Social media are here, regardless of whether we like them, dislike them, use them, or don’t use them.  They’re also becoming a part of education, and school districts and colleges and universities across the country are struggling with policies that allow constructive use of social media while curbing abuse.  Some school districts prohibit their use in education entirely, while others range from restricted use to almost unrestricted use.

Time will tell, as with many things, just what uses will be allowed, but there’s one aspect of all of this that, I must say, troubles me greatly.  One educator, cited in a recent article in The Christian Science Monitor, made an observation along the lines that he had to give feedback on assignments to students through Facebook because students never checked email since email just wasn’t part of their world.

I relayed that comment to my wife the college professor, and she nodded sagely, informing me that a growing percentage of college students simply never check their email or answer telephone messages. She should know, since her university system will inform her whether any email she has sent has even been opened – and many aren’t.  An increasing number of students only respond, and not necessarily reliably, to text messages and Facebook postings.

What?  Since when are students determining what forms of communication will be used in education?  The issue here, it seems to me, is not just whether social media has a place in education, and what that place should be, but also who exactly is setting the standards and the ground rules.

To begin with, for a teacher to reach a student through a social network, the teacher must belong to that network, and depending on the settings, etc., must request of the student to be accepted as a “friend,” or request that the student contact them and be accepted as a friend. In short, either party can refuse communications, and, in effect, the students are effectively setting the requirements for what communications they’ll receive and how.  I can certainly see students – and parents – rebelling if teachers required communications via FedEx, UPS, or carrier pigeon, but not accepting emails as opposed to Facebook messages?  Email is a non-obligatory electronic communications system far more open to all users and recipients, and takes no more time or equipment than does Facebook or any other social network. Also, teachers should be teachers, not “friends,” because even the most brilliant of students should not be encouraged to think of themselves as the equal of their teachers, no matter how much greater some of them may doubtless end up.

Again, I may be antiquated, but at this point using social networks for any form of “official” communication, whether educational, governmental, or business, raises questions about security, privacy, scholastic policies, discipline, and propriety that certainly have not been answered.

Who’s the leading GOP presidential candidate this moment?  Romney? Perry? Cain? Is Christie in or out? What about Palin? The stock market’s up three hundred points – oops, down four hundred, up one hundred, down two hundred…  The latest on Amanda Knox, or whatever celebrity’s hot, bestseller numbers on Amazon reported hourly… commodity reports tracked by the millisecond, commodities and stocks traded by the nanosecond….

Forget about telephone calls.  Keep up with Twitter, 128 character quick bits, or friend messages, quick test messages on your iPhone.  Forget about so-called instant messages; they’re too slow, and emails… obsolete!

Have we as a society lost our minds?

There’s an old, old saying – Act in haste; repent at leisure – and I have the feeling that almost no one has heard it or remembered it. We’re inundated with instant information, pressured to act and decide instantly.  The worst of it is that because there’s so much instant communication and information, people are often taking longer and longer to get around to working on projects and doing actual work because they have to deal with the instant information, and that means more and more decisions and actions are taken with less and less forethought because there’s less and less time to actually consider them, and almost everything becomes an instant decision.

For example, when the liquidators took over Borders, they didn’t have “enough time” to consider selling blocks of leases to other bookstores and chains, or to sell book stock in lots.  In the end, I suspect, they raised far less cash than if they’d taken a bit more time to plan things out.

My son and I tried to buy a bathing suit for his daughter, because she’d inadvertently left hers behind.  This was the first weekend in August – still summer, one might think.  We had to try four stores before we could find any bathing suits at all – in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., where the temperature stays above eighty degrees until October.  Why?  Because instant automated decisions insist that the summer buying season is over in mid-July.

Programmed computer trades, made in nanoseconds, have transformed the stock market from a marketplace where fundamentals and logic had a role into a largely “technical” market based on using algorithms to make quick profits, but the result is an extremely volatile market, and one in which the risks of catastrophic losses and meltdowns become more and more probable, even when the underlying fundamentals of many securities are sound.  What’s happening is that the instant information drags the entire market up or down almost in lockstep, regardless of the differentials in values of various stocks.  So “hot” stocks with little behind them behave in much the same way as issues with solid fundamentals. That has turned the market into even more of a casino than it was. We’ve already had one “flash crash” in the market, and I’d be astonished if we don’t have another.

The instant emphasis pervades everything, it seems, even when there’s a question as to whether it makes sense, but, after all, “instant” is so much better.

No… I’m not going to write about “wanted” posters, but about the awareness of being alive.  What sparked this was a New York Times article about how Grande Prix racing had gone from a sport that killed drivers every year on a predictable basis to one that seldom sees fatalities, thanks to the improved safety technology incorporated in the race cars… and how its public profile has dropped in the American media.

Every so often my wife and I may glance at a story or an ad or something that depicts so-called extreme sports.  Almost invariably, even when she says not a word, I know what she’s thinking.  She can’t understand why anyone would engage in something that dangerous, and she thinks they’re idiots for doing so.

