "friends" prosper, but once one of us drops out of the game, the only path usually ends up being one that utilizes either the proverbial carrot or the stick. Our paradigm does not know any other functionality.

I suggest the future needs to look at this game theoretic and introduce the idea of cooperation and generational footprinting. What this means is that our targeted friends should not just be those who do right by us, but that when we do right by those who are in our economic and political spheres of influence, we must also do right by those who are overlapping our partners' economic and political spheres of influence as well. This isn't the old "my friends of my friends are my friends" but more a directed desire to work towards friendly relationships with those who border us, and recognize changes in our relationships to where we share certain, fundamental characteristics, such as the desire to wear plaid pants (dumb example, I know). The more functions we share with this neighbor where we wear plaid pants, the more likely we are to also begin sharing other characteristics, like wearing the same kind of hat. This expands out into the cultural realm as well, so that over time we become more like our neighbors, and our neighbors become more like us.

Then we focus on their neighbors, and we look for when those neighbors (who may have very few dealings with us as well), and if we see them wearing plaid pants, we reward them by opening up functionality spheres with them so that we share more venues where we can both show off our plaid pants, so that we, too, might begin to share other attributes and then become more and more like our friends.

This is a simplistic example of the model I'm proposing, but at the same time it also leads to the ability to create long-lasting friendships with potential friends and enemies. This isn't a new process by any stretch of the imagination, but a recognition of certain mathematical principles that do exist in raw social interactions. I use a matrix application to run the interation mathematics that drives the process, but what is important is that nations that are actively involved in attempting to build stronger friendships must be as willing to recognize the change in others as well as accept changes within themselves because self-reflective entity nations have a tendency to attempt to self-correct themselves when they see change as an error rather than a natural progression of cooperative behavior.

This is kind of an offshoot of the FOT (Friendship Over Time) Theory that I created with K. Bruce, and it is going to be presented at the NCA National Conference. We sent a shortened version of the process to the Obama campaign during the last month of the election, as I felt it was important to at least make an attempt at trying to find a better alternative to the rotten ways the US attempts to conduct international relations. My guess is that our letter was either ignored, passed on to some flunky who ignored it, or treated as fan mail. Unfortunately, there are really few avenues for an academic theorist to try to make one's ideas known, especially ideas of such magnitude that would require enlightened leaders to take notice. So I just thought I would say that I at least gave it a try before realizing that in most cases, no leader ever really vies for changing the way things are, even if one's campaign is run on the idea of change.

There is a better way. Making it known is a deeper struggle than finding the solution.

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The FOT paper accepted at NCA

My paper I wrote with Kat, "The Friendship Over Time (FOT) Model: A paradigmatic shift into a new theory of cooperation" was accepted at the National Communication Association convention in November. I used a mathematical matrix process to develop an additive model that shows how international relations can be grown over generational contact between hostile nations. I kind of thought they'd turn it down because it doesn't use the same old methods of negotiations that everyone else seems to like. I'll be on a panel with an admiral and several other professors from Harvard and Stanford.

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Windows to the past and other worlds

When I was a little kid, my grandfather used to take me to the local outdoor mall, and he would point at strangers (to me) and say "Look, Duane, that's the mayor. Go say hello to him." And little Duane would wander up to the mayor of the city and say hi. He would do this with all sorts of different people, as I think he believed it was the way to get little Duane to get used to talking to strangers.

Anyway, fast forward a few years. Okay, a lot of years. And I find myself doing the same sort of thing still to this day. Today was a good example. I tend to like to eat my breakfast/lunch (not brunch) at some of the fast food places around town so I tend to go to the same places all the time. Some months back, I wrote of my encounter with a presidential candidate who I ran into at Carls Jr. Okay, he's a perpetual candidate and has run for president since the 1970s, but my understanding is that no one else has ever actually landed an interview with him. Well, two hours later, I found myself unable to end the interview, but I digress....

Today, I was in McDonalds when an older man decided to talk to me and tell me all about the past. Let's call him Frank. Well, Frank was 81 years old, and he had lots of stories to tell. And I found myself fascinated, listening to stories of an era that I knew mainly from books and whatever other medium might have given me some type of stilted insight. We talked for several hours (mainly him talking and me listening), and I found myself filled with lots of data I had never experienced before. When I finally went home, I felt like I actually gained knowledge I probably would never have had before that conversation started.

