Foreign policy. Sound complicated? It shouldn't. My general philosophy is that outside the realm of physics every theory or course of action should be explicable to an eighth-grader in less than an hour. Which is why I seriously question our current policies of intricate economic protectionism, Faustian alliances (think Pakistan), and tendency to completely lose track of goals. I'll focus today on the specific issue of national security. My views consist largely of political isolationism (or at least non-favoritism) and not getting bogged down in appearances.
The goal of external national security is, in short, to avoid being blown up or invaded. This may seem like an oversimplification. It's not. National security consists of protecting our citizens from threats. Nothing more, nothing less. It does not consist of nation-building, spreading democracy, or keeping Russia happy. These may be stepping-stones, but they are not (or should not be) end objectives.
So, how do we keep ourselves from being blown up or invaded? I'll give you a hint: it does not involve mercy. We need to make the idea of attacking us so unpleasant that no organization or nation dares. Kim Jong Il would not be rattling his sabre if he thought we would turn him into gamy steak. Even if he were to manage a nuclear attack on, say, San Francisco, what are we going to do? Invade his country and then put it back together. Not the optimal case for ole' Kim, but, what with his frequent flier miles to China, ultimately more costly to us than to him. Now let's say that if he attacks any target on U.S. soil (including embassies) we send our B-2 fleet to flatten every house and bunker he's visited in the last five years followed by a few dozen angry Marines (or Jason Bourne) with instructions to make Kim Jong Il even shorter than he already is. Then we withdraw and let the situation stabilize. Imagine. Few Korean civilian casualties at our hands. No drawn-out campaign. No excessive expenditure of funds. Minimal number of U.S. soldiers put in harm's way. And the regime that replaces Kim's may be oppressive, but I guarantee it will be a lot less inclined to do anything foolish to us.
Why don't we do this already? I loved Ronald Reagan; he was a great president and a brilliant speaker, but his Executive Order 12333 makes about as much sense as fat-free cheese. This order prevents us from assassinating foreign leaders. We can bulldoze entire countries, capture their leaders, and later hang them, but we cannot hire a few professionals named Luigi to hit Saddam Hussein while he reclines on his private yacht. Am I saying we should just blow away anyone who is a potential threat? Of course not. What I am saying is that there needs to be a cheap, easy to enforce, and non-negotiable zero tolerance policy for those who attack our nation. No drawn out wars. No dealing with powers like Pakistan who would happy turn their guns the other direction. Quick, surgical strikes to the leadership of our enemies should they ever move against us.
National security is difficult, and, I admit, a bit more complex than I make it out to be. This does not exempt it from common sense. We are obligated to uphold our values, and I believe our values consist of (1) protecting our citizens and, when we fail, (2) punishing only those truly responsible for their deaths.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
We are all going to die
I saw a History Channel program on the annihilation of L.A. by Killer Comet. This struck me as vaguely suspicious. I wonder if they are trying to win back to multitudes of viewers they lost because of my post about the absurdity of Death by Killer Asteroid. I assure you, dear reader, comets are equally puny compared to the other menaces facing our planet today. So, I'll continue my list of things that will kill us before celestial objects.
8) Diet plans. I typed "diets" into Google and got about 25,200,000 results. These diets threaten to kill half the population by only allowing carbs and the other half by allowing no carbs whatsoever. The seriousness of the situation is emphasized by the fact that many celebrities and and other famous people are encouraging Americans to eat less and exercise more. Most tellingly, the Feds have gotten involved. This leaves us vulnerable to Federal Conspiracy 173b-496-2a(E).
9) Federal Conspiracy 173b-496-2a(E). This cunning plan is based on the idea that with fewer total voters, politicians will need fewer votes to stay in office. Thus, they distract us by encouraging diets and exercise--even for children!--as they quietly pass legislation legalizing the use of the entire population for the clinical trial of a new antidepressant (Manicvox). 90% of the population dies. The other 10% is extremely happy. The incumbent congressmen are secure for life.
10) Couches. As furniture becomes more and more comfortable, Americans lose incentive to ever get up. Gradually, we become couch-bound, fed by robots, unable or unwilling to stir from our sloth. Heart disease increases. Wal-Mart collapses as clothing racks go unrumaged. The economy topples. We all starve to death. Luckily, because of our fat reserves, this will take almost a decade even after food production ceases.
11) Cute woodland creatures. They aren't all cuddly. Squirrels are rodents, people, no more than rats with bushy tails. Raccoons are basically wolves that know how to open doors and windows. Rabbits can nibble a man's head clean off in under a second (if they feel merciful, which they usually don't). Doomsday on four paws, swiftly and silently padding through the forest and across our front lawns. You think the threats they utter when we walk beneath their trees and around their burrows are idle? Think again. While we eat Big Macs they undermine cities. While we watch football they are figuring out our nuclear launch codes. While we debate politics they are laying their fell plans. At the crucial moment, an opossum will flop down in front of every moving vehicle, bringing it to a screeching halt. As the occupants of thousands of stationary cars are savaged by rabbits (led by Peter "Axejaw" Cottontail), raccoons break into homes and steal every remote, leaving inhabitants to collapse in agony and, after a few hours, insanity. This renders them easy prey for chipmunks. I won't even attempt to describe the aerial attack, but I'll give you a hint: it will make Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" look like Fred Quimby's work.
Well, four more reasons not to sweat the next four years of Barack Obama's presidency or the economic crisis. At least Dick Cheney kept the pheasant population down.
8) Diet plans. I typed "diets" into Google and got about 25,200,000 results. These diets threaten to kill half the population by only allowing carbs and the other half by allowing no carbs whatsoever. The seriousness of the situation is emphasized by the fact that many celebrities and and other famous people are encouraging Americans to eat less and exercise more. Most tellingly, the Feds have gotten involved. This leaves us vulnerable to Federal Conspiracy 173b-496-2a(E).
9) Federal Conspiracy 173b-496-2a(E). This cunning plan is based on the idea that with fewer total voters, politicians will need fewer votes to stay in office. Thus, they distract us by encouraging diets and exercise--even for children!--as they quietly pass legislation legalizing the use of the entire population for the clinical trial of a new antidepressant (Manicvox). 90% of the population dies. The other 10% is extremely happy. The incumbent congressmen are secure for life.
10) Couches. As furniture becomes more and more comfortable, Americans lose incentive to ever get up. Gradually, we become couch-bound, fed by robots, unable or unwilling to stir from our sloth. Heart disease increases. Wal-Mart collapses as clothing racks go unrumaged. The economy topples. We all starve to death. Luckily, because of our fat reserves, this will take almost a decade even after food production ceases.
11) Cute woodland creatures. They aren't all cuddly. Squirrels are rodents, people, no more than rats with bushy tails. Raccoons are basically wolves that know how to open doors and windows. Rabbits can nibble a man's head clean off in under a second (if they feel merciful, which they usually don't). Doomsday on four paws, swiftly and silently padding through the forest and across our front lawns. You think the threats they utter when we walk beneath their trees and around their burrows are idle? Think again. While we eat Big Macs they undermine cities. While we watch football they are figuring out our nuclear launch codes. While we debate politics they are laying their fell plans. At the crucial moment, an opossum will flop down in front of every moving vehicle, bringing it to a screeching halt. As the occupants of thousands of stationary cars are savaged by rabbits (led by Peter "Axejaw" Cottontail), raccoons break into homes and steal every remote, leaving inhabitants to collapse in agony and, after a few hours, insanity. This renders them easy prey for chipmunks. I won't even attempt to describe the aerial attack, but I'll give you a hint: it will make Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" look like Fred Quimby's work.
Well, four more reasons not to sweat the next four years of Barack Obama's presidency or the economic crisis. At least Dick Cheney kept the pheasant population down.
A briefer history of time
Today, to unwind, I've decided to write a brief essay on the history of the universe. We will proceed, in chronological order, through all the events that really matter to the average reader.
The Pre-Earth Era
In the beginning was nothing, which exploded. Let's think about this statement for a moment, hm? Early philosophers had a phrase for this: "Ex nihilo nihil fit." Roughly translated, this means "Out of nothing nothing comes." I have a more applicable phrase: "Out of nonsense massive federal research grants come." I mean, come on. Scientist get billions of dollars to build huge particle accelerators that smack together things we can't even see and this will somehow help us gain knowledge about the origin of the universe. Riiiiight...and in the meantime a few scientists have a suspicious number of summer houses. Back on topic, all the exploded nothing congealed into stars, the stars formed galaxies, and the galaxies grouped together to form Rosie O'Donnell. Eventually, the humble star Sol formed planets, one of which would become our own beloved earth.
The Dawn of Life
3.5 billion years ago, life evolved from--you guessed it--nothing. Primitive creatures (bacteria, protozoa, the ACLU) dominated the earth until the Cambrian Explosion (which occurred for no reason) populated the earth with myriads of creatures which would later evolve into dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, Howard Stern, and, finally, humans. Lack of evidence notwithstanding, this theory is widely accepted by scientists with a solid fear of the consequences of theism and equally solid ties to PETA.
Civilization Emerges
A few thousand years ago, people began trying to live together in complex communities. I, personally, think this is where stuff started going wrong. I'm not even sure about the decision to come down out of the trees. Anyway, this required the development of government. Here homo sapiens gave rise to homo bureaucraticthickheadedtaxwastingwhoelectedtheseidiots. Aside from the discovery of butter substitutes, few achievements rank higher in terms of sheer WHAT WERE WE THINKING?????
West and East
In time, civilization split into two general realms: Eastern and Western. Eastern civilization developed flight, the internal combustion engine, plastic surgery, and human cloning. Western civilization came up with the feudal system. Marco Polo visited the East in the eleventh century and, out of a sense of fair play, China reneged on all of its inventions except for gunpowder. Given that they lacked guns to go with it, the balance of power between East and West remained basically constant for the next five hundred years.
