The Joker and the Submarine

I dreamed that I was a crew member on a nuclear submarine. We captured the Joker and forced him to do work for us. You know, free labor, like the Suicide Squad or whatever that's about. Anyway, we sat him down at a work station and gave him clear instructions NOT to push the button that fires the nuclear missiles. But he did it anyway! Some people just don't listen, you know?

Actually, come to think of it, it would have been a pretty good gag if pushing the button just made a punching bag come out of the wall and hit him in the face.

*   *   *

This dream was obviously inspired by the scene in Batman: The Movie where the Joker is on the Penguin's sub and is the one who pushes the "fire torpedo" buttons. I showed this movie to my three-year old because he loves Batman but most other Batman media is a little too scary for him. He seems to have liked it a lot. Occasionally he asks me if he can watch it again.

7DRL Challenge 2014 - Two Weeks Away

It seems that the 7DRL Challenge for 2014 is going to happen during the week following March 8th. Yikes! Where has the time gone? I created a 7DRL last year that turned out rather well, so while it really is a challenge, I know I'm capable of it. Today an idea came to me for what I might try to create if I did enter. So I'm fleshing out the details, trying to work out what is feasible and worthwhile and what is difficult and unnecessary. I am excited! I'm not really sure if I'll end up having enough time to manage it, but I think that's a crucial part of what makes the 7DRL Challenge fun.

A Case for Emotional Correctness

First of all, Sandy Kohn's TED talk about emotional correctness is relevant to the present discussion, and in fact, prompted me to write it, though the thoughts that follow have been boiling in my mind-kettle for some time.

I intend to argue roughly that anger is counterproductive to serious debate about important controversial issues, and in fact, irrational.

When you feel very strongly about something and hold a very strong opinion about it, possibly on account of having conducted a careful and thorough rational analysis, it is easy to view those with whom you disagree as simply being unethical morons. That is, it's easy to feel justified in disregarding your opponents' opinions via a line of thinking that amounts to something like:

1. On account of my careful and thorough reasoning, my stance is the ethical and rational one.
2. Thus, if my opponent had considered the issue as seriously and as carefully as I have, then he or she would agree with me.
3. My opponent disagrees with me.
4. Therefore, my opponent has either failed to consider the issue seriously and carefully to a satisfactory degree or else has done so but nevertheless holds a different stance because he or she is unethical, irrational, or stupid (possibly some combination thereof).
5. Engaging in a serious debate about an important issue without considering the issue seriously and carefully is itself unethical, irrational, and stupid.
6. Ergo, my opponent is unethical, irrational, or stupid, and probably all three.
7. Unethical and irrational morons do not deserve to be treated with respect.
8. Therefore, I shall disrespect my opponent.

In my estimation, this is very common. However, I also consider it to be very rude, but also very counterproductive because it tends to cause the focus to be drawn away from exploring the issue and placed onto the goal of defeating one's enemies by any means necessary.

For instance, suppose Drew and Glenn are debating the issue of abortion and have this brief exchange:

Drew: I think abortion should be banned.
Glenn: So you support rising child homeless rates? I can't understand how you are willing to hold such a position!

Or possibly:

Glenn: I think abortion should be legal.
Drew: So you support the murder of babies? I can't understand how you are willing to hold such a position!

Both of these cases are problematic because in each case the indignant responder projects particular ethical assumptions on the other person, who probably doesn't make those assumptions. They also erroneously assume particular reasoning on the part of the other person (i.e. no one wants to ban abortion specifically because doing so will increase teenage homelessness, and similarly no one supports its being legal specifically because they want babies to be murdered). But unfortunately, this is not an extreme hypothetical situation. These are the sorts of things we actually hear people say with respect to this issue.

But suppose I am very, very, very convinced that my opponent's stance is completely immoral or incorrect. Am I justified in being angry at them for their immoral position? Possibly, but if you are so angry, then it is at least wise to make a conscious effort not to let it affect your performance in an intellectual debate.

