Beer, atheism, snowglobes and SF (in that order)

[undyingking]

Would you like some delicious tasty vinegar in your beer? Don't knock it until you've tried it! Interesting experiment. The first result -- people liked the blind taste more than the idea -- is not surprising these days, we know people are prejudiced against such bizarre-sounding concepts. And the second result, that people liked the taste less if they knew vinegar was going to be in it, is only mildly surprising. But the third, that people still preferred it if they were told afterwards that vinegar was in it, I found remarkable. As the abstract puts it (my italics), "Disclosure of the secret ingredient significantly reduced preference only when the disclosure preceded tasting, suggesting that disclosure affected preferences by influencing the experience itself, rather than by acting as an independent negative input or by modifying retrospective interpretation of the experience."

Birmingham atheists and Wiccans under the council's cosh -- what I find surprising here is that the "system allows staff to look at websites relating to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other religions". Why? Is this a common exception at workplaces that generally ban leisure Web use? If so, then clearly religious websites are the places to site your games. Surely it can't be that so many of the Council staff have work that involves religious sensitivity etc, they found it easier to make a blanket allowance?

Thomas Doyle makes what are basically snowglobes without (usually) the snow, but each depicts an enigmatic scene. Somehow one gets drawn into speculating who these people are, what they're doing here, etc. It's not obvious to me why I find these so appealing, which is a good sign in itself.

Farah Mendlesohn wrote this interesting essay about the Out of this World series of anthologies. These were pretty much my introduction to "proper" SF -- I read them out of the library, around the age of 11 -- for which I count myself rather lucky. She expresses very well what made them remarkable. I have to admit that at the time I didn't know quite what to make of the stories by Calvino etc that were included alongside the genre greats and Eastern European obscurities, but they all helped form me as an SF reader and gave me the important sense of the artificality of genre boundaries. I now want to track down the books, because there are a number of stoies mentioned here that I haven't seen since but remember loving.

Comments

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Sadly, the same preferences also apply to rare species. People prefer the rarer forms of caviar, but only when it isn't a blind test.

People are driving species of sturgeon to extinction because they believe they prefer the more expensive variety when in fact they can't tell them apart...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

People prefer the rarer forms of caviar

Is that because they're rarer, though, or just because they're more expensive? An interesting test would be to have three secretly identical caviars labelled with unfamiliar made-up names, at three different prices, and see which of those people preferred.

I think there's a strong tendency in people to want to believe that if they've paid more for something, they must have enjoyed it more, even if not in any otherwise perceptible way. Probably something to do with Veblen goods theory.

(Not that this helps the endangered sturgeons at all, unfortunately.)

[zengineer.livejournal.com]

In this case it is not the species being driven to extinction, it can be farmed, it is the species being driven to extinction in the wild. People prefer wild sturgeon caviar to farmed caviar even if they can't tell the difference.
Perhaps you could solve the problem by making it illegal to identify caviar as wild. Of course criminals would always try to supply the demand for wild caviar but they could just open a tin of farmed caviar and would as it would be cheaper and they wouldn't care about defrauding the recipient.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Good idea, sounds like it might have the desired effects -- get on the phone to those nice Messrs Putin and Ahmadinejad at once!

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

I used to read and re-read them too, especially James White's Second Ending, the one with the turn-ups.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, excellent story. No-one turns up their trousers these days -- does that mean our future is doomed?

[rufusfrog.livejournal.com]

Out of this World was recently mentioned in my book group. I said something like 'Oh they were great, my favourite was no. 9' and everyone laughed. I wasn't trying to be funny. Thanks to you, I've been able to check the titles and the story I remember with most fondness (and associate with other good stories in the same volume) is the one set in a Paris Zoo, and there it is, in volume 9, 'A message for zoo directors' by Gerard Klein. I quite liked no. 2 too. I'm not sure I would like the same stories now though, perhaps it would be worth tracking some down to find out.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I think I would go for 5 as my favourite. Not that I could remember which was in which without checking the contents lists (here and here, for anyone else who's interested). I've reread most of them elsewhere by now, but I'd particularly like to see if 'The Fiction Machines' is as much fun as it is in my memory.

(The other one I'd like to see again concerned a punched-card system in which the protagonist brought about strange changes in their life by punching extra holes etc, but I can't remember the story name or who wrote it :-()

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Surely it can't be that so many of the Council staff have work that involves religious sensitivity etc

I will assume temporarily that religious websites are useful tools when trying to fulfil council obligations involving religious sensitivity.

It may not be possible to predict in advance which employees will occasionally be required to be religiously sensitive. Personally I would hope the answer is "all of them", since the alternative is that there are positions at the council in which it is satisfactory to be religiously insensitive at all times ;-p

So, if many employees may be called upon to be sensitive from time to time, and if religious websites help with that sensitivity, then default-blocking them puts you in a position where you are sometimes obstructing someone doing a part of their job which is highly litigationmission-critical.

Btw, if religious websites are accessed for non-work purposes, I'd classify that as "personal use" rather then "leisure use". Although maybe you're using "leisure" to mean "non-work", and would classify looking up "sudden chest pain, dizziness, difficulty breathing" on NHS Direct as "leisure use". In which case fair enough.

system allows staff to look at websites relating to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other religions but blocks sites to do with "witchcraft or Satanism" and "occult practices, atheistic views, voodoo rituals or any other form of mysticism".

