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Best music of 2013

5 January 2014 / Daniel Midgley / Comments Off

Yes, it’s a little late, but this year’s rundown is still fresh. And so much good music this year. Here are my picks.

Best Electronic Album
Moderat – II

This is the album I listened to most this year. Moderat is a Berlin-based trio consisting of Modeselektor and Apparat, and they run this album confidently. On “Versions”, they bring the mood down so steadily that you may not notice it until the drum fill brings it back up. “Bad Kingdom” deserves all the attention it’s gotten, but also check out “Let In the Light”.

Honorable Mench:
Jon Hopkins — Immunity

If you listen to some of his early work, you may be surprised to find it a little on the new age side of ambient. Not anymore. He’s found his edge, and lost none of his songwriting talent. Immunity is jagged and beautiful, and Hopkins can work the Kaoss pads like a maniac. Very enjoyable live show, too. Here he is at the Boiler Room.

Best Unguilty Pleasure
Lorde — Pure Heroine

I was lucky to come into this album knowing nothing about it, beyond the barest mention of its 16-year-old New Zealand protagonist. I had no idea of its origin, its intended audience; in short, where the album was situated socially. Thank goodness; it freed me up to listen to the music. And musically, I’m still amazed by it. It’s cool, electronic, and minimal. It glitters, but it’s a shimmering of stars, not makeup on eyelids. What’s most amazing about it, though, is how easy she makes it look. Ten unhurried, effortless songs. Check out that shadowy choral part on ‘White Teeth Teens’ or the misty opening to ‘Buzzcut Season’.

Now, of course, I’ve heard ‘Royals’ a hundred times like everyone else (and in fact I was surprised to hear ‘Team’ at the grocery store). I suppose it’s too pop. So what. I don’t care who this album’s for, or if Lorde is supposed to be Ke$ha without the alcohol, or Miley by way of Fiona Apple, or whatever. Most of the music aimed at me isn’t as good as this. I’m an unironic Lorde enjoyer, and I can’t wait to hear what she does next.

Best Psychedelia
Unknown Mortal Orchestra — II

This is kind of psychedelic-sounding but with a light touch. Combine light falsetto vocals with psychedelic guitar and a drummer who loves his fills and breaks, and you’ve got it. Can’t believe how catchy this is. See if you don’t agree.

Song of the Year
Tycho – “Awake”

This should finally put those Boards of Canada comparisons to rest. Not that it’s a bad comparison, or that it wasn’t deserved, but Tycho has come a long way since following in the spangly decayed template that BoC laid out years ago. This time, the guitar is doing the rhythmic driving, with Tycho’s signature analog touches coming in to add flavour. Such smooth. Wow. Can’t wait for the album, due out on 18 March 2014.

Honourable Mench:
Bibio – “À tout à l’heure”

I’ve always been off and on with Bibio, but Silver Wilkinson is where he finally hits the mark for me. And this break-out track has earned its place all over the indie airwaves.

Best Album from Last Year That I Missed
Deerhoof — Breakup Song

Deerhoof has always packed 20 ideas into a song, and this means that the album takes a little longer to get into, for each songs to let its character be felt. For this album, it’s worth it. It’s still a high-energy noise pop album, but Deerhoof sounds more polished and focused than on previous albums. Check out that nod to Perez Prado on ‘The Trouble With Candyhands”.

And if you’re curious, here’s an interview I did last year with drummer Greg Saunier.

Album of the Year
The Paper Kites — States

It was worth the wait. I was really to call this talented Melbourne five-piece the second coming of the Lilac Time, but there’s a lot more to this band’s sound than their previous EPs would lead one to believe. They’ve added touches of rock here amongst the folk — a somewhat controversial choice that works — and lovely swirling orchestral arrangements besides.

The word that fits this album is ‘beautiful’. It’s actually so beautiful that I don’t like to listen to it too much. At times, it demands a careful listening. You don’t so much listen to it as you are In Its Presence. I think they’ve really found their sound, and they deserve all your listens.

Gospel Doctrine for the Godless

5 January 2014 / Daniel Midgley / Comments Off

I’m very pleased to announce a new blog project: Gospel Doctrine for the Godless.