The New World
America was discovered by Columbus in the late 15th century. The Native Americans tried to explain that they were here first, but Columbus patiently explained what happens when cannonballs hit canoes and the indigenous population quickly ceded right to discovery. The Vikings claimed to have settlements in North America dating back to the ninth century, but given that all the Vikings were dead, no one paid much attention. Gold and silver were discovered in the New World. They are useful only in dentistry and killing werewolves, cannot be eaten, and are too cumbersome and untraceable to easily carry around as currency. Naturally, every European power with a sea port started frantically colonizing and engaging in bloody wars to obtain access to mines.
A New Nation
In the 1770s, some guys had this amazing idea that maybe government should not oppress the people. They are known today as dead. In the 1770s another group of guys had the slightly less amazing idea that government should oppress the people as little as possible. They are known today as the Founding Fathers, Framers, Architects, and the Philadelphia Wig and Stocking Bowling League. Their revolutionary new style of government was based on simple maxim: make it impossible for the government to get anything done in less than a year. This limits the ability of the government to pass or enforce laws and thus oppress the people. Alas, they did not count on the possibility that someday representatives would have hundreds of interns, secretaries, and other slaves to do the paperwork. Now the government can accomplish tasks in as few as three months.
The End of the World
See next post.
The Pre-Earth Era
In the beginning was nothing, which exploded. Let's think about this statement for a moment, hm? Early philosophers had a phrase for this: "Ex nihilo nihil fit." Roughly translated, this means "Out of nothing nothing comes." I have a more applicable phrase: "Out of nonsense massive federal research grants come." I mean, come on. Scientist get billions of dollars to build huge particle accelerators that smack together things we can't even see and this will somehow help us gain knowledge about the origin of the universe. Riiiiight...and in the meantime a few scientists have a suspicious number of summer houses. Back on topic, all the exploded nothing congealed into stars, the stars formed galaxies, and the galaxies grouped together to form Rosie O'Donnell. Eventually, the humble star Sol formed planets, one of which would become our own beloved earth.
The Dawn of Life
3.5 billion years ago, life evolved from--you guessed it--nothing. Primitive creatures (bacteria, protozoa, the ACLU) dominated the earth until the Cambrian Explosion (which occurred for no reason) populated the earth with myriads of creatures which would later evolve into dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, Howard Stern, and, finally, humans. Lack of evidence notwithstanding, this theory is widely accepted by scientists with a solid fear of the consequences of theism and equally solid ties to PETA.
Civilization Emerges
A few thousand years ago, people began trying to live together in complex communities. I, personally, think this is where stuff started going wrong. I'm not even sure about the decision to come down out of the trees. Anyway, this required the development of government. Here homo sapiens gave rise to homo bureaucraticthickheadedtaxwastingwhoelectedtheseidiots. Aside from the discovery of butter substitutes, few achievements rank higher in terms of sheer WHAT WERE WE THINKING?????
West and East
In time, civilization split into two general realms: Eastern and Western. Eastern civilization developed flight, the internal combustion engine, plastic surgery, and human cloning. Western civilization came up with the feudal system. Marco Polo visited the East in the eleventh century and, out of a sense of fair play, China reneged on all of its inventions except for gunpowder. Given that they lacked guns to go with it, the balance of power between East and West remained basically constant for the next five hundred years.
The New World
America was discovered by Columbus in the late 15th century. The Native Americans tried to explain that they were here first, but Columbus patiently explained what happens when cannonballs hit canoes and the indigenous population quickly ceded right to discovery. The Vikings claimed to have settlements in North America dating back to the ninth century, but given that all the Vikings were dead, no one paid much attention. Gold and silver were discovered in the New World. They are useful only in dentistry and killing werewolves, cannot be eaten, and are too cumbersome and untraceable to easily carry around as currency. Naturally, every European power with a sea port started frantically colonizing and engaging in bloody wars to obtain access to mines.
A New Nation
In the 1770s, some guys had this amazing idea that maybe government should not oppress the people. They are known today as dead. In the 1770s another group of guys had the slightly less amazing idea that government should oppress the people as little as possible. They are known today as the Founding Fathers, Framers, Architects, and the Philadelphia Wig and Stocking Bowling League. Their revolutionary new style of government was based on simple maxim: make it impossible for the government to get anything done in less than a year. This limits the ability of the government to pass or enforce laws and thus oppress the people. Alas, they did not count on the possibility that someday representatives would have hundreds of interns, secretaries, and other slaves to do the paperwork. Now the government can accomplish tasks in as few as three months.
The End of the World
See next post.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Joy of Meddling
Ah, the economic stimulus package. This delightful little financial bombshell contains more pork than 500-pound boar. Even more irritating is its general premise, a premise that clearly reflects the Four Laws of Humanity. Let's walk through this logically.
The first assumption made by the stimulus sellers is that the economy will fail unless the government pours money into certain sectors. Here we see Law One at work; the government is attempting to act in someone's best interest. Whose? Their own. Good old Machiavelli is hard at work. Most representatives are probably jumping behind this bill because it is widely perceived as necessary to economic recovery. Thus they protect their short-term political future. Enter Law Two. Widespread ignorance of how the economy works is contributing to a general desire to "fix something." As a result, people call for legislation. Legislation will likely have little obvious impact on the life of Joe citizen and no real effect on the life of Joe congressman as it corrodes the structure of the economy.
This is extraordinarily unfortunate given the presence of the Third Law. Without a new datapoint clearly illustrating the harm regulation inflicts, our society will continue until one occurs. Like boiling a frog, though, we respond only to sudden, tangible pain. Gradual economic shrinkage may be insufficient to jar us from our pragmatism. The future course of this nation may well be a gradual slide to the left. This slide continues until something goes drastically wrong.
Does a solution exist? Memory. Look at what happened to New Zealand. They tried economic regulation, too. They destroyed their economy and took fifty years and a return to free-market systems to recover and start exporting sheep again. As a nation, we must learn from the mistakes of others and refrain from repeating them. They who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. We always think we are somehow above the mistakes of our predecessors. We are wrong. Time to wake up and smell the Marxism.
The first assumption made by the stimulus sellers is that the economy will fail unless the government pours money into certain sectors. Here we see Law One at work; the government is attempting to act in someone's best interest. Whose? Their own. Good old Machiavelli is hard at work. Most representatives are probably jumping behind this bill because it is widely perceived as necessary to economic recovery. Thus they protect their short-term political future. Enter Law Two. Widespread ignorance of how the economy works is contributing to a general desire to "fix something." As a result, people call for legislation. Legislation will likely have little obvious impact on the life of Joe citizen and no real effect on the life of Joe congressman as it corrodes the structure of the economy.
This is extraordinarily unfortunate given the presence of the Third Law. Without a new datapoint clearly illustrating the harm regulation inflicts, our society will continue until one occurs. Like boiling a frog, though, we respond only to sudden, tangible pain. Gradual economic shrinkage may be insufficient to jar us from our pragmatism. The future course of this nation may well be a gradual slide to the left. This slide continues until something goes drastically wrong.
Does a solution exist? Memory. Look at what happened to New Zealand. They tried economic regulation, too. They destroyed their economy and took fifty years and a return to free-market systems to recover and start exporting sheep again. As a nation, we must learn from the mistakes of others and refrain from repeating them. They who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. We always think we are somehow above the mistakes of our predecessors. We are wrong. Time to wake up and smell the Marxism.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Sermon Material #1
Thesis:
Temporal and eternal pain are natural, logical consequences of sin. God is not beating the world with a stick.
Outline:
Intro: If you step off the top of the Sears tower, you splatter across the sidewalk not because of Illinois state law but because of the implacable and impersonal law of gravity. The consequences are your own doing and not anyone else's responsibility.
1. Sin is disobedience to God's will.
a. Sin results from rebellion. (Genesis 3)
b. Rebellion separates people from God's will. (Romans 7:14-20)
2. Temporal pain results from the fragmenting of human will.
a. Man's original purpose precluded interpersonal conflict. (Augustine's argued that people were created to love God. The focus was on God, not each other. See also Genesis 1:27-31.)
b. Fragmentation of human will is universal (Galatians 3:22). This causes people to not get along (Hobbes claimed that the state of nature is war as people vie for the same goods and seek to avoid the same hurts).
3. Eternal pain is permanent separation from God.
a. We choose separation. (John 3:20, The Great Divorce)
b. This separation is often referred to as Hell and is always self-inflicted. ("There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.'"--C.S. Lewis)
4. Thus, suffering is not imposed by God and neither (for humans) is Hell. Both are effects of natural law; they are simple artifacts of the nature of the universe. (Romans 2:15)
Conclusion: Reuse variant of intro.
Temporal and eternal pain are natural, logical consequences of sin. God is not beating the world with a stick.
Outline:
Intro: If you step off the top of the Sears tower, you splatter across the sidewalk not because of Illinois state law but because of the implacable and impersonal law of gravity. The consequences are your own doing and not anyone else's responsibility.
1. Sin is disobedience to God's will.
a. Sin results from rebellion. (Genesis 3)
b. Rebellion separates people from God's will. (Romans 7:14-20)
2. Temporal pain results from the fragmenting of human will.
a. Man's original purpose precluded interpersonal conflict. (Augustine's argued that people were created to love God. The focus was on God, not each other. See also Genesis 1:27-31.)
b. Fragmentation of human will is universal (Galatians 3:22). This causes people to not get along (Hobbes claimed that the state of nature is war as people vie for the same goods and seek to avoid the same hurts).
