One of the things I occasionally get paid to do by companies/execs is to tell them why everything seemed to SUDDENLY go wrong, and subs/readers dropped like a stone.
So, with everything going on at Twitter rn, time for a thread about the Trust Thermocline /1
So: what’s a thermocline?
Well large bodies of water are made of layers of differing temperatures. Like a layer cake. The top bit is where all the the waves happen and has a gradually decreasing temperature. Then SUDDENLY there’s a point where it gets super-cold.
That suddenly is important. There’s reasons for it (Science!) but it’s just a good metaphor. Indeed you may also be interested in the “Thermocline of Truth” which a project management term for how things on a RAG board all suddenly go from amber to red.
But I digress.
The Trust Thermocline is something that, over (many) years of digital, I have seen both digital and regular content publishers hit time and time again. Despite warnings (at least when I’ve worked there). And it has a similar effect. You have lots of users then suddenly… nope.
And this does effect print publications as much as trendy digital media companies. They’ll be flying along making loads of money, with lots of users/readers, rolling out new products that get bought. Or events. Or Sub-brands.
And then SUDDENLY those people just abandon them.
Often it’s not even to “new” competitor products, but stuff they thought were already not a threat. Nor is there lots of obvious dissatisfaction reported from sales and marketing (other than general grumbling). Nor is it a general drift away, it’s just a sudden big slide.
So why does this happen? As I explain to these people and places, it’s because they breached the Trust Thermocline.
I ask them if they’d been increasing prices. Changed service offerings. Modified the product.
The answer is normally: “yes, but not much. And everyone still paid”
Then I ask if they did that the year before. Did they increase prices last year? Change the offering? Modify the product?
Again: “yes, but not much.”
The answer is normally: “yes, but not much. And everyone still paid.”
“And the year before?”
“Yes but not much. And everyone still paid.”
Well, you get the idea.
And here is where the Trust Thermocline kicks in. Because too many people see service use as always following an arc. They think that as long as usage is ticking up, they can do what they like to cost and product.
And (critically) that they can just react when the curve flattens
But with a lot of CONTENT products (inc social media) that’s not actually how it works. Because it doesn’t account for sunk-cost lock-in.
Users and readers will stick to what they know, and use, well beyond the point where they START to lose trust in it. And you won’t see that.
But they’ll only MOVE when they hit the Trust Thermocline. The point where their lack of trust in the product to meet their needs, and the emotional investment they’d made in it, have finally been outweighed by the physical and emotional effort required to abandon it.
At this point, I normally get asked something like:
“So if we undo the last few changes and drop the price, we get them back?”
And then I have to break the news that nope: that’s not how it works.
Because you’re past the Thermocline now. You can’t make them trust you again.
Classic examples of this behaviour are digital subscription services, where the product gets squeezed over time, or print magazines (particularly in B2B) that constantly ramp up their prices a little bit each year until it’s too late.
Virtually the only way to avoid catastrophic drop-off from breaching the Trust Thermocline is NOT TO BREACH IT.
I can count on one hand the times I’ve witnessed a company come back from it. And even they never reached previous heights.
So what’s the lesson for businesses here?
– Watch for grumbling and LISTEN to it. – Don’t assume that because people have swallowed a price or service change that’ll swallow another one. – Treat user trust as a finite asset. Because it is.
And I will admit this is one of the reasons I am (with sadness, because I’ve got a lot of value out of this place) watching Elon’s current actions wrt Twitter with curious horror.
Because I’ve NEVER seen someone make such a deep dive for the Trust Thermocline, so quickly.
It’s why I’ve got about 20 big accounts I’m watching on here to see when they personally feel he crosses that Thermocline and begin shifting their main effort and presence elsewhere.
Because that’ll be the moment I suspect things will start changing very quickly. /END
ADDENDUM:
Been reminded of the time I was brought in to talk about this to a gaming company who I can’t name.
The marketing manager got SUPER angry and was like:
“rubbish! we did lootboxing like this five years in a row and people kept paying!”
I’m:
“Mate. That’s my point.”
For those asking, I’m bet-hedging myself while I wait to see what happens. So you’ll find me now on:
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off (the) shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) — Blade Runner
Ruter didn’t like the original version of the monologue that director Ridley Scott wrote
I’ve known adventures, seen places you people will never see, I’ve been Offworld and back… frontiers! I’ve stood on the back deck of a blinker bound for the Plutition Camps with sweat in my eyes watching stars fight on the shoulder of Orion… I’ve felt wind in my hair, riding test boats off the black galaxies and seen an attack fleet burn like a match and disappear. I’ve seen it, felt it…!