You see, for many years in the LDS Church, I was the Gospel Doctrine teacher. That’s the meeting where you discuss the same four books of scripture over and over and over. (Can’t take the repetition? How do you think you’re going to handle eternity?)

Anyway, I felt bad about having misled people for so long in Gospel Doctrine — even though my lessons were quite good, really — that I decided to revisit the material and do it right. So this is a snarky and skeptical ex-Mormon take on Sunday School. There will be videos, memes, and atheist resources to take Mormon doctrine down a few pegs. Also, I’ll reveal a few of the embarrassing things I used to say in class. (What was I thinking?)

The project begins as Latter-day Saints start studying the Old Testament, and we’ll cycle through the Standard Works, one volume per year, just as they do in church. There’ll be a new lesson just about every week, and the first lesson is up already. If you’re highly allergic to the kind of crapola they used to shovel out in church, this may trigger flashbacks. But maybe you’ll find it therapeutic. Either way, I hope you’ll join in, and I promise I won’t ask you to give the opening prayer.

godlessdoctrine.blogspot.com

Oh, and don’t worry — it’ll be business as usual for Good Reason.

Telling women to what?

28 December 2013 / Daniel Midgley / 3 Comments

Over the years, I’ve heard lots of people — especially young women who should know better — disparage feminism, saying it’s irrelevant to their concerns. “Haven’t we already achieved gender equality?” Men even more so: “I’m certainly unaware of this inequality of which you speak.”

But I never knew I was in that very same camp until I saw a project: Stop Telling Women to Smile. How strange, I thought. Is this even a thing?

I asked my partner: Do men on the street tell you to smile? Yes, every once in a while, she said. Something like “Oh, come on, sweetie, give us a smile!” Or disguised as a compliment: “Shame to have a frown on that pretty face!” Still no smile? Then abuse: “Don’t be stuck up!” Ugh.

I asked more female friends. There were weary confirmations: yes, it was a thing. I was astounded. This is going to sound naïve to women who put up with this, but I’d never seen it. I certainly don’t go around trying to control the faces of women around me. I’ve never even heard other guys do it in my presence. My partner says they wouldn’t say it to her when I’m around.

It was an aspect of sexism that was totally invisible to me. And that’s leaving out wolf whistles and dirty talk.

So when I hear guys say (and I do) “There’s no need for feminism.” or “Systemic inequality is largely a thing of the past.” or “Why, I certainly never see sexism in my daily life!” then I understand. I never saw it either. But that was a function of my insularity and cluelessness. Go ahead and ask women you know if they have to put up with that crap. You may be surprised by their answers.

On the Race and the Priesthood statement

15 December 2013 / Daniel Midgley / 2 Comments

The Mormon Church, in an effort to address its troublesome issues, has released a statement on Race and the Priesthood on their website (link here, snarky summary here), which is apparently how revelation happens these days.

Isn’t it interesting that prophets used to write on stone, but now they write on webpages? Perhaps that’s because webpages are easier to edit later.

Addressing the ouchy bits of Church history is a really terrible idea. As I’ve said before, the Church can’t get ahead of its issues because it’s issues all the way down. They can’t explain away the troublesome bits without first acknowledging the troublesome bits, and this is unlikely to lead to a result the Church likes. Here’s why: pretend you’re the Church, and you’re haemorrhaging members. What do you do?
a) Try and chase the questioning members who are leaving.
b) Try and consolidate the faithful.

With this statement, they’ve chosen b), but this will have two effects. It will satisfy the easily satisfied (who will stay in the Church no matter what it does), and it will spook some of the others. And, while this may prove wrong, I’ve read one true believer who says that Mormons are freaking out, inundating the Church Office Building with questions and complaints.

It’s a bad move on the part of the Church, and I’m sure they wouldn’t do it if they didn’t feel like they had no other option. Otherwise, they’d do what they’ve always done: maintain official silence, and allow the membership to invent its own opinions, guided by correlated church materials. The idea that the old strategy is no longer working gives me a warm feeling inside, which of course means it’s true.

So what’s in this statement? Here are the highlights, and for every highlight, there’s a problem.