3. Eternal pain is permanent separation from God.
a. We choose separation. (John 3:20, The Great Divorce)
b. This separation is often referred to as Hell and is always self-inflicted. ("There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.'"--C.S. Lewis)
4. Thus, suffering is not imposed by God and neither (for humans) is Hell. Both are effects of natural law; they are simple artifacts of the nature of the universe. (Romans 2:15)
Conclusion: Reuse variant of intro.
The four laws of humanity
Nearly every phenomenon in the known universe can be explained by the application of a few fundamental laws. At times the laws themselves are peculiar or counter intuitive, but all complex behavior arrives from their interaction as opposed to their number. Consider, for example, the most easily observable force in nature: gravity. Gravity is governed by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, but over short distances is explained almost as well by Newton's work. The practical upshot of both theories is that masses attract each other and force of the attraction decreases proportionally to the square of the distance between them. Simple, no? But it took years to find this law because of the complexity arising from the number of bodies present in the observable subject (the solar system). Myriads of complex theories were proposed before a simple law was discovered. Once it was, prediction and comprehension were easy.
I would like to postulate that nearly all of human behavior can be explained by a few simple laws. There will always be exceptions, but in general I believe the following apply. The pronouns are male to keep my sentences simple. I am not a chauvinist. Just thought I'd clear that up.
1) A person will act in what he perceives to be his best interest or the best interest of someone else.
This may seem obvious, but it explains a lot of otherwise anomalous behavior. The Secret Service agent who stops a bullet for his charge is acting in what he perceives to be in the best interest of either the man he protects or his country. The mother who works two jobs to put food on the table is acting both in her own interest and her family's. The drug addict weighs the damage inflicted by heroin against the perceived benefit. This last is startling, but makes perfect sense when paired with the second law.
2) A person is incapable of always correctly discerning what a "best interest" actually is.
We are finite, fallen beings. Equally to the point, we are not omniscient. No one person holds all the facts and even if he did he may not act on them due to emotional distortion of reason. Let's say that you are faced by a home intruder. He has a paring knife. You have a Benelli semi-automatic shotgun loaded with deer slugs and pointed at his chest. Your young child is sleeping in the next room. He rushes you. What do you do? If you shoot him, he's going to die. If you don't, you might die, and so might your son. (We will ignore human rights to self-defense for the sake of simplicity.) If you fire, one person definitely dies. If you don't, two people might. You might be able to just clock him with your stock and stun him. You might not. He might run away. He might not. On a purely utilitarian level, there is no way to make a foolproof decision. This is a stark example, but the general concept applies everywhere. If we could see every outcome, we'd all make fortunes on the stock market.
3) People (both individually and collectively) are incapable of detecting error without external points of reference once a choice has been made.
This may sound confusing or unduly cynical, but consider it for a moment. If an entire population is convinced of something (say, that the earth is flat), then unless external, independent evidence emerges to the contrary people will continue to act as though the earth is flat. Locke wrote that a person's knowledge cannot exceed his or her experience. Something similar attaches here. We cannot detect our mistakes without either prior knowledge (which we ignored in order to make the mistake) or future evidence. This is, as you have probably guessed, a corollary of Rule Two. People not only cannot always determine what is in everyone's (or even their own) best interest, we cannot learn without trying and failing and thus gathering more knowledge. Another way to phrase this is that a choice always seemed like a good idea at the time.
4) People (collectively) have short memories.
We are only capable of learning from experience/evidence, but easily forget exactly what we theoretically learned. Consider government regulation of economics. It's never worked well, but that has not stopped us from trying it again.
These four rules (the first two the most fundamental) explain much of human behavior, especially when large numbers of people are involved. I'm not Hari Seldon, and these ideas likely fail Popper's falsifiability test, but in future posts I'll apply them to our current issues and see how much behavior I can accurately predict.
I would like to postulate that nearly all of human behavior can be explained by a few simple laws. There will always be exceptions, but in general I believe the following apply. The pronouns are male to keep my sentences simple. I am not a chauvinist. Just thought I'd clear that up.
1) A person will act in what he perceives to be his best interest or the best interest of someone else.
This may seem obvious, but it explains a lot of otherwise anomalous behavior. The Secret Service agent who stops a bullet for his charge is acting in what he perceives to be in the best interest of either the man he protects or his country. The mother who works two jobs to put food on the table is acting both in her own interest and her family's. The drug addict weighs the damage inflicted by heroin against the perceived benefit. This last is startling, but makes perfect sense when paired with the second law.
2) A person is incapable of always correctly discerning what a "best interest" actually is.
We are finite, fallen beings. Equally to the point, we are not omniscient. No one person holds all the facts and even if he did he may not act on them due to emotional distortion of reason. Let's say that you are faced by a home intruder. He has a paring knife. You have a Benelli semi-automatic shotgun loaded with deer slugs and pointed at his chest. Your young child is sleeping in the next room. He rushes you. What do you do? If you shoot him, he's going to die. If you don't, you might die, and so might your son. (We will ignore human rights to self-defense for the sake of simplicity.) If you fire, one person definitely dies. If you don't, two people might. You might be able to just clock him with your stock and stun him. You might not. He might run away. He might not. On a purely utilitarian level, there is no way to make a foolproof decision. This is a stark example, but the general concept applies everywhere. If we could see every outcome, we'd all make fortunes on the stock market.
3) People (both individually and collectively) are incapable of detecting error without external points of reference once a choice has been made.
This may sound confusing or unduly cynical, but consider it for a moment. If an entire population is convinced of something (say, that the earth is flat), then unless external, independent evidence emerges to the contrary people will continue to act as though the earth is flat. Locke wrote that a person's knowledge cannot exceed his or her experience. Something similar attaches here. We cannot detect our mistakes without either prior knowledge (which we ignored in order to make the mistake) or future evidence. This is, as you have probably guessed, a corollary of Rule Two. People not only cannot always determine what is in everyone's (or even their own) best interest, we cannot learn without trying and failing and thus gathering more knowledge. Another way to phrase this is that a choice always seemed like a good idea at the time.
4) People (collectively) have short memories.
We are only capable of learning from experience/evidence, but easily forget exactly what we theoretically learned. Consider government regulation of economics. It's never worked well, but that has not stopped us from trying it again.
These four rules (the first two the most fundamental) explain much of human behavior, especially when large numbers of people are involved. I'm not Hari Seldon, and these ideas likely fail Popper's falsifiability test, but in future posts I'll apply them to our current issues and see how much behavior I can accurately predict.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Cell phones and the prospect of alien invasion
Everywhere I look, people are plugged into cell phones, iPods, PSPs and a multitude of other fascinating devices. Here we see the second phase of the alien plot. (For the first phase, read "Pets and prospect of alien invasion.") The sudden obsession with electronic means of communication and entertainment is no coincidence. Their original plan foiled by my perfectly timed blog post, the aliens will activate their Plan B. We face a three-pronged attack, some of it already in progress:
Prong One: Golden Brown and Delicious
Irradiate our brains. The constant use of a cell phone is like leaving your head in a microwave set on "defrost." The aliens have spliced into our power grids, put Sony batteries in our cell phones, stolen my aluminum foil hat and basically cranked the power up to "baked potato." This is causing the minds of everyone in the industrialized world to swiftly slide downhill. How else do you explain the popularity of 95% of celebrities? The inside of America's collective head is being reduced to I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. "But wait," you say, "what about all the smart people who use cell phones? They don't seem affected." You are correct. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Ivan Seidenberg and others seem completely in possession of their mental faculties and business sense. But look at the list: all of these people are affiliated with the manufacture of cell phones and electronics. The sharpest minds are consistently funneled into propagating the very technologies that are depriving us of a future and frying our defenses. This reveals the frightening second prong:
Prong Two: Great Minds Think Alike
Mind control. If you have trouble believing this, turn off your Blackberry and try again. The aliens are using the electromagnetic fields emitted by many common gadgets to influence human behavior. This is the reason behind the recent upswing in "green" living. It will be almost a century before the first of the colony ships arrive, and the last thing the alien military wants to do is spend that time cleaning up after us. They want us to care about baby deer now so they have better hunting later. If you want to resist the alien horde, go shoot something furry from a helicopter and put your soda can in the trash instead of the recycling. I tried the latter the other day, and I felt proudly defiant until my left arm started smacking me in the side of the head until I promised not to do it again. The effects of the mind controlling fields can be escaped only by moving as far away from all modern electronics as possible. This is increasingly difficult because of phase three.
Prong Three: Withdrawal Symptoms
Addiction to technology. This implacable foe forms the basis of the final alien strike. In 2050, when the average person owns two cell phones, a game console, one and a half computers, and a Roomba the aliens detonate 64 EMPs hundreds of miles above the surface of the earth. All electronic equipment fails. Panic sets in as people are faced with the horrifying prospect of face-to-face social interaction. Floors go unvacuumed. Halo 26 collects dust on shelves around the world as consoles are silenced. People, tricked decades ago into switching to electric cars, are trapped in place, unable to flee as the alien vessels descend and spray the world's cities with amped-up Raid.
Fortunately, the alien plan cannot succeed, and not just because I have over fifty more aluminum foil hats. They have badly miscalculated human strength, ingenuity, and grumpiness. You see, we all talk on cell phones all the time but consider it rude, inconsiderate, and irritating when other people do it in front of us. I think that it will soon become socially acceptable to reach over and snap someone's cell phone in half when they take it out in front of you. Game console marketing is so bad that I won't even worry about that avenue.
