THR how a Code of Silence has in vain spread to most professions and vocations

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Week 18

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The bartender may have been given and heard more than he bargained for, when he first sought and got the job, even 424–3890 type telephone numbers.

Motion: THR how a Code of Silence has in vain spread to most professions and vocations
Role: PM (gov.)

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A hush or silence has slowly but surely descended on private and public affairs. We cannot talk about supersensitive or just plain sensitive stuff in the way we could decades and years ago. In the past, it was customary that there was a scandal, because there was a whistleblower, after which media outlets arrived like vultures to tear the flesh and bones of the object or subject of the scandal. Today, we are lucky if media outlets report verbatim what certain celebrities have themselves laid out on the internet on their Instagram accounts. There, scandals are thin on the ground.

In the Beginning, Bankers, Doctors, Lawyers, Priests
A code of silence was at first the domain of but a few practitioners and protectors of sensitive information. The economical, juridical, physical and religious “SWOT matrix” (really, if you think about it) of people were guarded over by bankers, lawyers, physicians and priests. From the beginning, there has usually been the component of people or professions who have people or persons as their objects, points of departure and subjects as their grounds for a code of silence.

However, a code of silence then spread to other, less important areas of human activities, such as hotels, offices and prisons. Today, civil servants, hotel concierges, and the police usually keep mum about the specifics of different cases and guests that they are dealing with. Especially with the police, it usually does not make any sense. If the suspect is apprehended, in custody and under investigation, there is usually no reason why information about her or him should be withheld. Suspects do not have a cell phone to communicate with the outside world, they cannot interfere with the investigation, and the public is entitled to know about the hows, whens, wheres and whys of certain crimes and misdemeanours. Usually there is no need to protect the public from information, inasmuch as their interest is merely curiosity, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Now Most Professions and Vocations Have a Code of Silence
If the above was not bad enough, now more and more ways to support oneself fall under a code of silence. Bouncers cannot tell what kinds of customers cause trouble. Cleaning women cannot tell what they find in their trash. Teachers cannot tell what happens in the classroom. And there is the juridical malady of a non-disclosure agreement which crops up everywhere. According to it, participants cannot tell the media about abuses and quarrels that there have occurred between certain contract parties. It is a blocker against the free flow of useful information and serves only to let people save face when they do not deserve that.

One case in its own right is the press and its source protection. It is grounded in the sense that the press needs to have access to sensitive information, but the downside is that the press, too, uses it in accordance with its own agenda. The press never tell lies, but their venality is in how they hand-pick what they show in photographs and tell in plain words. They reckon they never get caught spreading disinformation or misinformation. It is so that they tell a truth, without adding anything to it, but they do NOT tell the whole of truths. The source protection of the press is also, in a certain way, more part of the problem than part of the solution.

We All Would Benefit From Less Code of Silence
My understanding is that these codes of silence should be lifted to most extent. If silence and whomever it is supposed to protect is not appropriate and defendable, silence should be revoked. Bring back the yesterday of acute scandals and chronic flow of muckraking.

Would there be any way to decide on what merits a code of silence and what not? For instance, the determining factor could be whether it is a question of attacking downward or upwards, striking against the powers that be or someone who is already down. Or, alternatively, it could be about the thin green line between so-called professions and vocations. If you were a professional, you’d be entitled to a code of silence. If you were someone in a vocation, you’d not be entitled to a code of silence.

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t): Tässä puheessa tarvitsin apuja ulkopuolelta, kun en tiennyt, miten sanotaan “lähdesuoja” tai yleensä “vaikenemisvelvollisuus”. On kuitenkin kiitollista jättää tällaisia aukkoja puheeseensa, koska sanat voi selvittää kollegaltaan tai netistä. Tietämättömyyden takia ei kannata jättää käsittelemättä sanoihin liittyviä asioita, jos ne lankeavat luonnostaan paperille. Oletan, että vastapuoli käyttää tehokkaasti hyväkseen ajatusta herjauksesta tai kunnianloukkauksesta suurimpana syynä sille, miksi asioista vaietaan.

THW not cut off ties to one’s family and kin if they misbehaved

 

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Week 17

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Alienation and estrangement hurts the elder person more, and that’s why it should not be imposed lightly or at all.

Motion: THW cut off ties to one’s family and kin if they misbehaved
Role: Deputy Leader (opp.)

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The Economist reported that a record number of people are cutting their ties off to family (or relatives) due to differing views on major issues, such as children, culture, economics, lifestyle, politics, religion and worldviews. One of the reasons is that people have grown independent of their relatives, as they get their income, perks and purpose in life from the digital sphere, nation-state or workplaces. The social fabric created by family and relatives has grown insignificant and thin. Typical of today is that if people travel to their relatives, they may stay overnight at a hotel instead of their relatives. That is how much standards of living have risen since 1981.

Conservative Parents Raising Liberal Children
The most obvious case of estrangement revolves around children who turn liberal during their college years and who turn their backs on their conservative parents. That’s what happens all the time between people who vote for Democrats or Republicans. It is probably less common that conservative children turn their backs on their liberal parents, but that could also happen apparently. In Europe, where the partisan system is more florid and patchwork (displaying different political colours), this development is less pronounced, but it can happen in Europe, too, as parties are wont today to form either leftwing/rightwing blocks or Con vs. Lib blocks. Anyone may end up in the “wrong” block. Populist parties provide a reason to disown their voters, but if their collective adherents now count in the millions, they cannot either be dismissed today as “rightwing extremism”. Extremism per definition involves less than 1 % of people.

