Economics does not need to be complex for one to grasp a very basic "something is wrong here." I believe I've got an easy way to explain it using actual numbers and a tiny bit of work. The math adverse will still hate it but anyone with high school algebra can follow along.
Rhode Island is an easy state to review because the numbers are relatively small overall. If we go through a very basic exercise we will see the State is in quite a bit of trouble. First we look at Rhode Island's Census population estimate and work on the numbers. Here's the raw data. It's from the US Census and is about as accurate as we can get:
Population Estimate: 1,051,511
% of Population under 18: 20.6%
% of Population over 65: 15.1%
Private Nonfarm Employment: 406,222
We can then leverage other studies to determine the percentage of people living in the State who are 65 and over and are working. This gives us a margin for error, but it shouldn't be too high considering the data is from the American Community Survey a few years prior to the last Census. In this survey, we discover 6.3% of Rhode Island's population is 65 - 74 (with 23% of these individuals still working) and 7.6% is over 75 (with 5.8% of these individuals still working).
Now we need to take the population and remove all people who are not working due to being underage or over 65 (676,212) and then add in those people over 65 who are still working (4,635 who are over 75 and 15,236 who are between 65 and 74). This gives us a total of 696,083 people in the State who can work or are already working.
Let's subtract that from the employment number above and we have a final number of 289,861.
What this means is that every 1.4 working Rhode Islanders has to support 1 fellow Rhode Islander-- one who could work but isn't-- in some way.
Could be a non-working spouse.
Could be Unemployment.
Could be Housing.
Could be some other Government program.
Might be a State or Municipal employee (remember, the private workers have to pay State/Local salaries and benefits).
The big thing to remember here is that the working individual is not just supporting these other people. They also have to support themselves. No matter what the reason, that 1.4:1 is a huge ratio. And what makes it even more scary is that it doesn't even include the 216,611 children or the 138,907 people above 65 who are not working.
If we have another Recession (or, more accurately, fail to emerge from the one we have been in since 2007) States like Rhode Island are in deep trouble. Someone needs to take the lead and make some very difficult choices or who knows how bad things could get.
I wonder if we have the stomach for what that entails.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Saturday, February 1, 2014
When opposites attack:
In the SF/F community there has been a high profile fight between a Tor.com blogger named Alex MacFarlane, Larry Correia, and Jim Hines over non-binary gender in science fiction.
Here are the stances, paraphrased:
Alex says, "I demand everyone write it, and I'm going to review books on the subject."
Larry says, "Write it if you feel like it, but it's probably not going to sell."
Jim says, "Larry is mean. I support Alex."
This has been going on for days across various mediums. I've read pretty much everything on the fight, but I think the reaction which most matched my own was John Brown's.
John basically says the best way to win over a group of readers when using unfamiliar characters is to write an awesome story. Story matters more than whether or not you use strange genders, strange powers, strange aliens, or anything else.
John is correct. Readers spawn writers, so it is imperative to reach the readers first. Without a can't miss story-- and sorry, if you are rehashing books that have failed commercially for decades you don't have a can't miss story-- focusing on the topic you want to see more of, you do not have the catalyst necessary for a sea change.
Speaking as a reader: Story is king and everything else is window dressing. I'll browse a book for window dressing but I buy for story. That's a big difference, and depending on your goals as a writer you may wish to take that into consideration when you are crafting your story.
For people who believe they are one of these various genders and want to find stories including people like themselves that might feel harsh. The truth often hurts. However, if you can't find a great story about the gender you are looking for... perhaps you should dig deep into yourself and tell the tale you wish you could read. The best fiction is born that way. Try it. You may be surprised with what you come up with and you may be pleasantly surprised by the reaction if it is truly that good. I guarantee a story wrenched from the soul is going to be a thousand times better than having someone else try to force it.
The goal shouldn't be "an end to the default of binary gender in science fiction stories". That's an authoritative "You will do this because I say so" attitude, and that will cause people to rebel. The goal should always be one thing and one thing only.
Great fiction.
Here are the stances, paraphrased:
Alex says, "I demand everyone write it, and I'm going to review books on the subject."
Larry says, "Write it if you feel like it, but it's probably not going to sell."
Jim says, "Larry is mean. I support Alex."
This has been going on for days across various mediums. I've read pretty much everything on the fight, but I think the reaction which most matched my own was John Brown's.
John basically says the best way to win over a group of readers when using unfamiliar characters is to write an awesome story. Story matters more than whether or not you use strange genders, strange powers, strange aliens, or anything else.
John is correct. Readers spawn writers, so it is imperative to reach the readers first. Without a can't miss story-- and sorry, if you are rehashing books that have failed commercially for decades you don't have a can't miss story-- focusing on the topic you want to see more of, you do not have the catalyst necessary for a sea change.
Speaking as a reader: Story is king and everything else is window dressing. I'll browse a book for window dressing but I buy for story. That's a big difference, and depending on your goals as a writer you may wish to take that into consideration when you are crafting your story.
For people who believe they are one of these various genders and want to find stories including people like themselves that might feel harsh. The truth often hurts. However, if you can't find a great story about the gender you are looking for... perhaps you should dig deep into yourself and tell the tale you wish you could read. The best fiction is born that way. Try it. You may be surprised with what you come up with and you may be pleasantly surprised by the reaction if it is truly that good. I guarantee a story wrenched from the soul is going to be a thousand times better than having someone else try to force it.
The goal shouldn't be "an end to the default of binary gender in science fiction stories". That's an authoritative "You will do this because I say so" attitude, and that will cause people to rebel. The goal should always be one thing and one thing only.
Great fiction.
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