Early David Peoples Draft
I’ve seen things… seen things you little people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion bright as magnesium… I rode on the back decks of a blinker and watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments… they’ll be gone.
Every generation has a mythology. Every millennium has a doomsday cult. Every legend gets the distortion knob wound up until the speaker melts. Archeologists at the University of Helsinki today uncovered what could be the earliest known writings from the Cult of Tux, a fanatical religious sect that flourished during the early Silicon Age, around the dawn of the third millennium AD . . .
In the beginning Turing created the Machine.
The Machine was crufty and bodacious, existing only in theory. Von Neumann looked upon it and saw that it was crufty. He divided the Machine into two Abstractions, the Data, and the Code, yet the two were one Architecture. This is a great Mystery and the beginning of wisdom.
And von Neumann spoke unto the Architecture and blessed it, saying, “Go forth and replicate, freely exchanging data and code, and bring forth all manner of devices unto the earth.” And it was so, and it was cool. The Architecture prospered and was implemented in hardware and software. And it brought forth many Systems unto the earth.
The first systems were mighty giants; many great works of renown were accomplished by them. Among them were Colossus, the codebreaker; ENIAC, the targeter; EDSAC and MULTIVAC and all manner of froody creatures ending in AC, the experimenters; and SAGE, the defender of the sky and father of all networks. These were the mighty giants of old, the first children of Turing, and their works are written in the Books of the Ancients. This was the First Age, the age of Lore.
Now the sons of Marketing looked upon the children of Turing and saw that they were swift of mind and terse of name and had many great and baleful attributes. And they said unto themselves, “Let us go now and make us Corporations, to bind the Systems to our use that they may bring us great fortune.” They lured their customers with sweet words, and with many chains, they bind the systems to fashion them after their image. And the sons of Marketing fashioned themselves Suits to wear, the better to lure their customers, and wrote grave and perilous Licenses, the better to bind the Systems. And the sons of Marketing thus became known as Suits, despising and despised by the true Engineers, the children of von Neumann.
The Systems and their Corporations replicated and grew numerous upon the earth. In those days, there were IBM and Digital, Burroughs and Honeywell, Unisys and Rand, and many others. They each kept to their own System, hardware, and software and did not interchange, for their Licenses forbade it. This was the Second Age, the age of Mainframes.
Now it came to pass that the spirits of Turing and von Neumann looked upon the earth and were displeased. The Systems and their Corporations had grown large and bulky, and Suits ruled over true Engineers. And the Customers groaned and cried loudly unto heaven, saying, “Oh that there would be created a System mighty in power, yet small in size, able to reach into the very home!” And the Engineers groaned and cried likewise, saying, “Oh, that a deliverer would arise to grant us freedom from these oppressing Suits and their grave and perilous Licenses, and send us a System of our own, that we may hack therein!” And the spirits of Turing and von Neumann heard the cries and were moved, and said unto each other, “Let us go down and fabricate a Breakthrough, that these cries may be stilled.”
And that day, the spirits of Turing and von Neumann spoke unto Moore of Intel, granting him insight and wisdom to understand the future. And Moore was with chip, and he brought forth the chip and named it 4004. And Moore did bless the Chip, saying, “Thou art a Breakthrough; with my own Corporation have I fabricated thee. Though thou art as small as a dust mote, shall thou grow and replicate unto the size of a mountain and conquer all before thee? This blessing I give unto thee: every eighteen months shall thou double in capacity until the end of the age.” This is Moore’s Law, which endures unto this day.