Another big watershed is heteronormativity vs. other leanings in people’s reproductive lives. If a child is gay and a parent is straight (straight obviously for having born or sired the child in the first place), it may cause a rift in the relationship, if the parents are overly critical of the lifestyle of their offspring that does not focus on settling down, for instance. In its own right, I do not think that a bigger percentage of children born today are gay, but the figures are comparable with the past. It is just that the LGBT+ community has become far more vocal than what it was in the past and that may cause some friction.

Other Breakable Relations
Relations to aunts, cousins (once, twice or thrice removed), siblings and uncles are not frictionless, either. The same reasons that break up filial–parental relationships may cause breakup between horizontal relatives. Another layer is breakups that follow from breakups. When one family member breaks up ties with someone, the whole family may follow that example and cut ties to all in that other family. Which is wrong, of course. When we have a criminal in society, we only send that one person to a penitentiary and not his or her kin. The same should go for rifts between individuals. The only type of relatives that ends up unscathed is in-laws. They are usually protected by the fact that there is a relationship between two people with their respective families and that sends a protective “magnetic shield” over most members of the other person’s family.

A fairly good depiction of different family ties was in the TV show The Sopranos, where a lot of the Italian families had different kinds of feuds, fondnesses or frictions with each other. Tony Soprano did not get along with his sister Janice or mother Livia. Made men were often each other’s cousins or uncles. If someone died, all the others turned up for a funeral. The roots of all of that ran deep, all the way to the time when the families’ founding fathers had first immigrated to the US.

The Dance of Disinheritance
Like our leader on our side said, it is not like parties in estrangement are toothless. Cutting ties is a drastic measure, often given without prior warnings as a one-off punishment, and therefore it is inherently unjust. People cut off ties to each other easier than they would be, say, sacked from their tenure or workplace. There, their treatment would be much more clement. For these reasons, we do not see it unjustified that a parent who gets cut off – and cannot get back what once was severed, after several attempts – is entitled to disinherit his or her children due to the other one’s unilateral unjustness. Just like alienation and estrangement send a passive-aggressive signal, disinheriting a relative sends a countersignal.

How disinheriting goes about is another matter entirely. In some nation-states, disinheriting is far easier by the law than in others. But everywhere it is possible to bequeath or will at least a part of one’s fortune to someone else than family or relatives. Sangios crassior aqua, and that’s what people seem to have forgotten. With family and relatives, we need to have a thicker nose and skin than with others, because they’re the only ones we’ve got, as opposed to the myriad possibilities in other human relations.

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Perustelu(t)&puolustelu(t): Kokemuksia ja mielipiteitä jakavassa aiheessa pidän sukulaisten puolta vaistomaisesti. Edelläni kulkeva puhuja voi hehkuttaa perhe- ja sukulaisuussuhteiden hyviä puolia ja jäljessäni kulkeva voi hehkuttaa edelleen perinnöttä jättämisen helppoutta, mitä en itse käsittele kovin tarkasti. Näin koko puolen paketti on valmiina.

THS relationship “projects” as an antivenom to Tinder culture

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Week 16

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Benchmark for Love.

Motion: THS relationship “projects” as an antivenom to Tinder culture
Role: Deputy Leader (gov.)

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It seems that Tinder is not bringing about the desired change in how people perceive and receive each other in love. Tales about how it is a dreary place abound. From creepy dates to ghosting to hookup disappointments to photo disasters, the app is not living up to its promise as the cybermarket of human relationships. E.g. following statements have been made about it: “people in open relationships go on it but have to go undercover, because their mutual friends do not like it”, “there is a nagging feeling that someone better could always come along” and “there is a surprising amount of LONG-MARRIED people on Tinder, looking for semi-erotic playthings”. Tinder operates on the principle: Amator quasi piscis, nequam est nisi recens. I have a novel solution beyond Tinder and I am presenting it here. It could be termed love project or project love, whichever way around.

Project in the Past: Woman Takes on an Alcoholic
What I’m on about is that people should start dating people who are on a lower level than they themselves as a whole, as GPA human beings. People should take people on who represent a challenge, in the way a couple take on a challenge when they buy a flat that will necessitate a thorough renovation before it becomes habitable for them. In the past, what this referred to was when a salaried, working woman hooked up with an alcoholic in the hopes of making a decent man out of him. In theory, it is easy to transform an alcoholic. Put him in the bath and have his beard, hair and sideburns cut and give him a new set of clothing. Buy him aftershave and give him Eau de Toilette. A different creature would emerge after this makeover. The bigger challenge, nonetheless, would be to stop him from drinking and going back to his bad, old habits. Setting him up with a cup of coffee is not enough after years of hard drinking.

What caused people to chuckle and laugh was the success rate: it was often shockingly bad. Women could not turn alcoholics into BF’s, flames or married husbands. They were often forced to give up on the guy after a few days, weeks or months. What needs to be borne in mind is this: there needs to be something, some quality about the projected human that is better or on a higher level than in the upper-hand party. It is a prerequisite for the latter to have a right amount of motivation to push through.