First, the LDS Church utterly repudiates racism in all its forms.
Good for them. Unfortunately, to repudiate racism, they’re going to have to repudiate the Book of Mormon, which has as a central plot point the idea that dark skin can sometimes be a punishment for sin.

The Book of Abraham has its own problems.

Under the bus with Brother Brigham
The statement stops short of saying the priesthood ban was wrong (which is crucial), but it certainly traces it to Brigham Young. But it’s hard for the Church to take a ‘bad Brigham / good Joseph’ strategy. While Joseph Smith did give the priesthood to a black man once, he also thought that slavery was just dandy; check Steve Benson’s comments at the tail of this story. And the statement ignores the fact that other church leaders on down the line said the same thing for a hundred years.

It explicitly says the less-valiant theory is wrong
This is the crazy folk-doctrine idea that black people were less valiant in the pre-mortal life, so they were born with dark skin and no priesthood in this life. Can you believe it? Where do people get this stuff? Oh yeah, from the First Presidency.

Okay, so what are some of the implications of this new church statement?

This statement obliterates the Church’s claim that the prophet can never lead the Church astray.
They do teach wrong things, which then have to be corrected. Which means that the LDS Church looks exactly as it would look if it were just led by people.

Using a prophet as a guide is a bad idea.
They’re supposed to get it right, but ‘prophets, seers, and revelators’ got this issue dead wrong (by the Church’s own admission) for more than a century. So what are they getting wrong now, that will need to be repudiated in 50 years? (Hint: starts with LGBT.)

Isn’t it a bit of a coincidence that God, a transcendant being who exists outside of space and time, holds prejudices that reflect in precise detail the prejudices that are general among the human population? Until he gets updated — to match the exact prejudices of his modern human followers? Isn’t it a bit of a giveaway that Mormon prophets show no better moral judgments than ordinary non-prophets, but do significantly worse? You’d think there would be some kind of consequences for having a god at the head of your church, but if you talk to Very Sophisticated Mormon Apologists, then there are no consequences really; the prophets are imperfect men in a socio-historical context blah blah blah. Well, then what are they good for? And why should I listen to them? I can get loads of ideas from imperfect people in a socio-historical context — there’s no shortage of them, and some of them have quite good ideas. I don’t really need or want to listen to racists. Or sexists or homophobes, for that matter.

This statement is an indicator as to the bind the LDS Church is in.
Leaving the issue alone allows confusion and discontent to percolate through the membership. Addressing it directly exposes a mass of inconsistencies. Either way, it’s a lose-lose for the church.

Apparently this is going to be a series. I can hardly wait for the next ones!

The parallels between gods and aliens are striking

3 December 2013 / Daniel Midgley / 1 Comment

I’ve just rewatched this snippet of a debate between the atheist Christopher Hitchens and the conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza.

Transcript

Now the argument really comes down to this: the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. In other words, if we don’t know about something we should believe it doesn’t exist. I want to suggest why this is actually an unscientific and very foolish way to think.

We can sort of see it by stepping outside the debate and applying it to some other issue. Let’s consider a simple question that’s a very relevant question today: is there life on other planets? And the answer is: we’re not sure. We don’t know.

Along comes the atheist, who says the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. We have not found life on other planets, so there’s no evidence. Therefore, there is no life on other planets.

Is this an intelligent position? No, it is stupid and premature. Why? Because we may not know how to look. It may be that there is — So the fact that there is no evidence is evidence of nothing! It may be evidence of the poverty of our imagination, the ineffectiveness of our instruments. The bottom line of it ultimately is when we look at the evidence we find the religious believers are right. Thank you very much.

This is a wonderful analogy! But not for the reasons D’Souza thinks it is.

If the god debate were transplanted to the domain of extra-terrestrials, here’s how it would play out.

The atheist — or should I say ‘an-alienist’? — would say, “We can’t prove that aliens don’t exist. But no one has ever shown convincing evidence of their existence, so until we get some, there’s no reason to believe in them. Of course, I’ll change my mind if more evidence becomes available.”

On the other hand, the alien-believer would say, “I know that aliens are real! I know this because I’ve had a personal experience with them. It’s really more of a relationship.

“They left a book which tells all about them. And I am so certain that my understanding of this book is correct that I am prepared to persecute and wage war with other alien-believers whose understanding of the aliens differs slightly from my own.”