What if these social advances do not come to pass? We will have to treat the root: Japan. The Japanese government has been in league with the aliens for years, flooding the world market with trendy, useful, and fun electronic products. The only solution is to detach California from our own coast, lug it across the Pacific, and attach it to Honshu. Californians and Japanese will freely mingle. Within weeks, surfing will be Japan's most popular sport, Arnold will be in charge of an entire country, and electronics manufacture will be banned by Berkeley lobbyists on the grounds that it kills baby deer. There will be compromise, of course. California rolls will be banned in favor of proper sushi and Tom Cruise will probably be dropped into an active volcano. I fail to see how either of these would be a problem.
Of course, facing the prospect of fusing with California, Japan may simply sink. I know I would. Maybe if we offered to remove Hollywood first. The rest of the state is really fine. But I digress. One thing remains clear: we must discard our electronics. If you are interested in resisting the alien horde, let me know and I'll provide you a mailing address so you can send me your Xboxes, iPhones, and other mortal dangers threatening you and your loved ones. I will dispose of them properly.
Prong One: Golden Brown and Delicious
Irradiate our brains. The constant use of a cell phone is like leaving your head in a microwave set on "defrost." The aliens have spliced into our power grids, put Sony batteries in our cell phones, stolen my aluminum foil hat and basically cranked the power up to "baked potato." This is causing the minds of everyone in the industrialized world to swiftly slide downhill. How else do you explain the popularity of 95% of celebrities? The inside of America's collective head is being reduced to I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. "But wait," you say, "what about all the smart people who use cell phones? They don't seem affected." You are correct. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Ivan Seidenberg and others seem completely in possession of their mental faculties and business sense. But look at the list: all of these people are affiliated with the manufacture of cell phones and electronics. The sharpest minds are consistently funneled into propagating the very technologies that are depriving us of a future and frying our defenses. This reveals the frightening second prong:
Prong Two: Great Minds Think Alike
Mind control. If you have trouble believing this, turn off your Blackberry and try again. The aliens are using the electromagnetic fields emitted by many common gadgets to influence human behavior. This is the reason behind the recent upswing in "green" living. It will be almost a century before the first of the colony ships arrive, and the last thing the alien military wants to do is spend that time cleaning up after us. They want us to care about baby deer now so they have better hunting later. If you want to resist the alien horde, go shoot something furry from a helicopter and put your soda can in the trash instead of the recycling. I tried the latter the other day, and I felt proudly defiant until my left arm started smacking me in the side of the head until I promised not to do it again. The effects of the mind controlling fields can be escaped only by moving as far away from all modern electronics as possible. This is increasingly difficult because of phase three.
Prong Three: Withdrawal Symptoms
Addiction to technology. This implacable foe forms the basis of the final alien strike. In 2050, when the average person owns two cell phones, a game console, one and a half computers, and a Roomba the aliens detonate 64 EMPs hundreds of miles above the surface of the earth. All electronic equipment fails. Panic sets in as people are faced with the horrifying prospect of face-to-face social interaction. Floors go unvacuumed. Halo 26 collects dust on shelves around the world as consoles are silenced. People, tricked decades ago into switching to electric cars, are trapped in place, unable to flee as the alien vessels descend and spray the world's cities with amped-up Raid.
Fortunately, the alien plan cannot succeed, and not just because I have over fifty more aluminum foil hats. They have badly miscalculated human strength, ingenuity, and grumpiness. You see, we all talk on cell phones all the time but consider it rude, inconsiderate, and irritating when other people do it in front of us. I think that it will soon become socially acceptable to reach over and snap someone's cell phone in half when they take it out in front of you. Game console marketing is so bad that I won't even worry about that avenue.
What if these social advances do not come to pass? We will have to treat the root: Japan. The Japanese government has been in league with the aliens for years, flooding the world market with trendy, useful, and fun electronic products. The only solution is to detach California from our own coast, lug it across the Pacific, and attach it to Honshu. Californians and Japanese will freely mingle. Within weeks, surfing will be Japan's most popular sport, Arnold will be in charge of an entire country, and electronics manufacture will be banned by Berkeley lobbyists on the grounds that it kills baby deer. There will be compromise, of course. California rolls will be banned in favor of proper sushi and Tom Cruise will probably be dropped into an active volcano. I fail to see how either of these would be a problem.
Of course, facing the prospect of fusing with California, Japan may simply sink. I know I would. Maybe if we offered to remove Hollywood first. The rest of the state is really fine. But I digress. One thing remains clear: we must discard our electronics. If you are interested in resisting the alien horde, let me know and I'll provide you a mailing address so you can send me your Xboxes, iPhones, and other mortal dangers threatening you and your loved ones. I will dispose of them properly.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
All things work according to their nature
The great tragedy of the twentieth century that will have the greatest impact in the twenty-first may well be that we have discarded the idea of human nature. Turn on the news. Watch it as long as you can stomach it. A woman is murdered in New Orleans by three fifteen-year old kids. In Indiana a man shakes his infant son nearly to death. Four toddlers are burned with acid by their mother's boyfriend in Texas. What is more horrifying than this? My reaction, and probably yours. We look at these incidents and are saddened or angered, but we get on with our day. The simple fact is that this stuff happens all the time. We learn to deal with it. The world is riven. That is simply the way things are. That is the way people are. Not everyone kills someone or robs a bank or blows himself up in crowded restaurant, but we all are born with the potential, and this potential is causing pain we can scarcely imagine yet clearly see.
Welcome to the sin nature. Welcome, as Morpheus puts it in The Matrix, to the real world.
But, thanks to modern thought and philosophy, the human sin nature need not be blamed, or even acknowledged. America has embraced Rousseau. "Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains." The most heinous offenses are not a matter of sin, or evil, or even morality. Chemical imbalances. Environmental factors. Genetic predispositions. Emotional repression. Our shiny new scapegoats. Suddenly, no crime can be blamed on the perpetrator. We are "born free." It was his parents. It was his medication. It was her genes. It was the NRA. It was the economy. Even Twinkies have been blamed for murder. Why the drastic effort to shirk responsibility?
The answer to this question is easy but also deeply troubling. We would like to believe that there is some hope of a better life. We want to believe that things will improve. And, indeed, they do. To an extent, the human race has made progress. We live longer, have microwaves and television, enjoy penicillin and trichinella-free pork. We have a stable structure in place for mediating international disputes (in theory) and the global standard of living has improved. We want to believe that if we advance enough we can somehow live together as a big, happy family. On the other hand, we have invented astonishingly effective ways to kill each other, allowed and fostered the spread of AIDS, and committed the worst genocides in history.
Welcome to the real world.
The word "utopia" means nowhere. Far too many have forgotten this, especially in Washington. Many of today's leaders are operating under the impression that the right laws and the omnipresent influence of government can correct the flaws of humanity by correcting the conditions that give rise to conflict. We hear talk of fusing all of society into one great middle class. Poverty will be eliminated. Crime will be a bad but fleeting memory. Boom and bust cycles will be replaced by the steady growth promised by government regulation. If we all just work together...
The problem, of course, is that we can't. Hobbes speculated that the state of nature is war. His solution amounted to totalitarianism. All well and good, but the people with the reins of power are inevitably just that: people, and people subject to the same imperfections that plague the rest of us. I am fond of likening society to a bunch of eight-year-olds on a playground. It is easy to neglect the fact that our leaders and guardians are not teachers but peers. Human nature is universal, and it neatly kills the idea of an earthly utopia. Hence the fact that every effort at utopia has gone the way of New Harmony and the Soviet Union. Utopian states usually were based on the ideals of socialism, and quickly went more George Orwell than Thomas More.
Welcome to the real world.
So, why does the dream of utopia survive? The entire idea stems from the assertion that our problems are somehow external to our nature and thus solvable. I said a few paragraphs ago that I had a simple answer to why we try to shirk responsibility. Well, here it is: it's in our nature. Read Genesis for the first example of the blame game, all structured around Man's first failing. Watch C-SPAN for contemporary examples. Every problem in our world is our fault. We are also powerless to fix them. Dante should have nailed the words "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" over the exits of maternity wards.
Or should he? The truth we must remember, the only source of true hope, is that this world is not permanent. We all die; we all move on. We cannot place our hope, our investments, in this crumpled and broken realm. This earth will pass, the Earth will be revealed. We have been offered salvation by our Maker. We can only do the best we can to hold on until He says,
"Welcome to the real world."
Welcome to the sin nature. Welcome, as Morpheus puts it in The Matrix, to the real world.
But, thanks to modern thought and philosophy, the human sin nature need not be blamed, or even acknowledged. America has embraced Rousseau. "Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains." The most heinous offenses are not a matter of sin, or evil, or even morality. Chemical imbalances. Environmental factors. Genetic predispositions. Emotional repression. Our shiny new scapegoats. Suddenly, no crime can be blamed on the perpetrator. We are "born free." It was his parents. It was his medication. It was her genes. It was the NRA. It was the economy. Even Twinkies have been blamed for murder. Why the drastic effort to shirk responsibility?
The answer to this question is easy but also deeply troubling. We would like to believe that there is some hope of a better life. We want to believe that things will improve. And, indeed, they do. To an extent, the human race has made progress. We live longer, have microwaves and television, enjoy penicillin and trichinella-free pork. We have a stable structure in place for mediating international disputes (in theory) and the global standard of living has improved. We want to believe that if we advance enough we can somehow live together as a big, happy family. On the other hand, we have invented astonishingly effective ways to kill each other, allowed and fostered the spread of AIDS, and committed the worst genocides in history.
Welcome to the real world.
The word "utopia" means nowhere. Far too many have forgotten this, especially in Washington. Many of today's leaders are operating under the impression that the right laws and the omnipresent influence of government can correct the flaws of humanity by correcting the conditions that give rise to conflict. We hear talk of fusing all of society into one great middle class. Poverty will be eliminated. Crime will be a bad but fleeting memory. Boom and bust cycles will be replaced by the steady growth promised by government regulation. If we all just work together...
