In an attempt to keep alive the discussion about the Law of Diminshing Returns, which got itself tagged onto the end of the "are you Different?" dicussion of Kevin's, before that one falls off the top page of the discussion list, let me recap:
The Law, which I think originated in management-ology, refers to the notion that if you expend some effort in an endeavour, you will achieve modest success. If you expend eg twice the effort you only get eg 1.5 times the amount of success.
If you double that, ie 4 times the amount of effort, you'll only get say, 1.75 times your initial return in success terms. Thus your rate of effort expended becomes an exponential function relative to the linear function of your return. So subjectively your return is diminshed.
When I attempted to apply this Law to The Music my effort was met with a return to which I would have felt diminished were I made of clay.
If I recall Econ 101 correctly, this idea originated in economics. The basic gist of the law is that if one "factor of production" (labor, for example) is increased while the others remain constant, the overall returns will relatively decrease after a certain point. So as more and more cooks, say, are added to a kitchen to chop veggies, at some point each additional cook will add relatively fewer chooped vegies than his/her predecessor did because s/he has fewer veggies to work with. At some extreme point, the kitchen's overall productivity further decreases because the cooks get in each other's way. Economists like to think that the law applies to all productive enterprise--so perhaps music, and trad music in particular, is spared. Then again, less is more, especially when it comes to bodhrans, noisy punters, and polkas.
Our previous discussion focused on how the law might apply to the number of hours you practice. If, on a whim, you decided to increase your practice time from 120 hours a week to, say, 135 hours, the law suggests that you'd get less out of those additional 15 hours than you might if you increased your practice time from 1 hour a week to 16 hours a week.
Previous threads here have touched on other possible areas the law might work in this music:
After memorizing your first 3,0741 tunes, you might notice a decline in the speed and accuracy of "tune retrievability" as you learn additional tunes.
At some point, adding yet another fiddle to the full bleachers of the session's string section might not noticeably improve the overall sound, at least not as much as adding the second fiddle to the first at the beginning of the evening.
And of course, your 19th pint of stout, though it may pack the final wallop, no doubt does not make the woman in the knee-length sweater and leotards banging the tambourine appreciable more attractive than did the 7th pint. (Note that in this instance, the law of diminishing returns probably has, not unlike gravitational pull, a mutual effect.)
Ah -- so the LODR means that the 19th pint makes the Gypsy Queen *less* attractive (perhaps because at that point you're passing out from alcohol poisoning and can no longer see her), meaning that at a certain point, the beer goggles fog up?
Poor Danny. Your feelings weren't *really* hurt, were they? I'll kiss 'em and make 'em feel better if you like... *snort*
LODR...geesh, we're an acronym-happy lot, aren't we? After my second pint I can imagine a new dance revue--LODR of the DANNY, starring Michael Flatley of course (whose name anagrams out to "I Am Leaking Aftly")....
I don't know if it works like that for other people but it certainly doesn't for me. My progress doesn't seem to follow any sort of law at all. It seems to happen in little bursts. Usually if I listen to a recording of myself playing I'll think "that sounds awful - I want to hear more bass" or "I'm behind the beat" or whatever. If I hadn't opened my ears to that, I could have gone on making whatever mistake it was for years. So for me it has to do with listening, and my own state of mind at any particular time. This means I can be playing one day, go away and listen to a recording (or someone else's CD), not play for a whole week and then come back to it fresh a week later and play better in a different mindset. My point is that for me this happens not because of the LODR and practice time, but because I know what I eventually want myself to sound like, and the more self critical I'm willing to be, the more likely it is that I can progress towards achieving that.
Deb - interesting article. Where does learning a language come in? Declarative or procedural? Procedural, I guess, as there's a lot of rote-learning involved. I did A-level Spanish a few years ago (probably high school graduation level, your side of the pond - most of which I've now forgotten) and much of it was rote-learning, but with a few bits where you have to 'think' - eg the subjunctive mood.
Zina, I didn't feel hurt at all, honest, maybe slightly bemused, which came out like "crying Wolf"! But thanks for your sympathy and the offer to kiss my feelings better...say no more...this is a family show.
Will - I stand corrected if the idea came about in economics. But agree in terms of players at sessions, small is beautiful.
Dow, I like your notion of your improvement happening in bursts - maybe the skills you amass after several practices/sessions knit together and form a critical mass to take you over yet another musical hurdle....just a thought....
Interesting posting Deb. I have recently been trying to develop a technique; I am following the sound advice of Will whereby I develop speed and neatness together in a methodical manner and I can report some progress but the LODR applies on a daily basis. I am having to set aside a limited time for thereafter the fingers do seem to get a bit fuzzy. But how comforting to know it is my brain's fault and that it could probably be backdated to that extra stout that I should have declined back in 1990. Anyway, your ideas do suggest that somewhere there is a maximum turning point in the effort curve beyond which LODR assumes control but since the effort curve is a function of more intractable variables than time and since some of these may be highly subjective, such as positive feelings, I can't see that I will have anything else other than that old gut feeling to tell me when I should practise, when I should refrain and, more complex, how and how not I should practise. Alas the problem is not a matter of quantities.
Fascinating stuff about how the brain works. The law of dimminishing returns seems to work with me in with a direct link to my boredom threshold. I wonder if any one else has noticed this with regards to practicing.
When I first started playing I practiced for hours and hours every day and the returns were slow but incremental. Now I never practice. I find it too boring. But I'm still getting better. So how do we define practice? as apposed to playing?
You could say that practice is methodical, deliberate playing on your own. You know the kind of thing, going over and over bits you can't do. Maybe when you are in the process of creating all these nural finger brain connections this kind of playing in neccessary. But now I find it just too boring. I don't want to play on my own, I don't want to play the same tune over and over.
It seems that, and I hope there is general agreement on this, that playing music is by far the best practice.
Speaking of whom can anyone answer this (Einstein's Puzzle) - nothing to do with The Music!:
There are 5 houses in five different colors. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. These five owners drink a certain drink, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet no owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink the same drink. The question is --- who owns the fish?
Hints:
- the Brit lives in the red house
- the Swede keeps dogs as pets
- the Dane drinks tea
- the green house is on the left of the white house
- the green house owner drinks coffee
- the person who smokes Pall Mal rears birds
- the owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill
- the man living in the house right in the center drinks milk
- the Norwegian lives in the first house
- the man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats
- the man who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes Dunhill
- the owner who smokes Blue Master drinks beer
- the German smokes Prince
- the Norwegian lives next to the blue house
- the man who smokes Blend has a neighbor who drinks water
*** Einstein wrote this quiz last century. He said that 98% of the World could not figure it out. ***
Thanks Deb, for putting this theory out for mass consumption. My wife and I were talking about this a while back, as she has been reading about brain theory in preparation for her MEd. There's now a running joke in the house with the punchline coming after learning a new tune: "Boy, does my brain ever feel bigger!" I needed an icepack after learning "The Foxhunter's", my first 5-parter. ;>)
When you think about it though, it is truly amazing that two years ago, I'd never heard Irish music before and now I play in a weekly session and have about two hundred tunes memorized. Considering that I had pretty much no musical ability prior to this, it is really amazing. I am sure that most of this group have had similar experiences of their own. As I say to people, "It sure ain't talent, it's just plain old stubborness". When you're driven to play, you just gotta play.
Michael B. and I were talking about this a couple of months ago and he put forth the theory of "patterns and miles around the track". This basically said that to a certain point, it really isn't talent that lets you play music, it's recognition of patterns and burning those patterns into the brain. Once they're in there, you can move forward. I'm comfortable with this theory because it demystifies the process a bit and desanctifies the great players we all look up to and learn from. As MB said, 'Gerry O'Connor didn't come out of the womb able to play the banjo.' ;>)
With regards to the brain growing, my greatest inspiration comes from watching my son, who will be two next month. I started playing a month before he was born and have noticed milestones in my playing which coincide with his development. When he was learning to walk, he would fall over and over again, but never gave up or got frustrated. I was inspired with this and followed his example to finally get the hang of triplets. Now he is building his vocabulary through repetition and exploration and I'm now finding learning by ear much easier for the same reasons. Truly amazing stuff. It can be learned and the brain seems to make room for it all.
For what it's worth, my progress seems to work in small increments with an occasional burst that Dow mentioned. Heartbreaking as it is, I have followed advice that our session leader Wil gave me and I take a week off once in a while. When you go back to it, boy can you ever play better!
....Yes, it's the German. Funnily enough, it took me a while too. I'm not sure I'd call it a 'wee' while. I've no Idea how long - I lost track of time - but it involved a lot of scrawling complex flowcharts and the like.
Lilting - yes! I'm glad you mentioned that, Deb. Another great side-effect of being a dad is that you tend to sing a lot to the bundle. When I started out on being a dad (and a mandolin player), I defintely could not hum a tune to save my soul. (Poor kid) Now I can hum and whistle tunes pretty well.
I was very skeptical of the part in Chris Smith's book that said learning by ear was a teachable and learnable skill. Now I know different. I also agree that learning tunes on your instrument is much easier once you can hum/whistle/lilt them. I guess one part of the brain that "hears" the tune helps the other part that has to play it.
Time off is great for unlearning bad habits - some of them scream out at you when you've been away from it for a while and beg to be corrected. Others carry on unnoticed until a later time.
In practical terms, my guess is that in order to get better, learn tunes faster and more accurately, etc., one has to take a variety of approaches that stimulate several different parts of the brain. Try and get as many senses invloved as possible.
Basically, it says that motor skills only improve with practice up to a certain point and then sort of plateau, UNLESS you take a nap (short or long) and then come back to it. Then things improve again. I can hear it now: "But, honey, I NEED to play the (insert name of loud instrument here) right before I go to sleep. I didn't mean to wake you ...."
At least we now have scientific support for that particular domestic offense.
'sGood. I like it, sparrow. So what are we actually DOING with all these theories (such as that [LODR] which I've droned on about here) and experiments to find out how we perform maximally?
Who knows how long _Homo sapiens sapiens_ has graced this planet? s'got to be 500,000 years, anyway, in its current recognisable genotypic form---so just what are we doing with all the questions-n-answers?
Wouldn't it be great to think the bodies that fund such research had we, the nice little scientists, in mind when they benevolently fund us for another 3 years? Charities, yeah, that's fine, but why does Glaxo want a particular answer.
Right now Sub-Saharan Africa is in a state of total disaster, much worse than when Bob Geldof made his appeal, and is about to plunge into a catastrophe far worse than that one, and all we give a shite about is a load of pish about how much we practice our instruments.
Who said we gave a shite about it, Danny? Why don't you start up a charity fund or drive? Say, a benefit CD of ITM? Proceeds to go to Sub-Saharan Africa through one of the charitable organizations working in the area? I'm sure everyone here would be happy to donate a track. Hell, most of the most famous of players would probably donate a track.
Speaking for myself, I don't think it's that musicians, ITM or otherwise, don't care. OF COURSE the problems of the world are of more importance than fine-tuning one's ornamentation. I admit I have been almost exclusively a lurker around the Session so far. But it has been a wonderful place to come when I have put in a couple excruiating hours reading about the occupied territories or North Korea or the latest Big Brother technology or any other of the machinations of big government/business. Sometimes you have to get out of the city and into the islands for awhile, and this is wonderful air to breathe. Thanks everyone. But it's good to be reminded, too. Thanks, Danny.
A welcome change, Conan.
I'd love to get down - I'll have to hone my negotiating skills to razor sharp, though, as I was down the Duke last night! so don't bank on me being there.
Zina, I am still a member of a campaign group/charity called War on Want, though I'm regrettably much less active than in days of yore. Their strategy is to focus on areas where help is needed, but to enable people to help themselves thus averting phenomena such as the forthcoming sub-saharan catastrophy. Web site for their latest newsletter:
Can the ''problems of the world" be solved with a bit of guilt led altruism?
Is it "inhuman" to push the ''problems of the world" away in favour of playing music?
500,000 years on this planet?
Archeologists, biologists and sociologists have argued this for a long time, but their consensus now is that we became human when we first created art.
Surely we all need a bit of escapism, it's not wrong to want to forget the world's problems. The ideal would be to get a bit of escapism - by, say, delving into a new CD - but the act of buying that CD would go a little way to solving whatever catastrophe is current. Musicians are very generous with their time for charity though - I spotted recently in the paper that Donal Lunny was playing a concert for Palestinian children, and local small-time musicians where I live have raised hundreds of pounds for various charities by playing in church halls. We're an altruistic bunch really, aren't we?!
Sounds like a good excuse for doing nothing, Michael. If you were able to help just one person by giving some time or money you might have helped solve the problems of their particular world. That would be good enough for me. If you see altruism as completely guilt-led, I dread to think how cynical you are in other spheres. Who said anything about pushing anything away in favour of the music? Some of the stuff that's come out in this and other related discussions is how expansive human consciousness can be to accomodate several lines of thought, near enough at once.
Maybe I'm my own worst enemy for expressing some feedback on my own thread. So be it.
But yes, you're right about disputing my 500,000 years estimate - I was being conservative - let's call it 1,000,000 years then.
"...dread to think..." Danny, how long have you been at thesession.org?!
I like Zina's idea of doing a charity CD with Danny in charge - howay Danny man prove you care!
Dubg
It'd sell enough, Danny. If even a child's pennies help (if only by teaching the kid how to give to others who need), surely a five buck donation from a single CD sale would do better. You could get War On Want to organize/host the thing, perhaps. Most of the artists would probably send a track for it. Even a The Session CD would be fun to tout for it. I'd host the webwork on my site for you if you want, if War on Want can't. Bet we could talk Jeremy into working on the thing too. I could get a graphics company to donate their work, or we have a couple of graphics people here. We could probably find a distribution company that'll donate their profits so we can pay only for the materials costs. Take your costs (manufacture, printing, shipping, handling) and double it, and there's your sale price for the CD.
It's a powerful lot of work, though. Make sure you have the time for it. It'll take over your life for a bit. Still, behooves us to take the time, since we're not the ones starving and thirsting to death, right? Bet if we shared the load amongst some of us here at The Session, it'd be a lot easier.
In no way to I want to undemine everyone's efforts to push Danny into spearheading a fund-drive. But I do think there's a philosophical point that needs making here.
If you consider the woes of the sub-sahara, it's hard to think any human endeavor short of helping those people somehow is worth our energy. But the fact is, human misery is the negative half of the continuum that represents human exprience, and the plight of the people in the sub-sahara represents one extreme point on that continuum. The poor sap who goes hunting for aluminum in the dumpster near my work place every day is worse off than I am but probably not as bad off as those starving people in Africa. Can I only do good by operating at the far end of that misery continuum?
I guess I would argue that anything and everything we do that falls on the "good" or "beautiful" side of the human continuum is a worthy endeavor, and we all can hope that all of it will help tilt the balance. Give a hundred bucks or a year's labor to fight starvation: that's a great thing. Give a buck to your neighborhood wino: that's a good thing.