Project Where Roles Reverse: Man Takes on an Oversensitive or Poorly Educated Woman
Women with alcoholics is just one tried example. Men could also take on projects. They could begin to hang out with a woman who was shy and timid around crowds, events and individuals. If the man persisted and took the woman out sufficiently, to ice-hockey rinks, opera and rock concerts, at times ready to back off if she felt the need to flee, he might be able to transform the woman into a sociable being who actually liked to be at the centre of things. Likewise, the man, if and when educated at a seat of higher learning, could try to turn a woman with just a vocational school behind her into a Lady, who knew about etiquette, norms, theories and other stuff that is taught in an academic environment, something the man might have learnt decades or years ago, complementing also his sophistication thereafter.

And it would not have to stop there. Roles could be reversed. A young woman could date a so-called hikikomori or NEET, which means a young man who has given up on his hopes to become a taxpayer and retreated to his mancave at home with his parents, who’d take care of his material needs. The drawbacks of a hikikomori would be obvious to a girl, but the takeaway was that a hikky is usually intelligent and knows his way around IT, his main getaway. His company could be highly rewarding if the woman was endowed with the kind of mindset that appreciates thin recluses who are smart. Incels, on the other hand, it would be advisable to stay clear of.

Pros: They Are Far Easier to Get and Society Improves One (or Two) Individual(s) at a Time
What’s gratifying about choosing projects is that these people would not put up a fight in getting to know them. Few wanted them anyway. If someone did, the road would have been paved. When the better-equipped worked his or her magic, life of the other party would begin to improve. That would have a positive effect primarily on the individual and secondarily on society. And, if the initially stronger one persisted in the relationship, his or her life could also potentially be transformed in the form of a relationship that was based on something else than greed, jealousy and superficiality.

If people began to go down this path more and more often, Tinder might begin falling out of favour. Soon, one could only find black widows, catfishers, con artists, fitness queens, narcissists, pervoes and sociopaths on Tinder, something we have suspected all along, and better still, the app could become a veritable Rogues Gallery for the police to utilise, if and when only unsavoury people chose to remain there.

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t). On tärkeää, etten tyhjennä pajatsoa toiminnallani. Minun pitää jättää poletteja myös muille joukkuetovereilleni. Jätän yhdelle mahdollisuuden väittää, että Tinder on täynnä kaupallisia prostituoituja ja seuralaisneitejä tuhmien setien lisäksi. En siis mainitse siitä. En myöskään mainitse MadTV:n sketsiä Lowered Expectations, joka käsittelee VHS-kasettien aikaista deittausympäristöä, missä pärjäsi aina paremmin, jos ei “toivonut liikoja”.

THC getting a life partner a matter of great discernment

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Week 15

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NB. C stands for Considers

Love in old and young age asks for a kindred lover.

Motion: THC getting a life partner just a matter of going out
Role: Leader (opp.)

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I was recently at a train pullover spot. I had failed to get out in time for my actual station, so I stayed until the next stop, right in the middle of nowhere, where the conductor let me out and advised me to take the next oncoming, opposite-direction train home – for free, without a punitive charge. At the stop, I eyed a young couple who were about to board that same train. They were between 17 and 27, and they looked much alike. Neither was better looking than the other. Like with a lot of couples, the girl (or woman) made some anxious questions or remarks, and the boy (or man) reassured her with his responses. They were very similar to each other, despite the gender difference.

Anyone Can Get a Partner
One of the delusions that people today have is that they have to pass the bar in terms of some imaginary relationship pole-vaulting competition. They would have to be alike Mr. Armand Duplantis or Ms. Wilma Murto in terms of the challenge. Then they were fit for courtship, engagement and marriage, potentially children. That is so untrue. Just as there are apex specimens of a human being, there are also average people, “losers” and mediocrities. The thing is that an apex specimen is not interested in a plain Jane, and a plain Shane should not set his sights on a unparallelled female. They could go over the fence at its lowest for them.

The first thing to evaluate is this: Evaluate how good-looking you are for real. The face is the most important part of your body in that respect, but the body in itself is not immaterial. Ugly faces are less ugly, if the body shape is great; cute faces are uglier if they come with too much bodily fat and flesh or some other thing that makes the whole less savoury. Do not overestimate or underestimate yourself. Your next goal is that you try to match your body and face with someone who is approximately as average-, bad- or good-looking. Moreover, it needs to be born in mind that women are allowed to be a little better-looking, with longer and stronger hair than men, and they would still be considered equals.

Couples Are a Matter of Pair Formation
It is important that somehow the pair look alike. They should have a kindred body, face, posture and potentially other features, on a granular level. On a graphic level, they can be different, because they also need to complement each other. For instance, if the woman in question is short, it is helpful if the man is taller as he can reach for things that the woman cannot, and this is a matter of pragmatics, not of metaphorics.

Similarity in appearance is important, because it ensures that the constituent parts of the pair a) seem to deserve each other and that b) other people are not going to intervene in their relationship while they are together. When there is greater disparity in terms of looks, the pair would develop self-doubts about their relationship – and also attract “praying mantes” (🕷) who tried to prise the better-looking party apart from the relationship. People leave alone self-secure pairs that look alike while they are together.

Socratic Self-Matching and Self-Reflection Is the Key to Pair Formation
So, it seems that one can get a pair for oneself, if one can discern in a crowd who is the most alike oneself in terms of quality of looks and similarity in other ways. The similarity does not have to be more than skin-deep. Deeper differences may work out for the couple. The woman may be verbally oriented, while the man is visually oriented. The woman may be extroverted, while the man is introverted. And so on, etc. What underlies this is that a person needs to first know herself or himself in order to be able to find someone else. One needs to run a thorough SWOT check on oneself and list one’s parameters. This applies first and foremost to appearance and physicality and secondarily to one’s other characteristics and qualities. One needs to be Socratic in the classic sense of the adjective and live according to “Nosce te ipsum” in order to succeed in pair formation.

