Time
Today is my 31th birthday. I've not celebrated birthdays since I was 12 oe 13.
I think not celerbrating birthdays is a tradition I will keep until I'm old
enough that still being alive is an actual achievement. Yesterday evening was
cold and frozen, and today Tartu is covered in a fine 3 centimeter layer of
snow. Hopefully nobody slips on the ice and gets hurt. I'm surprised that you
can not buy shoes with builtin steel studs for occations like these, as they
arise so often here. (
https://youtu.be/TdIRrmNN_CQ )
Stuff on youtube
We watched a few episodes of "The Norden" on youtube yesterday evening, they
are well-produced, but I kind of got a feeling that it was mostly about "the
north" patting itself on the shoulder over how much better it is than USA.
While I do generally agree on the points shown, I think there was a lack of
balance, showing that our systems, while better, are not without fault.
The episode about prison systems were interesting. On the macroscopic scale,
the system of focusing on rehabilitation rather than punishment seems to be
a success, it looks like it is the cheaper thing for society at large.
However, as the american visting the luxurious norwegian prison remarks; "How
does a victim or their family feel about knowing that the person who harmed
them is treated to this hotel stay for their crime." (This is my wording of his
remark, I don't remember it verbatim). There seem to indeed be a conflict of
interest between society wanting to rehabilitate people and victims wanting
to see some kind of suffering or punishment fall upon those who wronged them.
Maybe a middle-way would be a two-strike system, where you get the chance to
change your ways the first two incidents, and if you fail, then you go not to
a luxury hotel, but to a people-storage facility where the purpose is not to
rehabilitate you but to keep you away from society in a cheap and secure way.
This may actually work better than chosing only one of those methods, being
that different people respond to different arguments. So those who are not
receptive to the kind of reasoning used in a humane rehabilitation facility
may still be deterred from crime due to a fear of punishment and harsh living
conditions. The reasonable person will be able to correct their behaviour from
a humane and respectful rehabilitation while those who don't care about having
to endure a hotel-stay will be deterred by the thought of rough prison.
In another program I saw that Norway has a mandatory class for immigrants where
they are introduced to the culture, values and gender equality. I think that on
the surface it is a good idea, and certainly better than what we offer in
Denmark, which is absolutely nothing at all. But I think it should be much more
intensive, I believe that a country has the right to demand that those who
move to it to stay for any amount of time adapt to the culture, and this can
not be expected to happen automatically. It may be impossible to change a the
mind of a hardcore jihadist or orthodox christian, but those who are not that
deeply damaged can be saved, by only putting them into situations where they
have to imagine themselves in others shoes, where they have to utilize their
empathy, stimulate their mirror-neurons, and where they are absolutely required
to do real constructive critical thinking in order to pass the class.
That would be an improvement on Norways system, and it would be a world away
from what we have in Denmark at the moment, where there seem to be two
political standpoints: "Everything is burning, it is impossible to amend the
situation, we need to kick them all out and not allow anybody in at all ever!"
and then "There is no problem, they are all wonderful people who will fit right
into our society, and where they won't change, we will!".
The truth as always is somewhere in the middle, but in order to solve a problem
two, not one conditions have to be met: 1. You must acknowledge the existence
of the problem. and 2. You must acknowledge that the problem is solvable.
Games
I bought a bunch of games on the Steam wintersale, and today I played the first
one of them, the only one that I believe that this HP Stream can handle. It is
called Stardew Valley, and it's a really pretty looking pixel-graphics game.
The story goes that you've grown tired of your modern life, and luckily, you've
inherited your grandfathers farm which you start your new life in. It has some
role-playing elements, mixed with building/crafting, and it seems like a very
cozy game. It's not the kind of game that I usually play, because this type of
game takes so much time, it's not something you just play for 15 minutes when
the mood hits you, and usually those are the games I'm playing. But this game
is really nice and I believe that I will be playing it rather much, if I can
justify spending the time on it. That's usually the problem for me with this
kind of game.. It's basically a work simulator, and while it is indeed very
enjoyable to cut down virtual greenery, there's always this thought in the back
of my mind that I should be doing something more "productive", or at leat
something which I can get better at.. For example, Devil Daggers has a very
quick gameplay, it's really okay to just take 15 minutes, that's several rounds,
and I always have this sensation of growing better, me, I'm the one improving,
not my characters stats in the game, but my actual self, and that gives it some
kind of meaning in my head, the same with tetris, I feel myself getting better.
Anyway, it' getting a bit late, so I will read the rest of H. Beam Pipers
"Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen", very very oldschool sci-fi-fantasy indeed.
The games
Oh yes, I wanted to tell which games I got, the list is, as far as I recall:
+ Act of Aggression - RTS
+ Dying Light - FPS
+ Sid Meier's Civilization V (+ All DLC)
+ Stardew Valley
+ Tropico 5 (+All DLC)
+ An extra copy of Shadow Warrior (2016) to give as a gift to someone
The Wire (2002-2008)
I'm usually not into crime-themes TV shows, unless they have a twist, like
Dexter, Elementary or Breaking Bad, so I guess there's some twist to "The Wire"
that I'm not entirely sure what is, maybe the way the main character reminds me
of Max Payne, or maybe that you follow both sides of the case and it's about
more than "finding the murderer", I enjoyed the pilot today and will watch more.
- Signing out