However, I argue that it is better to avoid such anger when possible, and especially with respect to issues that are very controversial. The reason why is that it undermines the importance of the issue. If the opinions on an issue are divided roughly equally, even amongst intellectuals, then it stands to reason that there exist seemingly rational means of arriving at either opinion (for the sake of argument, let us suppose it's a binary decision in question). One's anger about the opposing opinion seems to imply a belief that the correctness of the correct answer is roughly obvious provided you think about it reasonably carefully. In essence, rather than saying (implicitly) "my opponent disagrees with me because of their use of a different argument, one which I consider invalid but which a reasonable person in their fallibility might consider valid, which is undesirable but still morally acceptable" you are saying (again, implicitly), as I suggested above, "my opponent disagrees with me not because of an ultimately invalid but seemingly correct argument, but rather because they are stupid or immoral or both, and this is bad, bad, bad!!!" However, given that it seems rational to assume that there exist apparently rational means of arriving at either opinion, the second attitude is actually likely an irrational one. It is the attitude of a person who presupposes that their own reasoning is not only flawless but also obviously correct to anyone who will hear it.

Am I saying that in debating important real life issues we should be emotionless robots? No, of course I am not. It is natural to become angry at what we perceive to be immoral attitudes. What I am saying is that it behooves us to rein in that anger and give the benefit of the doubt to those with whom we disagree and presume that their actual reasoning (of which we are initially unaware, since it is someone else's reasoning) is at least worthy of genuine examination, because it is by doing so that we dignify the importance of the issue under discussion.

Emotional correctness, as Sally Kohn puts it, supports this motive, and emotional incorrectness is in stark opposition to it. The example Kohn uses is a good one. Someone who claims to hate immigrants doesn't necessarily actually hate immigrants because they're just a hateful person who has chosen to be immoral and mean. It is probably because of some other emotion, such as fear, which we can easily identify with and understand. This is the common ground that Kohn seeks to find. I believe we should all seek to find it.

Null Terminator - In the Presence of My Enemies

As I've mentioned before, I am producing an EP and a full length album for Galactitronic Super-Space-Composer Null Terminator. The last track I posted was from the EP, which should be released first, though I still have no idea when it will be completed.

Anyway, I felt like officially sharing another track, though this one had already been available. I simply had never really pointed it out on this blog before. This will be the third track from the full length. I should add that while the EP will probably be 100% composed by Null Terminator, this track is in fact almost completely my own composition, so on the full length I suppose I will be credited as co-composer, which is good, obviously, because I have been wanting to get into the professional musicdom for a long time now.

Null Terminator - In the Presence of My Enemies

Null Terminator - Electrotechnics

For those who don't know, I have been co-producing (approx. 75%) and co-writing (approx. 25%) the first full length album of the talented Galactitronic Space Composer/Superhero named Null Terminator for some time now. Half finished with it, work on the album has begun to suffer from the stagnation of creative momentum. This is for a lot of different reasons, but it's actually kind of fine, since I really ought to be keeping up with work on the other thing I'm writing music for anyway.

So I asked NT to write six tracks for an introductory EP to gently make the world aware of his music. I reasoned that such an album would be more easily completed than the full-length, and it would probably help to flush our clogged creative buffers.

Apparently, it was a good idea. Just a few days after I made the suggestion, he sent me the first new score, from which the following track is derived. This is really just a rough preliminary mix. I'm not really sure how the final cut will sound, but it'll probably be pretty much like this:

Null Terminator - Electrotechnics

Null Terminator

I have to preface this entry by explaining who Null Terminator is. Null Terminator is a composer, a sort of kindred spirit to myself, whom I have been working with on and off for some time now on a forthcoming album of electronic music. But there is another Null Terminator. He is the protagonist of the story set forth in the album. He is a sort of space age superhero, granted authority in the late twenty-second century by the Catholic Federation to use lethal force against any of a select group of evildoers, one of whom is called Sentinel, another of whom is called The Void Star.

A week or two ago I dreamed that I was Null Terminator, and I was fighting against both Sentinel and The Void Star simultaneously using advanced martial arts techniques. For some reason, I was also fighting against Batman and Robin and Jackie Chan. They had all ganged up on me in the hopes that through sheer force they might be able to take me down.

