Very much appreciate your input and the kind words in regards to the merits of the post. I don’t think I understand what it means to ‘frame’ something as you specified in this comment:
It might be useful to come up with frames and give them names and put them in a list, so you can do this:
Frames [Frame 1] [Frame 2] etc.
Any chance you could clarify/provide an example of what this kind of thing would look like? Thanks again.
(This is meant to be purely illustrative, not taken seriously. Also, given how hard it was to come up with frames, it might be better to replace using lenses this way with ‘questions that are always good to ask’.)
Idea [1]____1___________2__________3
Lenses:__Economic__Narrative [3] Empiricism [4]
[1] Movies these days seem to be lacking realism[2]/X.
1)
Is there not an audience for realism/X? (Or is this a market failure?)
Are most movies produced by studios that aren’t good at writing realism/X?
Is it more expensive to produce movies which are more realistic/X?
Harder to make money off of?
Is this the result of government regulation? Self-regulation?
Do the people involved in making movies (scriptwriters, directors, etc.) prefer less realistic**/X movies? Find it easier to make such movies?
[2] What is the alternative to realism that is more common?
(Realistically, the best way to make progress on a question like this is probably by unpacking ‘What you mean by “realism”/X.’)
[3] A struggle between the forces of good and evil.
2)
Who controls Hollywood, good or evil? Both? Neither?
What reasons might they have for doing this?
Good:
It’s easier to have the good guys win in movies if you’re less realistic. It also delivers a particular message ’you will win if you’re good, no matter how ridiculous that sounds.
Bad:
It lulls people into a false sense of security. “All evil needs to prevail is every good person doing nothing.” As it is hard to get people to do nothing, the nothing must be obscured by an illusion of doing something—thus, meaningless visual media, Netflix, etc.
Neither:
a)
Life isn’t perfect. People go to the movies to get away from it all/see the people they agree with win. It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to be entertaining and end happily.
b)
Movie makers don’t care about realism. Conflicts of Good versus Evil, where the good guys always win, in movies that don’t make sense aren’t about Good versus Evil. They’re just another opportunity for movie makers to set up their side as “Good” and the other side as “Evil”. This is why movies today are getting political (to the detriment of their quality).
[4] Looking at data
3)
Assess the quality of a sample of movies, perhaps across time periods, perhaps highly rated/popular movies.
Has the factor we’re interested in changed over time?
(Is realism going down, up, in a cycle, or randomly—say, based on really popular movies coming out which do or don’t have features (such as realism), and then more movies like that getting made, Y number of Years later.)
Have other factors? Are there any relationships in the data?
(Update: it might be better to just come up with a list of questions that are always good to ask/have been really useful in the past (in other domains) and use that instead. The chart is just 1) a row of such questions 2) a row where you add a checkmark after you’ve answered that question (about the topic you’re trying to understand.)
A lens/frame/framework is a way of looking at things. I meant this to be a suggestion to see how a lens can be applied to other domains by constructing a chart/checklist as follows:
There are n columns and 2 rows, where n is the number of lenses. The first column tells you what is in each row. The top element of the first column contains ‘the name of your idea’. The bottom element of the first column can contain the word “lens”. The bottom row (after the first element) contains the name of each lens (that you have given it). The top row (after the first element) contains either blank spaces or check marks*.
Coming up with a procedure to see if you’ve thought through all the implications of a model may also be useful.
*One could also put a page number in it, and write about that idea through that lens on that page.
Very much appreciate your input and the kind words in regards to the merits of the post. I don’t think I understand what it means to ‘frame’ something as you specified in this comment:
It might be useful to come up with frames and give them names and put them in a list, so you can do this:
Frames [Frame 1] [Frame 2] etc.
Any chance you could clarify/provide an example of what this kind of thing would look like? Thanks again.
(This is meant to be purely illustrative, not taken seriously. Also, given how hard it was to come up with frames, it might be better to replace using lenses this way with ‘questions that are always good to ask’.)
Idea [1]____1___________2__________3
Lenses:__Economic__Narrative [3] Empiricism [4]
[1] Movies these days seem to be lacking realism[2]/X.
1)
Is there not an audience for realism/X? (Or is this a market failure?)
Are most movies produced by studios that aren’t good at writing realism/X?
Is it more expensive to produce movies which are more realistic/X?
Harder to make money off of?
Is this the result of government regulation? Self-regulation?
Do the people involved in making movies (scriptwriters, directors, etc.) prefer less realistic**/X movies? Find it easier to make such movies?
[2] What is the alternative to realism that is more common?
(Realistically, the best way to make progress on a question like this is probably by unpacking ‘What you mean by “realism”/X.’)
[3] A struggle between the forces of good and evil.
2)
Who controls Hollywood, good or evil? Both? Neither?
What reasons might they have for doing this?
Good:
It’s easier to have the good guys win in movies if you’re less realistic. It also delivers a particular message ’you will win if you’re good, no matter how ridiculous that sounds.
Bad:
It lulls people into a false sense of security. “All evil needs to prevail is every good person doing nothing.” As it is hard to get people to do nothing, the nothing must be obscured by an illusion of doing something—thus, meaningless visual media, Netflix, etc.
Neither:
a)
Life isn’t perfect. People go to the movies to get away from it all/see the people they agree with win. It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to be entertaining and end happily.
b)
Movie makers don’t care about realism. Conflicts of Good versus Evil, where the good guys always win, in movies that don’t make sense aren’t about Good versus Evil. They’re just another opportunity for movie makers to set up their side as “Good” and the other side as “Evil”. This is why movies today are getting political (to the detriment of their quality).
[4] Looking at data
3)
Assess the quality of a sample of movies, perhaps across time periods, perhaps highly rated/popular movies.
Has the factor we’re interested in changed over time?
(Is realism going down, up, in a cycle, or randomly—say, based on really popular movies coming out which do or don’t have features (such as realism), and then more movies like that getting made, Y number of Years later.)
Have other factors? Are there any relationships in the data?
(Update: it might be better to just come up with a list of questions that are always good to ask/have been really useful in the past (in other domains) and use that instead. The chart is just 1) a row of such questions 2) a row where you add a checkmark after you’ve answered that question (about the topic you’re trying to understand.)
A lens/frame/framework is a way of looking at things. I meant this to be a suggestion to see how a lens can be applied to other domains by constructing a chart/checklist as follows:
There are n columns and 2 rows, where n is the number of lenses. The first column tells you what is in each row. The top element of the first column contains ‘the name of your idea’. The bottom element of the first column can contain the word “lens”. The bottom row (after the first element) contains the name of each lens (that you have given it). The top row (after the first element) contains either blank spaces or check marks*.
Coming up with a procedure to see if you’ve thought through all the implications of a model may also be useful.
*One could also put a page number in it, and write about that idea through that lens on that page.