What's more, I'd argue that playing music isn't necessarily a selfish act that fails to add to the good and the beautiful. One of the causes of human misery in third world countries is human greed. Famine isn't always nature's fault. The arts supposedly enrich us by accentuating the good and the beautiful; when we post about how The Music has changed us (different thread, similar topic), I suspect we all have benefitted deep down in ways we can't explain, spiritual ways, if you want to call them that. And bringing others into The Music is a form of proselytizing, and it all adds to the good and the beautiful. Not as much as giving a buck to a wino or a hundred bucks to famine relief efforts in Africa, I suppose, but it's all good.
How's that for a load of bullshit?
Michael Gill's last comment reminded me of a saying I once heard.
A Liberal is defined as a person who recognizes that life isn't fair but tries as best they can to make sure everyone has a fair chance. A Conservative is a person who believes that life is not fair and (since they already have their fair share) they like life just the way it is.
Cu thanks for that. I've always felt guilty about my music playing because I thought it so self-indulgent. I use it when I've got other more important things to do. I use it to make myself feel better when I'm feeling slightly down, and also when I'm feeling gleeful at the pub with my mates in combination with high levels of needless and health-threatening alcohol intake. I know that music has done things for me spiritually but mostly I'm just greedy. In some ways it weakens me as a person...
Danny I"m so glad you took on the onus of starting this thread since I was the one who brought up the LODR initially, & I've been accused of being too (insert descriptor here) so good on you to absorb the bulk.
I know Malthus is outdated but I'm pretty sure he used this idea of LODR in terms of population as well (a huge motivator of mine), ie we're all living on a big petri dish so when resources are diminished, we're looking at a big mess, to wit, Africa or SE Asia, or inner city USA or whatever. As a bleeding heart liberal, yeah, sometimes I feel like I'm pissing in the wind with my smallish contributions, but I have tried to align my career goals with ideas of compassion & helping (& FWIW also I ultimately hope to get back into research, I find the idea of an HPV vaccine is thrilling). We all have to just take care of our own little corner & not be overwhelmed by the global picture & do nothing, & also take care of ourselves so we can continue to improve our little corner. (Out here, we're actually planning a wee benefit concert to help raise money to prevent domestic violence on the rez, a particular pet peeve of mine, though it's slow in taking shape as so many projects can.) In any case, if music nurtures your soul which helps you clean up your little corner, that's what I think is important & more than justifies the rest.
This is a strange coincidence, the phrase Law of Diminishing Returns comes to me everytime I walk from Goodge Street to Charing Cross. Nearly every day, up to 2 or 3 different representatives from charities try and stop you in the street to ask you to spare a few minutes. At first, when the reps were a once a week occurence, I would explain that I have already 3 charities on the go and cannot stretch to another, or I'd mention if I was already a member, however, my patience has waned as the number of charities represented has increased. I try my best usually to avoid eye contact and walk as far away as I can, and to be honest, I don't feel like talking just as I've left work. I often wonder then whether others feel the same way and whether sending charity reps in the street may have worked at first but is less successful as the number of reps increases. Any thoughts on this?
As for musical progress, my playing increases in fits with some long periods where nothing happens, same as most I guess, but if I stop playing for a week, I get a lot worse, so still at the beginner's stage.
Danny, hope you can make it to the Duke tonight, the singers have given up and Billy's still sulking and whilst the present barman is slower than a comatose snail, he's never in any hurry to get home, same as us. Any other diddlers very welcome.
cath
Caoimghgin's simple reductionism is both a symptom of the Lideral's general despair and of the Conservative's grip on global power.
But let's look at this more closely:
Charity is a deeply conservative phenomenum. Both socialists and capitalists relieve their consciences by vague commitments to re-distributuion of wealth. Socialists believe it should be done via the state through taxation. Capitalists believe we all should have the individual freedom to choose how much of our wealth we distribute - so they allow private pressure groups to form who each think they have a monopoly on how best the re-distribution should be done.
Does any of this work? Did not someone suggest earlier in this thread that the African problem is worse now than it ever was, despite Sir Bob Geldof.
The truth is that all charities do is let governments off the hook.
And are charities fair? By far the biggest one in the UK is the RSBP. It seems we'd rather protect the little creatures of our own land than human beings on distant shores. And remember Bob Dylan at JFK stadium during live aid, saying some of the money should go to American farmers.
So do we in the Western world, the top 2% of the world's rich, have a resposability to the other 98%? Caoimghgin thinks so, and I agree, but what are we doing about it? Just sustaining the whole system by pathetically trying to "do our bit".
Good points Michael - medical charities especially I feel are dangerous - why give money to a hospital charity (we get Great Ormond St Hosp personnel shaking their buckets at Charing X) when this should be done through our taxes. Personally, I'm one of those who would be happier paying a bit more taxes if it went towards helping the sick and the homeless. I would not give money to the British Heart Foundation or the Cancer Research in the UK as their research should be financed by the government, and it gives the government an excuse not to spend money on necessary research and you end up with a situation where private pharmaceutical companies develop treatment, patent it and we know the consequences of this.
However, animal charities exist because getting a government to pay for animal welfare would not be popular with some people, so this is truly voluntary. Maybe giving to animal charities is a way to assuage some guilt, or it may be purely sentimental or genuinely altruistic, but I do believe it's a necessary source of income to these charities. Another two charities I can think of are Amnesty International and Medecins sans Fontieres which were created out of necessity and have to exist independently of governments. So again, giving there makes sense.
c
My two cents: giving to others (in time, effort, or monetary ways) should never be reduced or dismissed as useless or pathetic, nor, far as I'm concerned, be a political issue. Either you give. Or you don't. Each person has their own way of giving. Each person has a necessary timetable for giving. I can't judge 'em without risking judgement myself. Until I'm living their life with all the demands placed upon them, I can't make that call.
The cycles of living and dying are always with us and around us. You can't have life without death. But it still sucks. And I'll put it off, for me and for others, as best I can 'til it's time to give in gracefully.
No fears, Danny. We'll figure something out later when there's less going on.
Amnesty international is a good exaple of a charity I do support. Yes it has to exist outside any govermental bodies because governmantal bodies are it's main target. This means it's only sources of revenue could be personal donations. Plus, they are not about wealth redistribution, but justice distribution.
Danny, I'm trying not to be lunatical (?) here. I know I'm a incorrigible cynic, but I'm really trying to be practical. I don't pretend to have answers, but I do know that charity is self defeating. And that what defines us a humans is not our comapssion, but our ability to create art.
Zina, everthing we do has political repercussions. You cannot decide to be outside politics. And how can death suck if you can't have life without it? Logically, you are saying that life sucks.
And just to prove I'm not as much a cynic as I think I am, I just looked up "charity" in my Chamber's English Dictionary:
"Universal love: The disposition to think favourably of others"
It's got nothing to do with wealth distribution.
That depends on whether you want to see people as part of a group or as individuals. Both viewpoints have validity for certain applications. For this one, chastising people for the temerity to give to charities is of little to no practical use.
Life *does* suck. Haven't you noticed? It's not fair, unless you happen to luck out. Bad stuff happens. Having charity for others is what makes it bearable.
Telling people not to give to a charity to force a government to spend "correctly" is bass-ackward. If you want to change that, if you truly want to be practical, then change the way the government sees its spending priorities. Until then, all you'll do is cut off funds to organizations with no other way to get them.
If thinking favourably of others means parting with a few of our many shekels to give to people who have none, that's ok by me - so long as it doesn't create a dependency culture. You're up against the old dichotomy of expediency versus idealism. The idealist says don't give to charity cos governments should do that. Unfortunately, we live in a very, very imperfect world, and there isn't another planet to escape to for many light years. We know that governments are never going to carry out these functions, so we have to act expediently. I find myself nearly agreeing with michael (!) that there's no point in just chucking money at a problem - and hardly any of it gets to the people who need it most anyway (he didn't say that - I did, but he implied it, yeah, michael?) That's why I used to hang out with War on Want, and am still a member and have a standing order to them, etc, etc. For your benefit here's their link again,
which if you care to read you will find that yes they are a charity but they raise funds to carry out their campaigns in UK and for their projects in targetted parts of the developing world, where they help people to help themselves. Here's a wee quote from their introduction:
Throughout its history War on Want has supported people who have struggled to find their own path to development. We have worked in partnership with progressive governments and organisations to find solutions to the failure of the world economic system to deliver a more equal distribution of wealth.
I think people exist as individuals who are part of a group. I'm not sure you can seperate it. That's what I meant when I said you can't opt out of politics. And I agree that my chastising has no practical use, and I'm am sorry about this. As I said, I have no answers.
I think my main frustration with this is that you can't stop people from giving to charities, even if you wanted to.
If there was a political will, a government could, at a stroke, make it illegal for a charity to recieve money, while simultaneously replacing their budgets with a centralised grant. This would be fairer because of the progessive taxation systems we have. And gradually the heads of these organisations could be replaced by more accountable, democratically elected politicians who would enter well publicised funding rounds.
But you could never stop people giving, and this is why the above utopia would never work. The act of giving perpetuates the inequalities.
I'm sorry that you think life sucks, zina.
Please don't be too depressed about this, you're supposed to be the possitive one and I'm supposed to be the cynic. Life is a great roller coaster of creation and learning. How can that suck? Life is fantastic.
It's easy for all us middle-class western people to sit about and theorise what is good, what is politics, blah blah.
The nearest I got to experiencing life in a developing country was several months in Nicaragua during the Civil War against the Reagan-backed Contra.
One of the jobs I did was picking coffee. You get up at 4am, have breakfast of rice, kidney beans and corn tortilla (which we also had for lunch and evening meal), with black coffee, be working on the slopes for 6am, put in a 9-hour day 6 days a week. For peanuts. The work was absolutely knackering and quite dangerous. I think we did that for just 4 weeks, but that's the lot of yer average campesino, harvest after harvest. Another one was in Bluefields on the Carribean coast, where we helped build temporary accomodation for people made homeless by a hurricane. Those people had literally. Nothing. At. All. No shoes, no change of clothes, Nothing. There's no welfare, no infrastructure, no money, NO safety net whatsoever in those sort of countries - you either live or .... you,
emm,
Zina being cynical!!!??? Micheal being postive???!!! That must explain why I saw those four curious horsemen with rather depressing names trotting down the street this morning!
Frankly, I'm very ambivelent towards charities of any sort and probably more jaded than most at the thought of participating or giving to any charity at all. In that respect, I suppose I'm in Micheals camp on this issue. I look at situations in sub-saharan Africa and simply scratch my head. Many of these countries are not without substantial mineral resources that could sustain everyone quite happily, provided they weren't so busy commiting mass genocide against each other. On the home front, I have the same group of beggers in front of the 7-11 that I've seen 5 years before. Surely, 5 years is enough time to get back on your feet and I have long since stopped giving any money to them.
Some say 'But for the grace of God go I' when they see pictures of famine, poverty or the local homeless guy, but I have a hard time believing that. I'd like to think that I have the heart of a liberal, but maybe my brain has turned conservative. Or perhaps by heart has withered into a black uncaring cinder of it's former self.
The act of giving perpetuates inequalities? Hmm well that undermines my entire belief system as a nurse whose job it is to care about other ppl & try to improve their quality of life. I think I touch the lives of those who need me, whether finding shelter & transportation, mediating difficult relationships, helping provide a healthy & positive pregnancy & birth experience, or simply reinforcing your central tenet, Michael, that yes, life can be wonderful despite all the inherent disparities built into the current state of things.
When I worked in Thailand with the HIV sex workers, one particular image chilled me & that is the slums & ghettoes filled with HIV positive children, all orphans who had lost both their parents to this ravaging disease. I can only imagine how things must be in Africa, etc, but literally hundreds & thousands of HIV+ children trying to raise themselves in filthy filthy conditions, about to be consumed by the sex industry to perpetuate the cycle of infection all over... it's just too sad for words. It's very possible to feel overwhelmed & paralyzed & distraught & depressed by the massive amounts of suffering in the world, but we have to choose our battles, & I don't think charity has to be about money. It's about offering yourself, your skills, your time, even to complete strangers. I was in Milwaukee for a nursing conference & we spent a whole day as nurses receiving training from the Red Cross to be health care providers in disaster situations, like hurricanes, floods, even 9/11. I think the way ppl come together in times of distress brings out the best in ppl, each person bringing their unique talents, even if it is as a musician or artist, thinking of that huge televised fundraiser, etc.
In any case, playing music may help express my soul, but it's compassion & charity that helps to nurture it. I'd rather be a good human being than a good artist, but hopefully they aren't mutually exclusive.
I'm always cynical! I'm rarely depressed because life sucks, though thanks for the good wishes, Michael Gill. Life sucks because it always has and always will, that's the way the thing's built. I enjoy seeing how little it actually matters that it sucks because of the people I like to surround myself with and those little moments of life being majorly wonderful. Like this morning, when I stepped out into my garden into the fresh dawn air and it smelled beautifully like my roses and iris, all in one big lovely fwoop in my face. How can you not want that for everyone else on the planet? One perfect moment.
I am an idealist, therefore I am cynical. Because I'm cynical, I can maintain my ideals. They balance out.
Thanks Jeremy! You know, maybe I could turn over a new leaf! Maybe I'm too cynical for donating to charity, but I believe I could wash the feet of the oppressed, ailing and downtrodden, just like in the good old days! I don't think it would take up too much of my time, if I schedule it right. And besides, what's time when such an act of humility & generosity would guarantee a first-class seat at the right hand of the Father for all eternity? BTW, does anyone know of a leper colony nearby? *SNORT*
What, d'you guys just have too much time on your hands down there in Dallas? *snicker* I hope you noted that not all of those snorts were mine.
Em, it's too bad you can't see it right now -- everything all fresh and new. There's a lot of white flowers, which I love. By August, the thing will be largely out of control and lush beyond belief, whether I like it or not. Hey, I just realized, you can see a couple pics of my house, since we have it up on the market. The garden photo is a few weeks ago, and things have really filled out since then...
To be fair to Zina, that would be 111 POSTS with the word *snort*. We estimate the actual occurance of the *snort* onomonopia to be much higher since we've observed multiple *snort*'s occur in one or more posts.
Jaysus Mary & Joseph!!!! You're moving out b/c it's too small??? Tennis court, fireplace, hardwood floors in the third bedroom???? You know, I've heard they have a real nursing shortage in Denver, if I start saving now.... hmm...
Thanks, hopefully lovely enough to sell in a tough market! Yes, too small -- I run a business out of my house, and my husband is tired of my workshop taking over the entire basement. I put in the hardwood floor before I started the business, thinking it would be a good craft room. It quickly became too small. Now the basement is too small. (The tennis court is common area property, not ours! Heh.)
C'mon up here, Emily, we'd love to have you move up here! We can argue with your sessionmates over you like dogs over a bone... Closer to Chicago. We could road trip up to Sos's place and The Kerry Piper on a regular basis. Hee.
Friend of mine is a nurse -- Avista, I think, but could be wrong. They're always working her to death...
Oh man, Zina, you don't know how tempting that is.