So, I would say that one cannot get a partner in just going out and grabbing hold of one of the first ten people that one encounters. It is not as easy as that. Most of the avenues have to be tried. Many contacts have to be used. A lot of networks have to be exhausted. Then, if all goes according to plan, one has a life partner who is not going to disappear in the first storm that brews.

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t): Koska parinetsintä on nyt korkealla agendalla, esitän omasta puolestani oman näkemykseni siitä, miten se onnistuu. Puheessa on lievää huojuntaa, eikä se välttämättä ole täysin vakuuttava. Tämä johtuu siitä, etten itsekään ole varma siitä, riittävätkö vastaavat ulkonäöt parinvalinnan perusteeksi vai pitäisikö vastaavien varakkuuksien kohdata. Siitä voidaan kuitenkin hyvin kiistellä itse väittelyn aikana.

THB some mental disease make one actually feel good

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Week 14

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That’s a lot of daft craftiness.

Motion: THB some mental disease make one actually feel good
Role: PM (gov.)

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The situation in mental health is not so good right now. Young people fall prey to all kinds of mental afflictions; and the message from the field is that more experts and therapists should be available to stem the tide of ADHD, depression and insomnia. There are some disease such as schizophrenia which in likelihood would never feel good among its bearers, what with the delusions, sensory overloads and voices in the head. The question goes, are there any slight or severe forms mental disease that can be enjoyable? You do not have to grab your copy of ICD-11 to join and take part in this discussion. Merely use your commonsensical point of view, please.

Alcoholism
I believe that some forms of alcoholism may be fully enjoyable. It is known that some writers write under the influence and may even produce a string of notable works that way. Cratefuls of claret or red wine 🍷 might be their go-to alcohol, but it could also be something else, as it is a bit of a cliché. Civil servants have been known to drink during the day in the 1970’s. It was the duty of their secretaries to keep outsiders at bay while they were too drunk to function socially.

The thing about alcohol is that it gives a golden or silvery lining to an otherwise grey everyday experience. If boring things may be experienced drunk, they are more tolerable. The problem is not the rush but the hangover. Over time and with age, hangovers become worse and worse. To this we must add a physique that can tolerate the carcinogenic qualities of alcohol; that bodies do not develop cancers due to the presence of alcohol in them. Successful alcoholics who can manage their hangovers have a good chance of enjoying life while inebriated.

Bipolar Disorder: Manic Nirvana
Another disease that must feel good is the flip side of the depression coin: mania. Being a maniac. When manic, a person may feel several of the following feelings: exuberance, love, megalomania, omnipotency, power tripping, rush of blood to the head and wanderlust. Those feelings are those of an overheated mind, but they would nevertheless feel good for the “sufferer”. Other typical symptoms of mania are brainwaves, desire to move about, insomnia, scant hunger and thirst for intoxicants. If a person can handle his of her manic impulses and weave a coherent fabric out of the life of a maniac, in the way some artists can handle it, the general, overarching feeling is wellbeing.

Codependency
There are several standards for codependency, but my definition would be this: a person gives just one person in his or her life 5 functional roles: that person is a best friend, family, love interest, only friend and relative. When we normally source those people from different circles, a codependent person sources them from one person.

Again, codependency could potentially be very enjoyable. I began to experiment with my GF and started calling her far more often than I would have done in the past – just for the heck of it. 3 calls a day. Sometimes I made her call me back. We could chat for an hour at a time. I felt loved, and the feeling was mutual. It was not all roses. Sometimes I got angry and argued. But the process as a whole was pleasant. Now, it could get even better. Let’s posit I was being bombarded with another female person with similar intentions and purposes. Constant calls and messaging, jealousy, reaffirmation. It could be potentially very enjoyable and I might feel the loving sentiment in it, provided that the woman in question respected my boundaries and did not overdo her attachment and attention. My hypothesis is that I would actually enjoy a codependent, overattached girlfriend.

What seems to be the case is that we have a naive, narrow, simplistic view of derangement. Mental troubles are dismissed out of hand as destructive, negative and unenjoyable. I have tried to prove that at least three of them are downright pleasant or a mixed blessing. So, the challenge of the future would seem to be such that we cannot always cure our mental disease but sometimes we do not even want to. We’re better off with them.

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t). Alustan aiheen vaatimalla pontevuudella. Annan toverilleni mahdollisuuden jatkaa samoin suuntaviivoin ja tarjoan hänelle omaksi näkökulmaksi esimerkiksi anoreksiaa, jonka kokijat useinkin näkevät sairautensa miellyttävänä ja tavoiteltavana. II tiimin jäsenet joutuvat sitten keksimään väittelyn uudelleen ja vaihtamaan sen suuntaa jollakin tavalla. 

THB 100,000 flies can be wrong

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Week 13

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Motion: THB 100,000 flies cannot be wrong
Role: MP (opp.)

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Consumption and consumers are often viewed as the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith fame of economical theory. The idea is that masses always choose fit solutions for themselves, as they are smarter together in a mass. But, is it really like that or is it rather so that stupidity concentrates in a thicker crowd of people? I am going to focus on three cases of masses being behind a bad service provider or solution. You can then decide for yourselves what this means in practice.