So Wahhabism is OK, but Sufism contains elements constituting mysticism, and is blocked? Muppets.

I like the way that atheism is considered tantamount to occultism and voodoo, though. I'm surprised they don't have occultists complaining about defamation of character. And what about agnosticism?

Whoever decided that the Council should put itself in the position of ruling which religious websites are "acceptable" and which aren't, or even which are "mystic" and which aren't, is probably the one who needs help with religious sensitivity...

Finally, shame on the BBC for not running with the headline "Birmingham religious site access row".

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

And what about agnosticism?

According to these sorts of people, it's a kind of Christianity.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

A non-mystical kind, presumably.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Depends, to use an old saw, which God it is you're undecided about.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

classify that as "personal use" rather then "leisure use"

Heh, it's probably a good thng I don't have any staff at the moment.


the Council... in the position of ruling which

I bet they just left in the software defaults. What do we know about these Bluecoat people, are they a bunch of loons? Their CEO has a surname in CamelCase, which can't be good.

[zengineer.livejournal.com]

The article says that sites on atheism are blocked but sites "that promote witchcraft, the paranormal, sexual deviancy and criminal activity" are banned. My guess would be that someone came up with a misreading of employment legislation and thought that "not discriminating on the basis of religion" was equivalent to "not blocking websites of religion". This kind of person would have no problem deciding that atheism and witchcraft were not religions and so could be banned. Having decided that they may have noticed Dawkin's site getting a lot of traffic and blocked it. All speculation but one of the problem with news sites is that you often do not get the full story about why a seemingly loony event happened, that would require a lot more hard work for the journalist.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

A plausible guess. The article (in particular the defence of the decision in terms) suggested to me that atheist websites are banned because they're atheist and atheism (along with occultism and criminal activity) is barred from the workplace. But you could be quite right that they're banned because time-wasters use them, with religious time-wasters given a long leash for fear of exactly this kind of complaint.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I must say though that I find it hard to imagine atheistic polemic being a really big consumer of leisure browsing hours. You'd have to have a very very boring job.

I can just about see a religious peson wanting to urgently consult some doctrinal website to check whether they're allowed to eat an ostrich sandwich (or whatever), but what's the atheist equivalent?

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Good point - us atheists have no decency or morals, so there's nothing to check :-)

Actually, if Dawkins is the atheist website, maybe the question is whether, should a colleague refuse an ostrich sandwich on religious grounds, you're supposed merely to verbally abuse them or also to put them in a headlock and force it down their throat.

[jackfirecat.livejournal.com]

From the article it's hard to tell from that what's being banned under 'The authority's Bluecoat WebFilter' - it may be they are banning Amazon, YouTube, and Yahoo, too, for all we know from this. i.e. the original impetus may have been to stop people looking at stuff in general, but they have specific exclusions for certain reliosities.

The alternative, that they set out to specifically ban atheism and wicca etc sounds a very odd basis for a project. May have been caught in the net because they were not excluded?

But who knows? I would still think it odd (to a lesser degree) (but not unbelievable of a city council) to institute an expensive project to curtail people's internet access except to sites of approved religions. Show me cost/benefit analysis?

We estimate that Jack spends 30 minutes a day looking at the Web, so if we take it away he must, is bound to, spend that 30 minutes working, (he will certainly not replace that web time with other displacement activity such as staring into space, wondering idly about what he's mising on the web, having a cup of tea, talking to someone, or moaning about the council taking the web away); mulitply that timesaving by all employees and we have greatly increased productivity by pissing the staff off, yeah?

OK, great, saving ££; let's spend money on it. But we must exempt religious sites coz some of us will want to use them to check things out, (like that Sikh bangle thing, huh, who knew?).

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

My personal suggestion about the Sikh bangle thing is that it should be instituted as law in this country that anyone has the right to wear anything (or nothing) at any time. There probably should be exceptions for weaponry but beyond that all uniforms (school, work) should be banned. Again one might make an exception for police, emergency services, armed forces. Or maybe not.

oh where will the religious exemption go

[jackfirecat.livejournal.com]

Those ornery Sikhs would start claiming that swords were part of the religious thing, or the Scottish with their skiandoo (Sgian Dubh). And then yardies with guns as religious symbols...

Re: oh where will the religious exemption go

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

OK, short knives allowed. No guns though.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Or strictly uniforms should be voluntary, don't want to be dogmatic about it :-)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

it may be they are banning Amazon, YouTube, and Yahoo, too, for all we know from this. i.e. the original impetus may have been to stop people looking at stuff in general, but they have specific exclusions for certain reliosities.

I'm sure that's right.

Does your workplace not restrict web access in this way? Blackwell Publishing did when I was working there, and it was a right pain as their blacklist included a load of things I needed for my work (and had to petition for exception). I think it's pretty common really, eg. a number of my LJ friends aren't able to access the site from work.

[jackfirecat.livejournal.com]

OUP just blocks yahoomail and other such external email systems (because of security/virus risk) nothing else. Very sensible in my humble. So far, anyway...