A bunch of friends of mine are currently repopulating Durango, buying up impossibly cool property etc... As I think I mentioned before, I was born in Denver, & I think it is my parents' deepest wish to come back to Colorado, truly, the Rockies.... However, with a large extended deeply rooted family in Baltimore including aging grandparents, it is unlikely they will be able to relocate, although last year for about 2 weeks my dad's job looked like a transfer could happen to Denver, & they were sooo excited! But it fell through... I don't know Zina, I still have at least a year out here on the rez, I'm thinking of possibly grad school or nurse practitioner, but the truth is, I really miss my family sometimes. Now it looks like there is this Baltimore Irish Arts Center forming, plus proximity to other East Coast cities... Jaysus you really have hit a weak spot for me, b/c my secret dream is yeah, move to Colorado but I don't think I could be away from my family for more long stretches, we're not getting any younger... I don't know, I just don't know. Oy I've got a lump in my throat just thinking about it! But I do think about it a lot. Hey there's always travel nursing, 13 week contracts to take you all over, from Alaska to the Caribbean to the Rockies.... *sigh*
I've always made a distinction between conscious giving and unconscious giving. Conscious giving is where you think "right, I'm going to give some (money, time etc) now". This is the kind of giving that can be dodgy because the person doing the giving may well be doing it to make themselves feel better, even if they wouldn't like to acknowledge or admit that to themselves: ("I've done my bit for this year and sponsored a child in Africa"). The other type of giving is a genuine unconditional thing where the person giving does not consciously realise that they are giving at the time. That's the type of giving that nurses do - I don't suppose Emin thinks "Right, I'm going to give today" when she goes to work - she'll just get on with it and not expect any thanks. Maybe she will feel better about herself as a human being once in a while when she thinks in detail about what she does, but mostly she'll just get on with it and do her best. Unconscious giving is the type where a friend comes to you years later and says "Hey remember when you sat down and gave me a peptalk and told me I had to pull myself together and (get a job, get off the drugs etc) - well you really helped me that day", to which you reply: "Oh did I?". Well, that's what I think anyway. People give to others all the time during their lives, but most of the time when it is a genuine act of compassion the giver won't notice, and often other people won't either. Giving is something that should come naturally - something you just *do*, not something you should even have to think about. That's why all this talk about whether or not to give to charity doesn't make any sense to me.
those are interesting things you say, but don't you think teachers & nurses have a tremendous amount in common, the biggest one being -- risk of burnout? When you just stop caring. Obviously I'm not there yet, but there are days when I'm dangerously close, & lots of days when I feel taken for granted, kicked around, underappreciated. Like I said before, you can't help everyone all the time (a lot of ppl don't even want your help) so you have to choose your battles, but most importantly, esp if you are in profession that 'helps' ppl, you absolutely need to take care of, & occasionally pamper, yourself. A large chunk of the conference I attended was exactly about that.... there was a big area called the Pampering Pavilion, where you could get a facial, manicure & massage, for free! Plus I tested out the Chinese elements of my personality & got a signature fragrance thingy... The closing speaker was astonishing, talking about healing effects of humor, I laughed so hard I was crying, & felt amazingly better for it. So I don't feel guilty indulging in Irish music stuff, b/c I legitimately feel, I deserve it.
I bet you make a major difference in the lives of your students, & are either not acknowledging it, or are seriously downplaying it. Also I think teachers & nurses are exquisitely sensitive to gestures of gratitude, which stand out in my memory like diamonds. I'll never forget the first teen mom who hugged me & said "Thanks for taking care of my baby" (when she left the nursery I was sobbing) or the thank you note I got from a battered mom I helped to find shelter after her delivery -- she made it back to school & is doing great now. I"m not trying to toot my own horn, but yeah, man, I could work another couple years based on that thank you note alone, b/c at the time, I was only doing my job. For me the line is definitely blurred between conscious & unconscious giving, but it definitely helps me get out of bed in the am.
I guess the way this ties in with the music as I see it is that by playing music to people in the pub and playing with other musicians you are unconsciously giving to them, like an expression of part of your inner self, and it's like a sharing thing as well. So maybe it's not just about going to the pub to have a drink and enjoy yourself as a self-fulfilling thing after all. Oh dear I sound so silly. Anyway, there's not a cloud in the sky, and there's a session starting in exactly 90mins, and I've done a bit of work today so I don't have to feel too guilty, and I know the session's going to be amazing. Happy days!
It's just occurred to me that we're still discussing the Law of Diminishing Returns....you give stuff out, but don't expect any return.
Incidentally, I've just watched Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine".
Amazing.
Dow - it's all very well saying giving should come naturally, which it does for most well balanced people. But often people don't know there's a problem on the other side of the planet cos they can't see it. So they need to be informed, then asked if they can spare a couple of bob for the people with the problem cos they don't have any dosh of their own to fix it, because our consumer-driven society knicked their resources in the first place. So at the very least we're giving back some stuff we knicked.
Gosh. I'd still give a few bob for people whose resources I haven't knicked. Because I can. Because they need it worse than me. Does that make me somehow less a good person, I wonder, just because it's conscious? And now everytime I do anything for anyone I'm going to wonder if it's conscious or unconscious giving and maybe not do it simply because it's conscious and therefore maybe dodgy and my motives could be suspected as guilt? Thanks a lot, Mark. *grin*
I still think it's impractical to give out judgement on somebody for why they give.
I wasn't talking about you Zina, of course. I don't think that conscious giving to charity or otherwise is necessarily driven by suspect motives so it's not necessarily a negative thing. But I do think that there are people who give to make themselves feel better about themselves and "let themselves off the hook". Giving to charity makes things so much easier because you can do it from the comfort of your armchair. All you have to do is put some money in an envelope. Then you can forget about it, because hey, what else can you do? It's a lot easier than actually going to the place in question and *living it* in the way that Danny described above. I'm not giving out judgement on why people give, but the world would be healthier place if those people who do give to let themselves off the hook recognised and acknowledged it as such.
I guess what I'm trying to say is something along the lines of what Danny just said - that by giving to charity people feel that they can continue to be complacent and allow their governments to carry on f**king over the rest of the world by exploiting them for every resource they have and taking more than their share of the cake.
This looks like it's become a Pariah thread - everyone has said their piece, then skeedaddled off out of it, once they think they've shown themselves to be of clear conscience. Then go on discussing the music. But what the hell, that's what this site's ALL about...or is it? Through this site I've met some great people, and I for one want to continue to do so, but I think it helps if I know if A person is kind enough to give money or time to someone they've never met.
The converse might fit the description of a Spanish proverb:
Solo el ladron crea que todo el mundo estan ladrones.
Only the thief thinks everyone else is a thief.
(apologies if I'm not 100% grammatically correct)
I don't think my conscience is ever clear either, but I'm not running away. The following has nothing to do with music, but this discussion reminds me of when I was in Vietnam. I used to be constantly hassled by cyclo drivers (3-wheeled bikes with a seat on the front), who would ask for money to take me on a "tour of the city". I never fancied being ridden around like some sort of "tourist royalty", so one day I told a driver that I'd only pay him if he allowed me to drive the cyclo while he sat in the front. Eventually he let me, and we had a hair-raising drive through Ho Chi Minh City. I almost got us killed a few times because I couldn't figure out how to turn across traffic and do roundabouts. Those things drive weird as well - you can't back-pedal like you can on a normal bicycle, you have to use a handbrake attached to the back wheel, and they're big heaby things with a lot of momentum. Eventually he relaxed and took out a cigarette, and would wave to his cyclo-driving friends and they would stare back in disbelief at this role-reversal between driver and tourist. We also had to look out for police because if we were caught we would have certainly faced a heavy fine. Anyway, I paid him heaps more than he'd asked for because I wanted to pay him according to how much of a life-experience I'd had in real terms. We became friends over the course of a few days, and I was invited to his home on the outskirts of the city to meet his family. We stopped at the local market to buy a fish for dinner (it cost me about US$1.50 and was enough to feed a family). We drove to his home and as far as I can remember we talked about stuff on the way. I don't know how we managed this because I couldn't speak a word of Vietnamese and his English wasn't all that good, but somehow it worked. We arrived at his home which was basically a small concrete room surrounded by dirt track and ditches. The only furniture was a bed in the corner and a few hooks on the walls to put coats on. Outside there were plastic chairs and tables. I was treated as a guest of honour, and all the friends and neighbours came round to say hello. His wife cooked an amazing spicy fish stew-type dish with rice, and his young son taught me some Vietnamese card games. We all had plenty to eat, and I had the time of my life. During our conversation, I learnt that some of the neighbours had perished in floods only a few weeks previously. It didn't look as though this family was getting much income from cyclo driving, and I got the impression of them struggling to have enough just to survive. Despite this they seemed genuinely happy, and they were smiling the whole time. I found out that the kid wasn't going to school because they couldn't afford to send him. By the end of my stay in Saigon, I was so involved with the family that I decided to give them enough money to put the kid through school for a term I think it was, or a whole year, I can't remember. Anyway, it was a small amount of money by Western standards, but to me as a traveller on a shoestring it was quite a bit actually. I'm fairly careful with money, and usually I would've thought twice about parting with money that could be used for living expenses, but I never even stopped to think because I knew it was the right thing to do. I would call it conscious giving, but I remember thinking that I wasn't giving because I felt guilty or wanted to make myself feel better. I was giving them money because I recognised that that kid had a right to go to school. I had the money to pay for it. They didn't. It was that simple. It would make me have to go without a few things for a while, but looking at it objectively, it was a simple decision. By giving money I don't suppose I helped the family much in the long-run, and I certainly didn't do much to alleviate the problem of poverty in Vietnam, but I hope I made the family's life slightly easier at least for a while. Maybe it could have paid for the driver to have a few well-earned days off. I don't know what they'd have used it for... Anyway, I've certainly never regretted parting with that money. I think it meant more to both sides because the whole experience was on a personal level and to do with low-order networks and institutions like the family and neighbourhood, friendships and loyalties, rather than high-order ones like charity organisations, political bodies etc. I don't know what this post is about, but I'm trying to deal with this thing that Danny's confronting us with. Who cares that it hasn't got much to do with music? Sorry about the lack of paragraphs.
Remind me to tell you about the time I had to bribe my way out of the Hanoi airport with my last $20USD, which was even more amusing b/c I had just paid a visit to the Communist Army outfitters & was wearing Viet Cong combat boots & an olive green cap with a Ho Chi Min pin on it. I have the pictures to prove it.
But isn't it interesting though how all the children gather around & yell 'Madame Madame, Cadeau! Cadeau!' like, give me a gift, give me a gift? Interesting. Great story. I need to go to bed, but thanks for the great story.
Good story, Dow. I befriended some lads when I was in Bluefields. When it was my time to head off, to Peru on this occasion, I asked if there was anything I could send these guys from Uk on my return to London. The reply was:
"Boots, man, boots!"
I looked down and for the first time noticed that neither possessed any footwear. How's that for being a blinkered Westerner?
I duly sent them pairs of boots but never got a reply, so I don't know if they received them. They may have been thieved by an equally impoverished postal worker, but of course I'd have preferred my mates to get them.
for an article (longer than the last, so possibly for hardcore science users) on how certain aspects of learning and understanding may not be possible without enough sleep. Presumably this doesn't rule out the odd 3/4 hour night after a particularly good session.
I'm not a subscriber, I was just reminded that I'd read the article by an earlier posting, so I googled! If you want to follow my slightly longer route, here are the directions: go to
and type in "new scientist magazine" where it asks for the exact phrase, and the third link was for the new scientist archive webpage. I searched just using the keywords memory, sleep, eight and hours, and there were 6 articles. The one in question is called "perchance to learn". Happy hunting!
Your link worked for me, nastyweegirl... (do you have another name?)
Bad news for a persistent insomniac like me - I'm surprised I can remember anything at all...
At least I can use it as an excuse for all my omissions and stupidities. "Sorry, I can't remember whatever it was I was supposed to do - my hippocampus didn't mention it to my cortex. I was on holiday at the time. The dog ate my homework. Can I have a siesta now?"
I disagree. Charity doesn't creat or sustain inequality, though charity is often used as an excuse by politicians who want to preserve the status quo. Capitalism both creates and sustains inequality. Capitalism is not the start of all inequality, of course, but it has a symbiotic relationship with inequality. If there were no inequality there probably wouldn't be Capitalism either.
Mark's story reinforces my own belief's about giving--that it's mutually beneficial and restorative when it's done at the personal level, and even if that doesn't seem to change the big picture much, I'd argue that it does. I tend to think it's at least as important to make those direct personal connections as it is to dole out tons of "humanitarian aid" in cargo planes because the former builds understanding both ways between giver and recipient, which the latter rarely does.
So while I fork out cash to worthy causes, I find it at least as effective to shovel snow off my elderly neighbor's walk and make sure he's getting a good meal in him every day, and to teach a friend's son how to navigate a kayak down a Montana river, and another kid how to play slip jigs on fiddle, or invite several "underprivileged" kids onto a soccer team and make sure they have transportation to and from practices and games, and a snack aftrerwards. The point is, you can improve a person's life by breaking down the barrier of "stranger" or "non-family" and treating them like a brother or sister (well, in the best sense of that relationship), giving of your time and attention, and in many cases that spreads into a stronger sense of community--neighbors become genuine friends and caregivers instead of mere acquaintances who pass small talk once a week at the mailbox. And strong communities provide better care for everyone, have-nots as well as the haves.
Does it solve all the world's troubles? Of course not, but it's a viable step in a humane, constructive direction, and I'd rather be headed in that direction than idling or going in reverse. The world is a better place because many people do in fact live this way. It would be an even better place if more people followed suit.
Michael's ravings remind me of that worn but true adage, Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
I also like the Bubba-ism:
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he spends the rest of his life in a boat drinking beer.
P.S. Michael: Just because some of us disagree with you doesn't mean we're "wrong."
Dow sent ONE kid in Ho Chi MInh to school. That gave that kid an advantage over his neighbour.
Now nowhere did I say that Dow was wrong or bad or any of that stuff. I admire that little story. I'm not being judgmental here. I'm merely pionting out the concequience of charitlabe actions.
If you give to charity you must realize that you are sustaining inequality. Is it better that one kid out of a hundred thousand goes to school than none of them? Maybe. But which kid?
Glauber, be logical.
Capitalism creates and sustains inequality.
Charity sustains capitalism.
Will, I never said anywhere that any of you were wrong, just that you should realise the comcequences of your actions.
"Just what about this do you all not get?"
--Mr. Gill
Reminds me of what physicist Neils Bohr reportedly said once to his son. "You're not thinking, you're merely being logical." I used to think that was a horrible insult, but now am beginning to see what Mr. Bohr was getting at....
I guess I don't get why Michael is so hung up on inequality. Who said life had to be equal for everyone? I don't think it can--or should--be. But that doesn't mean we should give up trying to improve the condition of people's lives. And one of the consequences of inequity is that some people who have less or are oppressed decide that they too want a better life, and with a little help from friends they can gain the aspirations, hope, and perhaps even the fortitude to pursue it.
At any rate, I think this focus on inequality is very misleading. Life is not a contest to be won based on who has more, is more talented, or has the most social advantages. I don't think Danny or anyone else here is hoping to redistribute wealth so that everyone has precisely the same balance in their checking accounts. The point is to help folks who don't have enough to eat, clean drinking water, adequate medical care, or a roof over their heads. Not to make them somehow "equal," but to help make their lives less miserable.