Gmail as an E-mail Service
At some point Gmail became the world’s favourite e-mail-server, much like Google, its parent, became the world’s favourite search engine. I was never one to trust Gmail, as I had secured a Hotmail address for myself at the turn of the millennium. At one point I got to know Gmail, as it was the internal e-mail-server of a workplace I worked for for half a year. I soon discovered Gmail’s forte: it did not separate multiple answers as different e-mails but compiled all of them into a single thread. It was economical in a way the first e-mail inboxes hadn’t been.

Alas, Hotmail developed while Gmail was left treading water in other ways than that one way. Little by little, my sweet Hotmail has gone from a humble e-mail client to a sleek machine that can easily sort out the most bedeviling mixture of ads, bills, correspondence, matter-of-fact e-mails, receipts, spam and subscribed newsletters. It works equally well on a tablet as a desktop, while Gmail is a mess. Gmail’s inbox may contain e-mails dating back a few years, even if I knew that I had deleted or sorted them out in the past. It feels as if Alphabet Inc. was trying to turn everyone as disorganised as those people who never learn to delete mail or sort it into different subfolders, keeping everything in Inbox. As if a film director or producer who has his whole film as piles of paper on his desk, waiting to be finished, knowing where every document is and what means what. Outlook (est. as HM) is a clear victor in this respect, as it allows to keep organised.

Pizza Restaurant East Side Downtown
There is a pizzeria right in the middle of the city where I studied. I did not frequent that pizzeria back in those days, but other people do and did. It begins to gather a line or queue from the early morning through noon into the afternoon and evening. You can hardly get a seat there let alone a table. It is highly profitable, and the pizza chefs do not see a moment of rest. I cannot imagine how they cope with being forced to bake pizza hour in and hour out. “If you cannot stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen” and so on, but still.

For all that, it was revealed some time ago that the pizzeria does not bake its own dough. Pizza foundations arrive frozen and prefabricated from a food factory somewhere in Southern Finland. So, the glorified task of the baker is to just take a frozen foundation, sprinkle all kinds of toppings ordered all over it, push it into the oven, take it out and serve it as an “Italian delicacy”. The whole place is a kind of fraud. The pizza salad they serve with the pizza is delicious, but I wonder if even that is real or just styrofoam soaked in vinegar. In addition, you cannot share personal secrets at the pizzeria, as it is so crowded and full-seated. Inter nos. For now, I have set a moratorium on going there.

Tablets vs. Mobile Phones
What unites mobile phones and tablets is that the latter tend to be magnified versions of the former without telephonic qualities. All the same, I could not use a mobile phone while I can use a tablet. Everything is facile on a tablet. I can work my way around banking, blogging, e-mail, game that I play, government’s services, reading newspapers and tuning in to my streaming service of choice. It is just intuitive and nice. In contrast, mobile phones are a mess, at least when it comes to Android. I cannot manage any of that on a mobile phone. I could not travel around the world with a mobile phone to save my life. Still, the vast majority of the world’s population seem to thrive on that pesky little rectangle just alright.

What all of this boils down to is that there is no reason why you should follow the masses wherever they might be going. They can be misguided and wrong. They may choose alternatives that are popular but not right – for you, at least. Consumeristically and technologically speaking, there are always people who swim upstream and you could be one of them. You may choose an Atari ST over a Commodore Amiga. You may choose a Range Rover over an SUV. And you have your reasons, pragmatics being chief among them. Whatever you choose, be proud, and remember that 100,000 flies can be wrong.

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t). Aiheeni on ajatuksia herättävä kannanotto vastuullisen kuluttamisen puolesta. Annan konkreettisia esimerkkejä, joiden takia minun kannattaa olla 3. puhuja puolellani. Puoleni ajaa käsitystä ihmisestä omien valintojensa herrana ja vastuunkantajana. 

THS TV series Gogglebox as a pastime if it was greatly altered

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Week 12

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Motion: THS TV series Gogglebox as a pastime if it was greatly altered
Role: Deputy Leader (gov.)

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There is a TV show which is a kind of meta show. It depicts people who watch TV and how they react to the programmes they are viewing. The format is English, but the formatting has been sold abroad, among others to my country, where it enjoys a moderate-popular-to-big-critical success. There is a demand for TV on people who are watching TV, strange as it seems. Quid est vita vicaria? Common people who relate to common people is likely one of the biggest reasons for this, but I am not content with remaining there. I would want to develop this programme to the next level, should I be given a carte blanche to break down, renew and upholster it completely for an umpteenth season.

Those Apts Are Too Clean
In the show, people sit in their neat sofas in their neat homes, collected from local chain-store furniture sellers. Because they are seen watching TV, they do not want to give an impression of being sloppy sloths, so they have probably spent some time cleaning their apartment, giving it a vacuuming, mopping, weathering and scrubbing. The end result is beige, below bourgeois, boring. Real middle-class members would have more dark colours in their homes, as dark is not worse than light. Contrasts are the flavour of living at home.

How would I change this? In my version, the apartments would be a mess. If the people had pets, they could walk around. If a home pet cat had the “Zoomies”, it would be a viewers’ delight. Unwashed dishes could be present, as their smell could not translate beyond the screen. Plastic bags filled with trash could be in the corridor, waiting to be borne out. The camera would need to be able to wander in the apartment, so that we would see how people live for real, not in a Barbie fantasy world. Real people’s homes are a mess; that’s why they do not invite these days ever anyone over, and that would need to be shown.