Well, this is kind of what I wanted to talk about today. People today just don't seem interested in doing that sort of listening. I've had lots of conversations and observations of conversations with people these days and all people want to do is talk. They don't listen. Or they pretend to listen. But what they're really doing when they're listening is trying to figure out what they're going to say next, and then they're looking for an opening where they can interject with whatever it is they have to say. That's not conversing. Yet, way too often, that's all we seem to be doing anymore.

Debate is like this. Sure, you have to listen to the other side, but ONLY so you can counter whatever the other side has to say. But that's debate. It shouldn't be that way in the real world as well. But it is.

Ever watch a news show where people are talking back and forth? How often does both sides of that conversation come away with something new? Or do they end up finishing the conversation with a mediator stating something like: "Well, this is a great debate, but we have to switch to Holly for weather now"? The very foundation of this country was built upon the idea that deliberation is what drives us forward. If we don't deliberate, then how do we actually make decisions? Well, a lot of those decisions these days are political (a bunch of people you agree with overrule a bunch of people you don't agree with...conversation really doesn't take place).

I'd argue that we are moving into a subsequent generation that no longer cares what anyone else has to say. We all know better than everyone else, so why waste our time? Why listen to some 81 year old guy about lots of inspirational things that came from another era when we can chalk it up to yet another story by some guy who doesn't know as much as we know? I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with people who claim to argue along the lines of "well, I can't explain why this is, but it just is."

Is there a way to fix this? Yeah, I think there is, but we're all too busy with our own opinions to take the time to think differently, so what's the use anyway?

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Paper accepted for Gender and Science conference

A paper written with Kat has been accepted for the Gender and Science conference. Our paper, Seen But Not Heard: An Analysis of Failed Gender Expectations Observed During the August 1991 Soviet Coup has been accepted. The conference is at the end of March. The paper uses Burke's identity theory to explain how the Soviet leadership was taken off guard by a female reporter during their press conference on the evening of the coup.

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STOP THE PRESSES! Scientists have just discovered that cost affects perception

Scientist Antonio Rangel and his colleagues at the California Institute of Technology have discovered that if you tell people the cost of a wine is more expensive than another wine, people will believe the taste of the more expensive wine is better. They showed this to be the case even when the two wines were identical (aside from the price). According to Rangel, "We were shocked. I think it was because the flavor was stronger and our subjects were not very experienced."

Okay, ground-breaking study aside, here's why I'm talking about it. It is not ground-breaking, nor is it an indication that they've discovered something new. This is called priming, which has been around psychology and communication for a very long time. In this study, they "primed" the subjects by telling them that one wine was expensive, and thus, it resulted in a response that sees the more expensive wine as a higher quality wine. Not really all that surprising.

This is one of those things about science that really bugs me. It happens all of the time. An example: Every five years or so, some science report comes out that they've discovered planets around another sun, and suddenly, it's the first time this has ever happened. They'll use a different method (or sometimes the same method but from a different telescope or radiation emitter), and suddenly the news reports this as groundbreaking because "it's never happened before."

We see this with drug breakthroughs. A pharmaceutical company comes out with the new drug that is going to cure diabetes, or something like that. Or it will make it so people no longer have to diet, and they'll just melt pounds off their body. But it never comes to light, or it turns out to be a mere shadow of what they claimed it to be.

For the social science problem, I have a few theories as to why this happens. I've seen it by being part of the environment. I think one of the culprits is laziness. People do lousy research when they conduct their literature reviews. It's like observing the research techniques of Ann Coulter who checks Lexis Nexis using a search term and then states "there is no information of this ever happening in the news". The science of "searching" previous studies involves knowing how to search for it. Using a couple of key words or phrases is not enough. Sometimes, you have to do a literature review on the key terms themselves so that you understand what it is you're searching. An example: If I was researching emotional intelligence, it is not enough to look up all instances of emotional intelligence, but I would then need to completely analyze emotional intelligence to understand what other terminology might be used to explain this phenomenon. I'd start with simple things like self-perception and then work myself from that literature to find more obscure processes like personal enrichment or process-driven behavior. Each new study I found would then fuel the next study I found until I completely exhausted the literature that I could find. Then I would start on the next term and continue from there.

That doesn't happen anymore. People do crappy research these days. They'll look up one term and then somewhat hope that no one calls them on their lack of work to completely exhaust the subject. These scientists at CIT really should have covered this subject from a primer effect, to see if there was further value in knocking down this theory, but instead, they did this study and somewhat ignored the obvious studies in lieu of covering what sounded more interesting, like saying they're studying the minds of people rather than the stimuli that effect the minds of people.

