EPISODE 410: CONFIRM HUMANITY
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
So is it me or does this screen seem to be popping up pretty much constantly now:
And then when you click the box, you’re forced to look at some version of this:
Which is fine, I guess, as far as those things go. But then sometimes you get this:
And you think, What do you mean by “sign”? Are you including those poles? Because they are not properly the sign. And also, what about the fact the sign portion goes just a tiny bit below the white line? Am I supposed to include those boxes, too?
But then of course no matter what decision you make instead of success you get this:
And then you can’t answer any more questions because somehow your computer is now smoking in ruins out the window and there’s a weird sound coming from somewhere that sounds like screaming. And weirdly the voice making it sounds like you.
It turns out, these tests are in fact becoming harder, because bots (aka trolls’ nasty AI pets) have gotten so good at deciphering them. Ironically, the end result seems to be that humans are failing them a lot more often. “In 2014, Google pitted one of its machine learning algorithms against humans in solving the most distorted text CAPTCHAs: the computer got the test right 99.8 percent of the time, while the humans got a mere 33 percent,” says the Verge in a recent article.
What’s really weird, though, is that this is presented as a way of confirming our humanity. They could have called it a bot filter, a spam block or just that Annoying Online Thing. But instead, it’s framed as some kind of test of us. You want to buy something from my roadkill website? Prove you’re human then. DANCE.
Also, let me be honest. I’ve said some pretty terrible things. Sometimes I even relished saying them. And I think the people involved could make a pretty strong case against my humanity, regardless of whether I can pick out a set of parked cars, storefronts or street lights.
You want to confirm our humanity? How about you ask us to select all images that fill us with regret. Or pick the ones that look like the school friends you wish you had had, or like the most uncomfortable things that older relatives have said in your presence. Or choose the funniest sunsets.
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I’m working on a long piece right now about the relationship between spirituality and architecture, how different spaces end up helping us connect with some sense of God or the divine. It’s actually a topic that’s interested for me a long time, and also kind of haunted me too. A couple years after I entered the Jesuits I was assigned to study philosophy in Chicago, and part of our work was to write a sort of social analysis paper about the place where we did ministry. I was working in a housing project, and I was fascinated by the ways the buildings seemed to create a situation that bred both violence and a sense of powerlessness. It was a great project, I really loved doing it, but when I went to defend it I got to have my own experience of violence and powerlessness as one of readers just kicked the living daylights out of me for not having a theological component to my analysis.
It was a totally fair problem to raise, but there was a lot of um, energy in the reader’s concern – I believe at one point he mentioned jackbooting Nazis, for reasons that I honestly could not follow, but fun fact, unless you are writing a thesis about Nazis, when your readers start mentioning Nazis jackbooting you are probably in a lot of trouble.
I actually sort of enjoyed the conversation, it was so brutal it was hilarious, if that makes any sense, until afterwards when my peers felt so bad about the whole thing they would not look me in the eye. Then I was like, Wait, what just happened? And the teacher in question was sort of like, This is academics, that’s how you get jumped in, bro.
So ever since I’ve wanted to try and produce that missing piece/heal my damaged psyche. And so here I am. I just got back from New Mexico, where I spent four days watching Benedictine monks sing. (You guys, they really do that a lot! And early!) I’m to Boston late next week and San Diego some time soon after that. And then at some point I guess oh yeah I should probably write the piece, or create an interpretive dance to represent the three places, or something.
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Confirm Humanity: Select all squares with acceptable interpretive dance connecting George R. R. Martin and the spirituality of architecture.
In between Benedictine choir songs I read George R. R.’s book A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which tells three stories about two characters who are mentioned in passing in Game of Thrones– an underdog knight and his squire, who grows up to become King Aegon Targaryen. (Aegon’s brother is the Night Watch’s Maester Aemon in Thrones.) The stories are really fantastic, this kid George can really write. But you get to the end and you’re told this is just the beginning of a longer set of stories he plans to tell, and I am like:
Of course, I’ve now moved on to his book Fire & Blood, which is sort of a Silmarillion of the Targaryens – can you tell I’m slightly interested in the upcoming last season of Thrones? (The greatest prediction I’ve read: Arya kills Cersei wearing Jamie’s face.)
But then here’s the internal title page:
Yep, that’s right. Volume One. As in, not the whole.
George RR, Winter is coming, bro. Get ‘er done already.
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Confirm Humanity: Select all squares that express an appropriate outrage that George R.R. Martin has yet to finish The Winds of Winter.
++ LINKS ++
READ: Speaking of Game of Thrones, the Mother of Dragons Emilia Clarke herself penned a piece in the New Yorker this week about the fact that she had a brain aneurysm after filming the first season of Thrones, and then another since. (For a week she couldn’t remember her name.)
She also has a lot to say about things like the fact she plays this incredibly badass woman and yet always gets asked about having appeared naked. Ugh.
The show’s creators, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, have said that my character is a blend of Napoleon, Joan of Arc, and Lawrence of Arabia. And yet, in the weeks after we finished shooting the first season, despite all the looming excitement of a publicity campaign and the series première, I hardly felt like a conquering spirit. I was terrified. Terrified of the attention, terrified of a business I barely understood, terrified of trying to make good on the faith that the creators of “Thrones” had put in me. I felt, in every way, exposed. In the very first episode, I appeared naked, and, from that first press junket onward, I always got the same question: some variation of “You play such a strong woman, and yet you take off your clothes. Why?” In my head, I’d respond, “How many men do I need to kill to prove myself?”
The LA Times also had an interesting piece on how the growing diversity of Marvel’s movies has its roots in Stan Lee’s own work, which is a take on things I haven’t heard before.
Confirm Humanity: Do two films with non-white male leads constitute “growing”? Answer by choosing either Groots for yes or Hodors for No.
And there’s this interview with comedian John Mulaney, who hosted SNLlast week and produced this insanely bonkers bit of comedy. The interview has some very satisfying comments about the spectacle of a pack of Hollywood billionaires singing We are the Championsat the start of the Oscars, and also some very funny thoughts about the conspiracy theory that he actually never worked on SNL.
LISTEN: Speaking of conspiracy theories, if you listen to This American Life last week’s piece is a must listen. It’s about School Shooting Hoaxers; these are people who believe Sandy Hook and other school shootings never happened and terrorize the grieving parents. A horrifying story, with a second piece in there too about the childhood of Main Voice of the Hoaxers Alex Jones.
WATCH: SNL also had a bit that got cut last week of Dianne Feinstein talking to kids about the Green Deal (which is based on something that actually happened and seems to have been a total disaster). Cecily Strong plays Feinstein, and she is brilliant.
There's something about the season of Lent or the length of winter that can always make it seem kind of dark right about now. But we've moved into spring in the Northern Hemisphere; daylight is on the rise. Don't forget to look around and enjoy it.
See you next week.