Those People Are Not Mean Enough
In the programme, people comment anything in a few words, not saying much. Laughter, repeating verbatim, riffing on words are the stock responses. Maybe they fear that talking over the programme would interfere with the “viewing pleasure” for the crowd who is watching. People shy away from nasty commenting, for fear of offending someone, maybe fearing a lawsuit based on slander, but that fear is ungrounded. In the privacy of their home, they would be allowed to say anything. I am relatively certain a solicitor would concur with me.

How would I change this? It would be paramount to give nasty comments as if off an assembly line. Black humour, disparages, insults, roasting the footage that was on display. Not all would, nevertheless, have to be negative. Kitchen-level philosophy could also come into play: associating something they hear or see with phenomena IRL. Creating rich allusions. The point would be to say something that the viewers liked to hear, something that was “surface-breaking” by nature. Bland comments about bland programming are not good enough. There needs to be a contrast. Bland programming needs to be outbalanced by sharper commenting.

Those Programmes Are Not Worth Viewing
The unfunny thing is that people in the show seem to like the kind of programming that has already been given the lion’s share in programming to begin with. They watch reality TV. And Gogglebox is a reality-TV show too. I understand that they do not want to rack their brains, and it’s ok!, but there is a wide variety of footage to watch that does not rack the brain. While Reality TV is the format that “anyone” is supposed to understand, in all honesty a lot of reality TV is semi-challenging viewing, which requires a full briefing and following up on what happens – all the time. It’s not the easiest genre available.

How would I change this? My grand idea would be to utilise all kinds of short programmes that are on offer out there. Animations, black-and-white goofball clips, comedy, commercials, news, short films, sports summaries, stunts, teasers and trailers would be good footage to show to almost anyone. To that you can add anything that YouTube contains, as it has by now become the world’s “favourite TV channel” in spite of itself. The bigger the contrast to reality TV the better it would be.

In my version, watching TV would be the shambolic pastime it is for most people in the world’s population. We are doing it because we cannot be arsed to do an useful thing, and we should own up to that. It would be important to acknowledge that a big percentage of the world’s population who watch TV are expats, freeloaders, inmates, unemployed, unwell and so on; NOT goody-2-shoes schoolgoing pupils or working fathers and mothers. (Many do not even have kids.) It’s only if and when we faced those facts that Gogglebox would come to terms with itself, redeem itself and ultimately perhaps even become “Programme of the Year“.

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t): Tässä tapauksessa kannatamme likaisempaa versiota Tosi-TV-ohjelmasta, vaikka yleensä ihmiset valittavat “likaisuudesta” ja haluaisivat siistimmän ohjelman katsottavakseen. Annan parilleni näkökulmaksi Beavisin ja Buttheadin ja ohjeeksi sen, että nämä kaksi olisivat maailman tähän astisen kuluneen tv-historian kaksi parasta “sohvaperunaa” ja myös oman näkökulmani tietynlaisia esikuvia. Näin saisimme toisistamme yhtenäisen komplementaarisen tiimin.   

THB smartphones turn people into purposeless fools

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Week 11

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Motion: THB smartphones are a multi-purpose tool
Role: Deputy Leader (opp.)

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I do not own a smartphone. Out of curiosity, I once borrowed my “legendary” girlfriend’s mobile phone and held it in my hand in a kebab restaurant after a meal. I went online into social media and tried to run my business there. It was hopeless. The arrows did not follow my directions. I could not get anything done. I could watch but I could not interact. It was a miserable experience. I do own a mobile phone of the old school for calls and texts. The tardiness and unresponsiveness of mobile phones is still their major drawback. Even if they would work wonderfully with the fastest available 5G connectivity, most people cannot afford that but have to rely on something cheaper and nastier.

Addiction to Mobile Phone Is Like Chainsmoking
People use their mobile phones like a life-long smoker employs cigarettes, cigars, e-cigarettes or snuff. Smartphoning and tobacco products provide a break in the grey monotony of everyday life and a bridge to some alternative universe. The relief of the mobile phone is external, the relief in nicotine internal. The experience can also be built into a chain, as we have seen happen. People cannot always stop their online co-existence; just look at all the people in public transportation with devices in their hands complete with a source of noise and earbuds, just the same as they may light a smoke from the stub of the earlier one and thus build a continuity.

There is also another dimension that they share. Both are ritualistic, routine behaviours, where ritual, sameness and similarity is key. People usually smoke a certain brand and are loath to swap it for something else, even if tobacco brands smell alike and probably also burn alike. When people surf on the Internet, they usually divide their time between few destinations, unable to choose alternative ones, even if the internet is a vast, oceanlike place with lots of places to go. A habit forces people to just consume the content of a select few sites.

Mobile Phones Fit Into One’s Breast or Other Pocket
There is also the similarity that a mobile phone is handy in the same way a pack of cigarettes is; it can be fitted into most pockets in one’s garments. It is easy to produce. Both are rectangular in shape. Earlier mobile phones were not so similar. Nokia Communicator, for instance, was different in shape, so it did not bear the likeness of a pack of smokes. You also need to protect both against humidity and moisture. A mobile phone won’t work around wet, and ciggies don’t catch fire if they are damp.