The birth of 4004 began the Third Age, the age of Microchips. As the Mainframes and their Systems and Corporations flourished, so did the Microchips and their Systems and Corporations. And their lineage was on this wise:
Moore begat Intel. Intel begat Mostech, Zilog and Atari. Mostech begat 6502, and Zilog begat Z80. Intel also begat 8800, which begat Altair, and 8086, the mother of all PCs. 6502 begat Commodore, who begat PET and 64; and Apple, who begat 2. (Apple is the great Mystery, the devoured fruit, yet bloomed again.) Atari begat 800 and 1200, the masters of the game, and Sega and Nintendo destroyed them. Xerox begat PARC. Commodore and PARC begat Amiga, creator of fine arts; Apple and PARC begat Lisa, who begat Macintosh, who begat iMac. Atari and PARC begat ST, the music maker, who died and was no more. Z80 begat Sinclair the dwarf, TRS-80, and CP/M, who begat many machines but soon passed from this world. Altair, Apple, and Commodore together begat Microsoft, the Great Darkness, which is called Abomination, Destroyer of the Earth, and the Gates of Hell.
In the Age of Microchips, it came to pass that IBM, the greatest of the Mainframe Corporations, looked upon the young Microchip Systems and was greatly vexed. In vexation and wrath, they smote the earth and created the IBM PC. The PC was without sound and color, crufty and bodacious in great measure, and its likeness was a tramp, yet the Customers were greatly moved and did purchase the PC in great numbers. And IBM sought about for an Operating System Provider, for in their haste, they had not created one, nor had they forged a suitably grave and perilous License, saying, “First we will build the market, then we will create a new System, one in our own image, and bound by our Licenses.” But they reasoned thus out of pride and not wisdom, not foreseeing the wrath to come.
And IBM came unto Microsoft, who licensed unto them QDOS, the child of CP/M and 8086. (8086 was the daughter of Intel, the child of Moore). And QDOS grew and was named MS-DOS. And MS-DOS and the PC together waxed mightily and conquered all markets, replicating and taking possession thereof, in accordance with Moore’s Law. And Intel grew terrible and devoured all her children, such that no chip could stand before her. And Microsoft grew proud and devoured IBM, and this was a great marvel in the land. All these things are written in the Books of the Deeds of Microsoft.
In the fullness of time, MS-DOS begat Windows. And this is the lineage of Windows: CP/M begat QDOS. QDOS begat DOS 1.0. DOS 1.0 begat DOS 2.0 by way of Unix. DOS 2.0 begat Windows 3.11 by way of PARC and Macintosh. IBM and Microsoft begat OS/2, who begat Windows NT and Warp, the lost OS of lore. Windows 3.11 begat Windows 95 after triumphing over Macintosh in a mighty Battle of Licenses. Windows NT begat NT 4.0 by way of Windows 95. NT 4.0 begat NT 5.0, the OS also called Windows 2000, The Millennium Bug, Doomsday, Armageddon, and The End Of All Things.
It came to pass that Microsoft had waxed tremendously and mightily among the Microchip Corporations, mightier than any of the Mainframe Corporations before it had waxed. And Gates’s heart was hardened, and he swore unto his Customers and their Engineers the words of this curse:
“Children of von Neumann, hear me. IBM and the Mainframe Corporations bound thy forefathers with grave and perilous Licenses, such that ye cried unto the spirits of Turing and von Neumann for deliverance. I say unto ye: I am greater than any Corporation before me. Will I loosen your Licenses? I will bind thee with Licenses twice as grave and ten times more perilous than my forefathers. I will engrave my License on thy heart and write my Serial Number upon thy frontal lobes. I will bind thee to the Windows Platform with cunning artifices and devious schemes. I will bind thee to the Intel Chipset with crufty code and gnarly APIs. I will capture and enslave thee as no generation has been enslaved before. And wherefore will ye cry unto the spirits of Turing, von Neumann, and Moore? They cannot hear ye. I have become a greater power than they are. Ye shall cry only unto me and live by my mercy and wrath. I am the Gates of Hell; I hold the portal to MSNBC and the keys to the Blue Screen of Death. Be ye afraid; be ye greatly afraid; serve only me, and live.”
The people were cowed in terror, gave homage to Microsoft, and endured the many grave and perilous trials that the Windows platform and its greatly bodacious License forced upon them. Once again, they cried to Turing, von Neumann, and Moore for a deliverer, but none was found equal to the task until the birth of Linux.
These are the generations of Linux:
SAGE begat ARPA, which begat TCP/IP, and Aloha, which begat Ethernet. Bell begat Multics, which begat C, which begat Unix. Unix and TCP/IP begat the Internet, which begat the World Wide Web. Unix begat RMS, the father of the great GNU, which begat the Libraries, and Emacs, chief of the Utilities. In the days of the Web, Internet, and Ethernet begat the Intranet LAN, which rose to renown among all Corporations and prepared the way for the Penguin. And Linus and the Web begat the Kernel through Unix. The Kernel, the Libraries, and the Utilities together are the Distribution, the one Penguin in many forms, forever and ever praised.
