Death Is Bad

While working with power tools recently, I heard someone say “Remember, Safety Third!” I’d always heard “Safety First”, so I asked him to explain.

In his community (which handles power tools much more frequently than I do), it’s a combination joke and reminder. Everyone says “Safety First”, but this is a lie. If Safety really was First, they wouldn’t be using power tools at all. Power tools improve efficiency tremendously, but at the price of safety – it’s impossible to accidentally cut your own hand off with a traditional hand-saw. So things like time and money savings trump safety, and everyone knows it. That’s the “joke” part of it.

But more importantly is the “reminder” part. It reminds you that the Corporate Dragons may say “Safety First”, but they don’t mean it. YOUR safety is not THEIR highest priority. So it has to be YOUR OWN priority. You cannot trust them to act in your best interest in anything, ever. You must personally weigh when the costs outweigh the benefits, and act accordingly. Never trust a them to have your best interests at heart.

Remember, Safety Third.

I love Community (except for most of season 4, of course). Episode 6 of Season 5 touched on one of my favorite themes in fiction – the final basis of all power is the ability to do violence to others.

The episode follows Annie as she explores the bureaucratic anatomy of Greendale Community College. Greendale’s power structure is diffuse, with many small pockets of specialized power in a delicate balance. It’s an interesting (if brief) examination of motives of the powerful, and the repercussions their desires have on the populace at large. But that’s just the set up for the really interesting conflict.

The power balance in Greendale is tense enough that Annie can’t get her cork-board approved, so she decides to circumvent the entire system and simply install it herself. This is, of course, completely unacceptable to the powers that be. It is a challenge to the existing authorities, allowing it stand means a huge loss of credibility for those at the top. Why should anyone respect the Dean if his rules can be broken at a student’s whim? The actors below him will no longer be reined in by his authority and the resulting power struggle could cripple the whole school (well, moreso). So the Dean dispatches Hired Goons to take down the corkboard, as his prerogative as the recognized head of the Greendale Leviathan.

And here’s where it gets really interesting. Annie physically attacks the Hired Goons. Because when it all comes down to it, power structures are just ways of organizing how much violent force any particular coalition can muster. Leviathan is left with a choice – crush the opposition, or demure. Leviathan has much bigger goons and would almost assuredly win this direct physical confrontation. And demurring is always undesirable, as it weakens the Leviathan’s ability to credibly threaten others in the future. However in this case the opposition is more than just some student rabble. Annie is a founding member of a strong student coalition which has spent the past 4.5 seasons growing in influence in Greendale. They are admired by the student body, and have previously shown themselves able to spark or douse riots. They have allies within the greater community, and Annie has shown herself adept at navigating and wooing the Greendale power structure. Up until this point they have been nominal allies of the Dean, turning them into enemies would be unwise. Moreover, there is the possible intervention of the greater leviathan of State & Local Laws to consider (whose views on the matter are uncertain), and the Dean is sexually attracted to one of the other founding members of the group.

The Dean calls off the attack. Annie’s coalition is willing to fight and make this victory too costly for its rewards. And importantly, Leviathan has shown its teeth, and reminded those watching that anyone who wishes to challenge it needs to at least have the power base of Annie’s group.

(also, Annie has just (unwittingly?) made herself a bigger player in the Greendale power game. If this was a political show I’d be thrilled by the implications :) )

However, despite all the alliances and influence to consider, what it boiled down to in the end is who had the greater ability and willingness to do violence to the other side. The Hired Goons flexed their muscles. Annie jumped on one and beat him, and rallied the other founding members of her coalition to literally stand at her side in a wall of angry fists. It was their willingness to spill blood that was the decisive moment of their triumph. This is the sort of story I adore. The anger and desperation that pushes people to say “No more.” The point that turns them from participants in the façade of civilization, to people who demand the lies be thrown aside and the true violent nature of power be done to them as proof of dedication. That tipping point where the hand is called, and the real priorities of everyone are laid bare.

It was wonderfully done, especially for a 22 minute comedy show.

Back in the Bad Old Days there was only one major distributor of porn – Playboy.

Since it was run by Hugh Hefner, it swung wildly towards his tastes in women. They’re obvious – super-thin, blonde, big boobs. As a result, several generations grew up experiencing this as the model of beauty, and with this as their first encounter with sexuality.

Quickly this became known as what was desirable. Men started chasing these types of women purely for the status effects. When you’re young and insecure it’s extremely important to you that your peers think well of you. They will judge you by the mates you can attract. And when you’re very young, it doesn’t matter that much if you aren’t very attracted to that type – you can screw almost anything anyway, and being admired more important.

In this way Hugh Hefner unintentional screwed an entire generation of marriages. Once people start to get older, their true sexual preferences become much more important. If you don’t find that wasted-away look enticing it’s much harder to maintain a sexual relationship. Sexual frustration builds and divorce results. Partly because the men were too concerned with looking good in front of others to really listen to what their dicks were telling them, and partly because they didn’t have a lot of opportunities to query their dicks in the first place. When the majority of your tests are restricted to Playboy you don’t get a very representative sample.

Fortunately the internet came to save the day! Online porn is ubiquitous, anonymous, and extremely easy to access. The market for porn exploded. Suddenly 100% of men (and many women) were direct purchasers, rather than a handful of media moguls and publishers. And porn producers found it was incredibly easy to draw market share by giving people exactly what they wanted.

Which leads us to today, where literally every taste is pandered to, and everyone can easily find what appeals to them. This is especially important for the young and inexperienced, because when you’re first discovering your sexuality you aren’t quite sure what you like. When all you see is the stick-figure blondes  it may be excusable to come to the conclusion that’s what’s hot. But when you have the full spectrum of human beauty to peruse and pursue at your leisure, you quickly come to notice patterns in what you like. You scroll past boring waifish girls and click after the succulent well-curved ladies.

Then when you go out into the real world and date around a few times you’re much more likely to go after that which you already know you want. I won’t lie – status pressure is still real, it exists. But when you know what you want, and you can honestly look at someone and think “You know, she’s a great person and fun to be around, but she really just doesn’t do anything for me sexually” it’s much easier to shrug that pressure off. You save both of you a lot of time and possibly heart-ache. You don’t end up in marriages that are lacking in sexual desire.

In short – internet porn is helping people to know their own desires better, and at a younger age, and as a result avoid bad marriages. This is a good thing, and we should thank internet porn for making our relationships stronger. :)