The problem, of course, is that we can't. Hobbes speculated that the state of nature is war. His solution amounted to totalitarianism. All well and good, but the people with the reins of power are inevitably just that: people, and people subject to the same imperfections that plague the rest of us. I am fond of likening society to a bunch of eight-year-olds on a playground. It is easy to neglect the fact that our leaders and guardians are not teachers but peers. Human nature is universal, and it neatly kills the idea of an earthly utopia. Hence the fact that every effort at utopia has gone the way of New Harmony and the Soviet Union. Utopian states usually were based on the ideals of socialism, and quickly went more George Orwell than Thomas More.
Welcome to the real world.
So, why does the dream of utopia survive? The entire idea stems from the assertion that our problems are somehow external to our nature and thus solvable. I said a few paragraphs ago that I had a simple answer to why we try to shirk responsibility. Well, here it is: it's in our nature. Read Genesis for the first example of the blame game, all structured around Man's first failing. Watch C-SPAN for contemporary examples. Every problem in our world is our fault. We are also powerless to fix them. Dante should have nailed the words "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" over the exits of maternity wards.
Or should he? The truth we must remember, the only source of true hope, is that this world is not permanent. We all die; we all move on. We cannot place our hope, our investments, in this crumpled and broken realm. This earth will pass, the Earth will be revealed. We have been offered salvation by our Maker. We can only do the best we can to hold on until He says,
"Welcome to the real world."
The wild blue yonder
I'm a card-carrying flight simulator junkie. But two elements are consistently absent from these games: airport security and airline safety briefings. I feel much safer flying knowing that everyone on the plane has been thoroughly inconvenienced, humiliated, and (if they did not have one before) given a firm hated of the airline. First up: security. Airport security has several advantages and disadvantages. Let's start positive, eh?
ADVANTAGES:
1) I am reasonably confident that airport security personnel would notice if someone tried to walk into a terminal with an M60 squad support weapon.
2) Because children below the age of seven are technically biohazards, long-distance flights have suddenly become a lot quieter.
3) The security personnel open up a whole range of practical joke options, ranging from explaining that you don't have a bomb unless Sony laptop batteries count to saying, "Say, where is my anthrax vial?"
DISADVANTAGES
1) When they find the person with the M60 they are likely unable to do much because they only have batons and pepper spray. I think the same logic is used here as the whole "no guns in the cockpit" thing.
2) Airports are getting louder as millions of confiscated toddlers accumulate like change in a sofa.
3) While jokes are available, the security personnel seem disinclined to understand and appreciate them. A "tackle first, ask questions later" approach is usually the norm.
I'd definitely say the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Not, of course, to mention the myriad of paradoxes that accompany modern flight. They confiscate your shaving cream and then, once on the aircraft, give you a sandwich you could use to concuss a moose. Never mind the peanuts. So many people are allergic to nuts that all you'd need to do to seize control of the aircraft is open up the little baggie and threaten to randomly scatter peanuts around the cabin.
Airline safety is even worse than security. My seatback floats? Jolly good! I feel much better, flying over the continental U.S., that if we crash I'll be able to float to safety. Oh, it only floats in water, not air? Doesn't do me much good, now does it? For international flights it makes little more sense:
"Thank you for flying WalletSnatch Air! Your safety is very important to us. Should we smack into the Pacific Ocean at 700 knots, remember that your seat cushion functions as a floatation device and will help authorities locate your charred and waterlogged remains."
Okay, let's say the plane lands in (for example) the Hudson River. Having floaty seats would be nice, right? Think about it for a minute. They (whoever they are) tell people to leave behind possessions in a burning building when evacuating. This prevents excessive traffic jams in stairwells and narrow hallways from baggage. What, exactly, is the inside of a plane but a long, narrow hallway? The last thing I'd want, were I in a sinking aircraft, is to see everyone trying to squeeze out with their seat cushion held in front of them like a talisman. Continuing our briefing:
"We realize that exiting the plane with your cushion may be difficult, so we've rigged the cabin to split in half five hundred feet above the surface of the water. This will enable everyone to exit the aircraft. Located in front of you is our helpful Safety Guide, showing the locations of the 60 additional emergency exits located along the length of the aircraft. Please note that they are not clearly marked; we simply loosened the windows in their frames."
Ah, the helpful safety guide. This little pamphlet shows stick figure representations of passengers being burned alive, drowned, or spattered across multiple counties unless they comply precisely with flight attendant and Safety Guide instructions. Sometimes I think this is an attempt at voodoo by the disgruntled airlines. More recent editions of the Safety Guide for Boeing aircraft show passengers being eaten alive by lemmings unless they donate to Boeing and petition their senators for more Boeing military contracts.
Given what I've seen on Lost, though, I'm not sure I'd want to survive a plane crash.
ADVANTAGES:
1) I am reasonably confident that airport security personnel would notice if someone tried to walk into a terminal with an M60 squad support weapon.
2) Because children below the age of seven are technically biohazards, long-distance flights have suddenly become a lot quieter.
3) The security personnel open up a whole range of practical joke options, ranging from explaining that you don't have a bomb unless Sony laptop batteries count to saying, "Say, where is my anthrax vial?"
DISADVANTAGES
1) When they find the person with the M60 they are likely unable to do much because they only have batons and pepper spray. I think the same logic is used here as the whole "no guns in the cockpit" thing.
2) Airports are getting louder as millions of confiscated toddlers accumulate like change in a sofa.
3) While jokes are available, the security personnel seem disinclined to understand and appreciate them. A "tackle first, ask questions later" approach is usually the norm.
I'd definitely say the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Not, of course, to mention the myriad of paradoxes that accompany modern flight. They confiscate your shaving cream and then, once on the aircraft, give you a sandwich you could use to concuss a moose. Never mind the peanuts. So many people are allergic to nuts that all you'd need to do to seize control of the aircraft is open up the little baggie and threaten to randomly scatter peanuts around the cabin.
Airline safety is even worse than security. My seatback floats? Jolly good! I feel much better, flying over the continental U.S., that if we crash I'll be able to float to safety. Oh, it only floats in water, not air? Doesn't do me much good, now does it? For international flights it makes little more sense:
"Thank you for flying WalletSnatch Air! Your safety is very important to us. Should we smack into the Pacific Ocean at 700 knots, remember that your seat cushion functions as a floatation device and will help authorities locate your charred and waterlogged remains."
Okay, let's say the plane lands in (for example) the Hudson River. Having floaty seats would be nice, right? Think about it for a minute. They (whoever they are) tell people to leave behind possessions in a burning building when evacuating. This prevents excessive traffic jams in stairwells and narrow hallways from baggage. What, exactly, is the inside of a plane but a long, narrow hallway? The last thing I'd want, were I in a sinking aircraft, is to see everyone trying to squeeze out with their seat cushion held in front of them like a talisman. Continuing our briefing:
"We realize that exiting the plane with your cushion may be difficult, so we've rigged the cabin to split in half five hundred feet above the surface of the water. This will enable everyone to exit the aircraft. Located in front of you is our helpful Safety Guide, showing the locations of the 60 additional emergency exits located along the length of the aircraft. Please note that they are not clearly marked; we simply loosened the windows in their frames."
Ah, the helpful safety guide. This little pamphlet shows stick figure representations of passengers being burned alive, drowned, or spattered across multiple counties unless they comply precisely with flight attendant and Safety Guide instructions. Sometimes I think this is an attempt at voodoo by the disgruntled airlines. More recent editions of the Safety Guide for Boeing aircraft show passengers being eaten alive by lemmings unless they donate to Boeing and petition their senators for more Boeing military contracts.
Given what I've seen on Lost, though, I'm not sure I'd want to survive a plane crash.
Monday, January 19, 2009
MLKing it for all it's worth
Warning: this post deals with race. It may offend you. If it does, read it again and try to find a flaw in my reasoning. Please feel free to comment if you find one.
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Yay. School is out for half the students in the country. The mail is not being delivered. MSNBC is fairly drooling as it dishes out the comparisons between Barack Obama and MLK.
Why is this?
I wonder what Dr. King would have to say about kids skipping school on his behalf. I wonder how he'd feel knowing that, on the eve of inauguration, the only part of Obama people feel obliged to comment on is his skin. Sometimes I think Dr. King would rather we simply forget. Not forget the struggle to achieve equal rights for minorities, of course, but simply forget that we have minorities in the first place. What he struggled for was not a nation in which black people have their own television station, subculture, and scholarship funding. What he struggled for was equality. The vision of Dr. King is a nation in which no one cares who is white or black or Asian or Hispanic.
From my perspective (white Christian male, 18, political reactionary, 5'10,"), I would rather our culture simply let racism go. Is it still a problem in some areas? Yes. But it is also a mortally wounded, limping cipher of an ideology, no longer fit to survive in today's America. It will die if we just quit dragging it up.
Consider, for example, the Jena Six incident. For those of you who don't remember (understandably), this little media circus consisted of six black teenagers (all minors about sixteen years old) brutally beating a white classmate. They were subsequently charged, as adults, with attempted murder. The outcry was over how these six felons were being discriminated against because of race. I work in my county's Teen Court as an attorney, and I've never met anyone in an assault case even thirteen years of age who did not understand what they were doing. I have never cared what color their skin was. If handed the facts from the Jena Six case, I'd have proceeded exactly the same way (provided I thought the intent really was to kill) without regard for who was what race. The fallout of the actual incident and media frenzy? Buckling under and reducing the charges. At least one of the involved individuals, as I recall, did not even serve jail time. His primary punishment has been moving schools and staying off the football team.
