conspiracy theory, take 2

Years ago I wrote a blog post where I was very sarcastic toward people who held to conspiracy theories. That is not something that I would write again today, as I have realized in retrospect that the tone was somewhat detestable and more than a little self-righteous. If I haven't repented of this before, consider this my repentance now. That was a vain approach, and it wasn't the only vain thing I wrote in that era.

I have given a lot of thought to conspiracy theories since, however.

My issue with conspiracy theories has long been that they are intellectually lazy. The approach takes the form that I believe the world is a certain way, but the objective evidence suggests otherwise, so I decide that the objective evidence is just what some secret and powerful group of people want everyone else to believe. It exchanges a logical approach for storytelling, and it implies that anecdotal evidence is more valid than quantitative evidence.  It also appeals to the human desire to be superior to others since I get to be part of the small group of people who have figured out the way the world really works.

The mathematical take on this is that a true conspiracy with many members would be difficult-to-impossible to maintain, but as the number of people involved shrinks the potential for a secret conspiracy to be maintained increases.  So, a secret cartel in some industry that requires ten or twenty people to keep a secret is logically feasible, whereas a secret but huge cabal of thousands necessary to convincingly fake the moon landing or hide the fact that the earth is flat from the populace is not logically feasible.

The problem is, a lot of people whose opinions and intellect I respect do buy into specific conspiracy theories. The list of people I respect who I know believe in some conspiracy theory or another has grown significantly in the past few months. I don't know what to do with that fact. It bothers me because my respect for them is challenged, but then I still see the other areas of their lives and intellect that are worthy of respect. It's a difficult thing to reconcile.

So, the way things are now, if I hear someone relay their opinion that some conspiracy theory is true my reaction is one of two things. If it's a small conspiracy it is to consider the greater-than-zero odds that the theory is accurate. If it's a large conspiracy it is to do my absolute best not to let that theory tarnish my respect for that person. So, I'm doing my level best not to hold Fox Mulder in disrespect, but it's a serious challenge!

feature i wish netflix had

This is very much a first world problems post, but they happen.

A little under a year ago we cut the cord on cable.  Between Netflix, YouTube, and an over-the-air recorder (Tablo), Golden and I get most of what we want to watch..  However, I am sure the kids might prefer to have more ready access to the Disney and Nick channels.  One thing that gets on my nerves more now that we rely on it, though, is Netflix's impossible-to-navigate interface.

At first blush, the Netflix interface looks great.  It's clean and attractive.  It does a decent job of recommending things we'll probably want to see.  However, it is a major source of frustration for the way I want to use it.

The way I want to use Netflix is that I want to be able to go out searching for things I might like to see when I have spare time to investigate.  Then, I want to tag a movie or a show as "Something only I will like" or "Something to watch with Golden and I" or "Kid's shows" or "Good for watching with the family over the holidays."  What Netflix offers me instead is the ability to add the show or movie to a single list.  We have decided at times not to try to find something to watch on Netflix because we couldn't easily find something that fell into one of those categories on the spot.

This idea could be expanded upon as well.  As a parent it would be great if I could tag shows as "Only play once I enter a code" or take the opposite approach of disallowing everything unless I have tagged it as allowed.  It would also be nice to be able to tag movies in this way that are not yet on streaming, but might be some day.

A year ago I looked into whether I could write something like this myself using the public APIs Netflix allows developers to use.  I found that this may have been possible in the past, but they recently locked down what is truly accessible through their APIs to block what they viewed as competing services from using their data/system.

I also looked into submitting this request directly to Netflix because I imagine a lot of people would like a system like what I describe, and it honestly would not be very difficult to build.  It turns out that Netflix does not have a support email address to send these requests to, and only has an online chat function which is never active when I have time to submit my request.

So, I post my request here.  Maybe at some point someone in Netflix Product Management will be doing a Google search for desired features, run across this post, and decide that it isn't such a bad idea.  That's my only real hope for getting this incredibly useful feature added to the product that I subscribe to and use with some regularity.

melancholy songs

I'm not usually drawn to melancholy songs, but every once in a while I'll lock onto one and listen to it to death.  When I was in high school it was Elle G. by The Newsboys.



In my twenties I could not stop listening to the Johnny Cash cover of Hurt.



Oddly enough, the melancholy song I've been going to lately is an old one rather than a new one.  It's the Gary Jules cover of Mad World.


For whatever reason, these particular songs are the sad ones I decided I wanted to listen to when I want to listen to a sad song.  The songs themselves feel like they have more substance than a run-of-the-mill sad song, but that might be me rationalizing after I've decided I like a song.

Do you have any that serve this same function?