Just watched the following video, solely to hear Nick Clegg speak Dutch -the man can speak 5 languages!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vZMMH1GEaU
However, this launched my house into a debate about if you're pro European, whether or not you should vote Lib Dem over Green, purely because the former better chance of winning seats than the latter do.
If the EU is essential to getting round the good old 'tragedy of the commons' problem, then it is quite essential for solving environmental problems and creating a more sustainable world. On this view, it can be argued that we should vote Lib Dem as they are more likely to have an impact on government policy by getting more seats and therefore bringing the UK and other European countries closer together, thus having a better chance at solving world wide environmental issues, even if the Green have more progressive policies.
In the first past the post British style of democracy, should we vote pragmatically or by ideals?
If you really want to impact policy, then I think pragmatism may be the answer, although it is not 'ideal' (ha).
Wednesday, 6 November 2013
Tuesday, 5 November 2013
Are Tesco sexist?
I recently had a conversation about whether or not Tesco's soon to be implemented facial scanning advertisement boards are sexist, and whether or not this should be seen as a feminist issue as well as a personal privacy one.
Basically Tesco are going to introduce advertising boards in their shops which scan you and then show you advertisement on something they think is relevant to you. Here is an article about it...
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/03/privacy-tesco-scan-customers-faces
It was argued to me that this is blatant sexism, as they will advertise things like celebrity magazines to anyone they deem to be a female and they will work this out by seeing who has long hair.
However, I don't Tesco aren't making any judgements by advertising like this and therefore aren't being sexist. They are simple trying to makes as much money as possible (I'm not going to get into whether this is something that is good for society or not). Tesco aren't thinking; 'all women have long hair and want to buy a fashion magazine', they are thinking 'if we want to make as much money as possible, then looking at statistics, we can judge that we are going to increase our sales by advertising fashion magazine to women and most women have long hair. Even if this isn't relevant to 40 per cent of the people who are scanned, we are still going to see increased sales'. If they could statistically see that 60 per cent of all bearded people bought were interested in Brazillian coffee, then they would advertise that to everyone with a beard, not as a judgement that everyone with beards loves Brazillian coffee, but because this is the best way to make a sale, even if it misses the target 40 per cent of the time. Equally, if they advertise celebrity gossip magazines to females, they are not saying that all women read them, they are just trying to appeal to that percentage that do in the best way possible. If society changed, so overweight makes started reading Hello magazine, then they would advertise to them.
Ultimately, my point is that these face scanners won't be judging every single woman to fit a subjective version of womanhood, they are just trying to sell people things and the the best way for the facial scanners to do this is cast out the nets, as it were, over a large demographic, so they can catch a few fish.
Criticism welcomed.
Basically Tesco are going to introduce advertising boards in their shops which scan you and then show you advertisement on something they think is relevant to you. Here is an article about it...
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/03/privacy-tesco-scan-customers-faces
It was argued to me that this is blatant sexism, as they will advertise things like celebrity magazines to anyone they deem to be a female and they will work this out by seeing who has long hair.
However, I don't Tesco aren't making any judgements by advertising like this and therefore aren't being sexist. They are simple trying to makes as much money as possible (I'm not going to get into whether this is something that is good for society or not). Tesco aren't thinking; 'all women have long hair and want to buy a fashion magazine', they are thinking 'if we want to make as much money as possible, then looking at statistics, we can judge that we are going to increase our sales by advertising fashion magazine to women and most women have long hair. Even if this isn't relevant to 40 per cent of the people who are scanned, we are still going to see increased sales'. If they could statistically see that 60 per cent of all bearded people bought were interested in Brazillian coffee, then they would advertise that to everyone with a beard, not as a judgement that everyone with beards loves Brazillian coffee, but because this is the best way to make a sale, even if it misses the target 40 per cent of the time. Equally, if they advertise celebrity gossip magazines to females, they are not saying that all women read them, they are just trying to appeal to that percentage that do in the best way possible. If society changed, so overweight makes started reading Hello magazine, then they would advertise to them.
Ultimately, my point is that these face scanners won't be judging every single woman to fit a subjective version of womanhood, they are just trying to sell people things and the the best way for the facial scanners to do this is cast out the nets, as it were, over a large demographic, so they can catch a few fish.
Criticism welcomed.
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