Would you believe this person? Or would you simply feel pity for them, and end the conversation as soon as you could?

It’s fine to entertain the notion — even the hope — that life exists on other planets. But to be as certain of it as theists are of god begins to look like madness, and we should recognise both as such.

There’s another similarity between god and aliens. They’re both what Robert Sheaffer calls ‘jealous phenomena‘ — they show a preoccupation with not being discovered by humans, which makes it convenient for their respective apologists. They also both tend to appear to people when they’re alone.

I don’t think it was very smart of D’Souza to push this the god/aliens comparison, but I’m glad he did. It’s one of the few times he’s said something useful.

Talk the Talk: Esperanto

26 November 2013 / Daniel Midgley / 1 Comment

I’ve never been an Esperantist, but ever since finding out about Esperanto at a young age, I’ve always kind of wondered about it. So this was a good chance to find out more. Will it ever take over the world? Or will it fizzle out? My prediction would be fizzle as lots of minority languages are losing ground, but at this stage in history it looks robust.

Many people emailed me about selfie becoming Oxford Dictionaries Online’s Word of the Year. I just think it’s cool that a) this is an Australian word, and b) we can trace it back so far. But we still don’t know who the ABC poster ‘Hopey’ is. Hopey, if you’re out there, get in touch with us! We want to know how you heard the word.

And here’s my favourite selfie. Because cheeky.

One-off show: Here

Show tunes:

‘Because Before 2’ by Ulf Lohmann
from the album Because Before

No video, but check out this cool player. We played Track 2, but you might like the whole thing.

‘Free of This World’ by Guided by Voices
from the album The Best Of Jill Hives

Also no video, but listen at the Juno Records site. It’s track 2.

Atheist church: My experience with the Sunday Assembly

17 November 2013 / Daniel Midgley / Comments Off

I occasionally run into atheists and (more often) agnostics who say “Atheism doesn’t provide a sense of community. How are we providing a sense of community?”

Well, I was part of the Mormon community for 38 years, and let me tell you: Community sucks.

No, seriously, it’s way over-rated. If I’ve learned one thing from my Mormon days, it’s that just believing the same thing as someone else is not a very good indicator of whether you’ll get along in other ways. And my experience with other atheists has not done much to contradict this. There’s only so many times you can say ‘Yep, Sagan/Minchin/Dawkins/Doctor Who is awesome.’ Maybe it’s just not something I need, or I can get it from online communities, or something. Also, I’m afraid of echo chambers.

Mind you, I’m lucky. I have a great bunch of people online and off that I get my people needs from, and some people don’t. And some people just groove on having a community, and we need a multiplicity of approaches in atheism anyway, so I was not entirely displeased to learn that the Sunday Assembly was coming to Perth. It’s the project dreamed up by a couple of UK comedians, Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans. They’re on a ‘Forty Dates and Forty Nights’ tour, getting Sunday Assemblies started in major cities around the world. Apparently there’s a bit of comedy, games, and some rock music. Oh, and community. So… it’s like a born-again church? Ew.

Some people haven’t been as keen on the idea of Sunday Assembly, and I understand why. After you’ve had your millionth boneheaded ‘atheism is not a religion’ conversation, now here comes Atheist Church! Oh, great. But don’t be like that — let’s come on down to mingle with the godless and see what it’s about.

***

We’re in a lecture theatre at UWA, 150 of us, including some children, clapping and bouncing around, singing “Walking On Sunshine”. Yes, that is as daggy as it sounds. But Sanderson is here leading the singing, and he’s so enthusiastic and boisterous that I don’t mind playing along for a little while. Is this what happens at charismatic churches? It seems like it — there’s a reading just like at church, there’s Sanderson being the likeable and wise-cracking leader figure just like at church. Oh, and there’s a collection just like at church. It cost the UWA Atheist and Skeptic Society a bit to hire the venue, and some of the money will also go toward the next meeting. One thing I don’t think they do at church is a game: Danish Clapping. Everyone pairs up with different people a few times, and I chat a bit with my game-partners between rounds. Next, a physicist explains a bit about the origin of the universe and the cosmic background radiation. It’s all light-hearted, kind of enjoyable, and certainly more fun than a dreary Mormon Sacrament Meeting.