What I’m saying is that smartphones are alike packs of cigarettes. It has been said of the latter that at one point they were “the World’s cheapest status symbol”, which meant that they were brand products that even peoples in the underdeveloped world could buy and have. I fear that that distinction now goes to smartphone, as it so readily available all over the world. Refugees have smartphones. Their spread is alike that of Marlboro Reds that are also everywhere, like Coca-Cola is. And then there is their affordability. Smartphones have that quality as they can usually be bought in installments on an installment plan, and that is why they are affordable to everyone and also bought by relatively poor people. Loco alimenti circenses ludicras habent.

Smartphones Are the Postmodern Equivalent of a Pack of Cigarettes
I think that I have proven that smartphones are not a multi-purpose tool that they are claimed to be but rather something more sinister. They are the postmodern version of a pack of cigarettes. A drug. A drug of the upper and/or downer family. Surprisingly many things unite the two as a common factor, as has been demonstrated above and earlier on. And what does that mean by extension?? That – they’re bad for you!! of course. 

Like smoking has been phased out by successive steps in society, beginning in 1995, when the first anti-smoking measures were imposed legislatively, it is likely that smartphones could go toward the same fate, except that there is no such legislation so far, not even bills in the pipeline. All the same, changing that is just a matter of time, not of opportunity. Parliaments could swiftly turn against smartphones with help from imaginative MPs and multipartisan committees.    (Here is a related article I discovered only later on.)

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t). Käyn mobiilia yhteiskuntaa vastaan vahvoilla argumenteilla, jotka pohjautuvat todellisuuteen ja sen luonteeseen. Minua ei haittaisi, vaikka faxit, kaapeli-tv, lankalinjat ja puhelinkopit olisivat vielä käytössä, koska niihin liittyy 1900-luvun romantiikkaa. Vastapuolen edustajista ja heidän assertioistaan tuskin on pulaa, koska älypuhelimet ovat lyöneet niin hyvin itsensä läpi yhteiskunnallisesti, joten tästä tulee rehellinen ja tasaväkinen väittely.

THW take higher-education English tuition to the Next Level

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Week 10

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An Australian young adult female band, an impetus to this post.

Motion: THW take higher-education English tuition to the Next Level
Role: Member (gov.)

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I listened to the music of the above ^ band some time ago. It was your by now typical girl band, trying to make themselves germane in a male-dominated music industry. I could not decide whether they were singing in American or British English. Accents notoriously fade away when Anglo-Americans are singing; if you don’t believe, try listening to Def Leppard, so it came with that territory. I decided that they were British, based on the slightly naive looks on their faces. Then I set out to find out. The truth was that the band hailed from Australia. It was neither American nor British.

The Aussie accent is nasal; it reminds us more of the British accent, but it is its own kind. Geographically, Australia is closer to the US, but an entire ocean separates the two. The funny thing is that the easiest way to identify that band as an Aussie band would have been a visual clue: bare shoulders. That is a tip off to Australia. American or British female singers would not bare their shoulders, for their climates are cold enough in both so that there was no reason. Also, coyness may play a role. Another thing is their name: Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers. The name is so rude that in the UK & US, it would not fly. It reminds me of another female-fronted Aussie band, Amy(l) and the Sniffers: rude as well. So, not American, not British, they are from down under, or Terra Australis.

A-Levels
Here, senior high schoolers end their curriculum with the so-called “ylioppilaskirjoitukset”, whose nearest but not solid eq. in the UK is A-levels and in the USA SAT. Fifteen or ten years ago, the reading comprehension test was about how some people acted as real-estate agents on foreclosed properties. Consequently, they were dealing in apts. to people for squatting. That was a time ago, and I do not even know how insanely challenging the texts are by now. Exposure to English is so deep here, given all the A.V. entertainment from the UK and US an average Finn receives that listening and reading comprehension exams are already MORE challenging in English than they are in exams on our two domestic languages, Finnish and Swedish, or any other continental or world language.

We know that language is not merely syntax and a vocabulary. It is also three other things: concepts (things that are endemic to speakers of said language and thin on the ground elsewhere in the world), fanaticisms (the particular, unique preoccupations of the people who speak that language in a native manner) and phoneticisms (the way in which their spoken language differs from the written language). You have to learn all of that to be able to navigate in a linguistic pond astutely. I could in all honesty do all of that, but then again I am older, so how is a farmer’s son whose daily existence may revolve around mink cages supposed to understand such hard challenges to his cognitive system?

Higher-Learning Seats Need to Follow Suit
Because of the above, my claim and statement is that we should let universities make their curricula more challenging. We cannot let our higher education tread water if and when our junior and senior high school pupils are already treated with such mid-insanely challenging material. Universities have made their curricula tough in requiring their students to read a lot, especially fiction, when it comes to students of the English language. However, there are also polarly opposite means.

Let Us Raise the Bar
My grand idea is that a particular class should be divided into five camps of learners in terms of phonetics & pronunciation. Traditionally, people have been divided into speakers of US or UK English, depending on their character and foreign experiences. Some are naturally more drawn to Alison Moyet and Monty Python (and the rest), and the others to Elvis Presley and The Sopranos (and the rest). For all that, there are indeed more countries that speak English on a native level. Students should also learn other Englishes. I am leaving colonial Englishes out, because Hong Kong English is an English with Cantonese influences and Indian English an English with Farsi, Hindi, Sanskrit or Urdu influences – and it does not serve a purpose to teach those to Western students, who do not share that other ethnic constituent language.