I've been there, years ago. Unemployed, homeless, wondering where my next mouthful of food was coming from and looking for a warm enough place to sleep. I hope I never land there again, but I can also say that such a life is not without its moments of happiness and even fulfillment. I've also lived in impoverished countries, and my friends there may not have had the amenities that more developed countries enjoy, but neither did they feel inferior or "unequal" as human beings.
Well, according to Michael Gill's session mates, he's a decent enough guy, in fact, I even believe the word "nice" was used, so I for one think this is another one of his silly little windups and refuse to take him seriously. (And if he is being serious, then at this point he's not worth taking seriously, really. *grin*) The trouble with being political and seeing people as only part of a group is that you forget that they're still individual people. They say if you take anyone in a mob and have them remember what makes them different from their fellow mobsters, the mob starts falling apart...
Honestly, if our politicians could start remembering the individual instead of the large group, we'd probably have a better time of it all roujnd.
Love the Neils Bohr quote, Will, I am really going to have to remember to use that one. I'm surrounded by far too many computer geeks, and could I have used that one a jillion times!
I reckon it's the converse - capitalism requires inequality so that there is always a source of cheap labour. The global capitalist-military-industrial complex will always strive to maintain the inequality. Like trying to keep a chemical reaction going which is far from equilibrium.
A major reason why the Western Roman empire imploded was because it simply could not maintain the momentum of its "mission statement", which was to conquer a territory militarily, Romanise the inhabitants, then move on to the next territory, using an army included in which were conscripts from the newly conquered territory. The British did much the same when they built their second empire. I notice that one of the first US casualties from the recent US/UK attack on Iraq, was a Honduran national, so one might posit that the strategy has not yet been dicarded.
Trotsky was wrong - there isn't going to be a world revolution. Forget that notion. But the evils of western imperialism are now coming home to roost. Tony Bush and George Blair will never win against people whose lives are so crap, ravaged by years of exploitation and oppression, that they are prepared to blow themselves up, and take others with them, for their cause.
I'm certainly not attempting to vindicate suicide bombing. I think it's the lowest level any authority would stoop to. The Israelis will never win against Palestinians who are prepared to do that, but in my view the palestinian authorities have sunk to a subhuman level by encouraging it, albeit clandestinely. But the palestinians have been treated subhumanly.
In the meantime, if you feel the need to help out people less fortunate than yourself, and if it is through giving to a charity, do so. I've already explained the way I think it can be done successfully. But definitely keep playing the tunes - what a great liberator...and leveller.
Interesting dicussions and replies. I really should keep my opinions to myself on this one lest I unleash torrents of psychobabble and abusive texts. I think the idea is to treat other people as you would wish to be treated if the situations were reversed. Milk of human kindness and all that. Governments and politics aside, it is how individuals deal with each other than will determine the future. I do think it is important to relate experiences and try to make Mr Gill see that charity is not an institution-rather it is the action we take upon hearing of or seeing of the misfortunes of other human beings and animals and life on this planet. But I fear he is playing devil's advocate or beyond bothering with.
So Will's a capitalist, as he so eloquently puts in his second paragraph. And thats fine. I like to think I'm a little more left leaning, but really I'm just muddled when it comes to the answers to these big questions. Why am I muddled? Because, at the very least, I understand the depth of contradiction people get themselves into.
And I like that Bhor quote too, but hear what he's saying:
"You're not thinking, you're MERELY being logical."
Merely thinking logically is not enough, we know that. But to be a good thinker, you must include logic in your thought. Logic is the first step to thought.
Zina. if I'm winding you up, "refuse" to take me seriously. And if I'm serious, I'm "not worth" being taken seriously???
And I said earlier that people exist as both individuals and as part of a group.
Or, seeings we like Bhor, we could apply his theory of "complimentarity" here. People can be neither individuals nor part of a group, because these are complimentary modes of description.
And break out your dictionaries here: "charity" is not an institution, but "charities" are
So? Trotsky was wrong, there isn't going to be a world revolution. You sound pretty sure about that Danny. I bet if we went back fifteen years or so you would have been equally certain that a British Labour government wouldn't have joined a far right American Imperialist Crusade(!).
As old Karl Marx said - "All that is solid melts into air..."
Which could be a good name for a tune.
15 years? - call that 10 years or less!
And the Trotsky one, I may have been rather over assertive on that one, but I'm stating my opinion.
One thing is for sure, though, and the far left used to be guilty of it, and that's when they want to see people impoverished and starving enough to bring about the discontent which would ferment revolution, thus fulfilling their "predictions". That in my book is just about as evil as anything the far right could concoct. I'm just worried that maybe Michael has unwittingly got a whiff of that argument. Please prove me wrong.
I think Michael is simply saying that charity reinforces the status quo. I think he's wrong, although I would say that I don't think charity challenges the status quo - but it's not a 'your either with us or you're against us' type of situation. Any thing which alleviates suffering must surely be good(?), even if it does't solve the underlying cause of that suffering. The question of whether we can be arsed to do anything to even out the monstrous equalities in our world is a different question - though if we're too complacent I don't think we should be surprised when the have-nots of this world get a little pissed off at seeing the extravagances of western life on the TV sets we sell them...
(I'm writing this on on of the 2 G4 Macs I own. Apparently 50% of the population of the world have never even USED a telephone.... )
That's right, Michael, because though your mates think you're a nice guy, based on your behavior here at The Session over a long span of time, you don't deserve being taken seriously by me (or anyone else insofar as I'm concerned) either way you go. Go ahead, try and change my mind, I'm willing and have been waiting for quite some time...
Human beings are human beings. We don't get much better or worse over the centuries. Trying, though, makes us better people overall, and balances out those who, in their efforts to get by every day, manage to run over other people. Want to change that? Teach the children well.
Michael has confused my notion of "a better life" with material gain and capitalism. I professed no such thing. (On the other hand, I suppose I *am* a capitalist, seeing as how I live in America, own my own business, and use money to obtain "things." Despite all that, I DON'T use my livelihood to outcompete other people, stepping on them to climb to the top. In fact, I don't actively seek work (it finds me no matter how well I hide), I purposefully limit my hours on the job to half or three-quarter time, sometimes passing on work to others in my field who need it (hours with family and friends are more important to me than money), and I routinely *share* my "profits" (and time and effort and material goods) with my neighbors to help create a more open, cooperative community based on common good rather than competition.
Also seems that there are significant cultural differences in what/who a liberal and conservative is, depending on which side of the pond you happen to vote.
But this thread has turned into a bath of self-righteousness--too preachy for my tastes...toodle-ooo.
Hey, I think Mr. Gill's been pretty positive as of late, lay off him guys. As far as too far right & too far left comment, it's the absolute truth. Sure, the details are a little different, but extremists from either side would rather see you dead than going about your own little happy life.
Will, that charity stuff only counts when you don't brag about it.
A bath of self-righteousness?
A handbasin of self-deception?
A sink of slippery conceits?
The eel in the sink...
There - I've got it back to a musical theme in only 4 moves.
I love this Micheal Gill guy! I simply can't wait for another provocotive post that sends most of the participants into a frothing fit of outrage! Why the nerve of this guy suggesting that 'Irish trad is EASY music', and insisting on using the outragous term 'diddly music', and to post such crazy thoughts that 'Charity reinforces inequality'. Surely, this mad man must be stopped!
thesession.org is almost like walking into a Disney-Like world where the flowers are in bloom, small birds alight upon your finger and chirp sweetly and woodland creatures of all sorts come out to play in the spring-time meadow. Then, all of a sudden, the large green foot of Godzilla (re: Micheal) crushes all happiness into a flat, gooey mush in one oblivous STOMP!
Since I happen to like suprises, I like his participation very much. I'm not sure why anyone would take anything he says too personally. Please, no more posts explaining how offensive this guy is to you. Personally, I'd give him an award for being interesting!
you forgot to mention the slithery things,Ottery - what about eels...that can fly...what about eels with wings?
where will your fancy crimson hooter get you then? ey?
now,that's the law...
exit left pursued by polar bears
Haw Mick -The first thing you should buy with your new found wealth from charitable donations is that book Teach Yourself to Read. Only joking, mate. I quite enjoy a good old ding-dong, so long as it doesn't stoop to character assasination, which seems to be the zeitgeist on this thread now. My take is that although his logic's a bit fuzzy, Michael's heart is in the right place - ie with the rest of his body in Edinburgh, 380 miles from here...(still only joking).....
Danny, I think your thread is a new thesession record! I'm so glad I've got my broadband connection. It has got a bit scary though, so I'm going to run away and hide.
Certainly wasn't trying to! The fact that the original topic was ok, but there's only so much you can say, then the subject changed about three or four times, Charity, Zina's new house, charity, Michael, probably kept it alive for longer than it's natural three-score and ten hits. It's getting fairly moribund now though...Hope michael's not OD'd on antidepressants...
When your thread gets past a certain number of hits, there should be a rule that says you're not allowed to speak on your own thread. Then we could all slag you off and you'd have to just sit and listen
Whooooo said anything about wanting to be mature? Nothing up with a bit of light relief after some of the weighty topics already discussed here.
But by you still posting onto this thread makes my lead even bigger!!
Just joking, Dow. Just glanced back at some of the statements made here, which I forgot to respond to at the time....
First. Emilyaz - yeah - Malthus is well-outdated...anyone who would consider his ideas seriously nowadays might be considered as a dangerous Neo-Nazi! There are still lots of untapped resources on our "big petri dish"...it just doesn't make capitalist sense to tap them. Why bother saving peoples lives if you can't make a buck out of it.
I won't have another go at Michael - he's taken enough stick, for trying to make some points, but Will, Sor-reee for being too preachy! I felt it was a bit like a prayer meeting at times, but at least for once we embarked upon a full blown discussion that wasn't about flute embouchure or bowing technique, and thus showed that a fair number of us heads here are not just one-dimensional cardboard musos from which emanate diddly noises.
I don't know if I should be flattered or reprimanded, but Danny knicked my original quote of LODR in the first place, so there.
Speaking of which, it doesn't matter how much I practice before next Monday, I'll be at essentially the same level, & that, is the perfect demonstration of the LODR. Except Malthus used the agricultural example of fertilizer I believe, that is to say, more fertilizer won't necessarily yield more crops, which is so apropo lately since my playing has been absolute sh*te. That's the big difference between music & academics -- you really can't cram & pull it off like a big test. Or I can't anyway. Cheers!
Be flattered, Em.
But I didn't exactly knick it - I did give credit to the person who first introduced it to the session, but being too lazy to scroll back to the source, I think I said "someone..." but fair play to you to point it out. In that case we'll share the prize for the longest thread on The Session...what do we get, Jeremy?
The Law of Diminishing Returns
The Law of Diminishing Returns
In an attempt to keep alive the discussion about the Law of Diminshing Returns, which got itself tagged onto the end of the "are you Different?" dicussion of Kevin's, before that one falls off the top page of the discussion list, let me recap:
The Law, which I think originated in management-ology, refers to the notion that if you expend some effort in an endeavour, you will achieve modest success. If you expend eg twice the effort you only get eg 1.5 times the amount of success.
If you double that, ie 4 times the amount of effort, you'll only get say, 1.75 times your initial return in success terms. Thus your rate of effort expended becomes an exponential function relative to the linear function of your return. So subjectively your return is diminshed.
When I attempted to apply this Law to The Music my effort was met with a return to which I would have felt diminished were I made of clay.
Danny.
# Posted on June 3rd 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Previous thread where this was started:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display.php/1733
# Posted on June 3rd 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
If I recall Econ 101 correctly, this idea originated in economics. The basic gist of the law is that if one "factor of production" (labor, for example) is increased while the others remain constant, the overall returns will relatively decrease after a certain point. So as more and more cooks, say, are added to a kitchen to chop veggies, at some point each additional cook will add relatively fewer chooped vegies than his/her predecessor did because s/he has fewer veggies to work with. At some extreme point, the kitchen's overall productivity further decreases because the cooks get in each other's way. Economists like to think that the law applies to all productive enterprise--so perhaps music, and trad music in particular, is spared. Then again, less is more, especially when it comes to bodhrans, noisy punters, and polkas.
Our previous discussion focused on how the law might apply to the number of hours you practice. If, on a whim, you decided to increase your practice time from 120 hours a week to, say, 135 hours, the law suggests that you'd get less out of those additional 15 hours than you might if you increased your practice time from 1 hour a week to 16 hours a week.
Previous threads here have touched on other possible areas the law might work in this music:
After memorizing your first 3,0741 tunes, you might notice a decline in the speed and accuracy of "tune retrievability" as you learn additional tunes.
At some point, adding yet another fiddle to the full bleachers of the session's string section might not noticeably improve the overall sound, at least not as much as adding the second fiddle to the first at the beginning of the evening.
And of course, your 19th pint of stout, though it may pack the final wallop, no doubt does not make the woman in the knee-length sweater and leotards banging the tambourine appreciable more attractive than did the 7th pint. (Note that in this instance, the law of diminishing returns probably has, not unlike gravitational pull, a mutual effect.)
What else?
# Posted on June 3rd 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Ah -- so the LODR means that the 19th pint makes the Gypsy Queen *less* attractive (perhaps because at that point you're passing out from alcohol poisoning and can no longer see her), meaning that at a certain point, the beer goggles fog up?
Poor Danny. Your feelings weren't *really* hurt, were they? I'll kiss 'em and make 'em feel better if you like... *snort*
Zina
# Posted on June 3rd 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
LODR...geesh, we're an acronym-happy lot, aren't we? After my second pint I can imagine a new dance revue--LODR of the DANNY, starring Michael Flatley of course (whose name anagrams out to "I Am Leaking Aftly")....
Okay, off to work, or maybe a session....
# Posted on June 3rd 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I don't know if it works like that for other people but it certainly doesn't for me. My progress doesn't seem to follow any sort of law at all. It seems to happen in little bursts. Usually if I listen to a recording of myself playing I'll think "that sounds awful - I want to hear more bass" or "I'm behind the beat" or whatever. If I hadn't opened my ears to that, I could have gone on making whatever mistake it was for years. So for me it has to do with listening, and my own state of mind at any particular time. This means I can be playing one day, go away and listen to a recording (or someone else's CD), not play for a whole week and then come back to it fresh a week later and play better in a different mindset. My point is that for me this happens not because of the LODR and practice time, but because I know what I eventually want myself to sound like, and the more self critical I'm willing to be, the more likely it is that I can progress towards achieving that.
# Posted on June 3rd 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I thought this was an interesting publishing by MUSICA. I don
# Posted on June 3rd 2003 by deblittle
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Oops - Sorry that link didn't work try this one.
http://www.musica.uci.edu/mrn/V3I2F96.html#Memories
# Posted on June 3rd 2003 by deblittle
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Deb - interesting article. Where does learning a language come in? Declarative or procedural? Procedural, I guess, as there's a lot of rote-learning involved. I did A-level Spanish a few years ago (probably high school graduation level, your side of the pond - most of which I've now forgotten) and much of it was rote-learning, but with a few bits where you have to 'think' - eg the subjunctive mood.