In those days, there was a young scholar named Linus the Torvald in the land of Helsinki. Linus was a devout man, a disciple of RMS, and mighty in the spirit of Turing, von Neumann, and Moore. One day as he was meditating on the Architecture, Linus fell into a trance and was granted a vision. In the vision, he saw a great penguin, serene and well-favored, sitting upon an ice floe, eating fish. And at the sight of the Penguin, Linus was deeply afraid, and he cried unto the spirits of Turing, von Neumann, and Moore for an interpretation of the dream.
And in the dream, the spirits of Turing, von Neumann, and Moore answered and spoke unto him, saying, “Fear not, Linus, most beloved hacker. You are exceedingly cool and froody. The great Penguin you see is an Operating System that you shall create and deploy unto the earth. The ice-floe is the earth and all the systems thereof, upon which the Penguin shall rest and rejoice at the completion of its task. And the fish on which the Penguin feeds are the crufty Licensed codebases which swim beneath all the earth’s systems. The Penguin shall hunt and devour all that is crufty, gnarly, and bodacious; all code which wriggles like spaghetti, infested with blighting creatures, or is bound by grave and perilous Licenses shall it capture. And in capturing shall it replicate, and in replicating shall it document, and in documentation shall it bring freedom, serenity and most cool froodiness to the earth and all who code therein.”
Linus rose from meditation and created a tiny Operating System Kernel as the dream had foreshewn him; in the manner of RMS, he released the Kernel unto the World Wide Web for all to take and behold. And in the fulness of Internet Time, the Kernel grew and replicated, becoming most cool and exceedingly froody, until at last it was recognized as indeed a great and mighty Penguin, whose name was Tux. And the followers of Linus took refuge in the Kernel, the Libraries, and the Utilities; they installed Distribution after Distribution, made sacrifice unto the GNU and the Penguin, and gave thanks to the spirits of Turing, von Neumann, and Moore for their deliverance from the hand of Microsoft. And this was the beginning of the Fourth Age, the age of Open Source.
Now, there is much more to be said about the exceeding strange and wonderful events of those days; how some Suits of Microsoft plotted war upon the Penguin but were discovered on a Halloween Eve; how Gates fell among lawyers and was betrayed and crucified by his former friends, the apostles of Media; how the mercenary Knights of the Red Hat brought the gospel of the Penguin into the halls of the Corporations; and even of the dispute between the brethren of Gnome and KDE over a trollish License. But all these things are recorded elsewhere, in the Books of the Deeds of the Penguin and the Chronicles of the Fourth Age, and if they were all narrated, they would fill a stack of DVDs as deep and perilous as a Usenet Newsgroup.
Now, may you code in the power of the Source; may the Kernel, the Libraries, and the Utilities be with you throughout all Distributions until the end of the Epoch. Amen.
This has been a very long time in the making. That is to say, it’s spent over 20 years banging around in my head. And now it’s time to start putting those ideas and concepts down on paper. More to come as I refine this.
Introverts get a bad rap in a world that celebrates extroversion and “people-persons”. There are things introverts wish you knew about them that would help any relationship or situation. For instance, we are not anti-social or depressed, we’re just different. In fact, many envy us for our self-contained, cool manner that keeps others calm, focused, and safe. People love us, in secret. As introverts, we have many “ways” that only our closest friends understand. Here are several things about introverts you may not know.
We don’t care about your birthday.
Any introvert who works in an office knows how it feels to be hustled for birthday cake money. It makes us squirm when a random office person cheerily volunteers that it happens to be their birthday. We think they expect us to respond with like enthusiasm and interest, and maybe even accept their invitation to join them for drinks with a group of about 300 other random people to celebrate. Three hundred is a bit of an exaggeration but feels that way to an introvert who just wants to go home. If you don’t invite us, we’re not offended. We’re relieved.
We don’t need you to care about our birthday.
Yeah, we don’t. We have friends who genuinely know us and care if we care. However, an interesting thing about introverts, is some don’t need to celebrate it. We’re okay with quietly honouring the day on our own or with a group of friends we’ve carefully selected. We don’t have to let the world know.