What I am envisioning is 5 major types of English: American, Australian, English proper, Irish and Scottish English. Namely, I feel that Canadian, New Zealand and South African English do not differ in their own right enough from the rest, or they have a similar colonial baggage as ˆ. Incoming students should be assigned respectively to speak like the above-mentioned native speakers in small subdivisions of 3–7 students and receive 101, 202, 303 and 404 tuition in speaking like a native. Coming out of the university, they might be quizzed: “Where did you learn to speak into your nose like that? In Australia?” To which they would respond: “No, at a European university.”

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t). Tarpeellinen puhe tekee selväksi, että englannin kielen tason on noustava kauttaaltaan eikä pelkästään nuorimmissa ikäluokissa. Jos sen taso nousee päiväkodeissa, sen täytyy nousta myös aikuisten päiväkodeissa eli yliopistoissa. Vastapuolen tehtäväksi jää puolustaa status quo’ta. 

THS young men who cannot find their place in society

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Week 9

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Women get 1st prizes all the time.

Motion: THR young men who cannot find their place in society
Role: Member (opp.)

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It is not hard to find articles online or printed about how young men have lost their way and how they are a “burden” or a “threat” to society. Sometimes it gets ridiculous, when even 5-to-9-year-old pupils in school are seen as a “challenge” in some way, even though we know that children are unruly and have historically always been. I am here addressing the explicit tone of today’s discourse on men and young men and how it is challenging to listen to or read about with a straight face. I am also giving insights into how we ended up like this and what we can do about it.

Employers Hire Average Females for Jobs That Literally Anyone Can Do
First of all, men are mistreated in the job market. Here’s the deal: high performers and winners regardless of who they are can usually choose their perks, salary and workplace. They are the ones whose jobs other people cannot do, such as coders, consultants, designers, developers, entrepreneurs, innovators, lawyers etc. They jointly take so much of a common “cake” that only scraps are left to those who have a lesser skillset. When people are being considered for a job that requires a nil skillset such as answering the phone at a company’s telephone exchange, women today get those jobs, not men.

The reason why women get nil skillset jobs is that they are favoured by both men and women that have already been hired to the workplace. To men, women are a nice accessory, nice to look at, something that brightens the day, as women spend some of their salary and wages on clothes, for starters. To women, other women are a reassurance that the workplace is not a macho place and the more women there exist the fewer become chances there for sexual harassment without testimonials. So, both the bosses and H&R conspire to hire mostly just lowly-educated women at any given workplace. At the same time, men get screwed when it comes to jobs with a nil-skillset requirement, as there are also men with null skills in society. Non omnia possumus omnes.

Purported Mental Illness Is Just an Excuse for Avoidance of “Unemployable” Status
When men who are not educated in the right way to meet society’s needs are faced with this reality, they embark upon their own coping mechanisms. They start faking mental illness. They claim they have a bipolar disorder, depression or mania or something else to be able to qualify for a pension without a requirement to work. It would suit them just fine as the amount of money is bigger than your regular unemployment checks. The reason is that it is meant to cover the medications as well, which can be expensive. So, the men think that they will just fake a mental illness, leave those meds unbought and pocket the difference. They won’t get a cushy life, but it is probably the best one available.

The reason why I do not believe in the idea that mental disturbances are on the rise is that disorders of the psychotic kind seem to be almost non-existent. In the past, psychosis was much rifer than it is today, thanks to, for instance wars waged, and a reason why mental asylums were built in the first place. They were built to isolate dangerous lunatics from regular people. A reminder of this past is still tangible in the way people are rejected for care when they seek it based on something else than a psychosis. Such cannot be faked, it is always real. So, if people were honestly as crazy as they claim to be, there would be a much wider spectrum of disease ranging from anorexia to trichotillomania, complete with out-of-control behaviours; yet, most people just hide behind a diagnosis of “controlled depression”.

Young Men Should Remove Themselves From Dating Apps and Stop Donating to Semen Banks
Because the system is duplicitous, rigged and treacherous, young men should do things right now, not wasting any more precious time. And here are my words of advice to them. 1) Remove yourselves from dating apps, each and every one, even the good ones. Making them enclaves for women only will send a message. Women will certainly tire of only seeing female faces there. Furthermore, 2) stop giving donations to women who want to get pregnant. It does not serve any purpose whatsoever to you. You are givers, they are takers. If there were no semen donations to those banks, women would soon tire of them and ditch their memberships and payments. The existing samples would curdle over time. There is no disadvantage. You will not lose anything you have not already lost. You may gain some pride – in yourselves. There is a proviso: it’s OK to accept women, if and when they attempt to get your attention, companionship and semen in the old-school way.

I know that my advice is not waterproof. Women could compensate. They would turn their noses overseas, turning to foreign men of sundry nationalities for companionship, courtship, love, marriage and semen. But your big spanner 🔧 in the works would make it harder on them. They could no longer get everything lying on their ar**s. They would need to bust those ar**s. Not any woman could do it. Meanwhile, you could plot your way back in to the bosom of society. Never feel ashamed of yourselves — if you are young men.

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t): Rabiaatti puheeni on parhaimmillaan viimeisenä uutta ainesta sisältävänä puheena eli II tiimin aloittajana. Koska ohjeistukseni on sen verran haihattelevaa, pilvilinnamaista ja sideharsonohutta, ei haittaa, vaikka en esitä sitä liiderinä, koska sitä ei kuitenkaan tulla ottamaan tosissaan. Se tarjoaa väittelylle siitä huolimatta todella dramaattisen lopetuksen, joka jää kummittelemaan kuulijoiden mieliin.