My attitude is a bit different. Not only do I think they’re foolish, but I tend to feel sorry for them. Anyone who can only feel alive when risking death and annihilation, or who can only find a thrill or meaning in life in such circumstances, most likely isn’t truly alive most of the time anyway.  Many of those individuals, interestingly enough, claim that the rest of us aren’t truly alive because we don’t understand what it is to be alive in the face of danger.

Obviously, we’re all different, but I’d like to think that it shouldn’t take the imminent threat of death to feel alive, but what bothers both of us even more than that is the apparently growing popularity of such “sports”… where, like the crowds in the Roman Coliseum or the Circus Maximus, everyone roars when there’s a death or a crash.  But then, some Republicans roar when a governor boasts about the executions in his state. I’m all too aware that life can be fragile, and that no one so far has managed to get out of it alive, but I find it a sad commentary on humanity that bystanders and voyeurs can get a thrill or pleasure out of death and destruction.

Oh… I know that tendency has been around throughout history, and that less than two generations ago in parts of the United States, lynching was a spectator sport.  I’m also more than casually aware that death is, sooner or later, potentially all too close to most military personnel… but shouldn’t death be thought of as a reluctant necessity rather than with excitement or as entertainment?

And what does it say about us as a culture that the more violent forms of “entertainment” seem to be the most popular?

Dead or alive…?

For at least several years, I’ve been puzzled by the handful of readers/reviewers who insist I write “the same book” over and over.  My first reaction was that they weren’t reading all of what I wrote… but several of these reader reviewers have clearly read much of what I write.  So my latest reaction tends to be, “If you find what I write so objectionable in its repetition, why do you keep reading my work and repeating your objections?”  If you don’t like it… then don’t read it.  I understand that my work doesn’t appeal to everyone.  No author’s work does.

But perhaps they feel so strongly that they’re compelled to try to persuade others that my work is “repetitious” or the like?  Why?  What’s the point?  I’ll admit that there are books and series that I feel the same way about… but I don’t spend time and ink trying to make that point to those who love those books and series.  If their followers enjoy them, then that’s their pleasure.

This “sameness” criticism has been applied especially to the Recluce Saga, and since several amateur reviewers [who consider themselves superior] continue harping, I thought I’d try to take a more analytical look at the saga and see if I could identify persistent areas of “sameness/repetition.”

One charge is that I always write about young people trying to find their way, yet out of the 16 books in the Recluce Saga, only four deal with protagonists younger than 20 [six, if you count the second book in the case of Lerris and Cerryl], and those young people come from very different backgrounds, ranging from being an orphan to being the son of a ruler.  In six of the sixteen books, the protagonists are well-established in their occupations and all over 30. Do they all then go from rags to riches?  In only three cases in all the Saga do the protagonists become absolute rulers – Cerryl, Lorn, and Saryn.  While Cerryl does move from “nothing” to high wizard, Lorn is the son of the fourth most powerful man in Cyad, and takes two books and much effort to reach the top spot. Saryn begins as number two in Westwind and ends up as number one in Lornth. Creslin starts out as the son of a ruler and ends up as one of five members of the ruling council, in roughly the same place after a great deal of trial and tribulation.  Kharl is a prosperous cooper who loses everything and finally manages to become a modestly endowed junior member of the aristocracy.  Dorrin  comes from a prosperous background, is exiled, fights, and ends up as what might be called an engineering tribune who founded Nylan. Justen begins as an engineering mage and ends up as a druid-influenced gray wizard and far from wealthy.  Rahl begins as a scrivener and ends up as the Mage-Guard advisor to the provincial governor. Nylan begins as a ship’s engineer and ends up as a gray mage in Naclos.    So… most of them did somewhat better for themselves, if at rather high costs, but not all did.

Well… maybe the books are stylistically similar.  Of the sixteen, two were written in the first-person past tense, four in the third-person present tense, and ten in the third-person past tense [which is the POV used in about 90% of all F&SF books].  That doesn’t present an overwhelming “similarity” in approach and actually differs greatly from the average.

Then does this purported sameness lie in the plot or the characters?  I’d be the first to admit that there is one definite element of similarity – the main characters all do survive and succeed to some degree, but the degree of their physical success varies considerably.  Creslin and Megaera effectively lose their entire families and end up trying to build a land on a desert isle.  Lerris ends up with no wealth, and no family except his wife.  Lorn becomes emperor, but loses his father and sister, and his remaining sister exiles herself. Justen spends his life as a wandering gray mage.  Rahl becomes a high-ranking mage-guard and does marry his love.  Kharl loses his wife and children, but eventually gains true love and  small estate.  Nylan gains nothing, except his wife and son, and loses his daughter.  Cerryl gains great power, and will spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder.  Maybe I’m missing something, but the only similarity I see is that these characters have paid high prices for their survival and success, and the prices they have paid differ in how and when they were paid.