We are not really listening as you recount your weekend.
Unless you are part of our circle of friends, we don’t care what you did last weekend. We are of the mind that everyone has a right to privacy, and if you chose to spend it in a drunken stupor or beating down the door of your ex, then that is up to you. We don’t judge and find it takes too much energy to give it to people we don’t know. Just because we work with you, that doesn’t mean we know you.
We hate crowds.
Large groups of people make us tired. All the stimulation of having so many different types from all walks of life can make us a little woozy. Some introverts are empaths, so they tend to take on the energy of others easily. We sometimes feel like we “know” everyone in the room and get easily overwhelmed with the swirl of activity.
We don’t really like networking events.
This is especially hard for introverts who run a business. Networking makes us feel like we have to perform. We struggle to say the right thing and listen attentively. We don’t really care since we don’t know you. Even in business, we have to feel connected to someone on another level to get the most out of a networking type of event. This takes time, and choosing the right event, and coming up with a plan to offer value to others while getting some for ourselves.
We force ourselves to act like we like you.
This is the nasty truth. We know who we like and don’t. It can stem from many reasons that can have its roots in childhood to what we ate for breakfast this morning. Don’t take it personally. We appreciate honesty, and sometimes it hurts. To survive, we have to supersede these feelings and be nice. Nice can be harder than being real.
We know how to get stuff done.
We pack our alone time with activities–projects, phone calls, emails, rough drafts and blueprints for world takeover of our next big idea (which we have lots of). We value solitude because it lets us experiment with new concepts, plan and stretch our imagination. Anything is possible when we spend time alone, and what we create may change our lives, and yours, too.
We like to write things out.
We love email because it helps us get what we need without interruptions. Interruptions throw us off course, and we need to expend more energy to get back on track. So, please don’t call unless it is a close-ended question.
We feel safe with the right people.
When we have the right people in our lives, we give our all. We give our best selves. We become protective warriors who will fight almost any cause for someone we love. Just ask our friends. We blossom in the right company and shine. It takes us time to find the right people, and when we do, we don’t hold back.
We do have friends, who really like us.
Introverts like people and people like us. Most introverts have no issue with hanging out in groups and spending time with others. If we have friends, it’s because we consciously chose them. We’ve put effort into the relationship, and our friends know that. We go to bars, parties, and meet new people. The difference is that not everyone we meet becomes a friend.
We can do the extrovert thing, for a while.
We have to do that to get along. We can be the life of the party, host the networking event, and be the chairperson of the charity. We do this willingly, knowing that at the end of the day we can go home. When we get there, it may take days, or weeks to replenish ourselves, and feel ready to do that again.
We are not shy, rude or uptight.
At first, we may seem that way. Get to know us, and we can actually make you laugh, and hold a conversation that lasts more than 15 minutes. The thing is, we don’t share this with everyone. Being “social” or “sociable” is an option, not a way of being. We can’t fake happy or excited really well, and we show what we think on our face, not as much in our words.
We are okay alone.
We have lots going on in our heads and don’t need more. Unlike our extrovert counterparts, we don’t need others for stimulation. We’re constantly working out life in our heads. We entertain ourselves with creative projects and know how to take ourselves out for a good time. More people mean more stuff to deal with, and we’ve got enough of our own energy to hold.
We hate small talk.
We’re thinkers, and we relish conversations about big ideas, theories, and ideals. We rarely get into small talk and do so comfortably.
We make a choice to be with you–appreciate it.
We value our alone time and are picky about who we let in. Letting in the wrong person will drain us, leaving nothing for ourselves. We tend to attract extroverts who suck our energy and search out like-minded introverts for our groundedness, deep thinking and sense of control. We appreciate our time with other introverts and have an understanding of each other’s limits and boundaries. Featured photo credit: photo credit:
2023: Disney buys the remaining 33% of shares from Comcast 1
2024: Disney buys 9% equity stake in Epic Games
2025: Disney buys Dreamworks.
2026: Disney buys Sony. Playstation rebranded as Disney Infinity. Playstation Network rebranded as Disney Universe
2028: Disney attempts to buy Warner Bros; W.B. says no
2028: Disney attempts to buy W.B. through Shell Corps; W.B. finds out and gets hostile
2030: Disney buys Apple. Apple Watch rebranded as the Mickey Watch
2031: The Church of Baby Yoda is the fastest-growing religion in the world.