Now, let's reverse the situation and say the Jena Six had been white and the victim of the assault was black (or Asian or Hispanic). The charges would have been the same plus a hate crime penalty. Minimal outcry would have come from the mainstream media. This apparent double standard has many outraged and probably set race relations back further than the whole "3/5s" thing in the Constitution.
I just say it's time we start really treating people equally. Eliminate hate crime penalties (show me a violent crime that does not involve hate). Offer everyone the same scholarship options. And quit commenting on someone's race as a factor in anything. I think this is far closer to Martin Luther King, Jr's. dream. Perfect equality requires that we stop thinking about it so much. A person's skin is God's paint job. Nothing more, nothing less.
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Yay. School is out for half the students in the country. The mail is not being delivered. MSNBC is fairly drooling as it dishes out the comparisons between Barack Obama and MLK.
Why is this?
I wonder what Dr. King would have to say about kids skipping school on his behalf. I wonder how he'd feel knowing that, on the eve of inauguration, the only part of Obama people feel obliged to comment on is his skin. Sometimes I think Dr. King would rather we simply forget. Not forget the struggle to achieve equal rights for minorities, of course, but simply forget that we have minorities in the first place. What he struggled for was not a nation in which black people have their own television station, subculture, and scholarship funding. What he struggled for was equality. The vision of Dr. King is a nation in which no one cares who is white or black or Asian or Hispanic.
From my perspective (white Christian male, 18, political reactionary, 5'10,"), I would rather our culture simply let racism go. Is it still a problem in some areas? Yes. But it is also a mortally wounded, limping cipher of an ideology, no longer fit to survive in today's America. It will die if we just quit dragging it up.
Consider, for example, the Jena Six incident. For those of you who don't remember (understandably), this little media circus consisted of six black teenagers (all minors about sixteen years old) brutally beating a white classmate. They were subsequently charged, as adults, with attempted murder. The outcry was over how these six felons were being discriminated against because of race. I work in my county's Teen Court as an attorney, and I've never met anyone in an assault case even thirteen years of age who did not understand what they were doing. I have never cared what color their skin was. If handed the facts from the Jena Six case, I'd have proceeded exactly the same way (provided I thought the intent really was to kill) without regard for who was what race. The fallout of the actual incident and media frenzy? Buckling under and reducing the charges. At least one of the involved individuals, as I recall, did not even serve jail time. His primary punishment has been moving schools and staying off the football team.
Now, let's reverse the situation and say the Jena Six had been white and the victim of the assault was black (or Asian or Hispanic). The charges would have been the same plus a hate crime penalty. Minimal outcry would have come from the mainstream media. This apparent double standard has many outraged and probably set race relations back further than the whole "3/5s" thing in the Constitution.
I just say it's time we start really treating people equally. Eliminate hate crime penalties (show me a violent crime that does not involve hate). Offer everyone the same scholarship options. And quit commenting on someone's race as a factor in anything. I think this is far closer to Martin Luther King, Jr's. dream. Perfect equality requires that we stop thinking about it so much. A person's skin is God's paint job. Nothing more, nothing less.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
The slippery slope logical fallacy
I went skiing on Monday. This was a thoroughly foolish thing to do. I'd never been skiing before, and while I did quite well (no broken bones) it caused me to consider what skiing actually is.
1) The Origin of Death by Hill
Skiing was probably invented in one of those Scandinavian countries no one seems to care about very much. Skiing was invented in response to four factors: boredom, hills, barrel staves, and the alcohol that had previously occupied the barrel from whence the staves were obtained. Imagine the historic scene:
Sven: "Weeeeell...I guess that's it for that keg. Life is still boring 'cause we live in Scandinavia."
Erik: "Eyyyugn..."
Eric: "We've got barrel staves, right? So, right, we have hills, right, yeah? We could slide down 'em, right yeah?"
Sven: "Kin'a wobbly lookin."
Erik: "Need longer staves. Bust open the bigger keg."
Eric: "An' we could hold sharp sticks in both hands, right? Like while we, yeah, slide, right?"
Sadly, no written accounts survive from these heroic three. They also actually contributed precious little to ski techniques, except for conclusively proving that finding a way to stop is usually wise before proceeding down the side of a mountain. Sven was also skiing's first fatality, although Eric's and Erik's next of kin harshly disputed this claim. The three families still do not speak to each other even over seven hundred years later. This explains the splitting of Norway, Finland, and Sweden into separate nations. Denmark formed because the Leif family was left out of the whole endeavor.
2) The Modern Experience
Man has made immense leaps in the field of medicine. Not inflicting horrible injuries in the first place is strangely absent from the list of accomplishments. Skiing today consists of attaching two fiberglass boards to your feet that have been engineered to be as slippery as possible ("skis"). Then the Helpful Lodge Personnel hand you two sharp sticks ("poles"). Now stand up. Not too bad, eh? Now remember to close your bindings so the skis stay on your feet and try again. A bit more difficult, no? Well, withdraw the pole from your foot and try again. (delay thirty minutes) Nicely done. Now one of your friends (who has been skiing since birth) tells you that your skis are on the wrong feet. Sit down, remove skis, and learn that they are symmetric. I would recommend you go ahead and fall for this one; even if you know better the consequences of not being made a fool at this point are severe. If you aren't funny at the bottom of the hill, your companions will do something funny to you at the top. Usually it involves a firm push and shouted instruction to try to keep your weight on your heels and point the skis downhill to slow down.
Once you have attached your skis and are in the vertical position, you must now use the ski lift. First, though, you must get to the ski lift. Here is where one discovers how impossible it is to walk forward up a gentle slope when you have five-foot buttered skis on both feet. You thus have two options: fall forward, crawl a few arm lengths, get up and repeat, or remove your skis and walk to the lift. Removing your skis and walking back to the parking lot may actually be your best chance of surviving the next fifteen minutes. Once you reach the lift, you must move into a position such that the chair hits you in the back of the knees and forces you to sit, rather like you kindergarten teacher may have done. Unlike your kindergarten teacher, a lift chair has no soul and will wobble, twist, speed up, slow down, and do anything it takes to keep you from boarding with both skis, your poles, and your dignity. If and when you get on board, it is time to contemplate falling to your death. Once you finish, it is time to contemplate getting off at the top, which is basically the same as falling to your death only slowed down so you can savor it. The lift gently deposits your skis on the snow. Now, stand up and slide away from the chair. Yeah, right. Have fun waving to all the people riding up the mountain as you ride back down. You'll get another chance to escape the chair once you reach the top again.
2-5 cycles later, one finally succeeds in exiting the lift. Next issue: stopping. You are on top of a hill. The hill slopes downward in almost all directions. You are going somewhere. There are ways to stop on skis, of course, but the method I most highly recommend is the one I pioneered: fall over. Your body is less slippery than the bottoms of your skis. Once you are in full control of the situation (i.e. laying flat on your side and praying to God no one runs over you), you must prepare for the final challenge.
How to reach the bottom of the hill alive? This dilemma has been disputed by philosophers for eons, who usually solve it by denying the existence of the hill. You are not so fortunate. The challenge is less getting down the hill (that will happen no matter what) as it is getting down the hill at a controllable speed. Their are two ways to slow down on skis while retaining your dignity. The first is called the "pizza." It consists of forming your skis into a wedge with the point oriented downhill. This digs the edges of your skis in and causes more friction, slowing you gently. It also, over time, loosens the vital tissues that keep your hamstrings from popping free and falling down the insides of your legs. The second option is turning so your skis are both perpendicular to the slope. This approach slows you down. It also points you off the edge of the hill/toward a cliff/into a rock/into the path an angry snowboarder holding a chainsaw in each hand. I use a mixture of these two approaches, thus optimizing my chances both for a debilitating groin injury and death by angry snowboarder.
3) The Future of Skiing
Skiing will die out in about 20 years. Oddly enough, this corresponds to when all skiers will die out at their current rate of attrition.
I certainly hope this post has not put anyone off skiing. I had an insane amount of fun. The doctors also tell me that these prosthetic legs look exactly like the real thing and I'll be up and about on a cane in mere months. Reattaching the fingers of my left hand will be a bit tougher, but I'm right handed anyway.
1) The Origin of Death by Hill
Skiing was probably invented in one of those Scandinavian countries no one seems to care about very much. Skiing was invented in response to four factors: boredom, hills, barrel staves, and the alcohol that had previously occupied the barrel from whence the staves were obtained. Imagine the historic scene:
Sven: "Weeeeell...I guess that's it for that keg. Life is still boring 'cause we live in Scandinavia."
Erik: "Eyyyugn..."
Eric: "We've got barrel staves, right? So, right, we have hills, right, yeah? We could slide down 'em, right yeah?"
Sven: "Kin'a wobbly lookin."
Erik: "Need longer staves. Bust open the bigger keg."
Eric: "An' we could hold sharp sticks in both hands, right? Like while we, yeah, slide, right?"
Sadly, no written accounts survive from these heroic three. They also actually contributed precious little to ski techniques, except for conclusively proving that finding a way to stop is usually wise before proceeding down the side of a mountain. Sven was also skiing's first fatality, although Eric's and Erik's next of kin harshly disputed this claim. The three families still do not speak to each other even over seven hundred years later. This explains the splitting of Norway, Finland, and Sweden into separate nations. Denmark formed because the Leif family was left out of the whole endeavor.