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The Kenya Riots and the Tragedies of Peace

For those who don't know this, I've been working on a peace model for the last few years, using a number of different theoretical concepts in economics, communication theory and political science. I'm getting ready to start writing it up, and I'm working on it with Kat, but one thing still manages to evade me, and that's the problem that comes from long-standing ethnic rivalries that cross generational borders.

I mean, my theory argues that we can have future peaceful prospects over generations, but how to overcome something like Kenya where people are killing people over hostilities that exist from periods before people were even born. I saw this with a lot of the central European ethnic hostilities of the last century, and unfortunately, I'm still having trouble figuring out how to fix this particular part of the problem.

I'm starting to believe that part of the problem is that scientists tend to look at these types of conflicts as something "they" do, that if only "they" were instructed properly in how to get along with others, everything would work out okay. And I think that model stinks badly, which is why I need to find some type of compensating factor that is innovative, yet capable of working in most situations of like nature.

Unfortunately, until I come across the answer to this one, my theory is still in its infancy stage, useless because people still hold generational grudges.

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TV shows with bizarre hidden agendas

I'm sure we've all given thought to how certain shows have specific agendas, some political, some social. Like the show Weeds, which I happen to really like, obviously has a pretty strong agenda that tends to be pro marijuana. Not necessarily pro drug, but pro marijuana and anti rules against marijuana usage. One could quibble about that, but for the most part, I think it tends to go in that direction.

But this isn't my essay today. No, I was watching another show recently from the 1980s, Battlestar Galactica 1980, which is the follow up series to the original, in which the space traveling migrants find Earth and begin to work their way towards settling and revealing their presence in the galaxy. Well, they often come against the US Air Force that is constantly investigating them. But what I found really, really interesting is that at the end of EVERY episode, there is a text statement that the US Air Force discontinued its search for extraterrestrials back in the 1960s. There's no reason why they would put that as the show takes place in the 1980s, and for some reason that's just really bizarre to include that. I first started wondering if they're trying to state a snide comment of "they're still doing it, but it's just not official anymore." Or are they stating that "they still need to do it because who knows what they're going to find" as I ran across an episode where the evil Cylons landed on Earth and forced Wolfman Jack to help them transmit their signal to Cylon Headquarters. It's kind of funny because Wolfman Jack was HUGE in the 1980s. I doubt most people have a clue who he is, or was, today.

So, is there some kind of point to be made by making this last little notification at the end of the episode? Are they addressing something that people suspect, or are they priming Americans for something that they believe we should be ready for in future governmental-alien behavior? I was thinking about using this little notification as an artifact and analyze it using different rhetorical criticism strategies. The priming effect seems most evident to me, although I could also see a couple of other alternatives. Any thoughts?

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Why academia sometimes just fails

There's a communication theory called Third Person Effect, which argues that people believe the media does not influence themselves, but that it influences other people. So, the argument goes that because people are so convinced that others are influenced by media images and stories, but not themselves, obviously people are more influenced than they care to admit. Then, the literature makes a number of possible rationales behind this.

1. The human tendency to perceive the self in ways that make us look good or at least better than other people.

2. People are motivated by a need to control unpredictable life events. "By assuming that the self is not influenced by mass media, individuals can go about their days in a media-dominated world, using media, deriving gratifications and sensibly integrating media into their lives" (Perloff, 2002).

3. People are actually influenced by the media but cannot consciously acknowledge media influence.

4. Third Person Effect emphasize cognitive rather than motivational mechanisms. (other people can be persuaded, but not them)

5. Media schemas. (Passive sheep view of audience behavior)

6. People lack access to their own mental processes.

So, all these sound great, right? Well, what if I was to put forth a possibility that shows why NONE of them may be correct? What if I was to put forth a possibility that shows that the third person effect doesn't actually exist?

Well, it's easy. What if every person who is surveyed about media just doesn't understand what other people do or know? In other words, what if a survey person asks me about other people, and I just make assumptions based on not actually knowing. I assume that media influences other people, but even though I say it doesn't affect me, I assume it has to affect others. Well, what if I'm wrong? What if there's NO effect on third persons? What if the real "effect" is that people have no clue how media affects other people? In other words, if someone asks me if media affects me, I say no, it does not. If I'm asked if it affects others, instead of saying, well, it must, I guess, I say, "How am I supposed to know? If it doesn't affect me, it probably doesn't affect anyone else either."