Zina, I didn't feel hurt at all, honest, maybe slightly bemused, which came out like "crying Wolf"! But thanks for your sympathy and the offer to kiss my feelings better...say no more...this is a family show.
Will - I stand corrected if the idea came about in economics. But agree in terms of players at sessions, small is beautiful.
Dow, I like your notion of your improvement happening in bursts - maybe the skills you amass after several practices/sessions knit together and form a critical mass to take you over yet another musical hurdle....just a thought....
Danny.
# Posted on June 3rd 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Interesting posting Deb. I have recently been trying to develop a technique; I am following the sound advice of Will whereby I develop speed and neatness together in a methodical manner and I can report some progress but the LODR applies on a daily basis. I am having to set aside a limited time for thereafter the fingers do seem to get a bit fuzzy. But how comforting to know it is my brain's fault and that it could probably be backdated to that extra stout that I should have declined back in 1990. Anyway, your ideas do suggest that somewhere there is a maximum turning point in the effort curve beyond which LODR assumes control but since the effort curve is a function of more intractable variables than time and since some of these may be highly subjective, such as positive feelings, I can't see that I will have anything else other than that old gut feeling to tell me when I should practise, when I should refrain and, more complex, how and how not I should practise. Alas the problem is not a matter of quantities.
# Posted on June 3rd 2003 by r&c
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Fascinating stuff about how the brain works. The law of dimminishing returns seems to work with me in with a direct link to my boredom threshold. I wonder if any one else has noticed this with regards to practicing.
When I first started playing I practiced for hours and hours every day and the returns were slow but incremental. Now I never practice. I find it too boring. But I'm still getting better. So how do we define practice? as apposed to playing?
You could say that practice is methodical, deliberate playing on your own. You know the kind of thing, going over and over bits you can't do. Maybe when you are in the process of creating all these nural finger brain connections this kind of playing in neccessary. But now I find it just too boring. I don't want to play on my own, I don't want to play the same tune over and over.
It seems that, and I hope there is general agreement on this, that playing music is by far the best practice.
# Posted on June 3rd 2003 by ...
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Good point, Michael, about how you define practice vis-
# Posted on June 3rd 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Speaking of whom can anyone answer this (Einstein's Puzzle) - nothing to do with The Music!:
There are 5 houses in five different colors. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. These five owners drink a certain drink, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet no owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink the same drink. The question is --- who owns the fish?
Hints:
- the Brit lives in the red house
- the Swede keeps dogs as pets
- the Dane drinks tea
- the green house is on the left of the white house
- the green house owner drinks coffee
- the person who smokes Pall Mal rears birds
- the owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill
- the man living in the house right in the center drinks milk
- the Norwegian lives in the first house
- the man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats
- the man who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes Dunhill
- the owner who smokes Blue Master drinks beer
- the German smokes Prince
- the Norwegian lives next to the blue house
- the man who smokes Blend has a neighbor who drinks water
*** Einstein wrote this quiz last century. He said that 98% of the World could not figure it out. ***
# Posted on June 3rd 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
The German. Took me a wee while though!
Con
# Posted on June 3rd 2003 by Conán McDonnell
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
A wee while? I've never seen anyone do it as fast!
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Con
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Yeah well I can't find it even knowing the answer. I'll keep trying. Ha
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by deblittle
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Thanks Deb, for putting this theory out for mass consumption. My wife and I were talking about this a while back, as she has been reading about brain theory in preparation for her MEd. There's now a running joke in the house with the punchline coming after learning a new tune: "Boy, does my brain ever feel bigger!" I needed an icepack after learning "The Foxhunter's", my first 5-parter. ;>)
When you think about it though, it is truly amazing that two years ago, I'd never heard Irish music before and now I play in a weekly session and have about two hundred tunes memorized. Considering that I had pretty much no musical ability prior to this, it is really amazing. I am sure that most of this group have had similar experiences of their own. As I say to people, "It sure ain't talent, it's just plain old stubborness". When you're driven to play, you just gotta play.
Michael B. and I were talking about this a couple of months ago and he put forth the theory of "patterns and miles around the track". This basically said that to a certain point, it really isn't talent that lets you play music, it's recognition of patterns and burning those patterns into the brain. Once they're in there, you can move forward. I'm comfortable with this theory because it demystifies the process a bit and desanctifies the great players we all look up to and learn from. As MB said, 'Gerry O'Connor didn't come out of the womb able to play the banjo.' ;>)
With regards to the brain growing, my greatest inspiration comes from watching my son, who will be two next month. I started playing a month before he was born and have noticed milestones in my playing which coincide with his development. When he was learning to walk, he would fall over and over again, but never gave up or got frustrated. I was inspired with this and followed his example to finally get the hang of triplets. Now he is building his vocabulary through repetition and exploration and I'm now finding learning by ear much easier for the same reasons. Truly amazing stuff. It can be learned and the brain seems to make room for it all.
For what it's worth, my progress seems to work in small increments with an occasional burst that Dow mentioned. Heartbreaking as it is, I have followed advice that our session leader Wil gave me and I take a week off once in a while. When you go back to it, boy can you ever play better!
Cheers,
Greg
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by octogreg
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
....Yes, it's the German. Funnily enough, it took me a while too. I'm not sure I'd call it a 'wee' while. I've no Idea how long - I lost track of time - but it involved a lot of scrawling complex flowcharts and the like.
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by deblittle
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
But I'll be damned if I can see how the German owns the fish!!
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by deblittle
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Lilting - yes! I'm glad you mentioned that, Deb. Another great side-effect of being a dad is that you tend to sing a lot to the bundle. When I started out on being a dad (and a mandolin player), I defintely could not hum a tune to save my soul. (Poor kid) Now I can hum and whistle tunes pretty well.
I was very skeptical of the part in Chris Smith's book that said learning by ear was a teachable and learnable skill. Now I know different. I also agree that learning tunes on your instrument is much easier once you can hum/whistle/lilt them. I guess one part of the brain that "hears" the tune helps the other part that has to play it.
Time off is great for unlearning bad habits - some of them scream out at you when you've been away from it for a while and beg to be corrected. Others carry on unnoticed until a later time.
In practical terms, my guess is that in order to get better, learn tunes faster and more accurately, etc., one has to take a variety of approaches that stimulate several different parts of the brain. Try and get as many senses invloved as possible.
Cheers,
Greg
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by octogreg
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
This discussion reminded me of something I heard on NPR quite awhile ago. This is the link to an article about the study: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00071E01-23E4-1D22-97CA809EC588EEDF
Basically, it says that motor skills only improve with practice up to a certain point and then sort of plateau, UNLESS you take a nap (short or long) and then come back to it. Then things improve again. I can hear it now: "But, honey, I NEED to play the (insert name of loud instrument here) right before I go to sleep. I didn't mean to wake you ...."
At least we now have scientific support for that particular domestic offense.
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by sparrow
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
'sGood. I like it, sparrow. So what are we actually DOING with all these theories (such as that [LODR] which I've droned on about here) and experiments to find out how we perform maximally?
Who knows how long _Homo sapiens sapiens_ has graced this planet? s'got to be 500,000 years, anyway, in its current recognisable genotypic form---so just what are we doing with all the questions-n-answers?
Wouldn't it be great to think the bodies that fund such research had we, the nice little scientists, in mind when they benevolently fund us for another 3 years? Charities, yeah, that's fine, but why does Glaxo want a particular answer.
Right now Sub-Saharan Africa is in a state of total disaster, much worse than when Bob Geldof made his appeal, and is about to plunge into a catastrophe far worse than that one, and all we give a shite about is a load of pish about how much we practice our instruments.
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Who said we gave a shite about it, Danny?
Why don't you start up a charity fund or drive? Say, a benefit CD of ITM? Proceeds to go to Sub-Saharan Africa through one of the charitable organizations working in the area? I'm sure everyone here would be happy to donate a track. Hell, most of the most famous of players would probably donate a track.
zls
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Speaking for myself, I don't think it's that musicians, ITM or otherwise, don't care. OF COURSE the problems of the world are of more importance than fine-tuning one's ornamentation. I admit I have been almost exclusively a lurker around the Session so far. But it has been a wonderful place to come when I have put in a couple excruiating hours reading about the occupied territories or North Korea or the latest Big Brother technology or any other of the machinations of big government/business. Sometimes you have to get out of the city and into the islands for awhile, and this is wonderful air to breathe. Thanks everyone. But it's good to be reminded, too. Thanks, Danny.
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by sparrow
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Sorry David!
Con
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by Conán McDonnell
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
A welcome change, Conan.
I'd love to get down - I'll have to hone my negotiating skills to razor sharp, though, as I was down the Duke last night! so don't bank on me being there.
Zina, I am still a member of a campaign group/charity called War on Want, though I'm regrettably much less active than in days of yore. Their strategy is to focus on areas where help is needed, but to enable people to help themselves thus averting phenomena such as the forthcoming sub-saharan catastrophy. Web site for their latest newsletter:
http://www.waronwant.org/?lid=1
Good idea of yours, though, getting a bunch of major players to cut a charity CD - Trad-Aid? But would it sell much though?
Danny.
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Can the ''problems of the world" be solved with a bit of guilt led altruism?
Is it "inhuman" to push the ''problems of the world" away in favour of playing music?
500,000 years on this planet?
Archeologists, biologists and sociologists have argued this for a long time, but their consensus now is that we became human when we first created art.
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by ...
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Surely we all need a bit of escapism, it's not wrong to want to forget the world's problems. The ideal would be to get a bit of escapism - by, say, delving into a new CD - but the act of buying that CD would go a little way to solving whatever catastrophe is current. Musicians are very generous with their time for charity though - I spotted recently in the paper that Donal Lunny was playing a concert for Palestinian children, and local small-time musicians where I live have raised hundreds of pounds for various charities by playing in church halls. We're an altruistic bunch really, aren't we?!
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by s
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Where is the Crown and Cushion?
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by Nell
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Sounds like a good excuse for doing nothing, Michael. If you were able to help just one person by giving some time or money you might have helped solve the problems of their particular world. That would be good enough for me. If you see altruism as completely guilt-led, I dread to think how cynical you are in other spheres. Who said anything about pushing anything away in favour of the music? Some of the stuff that's come out in this and other related discussions is how expansive human consciousness can be to accomodate several lines of thought, near enough at once.
Maybe I'm my own worst enemy for expressing some feedback on my own thread. So be it.
But yes, you're right about disputing my 500,000 years estimate - I was being conservative - let's call it 1,000,000 years then.
Best wishes
Danny.
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
"...dread to think..." Danny, how long have you been at thesession.org?!
I like Zina's idea of doing a charity CD with Danny in charge - howay Danny man prove you care!
Dubg
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Leave me alone - I'm trying to have a hangover....once that's out the way I'll give it serious consideration.
Danny
# Posted on June 4th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
It'd sell enough, Danny. If even a child's pennies help (if only by teaching the kid how to give to others who need), surely a five buck donation from a single CD sale would do better. You could get War On Want to organize/host the thing, perhaps. Most of the artists would probably send a track for it. Even a The Session CD would be fun to tout for it. I'd host the webwork on my site for you if you want, if War on Want can't. Bet we could talk Jeremy into working on the thing too. I could get a graphics company to donate their work, or we have a couple of graphics people here. We could probably find a distribution company that'll donate their profits so we can pay only for the materials costs. Take your costs (manufacture, printing, shipping, handling) and double it, and there's your sale price for the CD.
It's a powerful lot of work, though. Make sure you have the time for it. It'll take over your life for a bit. Still, behooves us to take the time, since we're not the ones starving and thirsting to death, right? Bet if we shared the load amongst some of us here at The Session, it'd be a lot easier.
zls
# Posted on June 5th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
*grin* Keeping in mind, of course, the first sentence of Danny's profile... *snort*
zls
# Posted on June 5th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Groan... What am I talking myself into here....
# Posted on June 5th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
In no way to I want to undemine everyone's efforts to push Danny into spearheading a fund-drive. But I do think there's a philosophical point that needs making here.
If you consider the woes of the sub-sahara, it's hard to think any human endeavor short of helping those people somehow is worth our energy. But the fact is, human misery is the negative half of the continuum that represents human exprience, and the plight of the people in the sub-sahara represents one extreme point on that continuum. The poor sap who goes hunting for aluminum in the dumpster near my work place every day is worse off than I am but probably not as bad off as those starving people in Africa. Can I only do good by operating at the far end of that misery continuum?
I guess I would argue that anything and everything we do that falls on the "good" or "beautiful" side of the human continuum is a worthy endeavor, and we all can hope that all of it will help tilt the balance. Give a hundred bucks or a year's labor to fight starvation: that's a great thing. Give a buck to your neighborhood wino: that's a good thing.
What's more, I'd argue that playing music isn't necessarily a selfish act that fails to add to the good and the beautiful. One of the causes of human misery in third world countries is human greed. Famine isn't always nature's fault. The arts supposedly enrich us by accentuating the good and the beautiful; when we post about how The Music has changed us (different thread, similar topic), I suspect we all have benefitted deep down in ways we can't explain, spiritual ways, if you want to call them that. And bringing others into The Music is a form of proselytizing, and it all adds to the good and the beautiful. Not as much as giving a buck to a wino or a hundred bucks to famine relief efforts in Africa, I suppose, but it's all good.
How's that for a load of bullshit?
# Posted on June 5th 2003 by cuchulain54
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Michael Gill's last comment reminded me of a saying I once heard.
A Liberal is defined as a person who recognizes that life isn't fair but tries as best they can to make sure everyone has a fair chance. A Conservative is a person who believes that life is not fair and (since they already have their fair share) they like life just the way it is.
# Posted on June 5th 2003 by Caoimghgin
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Cu thanks for that. I've always felt guilty about my music playing because I thought it so self-indulgent. I use it when I've got other more important things to do. I use it to make myself feel better when I'm feeling slightly down, and also when I'm feeling gleeful at the pub with my mates in combination with high levels of needless and health-threatening alcohol intake. I know that music has done things for me spiritually but mostly I'm just greedy. In some ways it weakens me as a person...
Oh well, I'll just have to be weak then.
# Posted on June 5th 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Danny I"m so glad you took on the onus of starting this thread since I was the one who brought up the LODR initially, & I've been accused of being too (insert descriptor here) so good on you to absorb the bulk.
I know Malthus is outdated but I'm pretty sure he used this idea of LODR in terms of population as well (a huge motivator of mine), ie we're all living on a big petri dish so when resources are diminished, we're looking at a big mess, to wit, Africa or SE Asia, or inner city USA or whatever. As a bleeding heart liberal, yeah, sometimes I feel like I'm pissing in the wind with my smallish contributions, but I have tried to align my career goals with ideas of compassion & helping (& FWIW also I ultimately hope to get back into research, I find the idea of an HPV vaccine is thrilling). We all have to just take care of our own little corner & not be overwhelmed by the global picture & do nothing, & also take care of ourselves so we can continue to improve our little corner. (Out here, we're actually planning a wee benefit concert to help raise money to prevent domestic violence on the rez, a particular pet peeve of mine, though it's slow in taking shape as so many projects can.) In any case, if music nurtures your soul which helps you clean up your little corner, that's what I think is important & more than justifies the rest.