2) The Modern Experience
Man has made immense leaps in the field of medicine. Not inflicting horrible injuries in the first place is strangely absent from the list of accomplishments. Skiing today consists of attaching two fiberglass boards to your feet that have been engineered to be as slippery as possible ("skis"). Then the Helpful Lodge Personnel hand you two sharp sticks ("poles"). Now stand up. Not too bad, eh? Now remember to close your bindings so the skis stay on your feet and try again. A bit more difficult, no? Well, withdraw the pole from your foot and try again. (delay thirty minutes) Nicely done. Now one of your friends (who has been skiing since birth) tells you that your skis are on the wrong feet. Sit down, remove skis, and learn that they are symmetric. I would recommend you go ahead and fall for this one; even if you know better the consequences of not being made a fool at this point are severe. If you aren't funny at the bottom of the hill, your companions will do something funny to you at the top. Usually it involves a firm push and shouted instruction to try to keep your weight on your heels and point the skis downhill to slow down.
Once you have attached your skis and are in the vertical position, you must now use the ski lift. First, though, you must get to the ski lift. Here is where one discovers how impossible it is to walk forward up a gentle slope when you have five-foot buttered skis on both feet. You thus have two options: fall forward, crawl a few arm lengths, get up and repeat, or remove your skis and walk to the lift. Removing your skis and walking back to the parking lot may actually be your best chance of surviving the next fifteen minutes. Once you reach the lift, you must move into a position such that the chair hits you in the back of the knees and forces you to sit, rather like you kindergarten teacher may have done. Unlike your kindergarten teacher, a lift chair has no soul and will wobble, twist, speed up, slow down, and do anything it takes to keep you from boarding with both skis, your poles, and your dignity. If and when you get on board, it is time to contemplate falling to your death. Once you finish, it is time to contemplate getting off at the top, which is basically the same as falling to your death only slowed down so you can savor it. The lift gently deposits your skis on the snow. Now, stand up and slide away from the chair. Yeah, right. Have fun waving to all the people riding up the mountain as you ride back down. You'll get another chance to escape the chair once you reach the top again.
2-5 cycles later, one finally succeeds in exiting the lift. Next issue: stopping. You are on top of a hill. The hill slopes downward in almost all directions. You are going somewhere. There are ways to stop on skis, of course, but the method I most highly recommend is the one I pioneered: fall over. Your body is less slippery than the bottoms of your skis. Once you are in full control of the situation (i.e. laying flat on your side and praying to God no one runs over you), you must prepare for the final challenge.
How to reach the bottom of the hill alive? This dilemma has been disputed by philosophers for eons, who usually solve it by denying the existence of the hill. You are not so fortunate. The challenge is less getting down the hill (that will happen no matter what) as it is getting down the hill at a controllable speed. Their are two ways to slow down on skis while retaining your dignity. The first is called the "pizza." It consists of forming your skis into a wedge with the point oriented downhill. This digs the edges of your skis in and causes more friction, slowing you gently. It also, over time, loosens the vital tissues that keep your hamstrings from popping free and falling down the insides of your legs. The second option is turning so your skis are both perpendicular to the slope. This approach slows you down. It also points you off the edge of the hill/toward a cliff/into a rock/into the path an angry snowboarder holding a chainsaw in each hand. I use a mixture of these two approaches, thus optimizing my chances both for a debilitating groin injury and death by angry snowboarder.
3) The Future of Skiing
Skiing will die out in about 20 years. Oddly enough, this corresponds to when all skiers will die out at their current rate of attrition.
I certainly hope this post has not put anyone off skiing. I had an insane amount of fun. The doctors also tell me that these prosthetic legs look exactly like the real thing and I'll be up and about on a cane in mere months. Reattaching the fingers of my left hand will be a bit tougher, but I'm right handed anyway.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
In the beginning was the word...
One assertion I hear quite frequently regarding my generation (people born between 1985 and 1991) is that we don't read. This is completely untrue. I am willing to bet that "kids these days" read more than any previous generation. We are just reading different stuff. This post is about the evolution and perhaps the death of the written word.
You are reading a blog. It is not written by anyone special. It probably has no lasting import. It's also probably representative of what is being read right now by many American millenials. Except that this post is usually punctuated correctly, it is no different than most online sources of verbage from Facebook to MySpace.
How does this differ so much from the past? The material in question is being consumed by the same people who produce it, and the production process requires no real effort. Consequently, little that is new or profound or challenging is produced, and still less is consumed. Finding anything worth reading requires sorting through mountains of detritus.
The best place to look for worthwhile material is to the past, to the works of Twain, Poe, Verne, Austen, Locke, Longfellow, books and poetry that provoke thought. Why are these works seldom read by most people I know (and, I admit, by myself)? More tellingly, why do I sound like a snob when I mention them? In short, they require effort to read. Gratification is not instant; one must put energy into a good book to gain any insight from it. This is something people are naturally loathe to do. The difference now is that we have so many easier options. Why read The Wealth of Nations when I can get the same information in ten minutes on Wikipedia?
Here we find the impact of the harm, as a debater would put it. When we cease to turn to reputable sources for our knowledge, policies, and philosophy, we too swiftly forget that they exist. All ideas have equal merit; the weight of antiquity and authority is absent.
The solution? I don't know. Our apathy is quite likely terminal. I hope, though, that people will eventual tire of wading through seas of drivel to find good literature and stop reading blogs like this one. A return to real literature may be forced by the expansion of its very enemies.
In the meantime, enjoy the Information Age. Shame most of it is not new and even less is actually helpful information.
You are reading a blog. It is not written by anyone special. It probably has no lasting import. It's also probably representative of what is being read right now by many American millenials. Except that this post is usually punctuated correctly, it is no different than most online sources of verbage from Facebook to MySpace.
How does this differ so much from the past? The material in question is being consumed by the same people who produce it, and the production process requires no real effort. Consequently, little that is new or profound or challenging is produced, and still less is consumed. Finding anything worth reading requires sorting through mountains of detritus.
The best place to look for worthwhile material is to the past, to the works of Twain, Poe, Verne, Austen, Locke, Longfellow, books and poetry that provoke thought. Why are these works seldom read by most people I know (and, I admit, by myself)? More tellingly, why do I sound like a snob when I mention them? In short, they require effort to read. Gratification is not instant; one must put energy into a good book to gain any insight from it. This is something people are naturally loathe to do. The difference now is that we have so many easier options. Why read The Wealth of Nations when I can get the same information in ten minutes on Wikipedia?
Here we find the impact of the harm, as a debater would put it. When we cease to turn to reputable sources for our knowledge, policies, and philosophy, we too swiftly forget that they exist. All ideas have equal merit; the weight of antiquity and authority is absent.
The solution? I don't know. Our apathy is quite likely terminal. I hope, though, that people will eventual tire of wading through seas of drivel to find good literature and stop reading blogs like this one. A return to real literature may be forced by the expansion of its very enemies.
In the meantime, enjoy the Information Age. Shame most of it is not new and even less is actually helpful information.
It's the end of the world...tickets now on sale
I saw a History Channel program on the demise of Los Angeles by Killer Asteroid yesterday. This was the funniest thing I'd seen in weeks, and not just because I'm not a big fan of L.A. I have decided to puncture some of the Killer Asteroid hysteria with a list of seven things that will kill us first.
1) Global Warming. This is a serious issue, but not for the commonly perceived reason. People talking about global warming/climate change is releasing more carbon dioxide and hot air than industrialized China. The earth will erupt into a boiling kettle of human misery (and the polar bears will drown) unless everyone just shuts up.
2) Rap music. Rap music, when played backward, contains a message from Satan. Usually this message is slightly less subversive than the one you'll hear playing it forward. I am personally convinced that the recent upswing in seismic activity is due to the playing of rap. More disturbing still, rap causes pants to slide down men's legs to roughly the level of their knees. This renders us unattractive to the opposite sex. Reproduction ceases. Should rap ever go global, the human race will die out in one generation.
3) China. I am convinced that the Chinese government is eyeing America's natural resources, massive pharmaceutical industry, and folksy charm with intense envy. It is only a matter of time before they overwhelm our defenses and seize control. Our only hope is to become as repulsive as possible to render invading us unthinkable. Elton John, Anne Hathaway, and Rosie O'Donnell are making good progress in that particular arena; we should all emulate them.
4) Political Correctness. I kid you not. The rising tide of post-modernist appeal to everyone's taste simultaneously has disastrous implications. Expecting everyone to stop on red and go on green is so...limiting. Traffic fatalities are only one branch of this poison tree. What about hand washing? What if the infidel fourteen-second scrubbers are allowed have their way as opposed to the necessary fifteen seconds? We'd all be wiped of by a horrible plague!!!!!
5) Horrible Plague. Avian flu received so much attention from the media I'm sure it's killed the entire population of the earth by now. It just took the reporters with it, so no one has heard about it yet.
6) Yale. America's top schools have gone more Audrey II than Ivy League. This is seldom surprising. They tried on Communism in the 1920s-1960s. They rallied behind embryonic stem-cell research more recently even though it is one of the less promising options medically (never mind morally). They jump wildly on the next Big Idea and don't jump off until it has been tried in the real world and proven to kill millions of people. (i.e. Communism and arguably stem-cell research) Which is why, when I propose in this blog that nuclear war might not be so bad, inside twenty minutes riots will be occurring on the quads of Yale, demanding that Bush (or Obama, the fact that he's not President yet notwithstanding) hand over the keys to a few silos. Nuclear war might not be so bad. There. I said it. Start digging your shelter.
7) The Confederate States of America. Need I remind you that the South has enough armed pickup trucks to swarm every major city north of the Mason-Dixon Line? The North, one the other hand, mostly has cows and furniture stores. Once the South controls all of America, it will produce and export fried chicken, fried okra, fried steak, and fried Northerners in unprecedented quantities. The world will have a heart attack just smelling these delicacies.
Well, there you have it. Why even save for retirement?