Therefore, third person effect goes away completely. Instead, what we have is a media bias that believes that it has more of an effect than it does. What we really have is media driving media to convince itself that it's really the driving force behind the opinions of people when in reality, what is probably happening is that more and more people are just being exposed to this false information and accepting it because the media serves as an information depot, and not the driving force.

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Finally a reprieve

Debate had been going for about 4 weeks in a row without any rest, and now I finally have a few weeks where I can finally breathe in and try to catch up with my normal life again. The last two days have been really nice, although somewhat surreal as I'm not used to moving at full speed and getting nothing done.

The Internet is up and running at the new house finally. This is my first blog entry from the new place. In the next few days I'll probably transport my main computer over. Right now it's still at the old place.

I have a meeting later this week to talk about the near future for my comprehensive examinations and my thesis proposal. The rhet crit part of my comps will cover Burke and Black, which I somewhat expected, so that's not a problem. There will probably be two more questions on communication education and documentary work in political communication as well.

I went to a group therapy thing yesterday and it was really a complete waste of time, unfortunately. It was a group of people who have trouble speaking up for themselves, and it really wasn't the group I really should have been in. Unfortunately, the depression group meets on one of the days of my hectic schedule, so I've been unable to sign up for that class. I'm probably going to drop the group therapy class I started Monday because I felt really stupid being there as none of the problem being discussed were anything close to what I need work on.

My shoulder's been really killing me lately, mainly because nonstop tournaments have made it difficult for me to work on the exercises my physical therapist wants me to do twice a day. I've worked on them twice today, and it hurts A LOT, but I'm hoping it will help in the long run and lead to this pain lessening some. It's really hard to sleep at night.

Last week, I forgot to mention that Kat and I saw the movie Dan in Real Life, and I'll have to admit that this is one movie I definitely identified with. Kind of sad actually, but at the same time it was a really good romantic movie. I really enjoyed seeing it as it had been a very long time since I've even seen a movie in a theater.

That's pretty much it for an update. Nothing special going on in my life at the moment. I've been getting a really antsy feeling lately, which tells me it's probably going to be time for my next novel to start being written. I did start writing a new play called, The Corruption of Justice Girl, a tongue in cheek superhero story that serves as a metaphor for the us versus them dichotomy in much of American political rhetoric. Recently, I've really gotten into Charles Bukowski's poetry. I'm not sure why, but it's hitting me really hard these days, and I wasn't much of a poetry reader in the past.

Current list of future papers to be written:
1. Gender in computer game lengths with Mariela
2. My synthesis of strategic versus tactical international relations with Kat
3. Narrative vs. Counternarrative (the 1991 August Coup) which I sent to ICA
4. My thesis, which is also on the 1991 August Coup tracing agit-trains to individual dissemination of messages.
5. A paper on the usage of Pastiche involving hip hop in iconic documentaries.

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Roommates, Cars, Women and Moving On

Over the years, I've had various roommates. Some have been okay, some have been horrific, and others were just regular. One of them was a blind Palestinian freedom fighter who dated 10,000 women and wanted me to give each one of them a different story as to why he was not "available" while he was "dating" someone else. But I digress....

I have three roommates now. All are okay. One of them I like a lot. She has a great attitude about everything, and I'll occasionally drive her to the store or to school. Another roommate I haven't seen in weeks, but his car shows up every now and then, so I know he's still living here. My other roommate is the one I've known the longest, and for some reason she's stopped talking to me. I don't know why. It's one of those things where I'll say "hi" and get one of those cold under the breath responses that don't develop into anything beyond that. So I go away thinking it must have been something I said, or did, or didn't say, or didn't do. I have this bad habit of wanting people to like me, so when I run into this sort of thing, it bugs me to no end. Strangely enough, I get along great with her boyfriend.

So, why does this bother me? Probably because lately everything has been bothering me. I don't date anymore, which leaves me lonely. I'm around people all the time, but they are arms-distance people who are in my proximity but not involved with me. So I'm essentially alone in the presence of other people.

My social networks are nonexistent. My closest friends live in El Cerrito, and I really don't have the opportunity to get to see them. I really live too far away. There's a theory in Interpersonal Communication that stems from social theory, and that's that people need intimate touch in their lives. One prominent scientist conjectured that people need 5 intimate touches a day to sustain a healthy life. I haven't been touched by anyone, aside from my physical therapist, in ages.