# Posted on June 5th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
This is a strange coincidence, the phrase Law of Diminishing Returns comes to me everytime I walk from Goodge Street to Charing Cross. Nearly every day, up to 2 or 3 different representatives from charities try and stop you in the street to ask you to spare a few minutes. At first, when the reps were a once a week occurence, I would explain that I have already 3 charities on the go and cannot stretch to another, or I'd mention if I was already a member, however, my patience has waned as the number of charities represented has increased. I try my best usually to avoid eye contact and walk as far away as I can, and to be honest, I don't feel like talking just as I've left work. I often wonder then whether others feel the same way and whether sending charity reps in the street may have worked at first but is less successful as the number of reps increases. Any thoughts on this?
As for musical progress, my playing increases in fits with some long periods where nothing happens, same as most I guess, but if I stop playing for a week, I get a lot worse, so still at the beginner's stage.
Danny, hope you can make it to the Duke tonight, the singers have given up and Billy's still sulking and whilst the present barman is slower than a comatose snail, he's never in any hurry to get home, same as us. Any other diddlers very welcome.
cath
# Posted on June 5th 2003 by Cath
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Caoimghgin's simple reductionism is both a symptom of the Lideral's general despair and of the Conservative's grip on global power.
But let's look at this more closely:
Charity is a deeply conservative phenomenum. Both socialists and capitalists relieve their consciences by vague commitments to re-distributuion of wealth. Socialists believe it should be done via the state through taxation. Capitalists believe we all should have the individual freedom to choose how much of our wealth we distribute - so they allow private pressure groups to form who each think they have a monopoly on how best the re-distribution should be done.
Does any of this work? Did not someone suggest earlier in this thread that the African problem is worse now than it ever was, despite Sir Bob Geldof.
The truth is that all charities do is let governments off the hook.
And are charities fair? By far the biggest one in the UK is the RSBP. It seems we'd rather protect the little creatures of our own land than human beings on distant shores. And remember Bob Dylan at JFK stadium during live aid, saying some of the money should go to American farmers.
So do we in the Western world, the top 2% of the world's rich, have a resposability to the other 98%? Caoimghgin thinks so, and I agree, but what are we doing about it? Just sustaining the whole system by pathetically trying to "do our bit".
# Posted on June 5th 2003 by ...
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Good points Michael - medical charities especially I feel are dangerous - why give money to a hospital charity (we get Great Ormond St Hosp personnel shaking their buckets at Charing X) when this should be done through our taxes. Personally, I'm one of those who would be happier paying a bit more taxes if it went towards helping the sick and the homeless. I would not give money to the British Heart Foundation or the Cancer Research in the UK as their research should be financed by the government, and it gives the government an excuse not to spend money on necessary research and you end up with a situation where private pharmaceutical companies develop treatment, patent it and we know the consequences of this.
However, animal charities exist because getting a government to pay for animal welfare would not be popular with some people, so this is truly voluntary. Maybe giving to animal charities is a way to assuage some guilt, or it may be purely sentimental or genuinely altruistic, but I do believe it's a necessary source of income to these charities. Another two charities I can think of are Amnesty International and Medecins sans Fontieres which were created out of necessity and have to exist independently of governments. So again, giving there makes sense.
c
# Posted on June 5th 2003 by Cath
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I can't do this thing - certainly not because of lunatical ravings of michael, but something has turned up - Zina knows. Leave it at that.
# Posted on June 5th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
My two cents: giving to others (in time, effort, or monetary ways) should never be reduced or dismissed as useless or pathetic, nor, far as I'm concerned, be a political issue. Either you give. Or you don't. Each person has their own way of giving. Each person has a necessary timetable for giving. I can't judge 'em without risking judgement myself. Until I'm living their life with all the demands placed upon them, I can't make that call.
The cycles of living and dying are always with us and around us. You can't have life without death. But it still sucks. And I'll put it off, for me and for others, as best I can 'til it's time to give in gracefully.
No fears, Danny. We'll figure something out later when there's less going on.
Zina
# Posted on June 5th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Amnesty international is a good exaple of a charity I do support. Yes it has to exist outside any govermental bodies because governmantal bodies are it's main target. This means it's only sources of revenue could be personal donations. Plus, they are not about wealth redistribution, but justice distribution.
Danny, I'm trying not to be lunatical (?) here. I know I'm a incorrigible cynic, but I'm really trying to be practical. I don't pretend to have answers, but I do know that charity is self defeating. And that what defines us a humans is not our comapssion, but our ability to create art.
# Posted on June 5th 2003 by ...
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Zina, everthing we do has political repercussions. You cannot decide to be outside politics. And how can death suck if you can't have life without it? Logically, you are saying that life sucks.
And just to prove I'm not as much a cynic as I think I am, I just looked up "charity" in my Chamber's English Dictionary:
"Universal love: The disposition to think favourably of others"
It's got nothing to do with wealth distribution.
# Posted on June 5th 2003 by ...
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
That depends on whether you want to see people as part of a group or as individuals. Both viewpoints have validity for certain applications. For this one, chastising people for the temerity to give to charities is of little to no practical use.
Life *does* suck. Haven't you noticed? It's not fair, unless you happen to luck out. Bad stuff happens. Having charity for others is what makes it bearable.
Telling people not to give to a charity to force a government to spend "correctly" is bass-ackward. If you want to change that, if you truly want to be practical, then change the way the government sees its spending priorities. Until then, all you'll do is cut off funds to organizations with no other way to get them.
# Posted on June 5th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
If thinking favourably of others means parting with a few of our many shekels to give to people who have none, that's ok by me - so long as it doesn't create a dependency culture. You're up against the old dichotomy of expediency versus idealism. The idealist says don't give to charity cos governments should do that. Unfortunately, we live in a very, very imperfect world, and there isn't another planet to escape to for many light years. We know that governments are never going to carry out these functions, so we have to act expediently. I find myself nearly agreeing with michael (!) that there's no point in just chucking money at a problem - and hardly any of it gets to the people who need it most anyway (he didn't say that - I did, but he implied it, yeah, michael?) That's why I used to hang out with War on Want, and am still a member and have a standing order to them, etc, etc. For your benefit here's their link again,
http://www.waronwant.org/?lid=1345
which if you care to read you will find that yes they are a charity but they raise funds to carry out their campaigns in UK and for their projects in targetted parts of the developing world, where they help people to help themselves. Here's a wee quote from their introduction:
Throughout its history War on Want has supported people who have struggled to find their own path to development. We have worked in partnership with progressive governments and organisations to find solutions to the failure of the world economic system to deliver a more equal distribution of wealth.
Danny.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I think people exist as individuals who are part of a group. I'm not sure you can seperate it. That's what I meant when I said you can't opt out of politics. And I agree that my chastising has no practical use, and I'm am sorry about this. As I said, I have no answers.
I think my main frustration with this is that you can't stop people from giving to charities, even if you wanted to.
If there was a political will, a government could, at a stroke, make it illegal for a charity to recieve money, while simultaneously replacing their budgets with a centralised grant. This would be fairer because of the progessive taxation systems we have. And gradually the heads of these organisations could be replaced by more accountable, democratically elected politicians who would enter well publicised funding rounds.
But you could never stop people giving, and this is why the above utopia would never work. The act of giving perpetuates the inequalities.
I'm sorry that you think life sucks, zina.
Please don't be too depressed about this, you're supposed to be the possitive one and I'm supposed to be the cynic. Life is a great roller coaster of creation and learning. How can that suck? Life is fantastic.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by ...
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by deblittle
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
It's easy for all us middle-class western people to sit about and theorise what is good, what is politics, blah blah.
The nearest I got to experiencing life in a developing country was several months in Nicaragua during the Civil War against the Reagan-backed Contra.
One of the jobs I did was picking coffee. You get up at 4am, have breakfast of rice, kidney beans and corn tortilla (which we also had for lunch and evening meal), with black coffee, be working on the slopes for 6am, put in a 9-hour day 6 days a week. For peanuts. The work was absolutely knackering and quite dangerous. I think we did that for just 4 weeks, but that's the lot of yer average campesino, harvest after harvest. Another one was in Bluefields on the Carribean coast, where we helped build temporary accomodation for people made homeless by a hurricane. Those people had literally. Nothing. At. All. No shoes, no change of clothes, Nothing. There's no welfare, no infrastructure, no money, NO safety net whatsoever in those sort of countries - you either live or .... you,
emm,
.........die.
End of.
Danny.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Jeez!! no wonder that experience had an impact on you Danny.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by deblittle
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Zina being cynical!!!??? Micheal being postive???!!! That must explain why I saw those four curious horsemen with rather depressing names trotting down the street this morning!
Frankly, I'm very ambivelent towards charities of any sort and probably more jaded than most at the thought of participating or giving to any charity at all. In that respect, I suppose I'm in Micheals camp on this issue. I look at situations in sub-saharan Africa and simply scratch my head. Many of these countries are not without substantial mineral resources that could sustain everyone quite happily, provided they weren't so busy commiting mass genocide against each other. On the home front, I have the same group of beggers in front of the 7-11 that I've seen 5 years before. Surely, 5 years is enough time to get back on your feet and I have long since stopped giving any money to them.
Some say 'But for the grace of God go I' when they see pictures of famine, poverty or the local homeless guy, but I have a hard time believing that. I'd like to think that I have the heart of a liberal, but maybe my brain has turned conservative. Or perhaps by heart has withered into a black uncaring cinder of it's former self.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Caoimghgin
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I agree with Kevin. His heart is "a black uncaring cinder of it's former self."
Just kidding. You're not such a bad bastard afterall.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by jerball
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
The act of giving perpetuates inequalities? Hmm well that undermines my entire belief system as a nurse whose job it is to care about other ppl & try to improve their quality of life. I think I touch the lives of those who need me, whether finding shelter & transportation, mediating difficult relationships, helping provide a healthy & positive pregnancy & birth experience, or simply reinforcing your central tenet, Michael, that yes, life can be wonderful despite all the inherent disparities built into the current state of things.
When I worked in Thailand with the HIV sex workers, one particular image chilled me & that is the slums & ghettoes filled with HIV positive children, all orphans who had lost both their parents to this ravaging disease. I can only imagine how things must be in Africa, etc, but literally hundreds & thousands of HIV+ children trying to raise themselves in filthy filthy conditions, about to be consumed by the sex industry to perpetuate the cycle of infection all over... it's just too sad for words. It's very possible to feel overwhelmed & paralyzed & distraught & depressed by the massive amounts of suffering in the world, but we have to choose our battles, & I don't think charity has to be about money. It's about offering yourself, your skills, your time, even to complete strangers. I was in Milwaukee for a nursing conference & we spent a whole day as nurses receiving training from the Red Cross to be health care providers in disaster situations, like hurricanes, floods, even 9/11. I think the way ppl come together in times of distress brings out the best in ppl, each person bringing their unique talents, even if it is as a musician or artist, thinking of that huge televised fundraiser, etc.
In any case, playing music may help express my soul, but it's compassion & charity that helps to nurture it. I'd rather be a good human being than a good artist, but hopefully they aren't mutually exclusive.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I'm always cynical! I'm rarely depressed because life sucks, though thanks for the good wishes, Michael Gill. Life sucks because it always has and always will, that's the way the thing's built. I enjoy seeing how little it actually matters that it sucks because of the people I like to surround myself with and those little moments of life being majorly wonderful. Like this morning, when I stepped out into my garden into the fresh dawn air and it smelled beautifully like my roses and iris, all in one big lovely fwoop in my face. How can you not want that for everyone else on the planet? One perfect moment.
I am an idealist, therefore I am cynical. Because I'm cynical, I can maintain my ideals. They balance out.
zls
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Zina Lee
No it doesn't!
Really, it does not!
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by glauber
Wow
It's good that this thread went off-topic. Reading what some of you do and why you do it is very humbling.
There's one charity that's been in my thoughts more than the others these days: http://www.modestneeds.org. Check it out.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by glauber
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Thanks Jeremy! You know, maybe I could turn over a new leaf! Maybe I'm too cynical for donating to charity, but I believe I could wash the feet of the oppressed, ailing and downtrodden, just like in the good old days! I don't think it would take up too much of my time, if I schedule it right. And besides, what's time when such an act of humility & generosity would guarantee a first-class seat at the right hand of the Father for all eternity? BTW, does anyone know of a leper colony nearby? *SNORT*
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Caoimghgin
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Does so, Glauber. neener, neener. Heh. At least for me, it does. YMMV, of course. *grin*
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Kev, check out your local chapter of the Moral Majority.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Up here, it's Family Values. *sigh*
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Kevin lives in Dallas. I think the whole city is a chapter of the Moral Majority.
*wink**wink**nudge**nudge*
Zina, yesterday Kevin and I counted the number of occurances of *snort*. As of yesterday it was 111.
Kevin, you just made it 113!
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by jerball
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Glauber, awesome website! I'm gonna order one of those cookbooks, thanks!!
Also I agree with Zina about balance, wholeheartedly. I hope your garden survives til August, I'll need major chlorophyll action by then.
*hits repeat on the Murphy Roche CD...*
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by emily_bmore
*snort*
Sorry.... allergies.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
What, d'you guys just have too much time on your hands down there in Dallas? *snicker* I hope you noted that not all of those snorts were mine.
Em, it's too bad you can't see it right now -- everything all fresh and new. There's a lot of white flowers, which I love. By August, the thing will be largely out of control and lush beyond belief, whether I like it or not. Hey, I just realized, you can see a couple pics of my house, since we have it up on the market. The garden photo is a few weeks ago, and things have really filled out since then...
http://www.coloproperty.com/Reports/index.cfm?Action=DetailReport&MLSNumber=376109
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
To be fair to Zina, that would be 111 POSTS with the word *snort*. We estimate the actual occurance of the *snort* onomonopia to be much higher since we've observed multiple *snort*'s occur in one or more posts.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Caoimghgin
Lovely house Zina! Are you upgrading or downgrading?
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Caoimghgin
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Jaysus Mary & Joseph!!!! You're moving out b/c it's too small??? Tennis court, fireplace, hardwood floors in the third bedroom???? You know, I've heard they have a real nursing shortage in Denver, if I start saving now.... hmm...
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Thanks, hopefully lovely enough to sell in a tough market! Yes, too small -- I run a business out of my house, and my husband is tired of my workshop taking over the entire basement. I put in the hardwood floor before I started the business, thinking it would be a good craft room. It quickly became too small. Now the basement is too small. (The tennis court is common area property, not ours! Heh.)
Closer to Chicago. We could road trip up to Sos's place and The Kerry Piper on a regular basis. Hee.
C'mon up here, Emily, we'd love to have you move up here! We can argue with your sessionmates over you like dogs over a bone...
Friend of mine is a nurse -- Avista, I think, but could be wrong. They're always working her to death...
zls
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Oh man, Zina, you don't know how tempting that is.