Nevertheless, I summarily trounced them, every last one.

~   ~   ~

I should point out that although this entry is very short, the dream was in fact quite long, and the battle was basically just one long sequence of them trying to punch and kick me, me blocking every last attack, and then at the end me incapacitating them with a single blow. Thus, I have tagged it as Important (Long).

New Year's Resolution

I am thinking of making a commitment to composing a new piece of music, however short, and posting it to the Internet every two weeks. Perhaps the time frame may need to be adjusted, but If I make this resolution, I believe I will try every two weeks to begin with and then adjust accordingly.

I have been posting my music to my soundcloud profile: soundcloud.com/erenan

This is the source of inspiration for this resolution.

Craps and Music (and Independent Game Development)

I haven't had a really solid narrative dream to blog about for quite some time now, so that explains why I haven't been around here too much lately. I know all you readers are probably just bursting at the seams trying to restrain yourself from saying something disapproving, but have no fear! I am still alive and sleeping every night, and sooner or later a good dream is bound to come along.

Actually, the truth is that I have a couple sheets of dream notes that I need to blog about, but I lost my steam a little bit with this blog. I don't think it's quite dead at this point. I think I am still going to keep up this blog from time to time. But I don't think it'll be particularly frequent.

Last night, I did have two dreams that I can vaguely remember. Though most of the details are gone, I do remember a couple really basic concepts from them, so let me share...

The first involved learning to play Craps. I don't gamble. I'm good enough at math to know how bad an idea it really is. So I'm a little hazy on how exactly the game of Craps works, but in my dream world, I was learning how to play it. It seemed to be a bit more like Roulette in the dreamspace, except not so entirely up to chance. There was actually some significant element of skill in placing bets, and in fact, it was not really that hard to win. I got myself ahead quite easily and started to develop a crowd of old ladies who were impressed by my ability.

Then, somebody was being mugged in another part of the casino, and I alone sprang into action. When I got back from rescuing the victim, the old ladies had stolen my winnings.

Upon waking, I realized that my subconscious does not understand Craps at all.

The second dream involved a former college peer named Matt Glickstein visiting my apartment for some musical reason. I think he was listening to rare Avenged Sevenfold B-sides on my computer.

You might remember that I've mentioned Matt before on this blog. He was the other Music Composition major in my year at the University of Redlands, and I've always admired his music because he has such a knack for writing effective songs. I usually don't write songs. While at University I think I never wrote songs, and although I probably felt at the time that it was because I didn't like the traditional song-based structure for music, I think now that part of it might have been that I wasn't very good at it. Matt is good at it. You should go listen to his songs, and then buy his album.

I think he was listening to Avenged Sevenfold because yesterday I was reading about Mike Portnoy's departure from Dream Theater and trying to figure out why some of his fans were upset with something that he had said. I couldn't find any reference to what he said or did to make them mad. Anyway, until recently Portnoy was also the touring drummer of Avenged Sevenfold. I don't listen to them really. I used to listen to Dream Theater a lot, but not so much now.

The other reason that I haven't been blogging very much is because I'm trying to complete an album of my own. Once that happens, I will probably link to it from this website, but it'll have its own website, and I expect I will focus more on that one than this one.

I'm also trying to get myself solidly into independent game development. I've been inspired by two guys mostly: Terry Cavanagh and Jonathan Blow. Their games have had a deep effect on me. Particularly, three of Cavanagh's games: VVVVVV, Pathways, and Don't Look Back. And Blow's Braid, which has affected me in a way that no other game ever has.

I'm starting to write down all the ideas I have for small games that I might be able to complete without too much difficulty. Usually my ambition defeats me. Even projects that start small eventually become huge and are subsequently abandoned. This will not do. So I'm trying to force myself to keep my ideas small, and when I attempt to create them, I will do so as quickly as I can. Getting a few projects done, whether or not they are particularly good, is my current goal.

Of course, as I am presently working on a Computer Science degree, it may be slightly difficult to find time to work on that stuff.

I think I might be spreading myself a little too thin.