1) Global Warming. This is a serious issue, but not for the commonly perceived reason. People talking about global warming/climate change is releasing more carbon dioxide and hot air than industrialized China. The earth will erupt into a boiling kettle of human misery (and the polar bears will drown) unless everyone just shuts up.
2) Rap music. Rap music, when played backward, contains a message from Satan. Usually this message is slightly less subversive than the one you'll hear playing it forward. I am personally convinced that the recent upswing in seismic activity is due to the playing of rap. More disturbing still, rap causes pants to slide down men's legs to roughly the level of their knees. This renders us unattractive to the opposite sex. Reproduction ceases. Should rap ever go global, the human race will die out in one generation.
3) China. I am convinced that the Chinese government is eyeing America's natural resources, massive pharmaceutical industry, and folksy charm with intense envy. It is only a matter of time before they overwhelm our defenses and seize control. Our only hope is to become as repulsive as possible to render invading us unthinkable. Elton John, Anne Hathaway, and Rosie O'Donnell are making good progress in that particular arena; we should all emulate them.
4) Political Correctness. I kid you not. The rising tide of post-modernist appeal to everyone's taste simultaneously has disastrous implications. Expecting everyone to stop on red and go on green is so...limiting. Traffic fatalities are only one branch of this poison tree. What about hand washing? What if the infidel fourteen-second scrubbers are allowed have their way as opposed to the necessary fifteen seconds? We'd all be wiped of by a horrible plague!!!!!
5) Horrible Plague. Avian flu received so much attention from the media I'm sure it's killed the entire population of the earth by now. It just took the reporters with it, so no one has heard about it yet.
6) Yale. America's top schools have gone more Audrey II than Ivy League. This is seldom surprising. They tried on Communism in the 1920s-1960s. They rallied behind embryonic stem-cell research more recently even though it is one of the less promising options medically (never mind morally). They jump wildly on the next Big Idea and don't jump off until it has been tried in the real world and proven to kill millions of people. (i.e. Communism and arguably stem-cell research) Which is why, when I propose in this blog that nuclear war might not be so bad, inside twenty minutes riots will be occurring on the quads of Yale, demanding that Bush (or Obama, the fact that he's not President yet notwithstanding) hand over the keys to a few silos. Nuclear war might not be so bad. There. I said it. Start digging your shelter.
7) The Confederate States of America. Need I remind you that the South has enough armed pickup trucks to swarm every major city north of the Mason-Dixon Line? The North, one the other hand, mostly has cows and furniture stores. Once the South controls all of America, it will produce and export fried chicken, fried okra, fried steak, and fried Northerners in unprecedented quantities. The world will have a heart attack just smelling these delicacies.
Well, there you have it. Why even save for retirement?
Of Mice and Men and Economists
The economy. Panic. Dismay. Every pundit seems to be singing "It's the End of the World as We Know It." They are correct, but I suspect for the wrong reasons. The free market, I once read, is based on four primary economic freedoms: to try, buy, sell, and fail. In other words, to start an endeavor or business, exchange goods and services without regulation, and to fail in an endeavor or business. These elements have been steadily eroding for some time, but the abolition of the ability to fail is perhaps the most startling. For one thing, someone will end up paying. If Wachovia goes belly-up, either its shareholders or the taxpayers are going to take the blow. The shareholders will be more cautious about investing in future companies with unsound loaning policies. The taxpayers are basically sheep unable to trace their shrinking paycheck's use to the bailing out of a failed enterprise. When "government money" is used, no incentive is provided to exercise greater caution or better policies--we hear only the promise of "oversight." We can attempt to control industries, or we can let them fail, learn, and rebuild.
We have chosen the former. Welcome to the U.S.S.A.
Why? Because we are desperate to "fix something." I find it ironic that we would actually rather believe that there is some fundamental flaw in the most effective economic system ever devised than admit we were fools. We built our lives, spending habits, and borrowing policies (on both sides of the loan) on money that was not there. Now, instead of allowing the economy to shrink to what is probably a size more reflective of our actual production, we are trying to loosen the money supply (through deficit government spending and cutting the Fed rate) to the level it needs to be to support our old habits.
We will regulate the economy to continue an illusion of wealth. We will skewer, as thoroughly as possible, those who practiced sound policies by handing their money to those who did not. We will scramble to "repair the damage."
We will wonder, in twenty years, why this is happening again.
I am not an economist. I also do not have five pounds of cream cheese between my ears. Sometimes I wonder about those we elected to lead us.
We have chosen the former. Welcome to the U.S.S.A.
Why? Because we are desperate to "fix something." I find it ironic that we would actually rather believe that there is some fundamental flaw in the most effective economic system ever devised than admit we were fools. We built our lives, spending habits, and borrowing policies (on both sides of the loan) on money that was not there. Now, instead of allowing the economy to shrink to what is probably a size more reflective of our actual production, we are trying to loosen the money supply (through deficit government spending and cutting the Fed rate) to the level it needs to be to support our old habits.
We will regulate the economy to continue an illusion of wealth. We will skewer, as thoroughly as possible, those who practiced sound policies by handing their money to those who did not. We will scramble to "repair the damage."
We will wonder, in twenty years, why this is happening again.
I am not an economist. I also do not have five pounds of cream cheese between my ears. Sometimes I wonder about those we elected to lead us.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Pets and the prospect of alien invasion
I wonder if pets are not some sort of alien conspiracy meant to drain our society of vital resources and leave us vulnerable to invasion.
Let's think about this:
1) Pets consume food, bedding, newspapers, couches, children, laptop cords, and other vital goods.
2) Pets establish solid relationships with us. They dig emotional talons deep into our very souls and then, when we least expect it, drop dead. I think the aliens might own stock in anti-depressant companies. Anyway, this leaves us needing to buy still more pets.
3) Pets produce no useful physical goods. I have never seen a pet hack up/shed/emit, for example, a replacement set of car keys when one would be convenient.
These three points may not worry you a bit, "Ah," you counter, "what of the intangible benefits of pet ownership? Never mind that, what about stories of dogs calling the fire department or saving lost skiers?" Let us again list the facts:
4) Pets cause people to have lower blood pressure and reduce (or delay) the onset of many symptoms of old age.
5) Your pet might call the fire department as your house erupts in flame around you.
What is the consequence of this? People live longer. This is the key to the grand alien conspiracy. First, they decrease the birth rate by making children unfashionable in the industrialized world. Second, they use "pets" to increase life expectancy. By my calculations, in 2130 the average age for a human male will be 85. It is then, when we cannot, as a global society, remember where we put the remote, let alone the nuclear launch codes, that they unleash a massive attack. Most of us probably would not even make it out of our Barcaloungers.
So are we doomed? I think not. This tactic, you see, works both ways. We must immediately launch millions of small capsules containing hamsters into space in all directions. We cannot afford a gap in pet technology. Hamsters only live 2-2.5 years. Without our massive supplies of Prozac the alien horde would be quivering heaps of emotionally distraught rubble in mere decades.
I would lead the proverbial charge in this endeavor, but any mention of firing hamsters into the void would cause me, at the hands of my sister, a demise even more terrifying than the prospect of alien invasion.
I'll stop trying to be funny in my next post. I promise.
Disclaimer: Almost everything I just wrote is a lie. Probably. Fido is watching you right now, isn't he?
Let's think about this:
1) Pets consume food, bedding, newspapers, couches, children, laptop cords, and other vital goods.
2) Pets establish solid relationships with us. They dig emotional talons deep into our very souls and then, when we least expect it, drop dead. I think the aliens might own stock in anti-depressant companies. Anyway, this leaves us needing to buy still more pets.
3) Pets produce no useful physical goods. I have never seen a pet hack up/shed/emit, for example, a replacement set of car keys when one would be convenient.
These three points may not worry you a bit, "Ah," you counter, "what of the intangible benefits of pet ownership? Never mind that, what about stories of dogs calling the fire department or saving lost skiers?" Let us again list the facts:
4) Pets cause people to have lower blood pressure and reduce (or delay) the onset of many symptoms of old age.
5) Your pet might call the fire department as your house erupts in flame around you.
What is the consequence of this? People live longer. This is the key to the grand alien conspiracy. First, they decrease the birth rate by making children unfashionable in the industrialized world. Second, they use "pets" to increase life expectancy. By my calculations, in 2130 the average age for a human male will be 85. It is then, when we cannot, as a global society, remember where we put the remote, let alone the nuclear launch codes, that they unleash a massive attack. Most of us probably would not even make it out of our Barcaloungers.
So are we doomed? I think not. This tactic, you see, works both ways. We must immediately launch millions of small capsules containing hamsters into space in all directions. We cannot afford a gap in pet technology. Hamsters only live 2-2.5 years. Without our massive supplies of Prozac the alien horde would be quivering heaps of emotionally distraught rubble in mere decades.
I would lead the proverbial charge in this endeavor, but any mention of firing hamsters into the void would cause me, at the hands of my sister, a demise even more terrifying than the prospect of alien invasion.
I'll stop trying to be funny in my next post. I promise.
Disclaimer: Almost everything I just wrote is a lie. Probably. Fido is watching you right now, isn't he?
CBS and Predicting the Future
I saw a fascinating news story on CBS this evening. It dealt with the difficulties President-elect Obama may encounter in passing his stimulus package. Not terribly interesting, in all honesty, but the tone of the piece was simply astounding. CBS spent perhaps five seconds on Obama's plan and closer to thirty forecasting the landscape of desolation inevitably accompanying its failure to survive Congress's scrutiny and be enacted. I'm willing to give Obama's fiscal/economic policies a chance (though I have my doubts), but I wish someone would let the guy be inaugurated before commenting on how wonderful his presidency has been. Just an idea...
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