Heinlein once observed that there were only three plots in fiction – the success story and its opposite, the tragedy; the love story; and the story of the person who learned something.  I’ve only written one tragedy [The Forever Hero], and while many of my books incorporate love stories, I will admit that most of my books do center on people who have learned something and who have succeeded to some degree – if generally at a high personal cost.

If some reviewers claim that this is writing the same book again and again, then the same claim could be lodged against  90% of all the books ever written, because every book with a plot will have a basic sameness compared to what came before, and like pretty much every writer, I’m guilty of that sameness.

So what else is new?

With the Presidential nomination sweepstakes and popularity contest already opening up, we’re all going to be treated to another year of claims and counterclaims, and, if the President’s recent remarks and the Republican candidates’ counter-claims are any indication, a good proportion of the rhetoric is likely to center around taxes.

As I understand the respective positions, the Democrats feel that, because wealth has become more and more concentrated, particularly in the last decade, the “wealthy” [however they’re defined] should pay a greater share in taxes, and that would be determined by closing various “loopholes” and creating a higher tax rate for the top income categories, roughly above $250,000.  The Republicans counter by saying that higher rates are counterproductive economically and that those who are above the “middle class” already pay a disproportionate amount of federal income tax.

While statistics need to be viewed with care, and I know, having spent many years as an economist, I decided to take yet another look at the IRS statistics in light of the present and likely the coming campaign charges, even though I know that few are likely to change their minds based on mere statistics.

According to IRS statistics, during the period from 1951 to 1980, the percentage of Americans who paid no federal income taxes essentially remained stable at between 21-22%.  Beginning in the 1980s, the percentage of taxpayers who paid no federal income tax began to rise, hitting 32% in 2004, 47% in 2009, and an estimated 53% in 2010.

At the same time, the percentage of tax revenues paid by the “middle class” also declined, with the percentage of total income taxes paid by the “middle class’ [defined as those taxpayers comprising those making more than the median wage, but less than the top 10%] declining from almost 40% of all income tax revenues to about one quarter of all tax revenues.  At the same time, the top ten percent of taxpayers went from paying roughly 45% of all income taxes to paying 70% of all income taxes.

Put another way, 53% of all taxpayers, largely those in the bottom fifty percent of taxpayers in income terms, paid no taxes.  The next third [37%, if we’re being more precise] paid 30% of all income tax revenue, and the top 10% [those with taxable incomes above $115,000] paid 70% of all federal income tax revenues.

At present, the current federal deficit is running close to one and a half trillion dollars annually, and federal income tax revenues are bringing in around $850 billon. The most obvious, and most bandied about, solution is to increase taxes on the rich, but there are a number of problems with this solution.

First, the reformers on the left confuse is “wealth” with “income,” and unless the Congress changes the tax law, the IRS and the Congress can only tax income, not wealth.  According to the latest IRS statistics, the eight thousand wealthiest Americans earned a combined total of $239 billion in 2009.  Assuming that Congress sees fit [which they won’t] to increase the marginal tax rate on millionaires and billionaires to 90%, and also assuming that they’re smart enough to get rid of all the deductions for these individuals, the total federal income tax revenues would total a little over $215 billion.  Given that this year’s federal deficit will be roughly $1.4 trillion, taxing those less wealthy would also be necessary to get rid of the deficit by taxing the “rich.” The 14,000 odd taxpayers who earned between five and ten million dollars a year had a total income of $95 billion, and a 90% cut of their income would raise $85 billion.  But since these taxpayers already pay close to $100 billion, the additional tax revenues would only be $200 billion. That’s still not enough.  In fact, if a 90% rate were applied to all taxpayers with an income above 1 million dollars, the total additional revenue raised would amount to $300 billion.  That leaves a short-fall of well over a trillion dollars… and the only people left to tax are those who are complaining the most about being overtaxed.  For the 81 million people who aren’t millionaires, to cover the remaining deficit through income taxes would require an average tax increase of over $12,000 a tax return.

Again, if one only wishes to tax the remaining “rich,” i.e., those making over $200,000 a year, that won’t work either, because taking all their taxable income would just barely cover that remaining trillion dollar deficit.

So… in essence, even a 90% tax rate on everyone earning over $200,000 won’t cover the current federal deficit. And, of course that would raise other problems, because, since most state income taxes run around 6% for those making over $200,000, a 90% federal income tax would bankrupt all but those millionaires making more than $5 million annually.

Given a $1.4 trillion annual deficit, and the lowest tax rates in more than 70 years, the Republican alternative of continuing lower taxes and slashing federal programs doesn’t seem terribly workable, either, since to balance the federal budget would require cutting roughly 30% of all federal programs…which would translate into cutting more than a million jobs at a time of high unemployment… and given the fact that many of those programs can’t be cut without a massive overhaul in government, either way, neither side makes much sense.