What is a good movie?

Posted on by thehappylightblog

What is a good movie? There is two points of view to judge a movie: a subjective one and an objective one.

First, objectivity isn’t objective as there is and always will be a bias. However, the closest thing that came close to it are the critics. They can come in the form of awards, prices from festival, etc. Or they can come from critics writing in newspaper, in their own blog or in dedicated forums. Unfortunately, they have all their own bias. The festivals tend to very politically and economically focus behind closed doors. The individual critics are biased by their own tastes, life experiences and mood. They will criticize a movie from their point of view, from their perspective, not from yours.

I believe a good book can only be describe as one’s experience. I think the subjective view is way more interesting. I good book is what blows your hair back, as Will said in Good Will Hunting. The same goes for a movie. I do believe that one should focus on what a movie brings to oneself, that being entertainment, thinking, joy, sorrow or all of it at the same time. One shouldn’t look for a movie because our social environment, critics or friends, tell us to watch it. One should look for a movie because it is the one we want to watch.

On Social Media

Posted on by thehappylightblog

The social media are currently going through a wave of criticism. Mark Zuckerberg just went to testify in front of member of the US congress to explain the ties of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica and at the same time #deletefacebook is trending. Facebook is currently being blame for all that went wrong. Brexit, Trump, the Rohingyas…

The involvement of Facebook on this is real, but the blame shouldn’t be point out on it. Having a better Facebook won’t prevent this kind of action. The responsible isn’t Facebook but people. They are the one to be accounted for. Facebook is just a tool that can be used to perform right or wrong actions, good or bad things. I think we have a tendency to focus on the tools to work out on the problem instead of understanding in depth the problem. It is easier to work on the tool that on the people but improving the tool isn’t a long-term solution. The problem would still take place with a different instrument. A tool is just a tool, it depends of what people build with it.

The Fake News Problem

Posted on by thehappylightblog

The fake news is a problem that several actors within the society are trying to solve. Several countries, like France are trying to ban them. YouTube recently announced it will link directly to Wikipedia to fight conspiracy theories (link). This are answers to the problem. However, I believe this isn’t solving anything, nor touching the real problem.

I think the solution shouldn’t be build between the people and the truth but around what people consider what the truth is. Trying to objectively define what truth and what is false is dangerous and won’t work in the long run.

I consider there are two main sides to the fake news problem:

The first side is that people are biased. It is really difficult to for oneself to overcome this bias. Moreover, on a daily basis people tends to watch news and ready articles that support their ideas, increasing and deepening the extremism of their view. Having an entity telling people what is right, won’t solve the problem.

The second side of the problem is inherent of the nature of the truth. Who has the ability to decide what is the truth? Should we have a ministry of truth? Should a specific group of people look for what is right or wrong? Is that the work of journalists? Or on the contrary, should the citizen be responsible for what is true or false?

I do believe if one wants a democracy as a system of government, then the ones who should be in position to decide what is true are the citizen. There shouldn’t be a ministry of truth, there shouldn’t be journalist who handle the truth. The right and wrong should be own by the people.