A bunch of friends of mine are currently repopulating Durango, buying up impossibly cool property etc... As I think I mentioned before, I was born in Denver, & I think it is my parents' deepest wish to come back to Colorado, truly, the Rockies.... However, with a large extended deeply rooted family in Baltimore including aging grandparents, it is unlikely they will be able to relocate, although last year for about 2 weeks my dad's job looked like a transfer could happen to Denver, & they were sooo excited! But it fell through... I don't know Zina, I still have at least a year out here on the rez, I'm thinking of possibly grad school or nurse practitioner, but the truth is, I really miss my family sometimes. Now it looks like there is this Baltimore Irish Arts Center forming, plus proximity to other East Coast cities... Jaysus you really have hit a weak spot for me, b/c my secret dream is yeah, move to Colorado but I don't think I could be away from my family for more long stretches, we're not getting any younger... I don't know, I just don't know. Oy I've got a lump in my throat just thinking about it! But I do think about it a lot. Hey there's always travel nursing, 13 week contracts to take you all over, from Alaska to the Caribbean to the Rockies.... *sigh*
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Dangle. Dangle. Dangle. *grin*
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Well let's consider August a reconnaissance mission.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I've always made a distinction between conscious giving and unconscious giving. Conscious giving is where you think "right, I'm going to give some (money, time etc) now". This is the kind of giving that can be dodgy because the person doing the giving may well be doing it to make themselves feel better, even if they wouldn't like to acknowledge or admit that to themselves: ("I've done my bit for this year and sponsored a child in Africa"). The other type of giving is a genuine unconditional thing where the person giving does not consciously realise that they are giving at the time. That's the type of giving that nurses do - I don't suppose Emin thinks "Right, I'm going to give today" when she goes to work - she'll just get on with it and not expect any thanks. Maybe she will feel better about herself as a human being once in a while when she thinks in detail about what she does, but mostly she'll just get on with it and do her best. Unconscious giving is the type where a friend comes to you years later and says "Hey remember when you sat down and gave me a peptalk and told me I had to pull myself together and (get a job, get off the drugs etc) - well you really helped me that day", to which you reply: "Oh did I?". Well, that's what I think anyway. People give to others all the time during their lives, but most of the time when it is a genuine act of compassion the giver won't notice, and often other people won't either. Giving is something that should come naturally - something you just *do*, not something you should even have to think about. That's why all this talk about whether or not to give to charity doesn't make any sense to me.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Nice home, Zina. It's kind of funny looking at pictures of your house when I've never met you in real life, yet. Almost kinda creepy--like spying...
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Andee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Dow,
those are interesting things you say, but don't you think teachers & nurses have a tremendous amount in common, the biggest one being -- risk of burnout? When you just stop caring. Obviously I'm not there yet, but there are days when I'm dangerously close, & lots of days when I feel taken for granted, kicked around, underappreciated. Like I said before, you can't help everyone all the time (a lot of ppl don't even want your help) so you have to choose your battles, but most importantly, esp if you are in profession that 'helps' ppl, you absolutely need to take care of, & occasionally pamper, yourself. A large chunk of the conference I attended was exactly about that.... there was a big area called the Pampering Pavilion, where you could get a facial, manicure & massage, for free! Plus I tested out the Chinese elements of my personality & got a signature fragrance thingy... The closing speaker was astonishing, talking about healing effects of humor, I laughed so hard I was crying, & felt amazingly better for it. So I don't feel guilty indulging in Irish music stuff, b/c I legitimately feel, I deserve it.
I bet you make a major difference in the lives of your students, & are either not acknowledging it, or are seriously downplaying it. Also I think teachers & nurses are exquisitely sensitive to gestures of gratitude, which stand out in my memory like diamonds. I'll never forget the first teen mom who hugged me & said "Thanks for taking care of my baby" (when she left the nursery I was sobbing) or the thank you note I got from a battered mom I helped to find shelter after her delivery -- she made it back to school & is doing great now. I"m not trying to toot my own horn, but yeah, man, I could work another couple years based on that thank you note alone, b/c at the time, I was only doing my job. For me the line is definitely blurred between conscious & unconscious giving, but it definitely helps me get out of bed in the am.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I guess the way this ties in with the music as I see it is that by playing music to people in the pub and playing with other musicians you are unconsciously giving to them, like an expression of part of your inner self, and it's like a sharing thing as well. So maybe it's not just about going to the pub to have a drink and enjoy yourself as a self-fulfilling thing after all. Oh dear I sound so silly. Anyway, there's not a cloud in the sky, and there's a session starting in exactly 90mins, and I've done a bit of work today so I don't have to feel too guilty, and I know the session's going to be amazing. Happy days!
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
It's just occurred to me that we're still discussing the Law of Diminishing Returns....you give stuff out, but don't expect any return.
Incidentally, I've just watched Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine".
Amazing.
Danny.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Dow - it's all very well saying giving should come naturally, which it does for most well balanced people. But often people don't know there's a problem on the other side of the planet cos they can't see it. So they need to be informed, then asked if they can spare a couple of bob for the people with the problem cos they don't have any dosh of their own to fix it, because our consumer-driven society knicked their resources in the first place. So at the very least we're giving back some stuff we knicked.
Danny.
# Posted on June 6th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Gosh. I'd still give a few bob for people whose resources I haven't knicked. Because I can. Because they need it worse than me. Does that make me somehow less a good person, I wonder, just because it's conscious? And now everytime I do anything for anyone I'm going to wonder if it's conscious or unconscious giving and maybe not do it simply because it's conscious and therefore maybe dodgy and my motives could be suspected as guilt? Thanks a lot, Mark. *grin*
I still think it's impractical to give out judgement on somebody for why they give.
zls
# Posted on June 7th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I wasn't talking about you Zina, of course. I don't think that conscious giving to charity or otherwise is necessarily driven by suspect motives so it's not necessarily a negative thing. But I do think that there are people who give to make themselves feel better about themselves and "let themselves off the hook". Giving to charity makes things so much easier because you can do it from the comfort of your armchair. All you have to do is put some money in an envelope. Then you can forget about it, because hey, what else can you do? It's a lot easier than actually going to the place in question and *living it* in the way that Danny described above. I'm not giving out judgement on why people give, but the world would be healthier place if those people who do give to let themselves off the hook recognised and acknowledged it as such.
# Posted on June 7th 2003 by Dr. Dow
I guess what I'm trying to say is something along the lines of what Danny just said - that by giving to charity people feel that they can continue to be complacent and allow their governments to carry on f**king over the rest of the world by exploiting them for every resource they have and taking more than their share of the cake.
# Posted on June 7th 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
This looks like it's become a Pariah thread - everyone has said their piece, then skeedaddled off out of it, once they think they've shown themselves to be of clear conscience. Then go on discussing the music. But what the hell, that's what this site's ALL about...or is it? Through this site I've met some great people, and I for one want to continue to do so, but I think it helps if I know if A person is kind enough to give money or time to someone they've never met.
The converse might fit the description of a Spanish proverb:
Solo el ladron crea que todo el mundo estan ladrones.
Only the thief thinks everyone else is a thief.
(apologies if I'm not 100% grammatically correct)
Danny.
# Posted on June 8th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Oh, my conscience is never clear, Danny. There's always something that I've managed to do to garner myself some bad karma.
zls
# Posted on June 8th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I don't think my conscience is ever clear either, but I'm not running away. The following has nothing to do with music, but this discussion reminds me of when I was in Vietnam. I used to be constantly hassled by cyclo drivers (3-wheeled bikes with a seat on the front), who would ask for money to take me on a "tour of the city". I never fancied being ridden around like some sort of "tourist royalty", so one day I told a driver that I'd only pay him if he allowed me to drive the cyclo while he sat in the front. Eventually he let me, and we had a hair-raising drive through Ho Chi Minh City. I almost got us killed a few times because I couldn't figure out how to turn across traffic and do roundabouts. Those things drive weird as well - you can't back-pedal like you can on a normal bicycle, you have to use a handbrake attached to the back wheel, and they're big heaby things with a lot of momentum. Eventually he relaxed and took out a cigarette, and would wave to his cyclo-driving friends and they would stare back in disbelief at this role-reversal between driver and tourist. We also had to look out for police because if we were caught we would have certainly faced a heavy fine. Anyway, I paid him heaps more than he'd asked for because I wanted to pay him according to how much of a life-experience I'd had in real terms. We became friends over the course of a few days, and I was invited to his home on the outskirts of the city to meet his family. We stopped at the local market to buy a fish for dinner (it cost me about US$1.50 and was enough to feed a family). We drove to his home and as far as I can remember we talked about stuff on the way. I don't know how we managed this because I couldn't speak a word of Vietnamese and his English wasn't all that good, but somehow it worked. We arrived at his home which was basically a small concrete room surrounded by dirt track and ditches. The only furniture was a bed in the corner and a few hooks on the walls to put coats on. Outside there were plastic chairs and tables. I was treated as a guest of honour, and all the friends and neighbours came round to say hello. His wife cooked an amazing spicy fish stew-type dish with rice, and his young son taught me some Vietnamese card games. We all had plenty to eat, and I had the time of my life. During our conversation, I learnt that some of the neighbours had perished in floods only a few weeks previously. It didn't look as though this family was getting much income from cyclo driving, and I got the impression of them struggling to have enough just to survive. Despite this they seemed genuinely happy, and they were smiling the whole time. I found out that the kid wasn't going to school because they couldn't afford to send him. By the end of my stay in Saigon, I was so involved with the family that I decided to give them enough money to put the kid through school for a term I think it was, or a whole year, I can't remember. Anyway, it was a small amount of money by Western standards, but to me as a traveller on a shoestring it was quite a bit actually. I'm fairly careful with money, and usually I would've thought twice about parting with money that could be used for living expenses, but I never even stopped to think because I knew it was the right thing to do. I would call it conscious giving, but I remember thinking that I wasn't giving because I felt guilty or wanted to make myself feel better. I was giving them money because I recognised that that kid had a right to go to school. I had the money to pay for it. They didn't. It was that simple. It would make me have to go without a few things for a while, but looking at it objectively, it was a simple decision. By giving money I don't suppose I helped the family much in the long-run, and I certainly didn't do much to alleviate the problem of poverty in Vietnam, but I hope I made the family's life slightly easier at least for a while. Maybe it could have paid for the driver to have a few well-earned days off. I don't know what they'd have used it for... Anyway, I've certainly never regretted parting with that money. I think it meant more to both sides because the whole experience was on a personal level and to do with low-order networks and institutions like the family and neighbourhood, friendships and loyalties, rather than high-order ones like charity organisations, political bodies etc. I don't know what this post is about, but I'm trying to deal with this thing that Danny's confronting us with. Who cares that it hasn't got much to do with music? Sorry about the lack of paragraphs.
# Posted on June 8th 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
What a great story Dow. I got this mental picture of you chaotically driving thru the streets.
# Posted on June 8th 2003 by deblittle
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Dow, I think I know that cyclo driver. j/k
Remind me to tell you about the time I had to bribe my way out of the Hanoi airport with my last $20USD, which was even more amusing b/c I had just paid a visit to the Communist Army outfitters & was wearing Viet Cong combat boots & an olive green cap with a Ho Chi Min pin on it. I have the pictures to prove it.
But isn't it interesting though how all the children gather around & yell 'Madame Madame, Cadeau! Cadeau!' like, give me a gift, give me a gift? Interesting. Great story. I need to go to bed, but thanks for the great story.
# Posted on June 8th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Good story, Dow. I befriended some lads when I was in Bluefields. When it was my time to head off, to Peru on this occasion, I asked if there was anything I could send these guys from Uk on my return to London. The reply was:
"Boots, man, boots!"
I looked down and for the first time noticed that neither possessed any footwear. How's that for being a blinkered Westerner?
I duly sent them pairs of boots but never got a reply, so I don't know if they received them. They may have been thieved by an equally impoverished postal worker, but of course I'd have preferred my mates to get them.
Danny.
# Posted on June 8th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Charity and inequality? Dow sent ONE kid in Ho Chi MInh to school.
# Posted on June 8th 2003 by ...
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
One more than you, I bet.
# Posted on June 8th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
You really don't get it do you Michael?
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
....or doesn't get it enough, that's why he's got the hump....
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
... maybe if he's not getting the point, it's sleep he's not getting enough of; see this link
http://archive.newscientist.com/secure/article/article.jsp?rp=1&id=mg16322054.600.
for an article (longer than the last, so possibly for hardcore science users) on how certain aspects of learning and understanding may not be possible without enough sleep. Presumably this doesn't rule out the odd 3/4 hour night after a particularly good session.
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I think you've got to be a subscriber to New Scientist, with a password etc, in order to access that article. I couldn't get at it.
Trevor
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by Trevor Jennings
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I'm not a subscriber, I was just reminded that I'd read the article by an earlier posting, so I googled! If you want to follow my slightly longer route, here are the directions: go to
http://www.google.com/advanced_search
and type in "new scientist magazine" where it asks for the exact phrase, and the third link was for the new scientist archive webpage. I searched just using the keywords memory, sleep, eight and hours, and there were 6 articles. The one in question is called "perchance to learn". Happy hunting!
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Your link worked for me, nastyweegirl... (do you have another name?)
Bad news for a persistent insomniac like me - I'm surprised I can remember anything at all...
At least I can use it as an excuse for all my omissions and stupidities. "Sorry, I can't remember whatever it was I was supposed to do - my hippocampus didn't mention it to my cortex. I was on holiday at the time. The dog ate my homework. Can I have a siesta now?"
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by Nell
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Charity and inequality. Charity sustains inequality because because charity is not fair. Just what about this do you all not get?
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by ...
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I disagree. Charity doesn't creat or sustain inequality, though charity is often used as an excuse by politicians who want to preserve the status quo. Capitalism both creates and sustains inequality. Capitalism is not the start of all inequality, of course, but it has a symbiotic relationship with inequality. If there were no inequality there probably wouldn't be Capitalism either.
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by glauber
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Mark's story reinforces my own belief's about giving--that it's mutually beneficial and restorative when it's done at the personal level, and even if that doesn't seem to change the big picture much, I'd argue that it does. I tend to think it's at least as important to make those direct personal connections as it is to dole out tons of "humanitarian aid" in cargo planes because the former builds understanding both ways between giver and recipient, which the latter rarely does.
So while I fork out cash to worthy causes, I find it at least as effective to shovel snow off my elderly neighbor's walk and make sure he's getting a good meal in him every day, and to teach a friend's son how to navigate a kayak down a Montana river, and another kid how to play slip jigs on fiddle, or invite several "underprivileged" kids onto a soccer team and make sure they have transportation to and from practices and games, and a snack aftrerwards. The point is, you can improve a person's life by breaking down the barrier of "stranger" or "non-family" and treating them like a brother or sister (well, in the best sense of that relationship), giving of your time and attention, and in many cases that spreads into a stronger sense of community--neighbors become genuine friends and caregivers instead of mere acquaintances who pass small talk once a week at the mailbox. And strong communities provide better care for everyone, have-nots as well as the haves.
