2008.09.21
Posted in Politics, Writing at 3:24 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
A while back, I had a discussion with my family around the following question: If you could master any one skill or ability in order to make the largest possible impact on the world, what would it be?
We discussed politics and diplomacy as an avenue to making a lasting impact. We talked about the importance of scientific research. We pondered the role of the artist. We considered the power held by journalism through large news/media organizations. But in the end, for me, it boiled down to the ability to write and / or speak with absolute command of the language.
When I consider all of the various things that inform my world view, everything else pales in comparison to the written word. From where I’m sitting right now, I can glance over shelves of books, both fiction and non-fiction, which form a part of who I am and how I view the world.
Writing and the use of language exerts power in many other realms, including politics and journalism, but when I think of writing, I think more of the authors who managed to change the world through fiction. Authors like Arthur Miller. And like Bruce Sterling. Sterling’s recent AGDC Keynote speech is a perfect example of how command of the language is.
Several comments on his speech deride Sterling for not being part of the gaming industry; while this is true, he had some very important things to say, and he managed to do so in a powerful fashion through the use of metaphor.
Another reason for picking command of language as my #1 world-changing ability is the permanence and prevalence of the written word. Text is a very compact form for conveying information (much more so than a medium like video or audio), and text never dies. The words I’m writing now will likely never vanish thanks to the wonders of the web, and so long as people can understand written English circa 2008, their meaning will never be lost. And they can be searched, sliced, and diced much more easily than images can.
Words also have a peculiar power in a cultural context. Nearly all of modern society is informed by myths and stories. In the past, before humanity developed written language, traditions and stories were passed orally, and today, we also employ the written word. Language is at the very core of what it means to be human, and words still shape and change our culture today.
Ironically, this brief essay is perhaps the antithesis of what it describes. I do not pretend to possess the level of lingusitic command I aspire to. But I can learn and practice and improve over time. Maybe I’ll even get there someday.
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2006.03.10
Posted in Board Games, Music, Politics at 9:47 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
Contrary to what the giant record labels might have you believe, MP3 is not a crime. There’s a surprising amount of music out there that has been released under a Creative Commons license. One need look no further than http://ccmixter.org/ to get started. Yes, these are legal MP3 downloads. Grab them. Remix them. Have fun.
And it’s not just unknown indie artists, either. Have you ever heard of the Beastie Boys? Thievery Corporation? David Byrne? Thought so.
And, there’s also the myriad remixes of The Hand That Feeds by Nine Inch Nails, although they aren’t under a Creative Commons license. It’s an interesting time for intellectual property in general.
This whole Creative Commons thing is actually quite interesting, if you think about it. Not everyone cares about making money off of every single one of their artistic endeavours. For instance, all of my board game designs are under a Creative Commons license. I may eventually publish some of my games elsewhere, but probably not these. I’m just having fun for now.
That said, I’m just a no-name board game designer with no fans and no revenue from my creations. I have immense respect for anyone who chooses to license their stuff under a Creative Commons license, and I hope somebody finds my board game designs fun and / or useful for something. Share and share alike.
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2006.01.27
Posted in Politics at 8:35 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
Yesterday I received a $400 cheque in the mail from the Alberta government. I imagine many Albertans are quite pleased with this; I can’t think of many families who wouldn’t like an extra $1600 (assuming there are four people in the family).
In case you’re not from my neck of the woods, the Alberta government is giving each resident of the province $400 tax-free, because our 2005 provincial surplus was quite large.
I’m left with mixed feelings about this. I can’t deny that I can use an extra $400 (who couldn’t), but I also feel that this $400 was a waste. Consider this: $400 multiplied by the roughly 3.2 million people who live here is $1.28 billion.
It’s great that we have a surplus, but there are better ways to spend the money than giving a cheque to everyone. Our universities are in need of funds for any number of things, not to mention that as a province we don’t really have enough post-secondary education capacity for our size. Our cities need massive transportation infrastructure upgrades (although Calgary needs to stop sprawling first, but that’s another story). Our health system is understaffed, underfunded, and requires additional infrastructure just to keep up with demand. And that’s just for starters. The list goes on, but that’s not the point.
Though I’d be the last to advocate allocating the surplus to ongoing expenditures – we’re probably not going to have that kind of surplus every year, and it wouldn’t be prudent to count on it. But infrastructure projects aren’t ongoing expenditures – they’re projects with budgets and completion dates. Building new infrastructure and upgrading existing infrastructure are ways to invest that money in our future, rather than placating the masses in the short term. And you don’t have to look very far to find $1.2 billion of infrastructure projects that could use the funding.
And before you point out that the $1.2 billion wasn’t the entire surplus, that isn’t the point either. I realize that a lot of money was allocated to projects that need it, but how much more could we have done with this $1.2 billion?
In any case, this whole $400 rebate idea was decided upon months ago, after the goverment made a token attempt at getting input from Albertans. I’m personally not convinced they even read the opinion cards that were returned, and yes, I did return mine. So there’s not much use complaining about it now. That cheque is little more than a bittersweet $400 reminder of what we could have had instead.
Take a bow, Ralph. You’ve managed to leave your legacy for Alberta. All $400 of it.
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