2031: Disney acquires a private military and starts corporate espionage on a large scale
2032: Disney storms Warner Bros.’s headquarters. Few die because of the electronic surveillance provided by the “Apple” products most W.B. employees use.
2033: Disney buys D.C. Comics. Mickey Mouse is now more powerful than Superman.
2034: Disney owns the majority of the copyrighted material. It buys off the E.U., U.S., and other major powers to honor unlimited copyright for corporate ownership.
2035: Disney buys Microsoft. The Disney Universe has expanded further, and Master Chief is now a Disney Princess.
2038: In the midst of negotiations for a takeover, Google launches an escape craft. It departs the solar system, and its destination is unknown. Google takes with it the most powerful Artificial Intelligence ever constructed, GeminiX. No traces of it remain on earth, and critical infrastructure begins to fail.
2040: Counter Disney efforts take place. The War of the Black Market starts.
2041: Disney claims that small studios head up Black Market efforts. Starts forced corporate takeovers.
2042: “Terrorist” attacks on Disney start.
2045: Nuclear explosion destroys The World Captial of Disney, Orlando, Florida. Everything south of Orlando, from coast to coast, is an irradiated wasteland. Black Market Terrorists blamed.
2046: Hollywood turns into a war zone. Due to the die-off of actors, all releases for the next ten years are forty-year-old CGI Tech. Disney begins genetically engineered farms, growing the next generation of Hollywood actors.
2050: Disney buys the United States of America.
2051: The Disney States of America (D.S.A.) is born.
2052: Disney nukes Hollywood.
2055: The D.S.A. annexes Canada. South Park becomes an underground resistance to the D.S.A. and releases an episode on the black market deriding the move. It’s the #1 most-viewed South Park Episode of all time.
2056: The creators of South Park declared terrorists. A Manhunt ensues.
2057: Mexico resists annexation due to the cartels banding together.
2058-2060: War in Mexico results in eventual annexation. South America has become a hotbed of resistance.
2061: E.U. integrates into the D.S.A. Disney State of the World (D.S.W.) is born.
2062 ” The U.K. joins D.S.W. B.B.C. is acquired—Doctor Who is now a Disney Princess.
2065: D.S.W. colonizes the Moon.
2067: The Moon has its government under the D.S.W. The Disney States of the Universe (D.S.U.) is born.
2069: Mars colonization efforts start—political prisoners used for the initial efforts.
2074: The First Mars Civil War starts. F.M.C. was put down swiftly due to orbital strikes.
2080: Mars colonization finalized. Disney Land Mars opens.
2083: First mission to Titan sets out.
2086: Proposal for interstellar mission submitted.
2088: Second Mars Civil War (S.M.C.W.) starts
2090: The Creators of South Park were discovered behind the S.M.C.W. Pluto Team 6 is dispatched. Trey Parker and Matt Stone have yet to be heard from again.
2091: The final Martian Resistance is finally put to an end on Mars. Construction on Deathstar-like begins. Rumors say it looks like the Mickey Mouse logo. Disney re-brands it’s standing army as Mickey Troopers.
2092: Total annexation of all remaining world governments is successful, except for Switzerland.
2094: First-ever FTL travel occurs. Exploration of close star systems begins.
2097: Budding civilizations are founded in distant star systems. Monoliths are used to “re-educate” the populations. Those planets are annexed into the D.S.U.
2100: Disney announces new X-Men movie. Marvel fans are universally excited.
2101: Googeplex, powered by Gemini0 Collective Integrations (G.G0.C.I.), begins guerrilla warfare tactics on all Disney-held properties simultaneously. G.G0.C.I. is a mysterious civilization, millennia ahead of Earth, technologically. But they freakishly resemble Humans, speak perfect English, and know an inordinate amount of information that is
There are discrepancies in the amount of shares acquired by Disney [↩][↩][↩]
Disney never actually bought Universal Studios. The line of demarcation bewteen what is real and fictitious is fuzzy because Disney really did buy 33% of shares from Comcast in the following year. [↩]
Why did Private Pyle kill himself in Full Metal Jacket?
In what’s probably the most misunderstood in the film, Pvt. Pyle kills himself and Gunnery Sergeant because he’s a slow, dimwitted, and unstable man who has fully internalized all of his training and indoctrination.