***

Sanderson says Sunday Assembly wants to use all the good things about religion, but leave out the god bits. It reminds me of that approach to curing cancer that involves giving the patient AIDS (or sort of). Doctors take HIV, remove the part that destroys your immune system, and patch in something that kills cancer cells instead. Now imagine that we do the same thing with religion — take all the mechanisms that religion uses to help itself propagate, and then strip it of its toxic theistic payload. Done that way, atheist church would act as something like immunisation, since the churchy aspects of theism — whatever attraction that holds for some people — would have been safely co-opted. Or would this backfire, reifying the whole ‘church is fun’ concept? Not sure, but it seems to be a good imitation. I can’t really see anything here that would be out of place in a church meeting, except the conspicuous absence of anything to do with a god. There isn’t even any religion-bashing. Sanderson explains that they want to keep it positive, or as he says, “Nothing that would make my religious granny uncomfortable.” So maybe this would do for someone who likes the feeling that they get from church, and the exhortation to — as the Sunday Assembly motto has it — “live better, help often, wonder more”. Maybe people stumble into churches with those ideals and like what they find, whether they believe in a god or not. Sunday Assembly could offer that, but with no supernatural ingredients.

***

Sanderson leads us all in a moment of silence, and suggests that we think of what we have. What we have? I’m pretty lucky. I have a good job, a beautiful and loving wife, two smart and strong boys. My health and a home. Sometimes I think of my frustrations and disappointments, but here in the silence, they seem small compared to those of (say) people in the Philippines, hit by disaster. I feel a bit more grateful, and make a mental note to donate more to people who have lost everything.

The theme for today is ‘Impromptu’ because the whole thing has been arranged at the last minute. The venue was only arranged a couple of days ago. Sanderson is about to give a small talk on today’s theme, but he can’t think of anything relating to ‘Impromptu’. Someone in the audience helpfully suggests ‘Live in the moment!’ There it is; there’s his topic. And he speaks about being aware that we’re alive, and one day we’ll be dead and not able to be aware of anything. He gets us to clench up our fists — something he liked to do as a kid — and feel the tension spreading to our arms, shoulders and chest. Then we let it go. Aaaah — release and relaxation.

One more song — ‘Down Under’, of all things — and we’re done. Sanderson will have moved on by the next meeting in a month. Legend has it that he will return, perhaps in 2,000 years. In the meantime, it’s up to us to keep it going and he gives tips on the format to those who stay to form a committee.

***

I wouldn’t want Sunday Assembly to be the only way I get my atheism on, but it could be a part of this complete breakfast. I’d think about going again; I probably will go to the next one, though I might not get evangelical about it. It may not be to the taste of all atheists.

Tell you what, though. I saw someone there that I knew. He’s a guy who’s attended lots of churches for a long while, tried to be a Christian; he’s sort of a seeker. I said hi, and asked him what made him want to attend. His response, paraphrased, was “Well, I like going to church, but I no longer think there’s a god. I realised that what I needed in my life was more positivity and joy. So that’s what I’m here for.” (I asked if I could share that here in this post, and he said that was fine.)

More positivity and joy. Couldn’t we all use some of that? So I don’t begrudge the concept. If it takes off in Perth, I’d say that’s what he’d be likely to find at a Sunday Assembly.

School bans texting at breaks

2 November 2013 / Daniel Midgley / 3 Comments

Most school administrators are doing a great job, and are generally motivated by concern for their students. But this concern sometimes makes them do silly things. Like this:

School bans phones at breaks

Prestigious girls’ school Penrhos College has banned students from using mobile phones during their lunch and recess breaks because of concerns students are losing the art of conversation.

Principal Meg Melville said, even though girls were sitting in groups during breaks, teachers had become aware students were texting their friends instead of talking to each other.

“We decided we wanted to really encourage them during their break times at school to have conversations with one another, face-to-face,” she said.

Mrs Melville said technology was embedded in the curriculum and mobile phones had become an important part of that.

But it was just as important for students to develop conversation skills such as understanding the nuances conveyed by people’s reactions and body language.

“You can gauge how a conversation is going by looking at the way people are responding – you can’t do that in texting,” she said.