My life has hit a bizarre stage of frustration lately, especially concerning events that I just can't fix. This last week, out of the blue, I found out I can't register my car because the State of California says there are some problems "in Michigan" and that I needed to call "Michigan" to straighten it out. The number they gave me was to a disconnected phone, which didn't help any. I really don't know who to call or what to do about it. I don't even know what to do once I contact "Michigan" and figure it out. California won't register my car, not Michigan.

I get a nonstop avalanche or rejection letters from publishers, agents and editors. My writing career isn't happening.

Relationships haven't really worked out for me because I just live a lifestyle that's really not normal, and finding someone really hasn't been successful for me. I'm really not happy unless I'm in a relationship where I'm making my partner happy. I lived for many years thinking I was lacking in the attributes necessary to attract a partner, and now that I've managed to actually build a repertoire of skills and abilities, it seems like I'm too late, that all of my prospects have passed me by. The few women over the years to whom I would have surrendered the world for a chance to be with them never felt the same way in return. Yet, I see so much of the opposite all around me, and it makes me wonder if somehow I missed a connection in a train station I never realized I was traveling through.

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Why We're Still in Iraq

Terry Hennessy from Tiburon gave her "Two Cents" in today's San Francisco Chronicle in response to the question: "Is this the beginning of the end of Bush's war strategy?" She stated:

I hope it isn't the end to our involvement. I recently visited New York, and they remain on high alert while here in San Francisco we keep our heads in the sand. If we don't stop the terrorists in Iraq, they will confidently create havoc here.

There you have it: All of the analysis necessary to explain why the tragedy of Iraq will never end. We all know there were never terrorists in Iraq. Even the Bush Administration has strayed far from the claim that there were terrorists in Iraq BEFORE the invasion. But what Ms. Hennessy's statement points out is something that gets little attention:

According to Kathy Gill, in September 2003, 70 percent of Americans felt there was a link between Saddam Hussein and 9-11. In February 2005, almost 50 percent of Americans believed "Saddam Hussein helped plan and support the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001". And quite significantly, in July 2006, 64 percent believed Saddam Hussein has strong links with 9-11.

Unfortunately, all I can conclude is that America is made up of clueless, partisan people who are easily manipulated and immovable, even though their leaders eventually cave into the truth, leaving those masses left with disinformation. Expect us to be dying in Iraq for the long term future. Peace out.

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The Bad State of Conversations in America

People aren't having real conversations anymore. It used to be that one person would talk, the other person would listen and then respond to what the first person said. Rinse and repeat. Today, you might think you're having a conversation with someone, but I urge you to pay closer attention to what is going on. Chances are: During the listening stage, people are more interested in finding an opening in the other person's speech so they can speak rather than actually be focused on listening to the other person.

Recently, I inquired about joining the National Guard. The only reason I didn't end up joining was because the recruiter couldn't guarantee I wouldn't be activated full time and sent over to Iraq or Afghanistan BEFORE I finished my last year in graduate school. This recruiter keeps calling me every few weeks, as if we're ready to move to the next step, conveniently "forgetting" our one sticking point. When I remind him, he talks around it until he realizes I'm not going to allow him to change the subject. So he hangs up and calls back two weeks later, as if we're "over" the reason why I won't join.

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New Stickman in the pipeline & some theory stuff that may just create peace in the world for real

I have a few new adventures of Stickman completed. I just now need to get them scanned, and then hopefully they'll be up later on today.

Also, I woke up about 5am this morning in a bizarre fashion. I had gone to bed thinking about Axelrod's Cultural Adaptation Theory, but I woke up with a synthesis of that theory and several others that I've been working on for a few years now, to the point of where I actually believe I can mathematically explain how to create peace between two hostile nations (or people) through consistent dialog where neither side is required to give in to the other. It involves the Interpersonal Communication/marketing theory of "foot in the door", mixed with the game theoretic/mathematical "tit for tat", Axelrod's Cultural Adaptation Theory, and my own Strategic vs. tactical processing theory from one of my earlier papers. It was a truly bizarre feeling because I woke up and it suddenly all made sense. But much like my neutramatter theory some years ago when I was studying physics, I now find myself questioning how it can be so obvious when no one else has come up with it before me. My neutramatter theory makes complete sense of the universe, yet no one's ever gone that way, and they're still struggling over such simplistic concepts that this theory actually explains away. I'm left with that same feeling concerning this "discovery" I just had. With great names like Dahl, Easton, Putnam and Huntington working on these types of things, why is some unknown grad student in Stockton figuring out this crap instead?

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