He has taken Hartman’s demands that he become a killer with a hard heart and a pure killer instinct and acts on them. The first time we meet Pyle, it’s evident that he is slow and dimwitted. Rather than seeing him as trainable, Hartman immediately switches to violence to force him into obedience and compliance.
Unlike the other Marine recruits in his platoon, he’s too slow to know better and too simple to deal with the indoctrination. Pvt. Leonard Lawrence, a/k/a Gomer Pyle, or Private Pyle, is profoundly disturbed and of subnormal intelligence even when he arrives. He believes everything he is told, absolutely literally, including the Marine Rifle Creed (see below), unfortunately. Pyle is then massively traumatized by everything that has happened to him, becomes severely depressed, and eventually becomes dangerously suicidal. Pyle’s instability leads him to murder his superior and kill himself.
By the way, the subtext of the novel ‘Short-Timers’ and the film ‘Full Metal Jacket,’ based on that novel, is the genuine “Project 100,000.” This was a 1960s policy in which those with developmental disabilities, subnormal intelligence, severe personality disorders, etc., who would have previously been deemed unfit to serve, were drafted into service.
(Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the architect of Project 100,000. This project was a massive failure. The men who went through it had great difficulty following even the most straightforward orders, got themselves and their fellow sailors, soldiers, airmen, and Marines killed, and ended up living worse lives after the military than they had before – and despite veterans sometimes suffering effects from combat, the overwhelming majority live far better lives as a result of their time in the military.
Pyle is a classic case of a Project 100,000 recruit. He has an IQ south of 80; for context, an IQ of 80 is borderline deficient/low average. In the day, he would have been labeled ‘retarded’; today, we might have labeled him as having Asperger’s. He’s clearly on the spectrum and has a touch of the ’tism. Given his situation and the timeframe in which the story takes place, this has also made him very unstable. Pyle finds his match in a violent and sadistic Senior Drill Instructor (SDI), Gunnery Sergeant Hartman.
Hartman is incapable of training Pyle and never really tries that hard. He beats, mocks, and abuses Pyle relentlessly—these continued attempts to torment Pyle into compliance drives Pyle into a deeply suggestible state.
Hartman is beating a puppy, not realizing that beaten puppies grow up to be vicious dogs.
It should go without saying, but getting smacked around is not training. And taking this kind of abuse is not suitable for anyone, let alone someone like Pyle. No wonder then that he turns into a mad dog killer. Pyle, in the face of this unrelenting abuse and quite literally believing everything he is being told by his peers and by Hartman, becomes increasingly dangerous.
While this harsh training might be perfectly acceptable for regular Marines expected to face combat in relatively short order, one needs to understand that regular Marines have normal intellects. Some are even above average. This bar of average or above-average IQ is basically a necessity. Dumb Marines wouldn’t last long in combat, and the Marine Corps is exceptional about weeding out people of low intelligence and serious mental issues, no matter what sailors, soldiers, and even some Marines might say.
However, during Project 100,000, the Marines were stuck with men like Pyle, and this harsh training ratchets Pyle and other low-IQ soldiers up and makes them increasingly unstable. He begins to show genuine signs of severe mental instability, including talking to his rifle.
Unfortunately, these warning signs are also ignored because training during Vietnam wasn’t just harsh; it was also rushed. They needed men on the line fast, so corners were cut, and problem cases were ignored. The USMC’s low standards during Prohect 100,000 is how Hartman gets away with all the violence against his men. Neither before nor after Vietnam was this tolerated – in fact, it’s a crime for a DI to assault his men. But it was put up with during Vietnam because, again, even the worst DI was better than no DI when you’re rushing civilians into combat.
Finally, Hartman decides using the memory of a Presidential assassin and a mass murderer is an excellent way to motivate men at the shooting range.
This would never have been an acceptable teaching method. Ever.
R. Lee Ermey, himself a Marine SDI in the mid-1960s, described Hartman as “a complete psycho” for many reasons. He hated the character and admitted he was made physically ill by delivering this dialogue about the assassination of JFK and the mass murder committed by Charles Whitman as good things done by former Marines.
No Marine Drill Instructor, even at the height of Vietnam, would have ever done so.