Schools can make their own phone policy — that’s valid. But here’s what I think is wrong with this.

First, electronic communication is still communication. I don’t know why people think it’s not valid, or needs to be restricted.

Second, we don’t have to worry that young people will somehow become unable to read people’s reactions and facial expressions. Human brains have been good at doing this for 200,000 years, and someone’s not going to lose that ability if they text on a phone for fifteen minutes a day. (Or, if they are going to lose it, they’re not going to get it back by having an extra 15 minutes of face-to-face.) Is f2f important? Sure, but they’re already getting some from their teachers and friends at school — their teachers are doing a great job at that.

There is no empirical evidence to show that texting makes people worse at reading facial expressions, at least not that I could find with diligent searching. On the other hand, there is a lot of evidence that digital communication (including texting) correlates well with literacy, including spelling.

Finally, while these educators are trying to help kids communicate, this won’t do it. They’re simply banning a form of communication (in writing, nonetheless), and then assuming that whatever’s left over will be the right sort of communication. That’s not how it works. If they’re serious about teaching communication — which is a laudable goal — then they’re going to need to do some modelling, with examples of the kind of conversation they want to see. I’d definitely get behind a programme like that; hell, I’d help them write it. But banning phones? An irrelevant distraction.

I’ll tell you what’s going on here. This is adults looking at kids with new technology, and thinking, “Oh, I don’t like that.” It’s bringing all their preconceptions to the front. And why do they have these preconceptions about texting? Unfortunately, a lot of adults are of the opinion that young people are kind of dumb. (And some of them maybe are, but I think they’re smarter than we give them credit for — and that’s true of most people.) Then they try to figure out why they’re dumb, and they leap on the first answer they can find: it’s those damn phones! Adults routinely blame texting for turning kids into morons, just like they used to blame television, comic books, and the fountain pen.

So let me be the voice of reason here: Smartphones are not some scary magical brain-draining thing. They’re getting students to communicate in writing like they never did a generation ago. Schools can and should have policies about their use, but these policies can be informed by data, and not by irrational fears.

Is ‘morality by consensus’ the same as ‘mob rule’?

13 October 2013 / Daniel Midgley / 1 Comment

When I discuss morality with Christians, they often claim that their morality is superior because it’s ‘absolute’. I don’t know what they mean by an ‘absolute’ morality, but if their god did create an absolute morality, he sure did a lousy job of communicating it, since Christians all over the world disagree on what actually constitutes moral or immoral behaviour.

But when I think of ‘absolute’ morality, I always think of Dawkins’ response:

I don’t think I want an absolute morality. I think I want a morality that is thought out, reasoned, argued, discussed, and based upon what you could almost call an intelligent design.

I like the idea of a morality based on consensus. I think most people are good moral agents, although we could always do better. And over the centuries, we do become better as we slowly expand our circle of awareness, become horrified at the injustices of the recent past, and grow a little.

But when I talk about morality by consensus, some Christians aren’t keen on that at all. “Isn’t that kind of a dangerous slope to go down?” they ask. “Why, that’s just the same as mob rule,” say others. I don’t think it is; consensus-driven morality has arrived at principles that are not a part of mob rule, like reciprocity and fairness. There’s no comparison.

This got me wondering: why are Christians so set against the idea of morality by consensus? Then I realised: it’s a way of making moral decisions without involving a god at all. Or, more to the point, a priest. For centuries, they’ve become used to dictating to the rest of us what’s moral, issuing proclamations — and being believed. With consensus-based morality, the priest is just another actor, and how this must rankle them.

I think for them ‘sophisticated’ means ‘you believe in it’.

20 September 2013 / Daniel Midgley / 1 Comment

This criticism is known as the Courtier’s Reply: How can you say that the Emperor has no clothes, when you clearly haven’t studied imaginary textiles?

Your understanding will never be as sophisticated as that of someone who’s wasted their whole life studying it. Not only that, if you point out nonsensical or contradictory bits of the Bible, the Courtier takes this as evidence that you simply don’t understand it. If you understood it like he did, you’d have constructed an elaborate apologetic to defend it, like he has.

Good Reason

It's okay to be wrong. It's not okay to stay wrong.