Does it solve all the world's troubles? Of course not, but it's a viable step in a humane, constructive direction, and I'd rather be headed in that direction than idling or going in reverse. The world is a better place because many people do in fact live this way. It would be an even better place if more people followed suit.
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Michael's ravings remind me of that worn but true adage, Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
I also like the Bubba-ism:
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he spends the rest of his life in a boat drinking beer.
P.S. Michael: Just because some of us disagree with you doesn't mean we're "wrong."
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I wish you'd look at this more logically:
Dow sent ONE kid in Ho Chi MInh to school. That gave that kid an advantage over his neighbour.
Now nowhere did I say that Dow was wrong or bad or any of that stuff. I admire that little story. I'm not being judgmental here. I'm merely pionting out the concequience of charitlabe actions.
If you give to charity you must realize that you are sustaining inequality. Is it better that one kid out of a hundred thousand goes to school than none of them? Maybe. But which kid?
Glauber, be logical.
Capitalism creates and sustains inequality.
Charity sustains capitalism.
Will, I never said anywhere that any of you were wrong, just that you should realise the comcequences of your actions.
I'm not raving, I'm disspassionate
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by ...
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Does not!
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by glauber
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
If we're not all very careful this thread is going to exemplify the Law of Diminishing Returns and could well turn into a meta-thread ...
Trevor
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by Trevor Jennings
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
"Just what about this do you all not get?"
--Mr. Gill
Reminds me of what physicist Neils Bohr reportedly said once to his son. "You're not thinking, you're merely being logical." I used to think that was a horrible insult, but now am beginning to see what Mr. Bohr was getting at....
I guess I don't get why Michael is so hung up on inequality. Who said life had to be equal for everyone? I don't think it can--or should--be. But that doesn't mean we should give up trying to improve the condition of people's lives. And one of the consequences of inequity is that some people who have less or are oppressed decide that they too want a better life, and with a little help from friends they can gain the aspirations, hope, and perhaps even the fortitude to pursue it.
At any rate, I think this focus on inequality is very misleading. Life is not a contest to be won based on who has more, is more talented, or has the most social advantages. I don't think Danny or anyone else here is hoping to redistribute wealth so that everyone has precisely the same balance in their checking accounts. The point is to help folks who don't have enough to eat, clean drinking water, adequate medical care, or a roof over their heads. Not to make them somehow "equal," but to help make their lives less miserable.
I've been there, years ago. Unemployed, homeless, wondering where my next mouthful of food was coming from and looking for a warm enough place to sleep. I hope I never land there again, but I can also say that such a life is not without its moments of happiness and even fulfillment. I've also lived in impoverished countries, and my friends there may not have had the amenities that more developed countries enjoy, but neither did they feel inferior or "unequal" as human beings.
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Well, according to Michael Gill's session mates, he's a decent enough guy, in fact, I even believe the word "nice" was used, so I for one think this is another one of his silly little windups and refuse to take him seriously. (And if he is being serious, then at this point he's not worth taking seriously, really. *grin*) The trouble with being political and seeing people as only part of a group is that you forget that they're still individual people. They say if you take anyone in a mob and have them remember what makes them different from their fellow mobsters, the mob starts falling apart...
Honestly, if our politicians could start remembering the individual instead of the large group, we'd probably have a better time of it all roujnd.
Love the Neils Bohr quote, Will, I am really going to have to remember to use that one. I'm surrounded by far too many computer geeks, and could I have used that one a jillion times!
zls
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I reckon it's the converse - capitalism requires inequality so that there is always a source of cheap labour. The global capitalist-military-industrial complex will always strive to maintain the inequality. Like trying to keep a chemical reaction going which is far from equilibrium.
A major reason why the Western Roman empire imploded was because it simply could not maintain the momentum of its "mission statement", which was to conquer a territory militarily, Romanise the inhabitants, then move on to the next territory, using an army included in which were conscripts from the newly conquered territory. The British did much the same when they built their second empire. I notice that one of the first US casualties from the recent US/UK attack on Iraq, was a Honduran national, so one might posit that the strategy has not yet been dicarded.
Trotsky was wrong - there isn't going to be a world revolution. Forget that notion. But the evils of western imperialism are now coming home to roost. Tony Bush and George Blair will never win against people whose lives are so crap, ravaged by years of exploitation and oppression, that they are prepared to blow themselves up, and take others with them, for their cause.
I'm certainly not attempting to vindicate suicide bombing. I think it's the lowest level any authority would stoop to. The Israelis will never win against Palestinians who are prepared to do that, but in my view the palestinian authorities have sunk to a subhuman level by encouraging it, albeit clandestinely. But the palestinians have been treated subhumanly.
In the meantime, if you feel the need to help out people less fortunate than yourself, and if it is through giving to a charity, do so. I've already explained the way I think it can be done successfully. But definitely keep playing the tunes - what a great liberator...and leveller.
End of rant.
Danny.
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Interesting dicussions and replies. I really should keep my opinions to myself on this one lest I unleash torrents of psychobabble and abusive texts. I think the idea is to treat other people as you would wish to be treated if the situations were reversed. Milk of human kindness and all that. Governments and politics aside, it is how individuals deal with each other than will determine the future. I do think it is important to relate experiences and try to make Mr Gill see that charity is not an institution-rather it is the action we take upon hearing of or seeing of the misfortunes of other human beings and animals and life on this planet. But I fear he is playing devil's advocate or beyond bothering with.
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by Greenwiggle
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
So Will's a capitalist, as he so eloquently puts in his second paragraph. And thats fine. I like to think I'm a little more left leaning, but really I'm just muddled when it comes to the answers to these big questions. Why am I muddled? Because, at the very least, I understand the depth of contradiction people get themselves into.
And I like that Bhor quote too, but hear what he's saying:
"You're not thinking, you're MERELY being logical."
Merely thinking logically is not enough, we know that. But to be a good thinker, you must include logic in your thought. Logic is the first step to thought.
Zina. if I'm winding you up, "refuse" to take me seriously. And if I'm serious, I'm "not worth" being taken seriously???
And I said earlier that people exist as both individuals and as part of a group.
Or, seeings we like Bhor, we could apply his theory of "complimentarity" here. People can be neither individuals nor part of a group, because these are complimentary modes of description.
And break out your dictionaries here: "charity" is not an institution, but "charities" are
# Posted on June 9th 2003 by ...
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
So? Trotsky was wrong, there isn't going to be a world revolution. You sound pretty sure about that Danny. I bet if we went back fifteen years or so you would have been equally certain that a British Labour government wouldn't have joined a far right American Imperialist Crusade(!).
As old Karl Marx said - "All that is solid melts into air..."
Which could be a good name for a tune.
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Ottery
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
15 years? - call that 10 years or less!
And the Trotsky one, I may have been rather over assertive on that one, but I'm stating my opinion.
One thing is for sure, though, and the far left used to be guilty of it, and that's when they want to see people impoverished and starving enough to bring about the discontent which would ferment revolution, thus fulfilling their "predictions". That in my book is just about as evil as anything the far right could concoct. I'm just worried that maybe Michael has unwittingly got a whiff of that argument. Please prove me wrong.
Danny
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Not at all danny. We all know the far right and left end up in the same place.
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by ...
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I think Michael is simply saying that charity reinforces the status quo. I think he's wrong, although I would say that I don't think charity challenges the status quo - but it's not a 'your either with us or you're against us' type of situation. Any thing which alleviates suffering must surely be good(?), even if it does't solve the underlying cause of that suffering. The question of whether we can be arsed to do anything to even out the monstrous equalities in our world is a different question - though if we're too complacent I don't think we should be surprised when the have-nots of this world get a little pissed off at seeing the extravagances of western life on the TV sets we sell them...
(I'm writing this on on of the 2 G4 Macs I own. Apparently 50% of the population of the world have never even USED a telephone.... )
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Ottery
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
That's right, Michael, because though your mates think you're a nice guy, based on your behavior here at The Session over a long span of time, you don't deserve being taken seriously by me (or anyone else insofar as I'm concerned) either way you go. Go ahead, try and change my mind, I'm willing and have been waiting for quite some time...
Human beings are human beings. We don't get much better or worse over the centuries. Trying, though, makes us better people overall, and balances out those who, in their efforts to get by every day, manage to run over other people. Want to change that? Teach the children well.
zls
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Michael has confused my notion of "a better life" with material gain and capitalism. I professed no such thing. (On the other hand, I suppose I *am* a capitalist, seeing as how I live in America, own my own business, and use money to obtain "things." Despite all that, I DON'T use my livelihood to outcompete other people, stepping on them to climb to the top. In fact, I don't actively seek work (it finds me no matter how well I hide), I purposefully limit my hours on the job to half or three-quarter time, sometimes passing on work to others in my field who need it (hours with family and friends are more important to me than money), and I routinely *share* my "profits" (and time and effort and material goods) with my neighbors to help create a more open, cooperative community based on common good rather than competition.
Also seems that there are significant cultural differences in what/who a liberal and conservative is, depending on which side of the pond you happen to vote.
But this thread has turned into a bath of self-righteousness--too preachy for my tastes...toodle-ooo.
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Hey, I think Mr. Gill's been pretty positive as of late, lay off him guys. As far as too far right & too far left comment, it's the absolute truth. Sure, the details are a little different, but extremists from either side would rather see you dead than going about your own little happy life.
Will, that charity stuff only counts when you don't brag about it.
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by B Rad
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
LOL Brad, thanks, I needed that!
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
A bath of self-righteousness?
A handbasin of self-deception?
A sink of slippery conceits?
The eel in the sink...
There - I've got it back to a musical theme in only 4 moves.
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Ottery
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I love this Micheal Gill guy! I simply can't wait for another provocotive post that sends most of the participants into a frothing fit of outrage! Why the nerve of this guy suggesting that 'Irish trad is EASY music', and insisting on using the outragous term 'diddly music', and to post such crazy thoughts that 'Charity reinforces inequality'. Surely, this mad man must be stopped!
thesession.org is almost like walking into a Disney-Like world where the flowers are in bloom, small birds alight upon your finger and chirp sweetly and woodland creatures of all sorts come out to play in the spring-time meadow. Then, all of a sudden, the large green foot of Godzilla (re: Micheal) crushes all happiness into a flat, gooey mush in one oblivous STOMP!
Since I happen to like suprises, I like his participation very much. I'm not sure why anyone would take anything he says too personally. Please, no more posts explaining how offensive this guy is to you. Personally, I'd give him an award for being interesting!
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Caoimghgin
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Yep, and yer welcome to him, Kev.
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
IMO, Michael's well on the way to becoming a National Treasure, like HRH Prince Philip
Trevor
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Trevor Jennings
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Oh do, Kev. It'd be ever so helpful and considerate of you.
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
you forgot to mention the slithery things,Ottery - what about eels...that can fly...what about eels with wings?
where will your fancy crimson hooter get you then? ey?
now,that's the law...
exit left pursued by polar bears
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by biggus dave
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Now we got a charity going for poor Michael.. I'll be on yer side I always like the underdog.
or (*snort).
Deb
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by deblittle
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Haw Mick -The first thing you should buy with your new found wealth from charitable donations is that book Teach Yourself to Read. Only joking, mate. I quite enjoy a good old ding-dong, so long as it doesn't stoop to character assasination, which seems to be the zeitgeist on this thread now. My take is that although his logic's a bit fuzzy, Michael's heart is in the right place - ie with the rest of his body in Edinburgh, 380 miles from here...(still only joking).....
Danny.
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
My 1st *snort by the way.
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by deblittle
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
And let's hope it's your last, young lady. How dare you snort all those recycled electrons all over my screen.
Preposterous.
Yours Sincerely,
Outraged of Catford.
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Danny, I think your thread is a new thesession record! I'm so glad I've got my broadband connection. It has got a bit scary though, so I'm going to run away and hide.
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Certainly wasn't trying to! The fact that the original topic was ok, but there's only so much you can say, then the subject changed about three or four times, Charity, Zina's new house, charity, Michael, probably kept it alive for longer than it's natural three-score and ten hits. It's getting fairly moribund now though...Hope michael's not OD'd on antidepressants...
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Sorry, but couldn't resist going for the big one three oh hits....
Danny
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Yeah Danny and YOU started out the discussion saying something about being diminished if you were clay.. Nothing compared to poor Michael's.
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by deblittle
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Hey Danny Don't for get about that damned fish and the German!!!
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by deblittle
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Oh yeah....Einstein's puzzle....God, was that on here as well!
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
When your thread gets past a certain number of hits, there should be a rule that says you're not allowed to speak on your own thread. Then we could all slag you off and you'd have to just sit and listen
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Dow - Don't tell me you've got the hump cos I beat your record!
Nah Nah ni Nah Nah.
Danny
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Oh, hoooow immature
If that were true why would I still be posting on this thread? Hm? Hah! Answer that one!
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Whooooo said anything about wanting to be mature? Nothing up with a bit of light relief after some of the weighty topics already discussed here.
But by you still posting onto this thread makes my lead even bigger!!
Nah nah ni nah nah
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Aye well, at least it's good to know that you think we're still worth engaging in discussion, and that you're not getting "bored" with us again ',:-a
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Yawn....
Sorry?
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Just joking, Dow. Just glanced back at some of the statements made here, which I forgot to respond to at the time....
First. Emilyaz - yeah - Malthus is well-outdated...anyone who would consider his ideas seriously nowadays might be considered as a dangerous Neo-Nazi! There are still lots of untapped resources on our "big petri dish"...it just doesn't make capitalist sense to tap them. Why bother saving peoples lives if you can't make a buck out of it.
I won't have another go at Michael - he's taken enough stick, for trying to make some points, but Will, Sor-reee for being too preachy! I felt it was a bit like a prayer meeting at times, but at least for once we embarked upon a full blown discussion that wasn't about flute embouchure or bowing technique, and thus showed that a fair number of us heads here are not just one-dimensional cardboard musos from which emanate diddly noises.
Anyway, time to go for a run, sorry, a waddle.
Danny.
# Posted on June 10th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
I don't know if I should be flattered or reprimanded, but Danny knicked my original quote of LODR in the first place, so there.
Speaking of which, it doesn't matter how much I practice before next Monday, I'll be at essentially the same level, & that, is the perfect demonstration of the LODR. Except Malthus used the agricultural example of fertilizer I believe, that is to say, more fertilizer won't necessarily yield more crops, which is so apropo lately since my playing has been absolute sh*te. That's the big difference between music & academics -- you really can't cram & pull it off like a big test. Or I can't anyway. Cheers!
# Posted on June 11th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
Be flattered, Em.
But I didn't exactly knick it - I did give credit to the person who first introduced it to the session, but being too lazy to scroll back to the source, I think I said "someone..." but fair play to you to point it out. In that case we'll share the prize for the longest thread on The Session...what do we get, Jeremy?
Kudos?
What's that?
The same as impecunious obscurity?
Danny.
# Posted on June 14th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
It's a candy bar. here in the States, anyway.
# Posted on June 14th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Law of Diminishing Returns
That'll do fine. We'll have half each.
Danny.
# Posted on June 14th 2003 by Rudall the time