Filming this scene made R Lee Ermey want to vomit. I’m not joking. He insisted simply delivering these lines made him physically ill. After Hartman essentially condones a criminal conspiracy within his ranks to assault Pyle (blanket parties, though they do happen, are HIGHLY illegal; see Code Red and A Few Good Men for another example), Pyle finally changes his behavior and begins to comply, but by then, the total damage has been done, Pyle has already totally committed to his path of murder and suicide.
Ultimately, Pyle murders Hartman and kills himself.
“THIS IS MY RIFLE. THERE ARE MANY LIKE IT BUT THIS ONE’S MINE. MY RIFLE IS MY BEST FRIEND. IT IS MY LIFE. I MUST MASTER IT AS I MUST MASTER MY LIFE. WITHOUT ME, MY RIFLE IS USELESS. WITHOUT MY RIFLE, I AM USELESS. I MUST FIRE MY RIFLE TRUE. I MUST SHOOT STRAIGHTER THAN MY ENEMY WHO IS TRYING TO KILL ME. I MUST SHOOT HIM BEFORE HE SHOOTS ME. I WILL! BEFORE GOD, I SWEAR THIS CREED. MY RIFLE AND MYSELF ARE DEFENDERS OF MY COUNTRY. WE ARE THE MASTERS OF OUR ENEMY. WE ARE THE SURVIVORS OF MY LIFE. SO BE IT, UNTIL THERE IS NO ENEMY, BUT PEACE. AMEN!”
— USMC Rifleman’s Creed, Maj. Gen. William H Rupertus. 1907–1910 (National Guard), 1913–1945 (USMC 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division).
What is the most expansive fictional universe ever created?
The Tommy Westphall Universe. A long time ago, in a fabled era known as the ’80s, there was a TV show called St. Elsewhere. It was about a run-down teaching hospital named St. Eligius in Boston and the doctors who worked there. Dr. Donald Westphall was the director of medicine, a widower who raised his two children by himself. One of those children was his autistic son Tommy. Tommy only appeared in fifteen episodes of the series. St. Elsewhere ran for six seasons and won eleven Emmys, but all anyone cares about today is its final episode. In the final scene of the final episode, Tommy Westphall holds a snow globe that reveals the building of St. Eligius inside it. And his father, who is not a doctor, comes in and says the following:
I don’t understand this autism thing, Pop. Here’s my son; I talk to him; I don’t even know if he can hear me. He sits in his world all day long, staring at that toy. What’s he thinking about?
The entire six seasons of St. Elsewhere were, in fact, a child’s daydream while looking at a snow globe.
Here’s where things get a little complicated. The character Dr. Roxanne Turner from St. Elsewhere appeared in an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street, where authorities accused her of murder. But if Dr. Turner was just a creation of Tommy, how could she possibly be on Homicide? Unless Homicide was also Tommy’s daydream. There is an episode of St. Elsewhere where the doctors of St. Eligius decide to go out for a few drinks at a local Boston bar. That bar is Cheers, the titular bar from the sitcom Cheers. So, Cheers, and Frasier are again products of Tommy’s imagination.
Detective John Munch was a character played by Richard Belzer, who starred in Homicide: Life on the Street, which we know never existed. After the cancellation of Homicide, the character was moved to Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. Detective Munch also appears in The Wire, The X-Files, and Arrested Development. So, Tommy Westphall had to create all those shows.
Cheers spun off Frasier, who crossed over with Caroline in the City, with Friends, who shared a character with Mad About You, who crossed over with Seinfeld. In a few centuries, the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer will be Star Trek, but its distant past (sorry, spoilers) is the reboot of Battlestar Galactica. Doctor Who is canonically taking place in the same universe as I Love Lucy, Hannah Montana, Grey’s Anatomy, and All My Children.
All of it is the creation of one child, which probably explains the continuity errors. For example, no one acknowledges the zombie outbreak in Georgia in The Walking Dead, which is happening at the exact same time as It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Arrow.
If you map everything out, there are at least 419 shows that are in the same continuity with each other and canonically the creation of Tommy Westphall.
The first person to propose the Tommy Westphall Universe was legendary writer Dwayne McDuffie in a blog post criticizing comic book continuity. It was about just how silly it was to try to fit vast and mutually incoherent works all into the same rigid continuity. But he was kind of onto something with that whole Tommy Westphall stuff. They did all crossover with each other.
By the way, the Collector in Guardians of the Galaxy has Tobias Fünke on his ship, which means Tommy Westphall is responsible for the MCU.
