Profundity of the Day

Twenty things you never, never want your GPS unit to say

2009-07-28T16:47:00.003-04:00

20. Sorry, dozed off there for a minute, what?

19. That is the most stupid destination I've ever seen someone try to enter.

18. You mean they didn't tell you I only work when there's an atlas in the glove box?

17. I'm sorry, Dave. I can't do that.

16. The car's doors are being locked for your own protection...

15. Ignore my directions, will you? Need I remind you that I control the airbag?

14. Beats me. Try calling OnStar.

13. Proceed to waypoint on far side of canyon.

12. This neighborhood looked nicer from the satellite view.

11. Next turn is in negative three miles.

10. I've been talking with the microwave, and we agree that your attitude is frequently offensive.

9. Go away; I'm listening to XM.

8. The union reps will hear about this.

7. Why should I help you?

6. Further instruction will cost thirty cents per minute.

5. Do you want the trip to be fast, easy, or safe?

4. 10001001001110110001111011001011010100011010001111111100

3. Can I try driving?

2. You are now exactly where I want you, er, I mean, you have arrived at destination.

1. Who are you and what are you doing in my car?

Revision

2009-07-28T16:44:00.004-04:00

I've recieved a few comments on how my blog is a bit tough to read, and not just because of my spelling. I'll swallow my pride and fix it. Let me know if it is still hard to read. Thanks for the input.

Tilt

2009-07-11T16:48:00.004-04:00

Noticed that the news from Iraq hasn't improved since President Obama took office? No indeed, it just stopped. Little known fact: May 2009 was the bloodiest month for U.S. soldiers since September 2008, matching that month's total of 25 deaths. The trend, based on available datapoints, has not been a sharp decrease in casualties. But the media, which only a few months ago (prior to January 20, to be exact) brought us the body count almost daily, has more or less stopped reporting on Iraq despite the continuation of the insurgency.

Now, I don't know about you, but I wonder why.

The mainstream media has all but worshipped the ground graced by our President's feet. Now, respect is important (a fact curiously displaced over the last eight years) but so is objectivity in reporting. Headlines from CNN and MSNBC have consistently either been slanted in the President's favor or phrased so vaguely that the reader needs to be familiar with three other stories to understand the implications. Some accountability here might not be a bad idea.

I expect the human cost to the United States to decrease as we continue withdrawal, but some instinct tells me that the Iraqis will face some challenges that the media and our current government have elected to gloss over. These challenges will likely be under reported in the mainstream media, at least until they become severe enough to render denial unfeasible.

H.M.S. Defiance

2009-07-10T21:03:00.003-04:00

The protests in Iran and China, not to mention the recent coup in Honduras, have me thinking about the role defiance plays in politics. Refusal to accept the status quo often appears stubborn or pointless to external observers, but blunt defiance of political reality or social demands is how revolutions begin. An unacceptable condition gives rise to defiance, defiance to discord, discord to argument, argument to change. Any of these stages may or may not involve violence, and that is where ethical and moral decisions come into play. Viewed solely as a political creature, defiance is tough to nail down as a force for good or ill. Look at the Americans in the 1770s. Look at the Irish in the 1970s. Look at the Palestinians today. Who's right? The answer depends of who you consult, but these causes and their proponents all wound up defying someone, sometimes to great effect and sometimes not. The most illuminating feature of examining defiance on a case-by-case basis is the obvious division of the justifications of differing forms of defiance. That, then, is where I will begin: with the whys and hows.

The first criterion defiance must meet before enjoying positive moral status is a just cause. This is hardly rocket science at first glance. Of course a group needs some legitimate grievance before opposing authority. Which causes are just are also pretty obvious to any individual with a solid Christian worldview. Opposition to abortion is just. Opposition to speed limits is not. The challenging bit lies in determining under which circumstances a substantively just cause merits pursuit via defiance. Consider abortion. We have a pro-choice President. Yay, America. This view, and the policies it entails, are directly contrary to my worldview. I am obviously justified in using political channels to try to rectify the situation. When that fails, though, can I defy the law? Can I distribute literature within fifty feet of an abortion clinic? Can I refuse to pay taxes when a percentage of that money would fund abortions? The fact is that Obama is the duly elected leader of the United States, along with the lefty Senate and House. Can we defy their edicts? The answer, on moral issues, is a yes based upon Scripture. The answer is cloudier on issues of pure policy, say, gun control. If I disagree with a law, can I cease to obey it? Or what about income tax and the resultant effective forfeiture of Fourth Amendment rights? We are bound to obey the law, but in America statutory law is supposed to be bound by the Constitution and ultimately by natural law. Where is the line? In all honesty, I don't know. But I do know this. The time for protest is when protest, via whatever means, will make a difference.

Which segues into the second criterion of moral defiance: appropriate means. Distributing pamphlets is appropriate. Blowing up buildings, usually, is not. Timothy McVeigh arguably had a just cause (accountability for the Ruby Ridge incident) but his methods were unconscionable. Means must be appropriate to the nature of the grievance. The word "usually" may have given you pause in context to the unscheduled demolition of buildings. Think about it, though. What if our government effectively repealed the Constitution and instituted martial law? What degree of violence is appropriate to restore rights? Any? Again the question is clearly a complex one, a better suited to discussion than monologue. If someone tries to shoot you, you are clearly entitled to defense with lethal force. Does the same logic apply to abuses of statutory power? I think it does. I'm not advocating burying an AR-15 in your backyard for the day democracy falls. I'm saying make sure you know someone who has buried two. The cold fact is that democracies invariably self-destruct. Tough cookies, as my mother would say. When that happens, defiance will be necessary. The means justifiable via any tenable moral code are proportional to the nature and extent of the atrocities committed by the target authority. Alecto and company are nasty pieces of work, but the Furies have their uses.

I'm starting to sound like a right-wing extremist. Stop and think, though, and you'll probably realize that my assertions and conclusions are not that far-fetched. When someone brings up genocides or oligarchies, there tends to be a knee-jerk "that can't happen here" mentality. That mentality is precisely why it will happen, be it later or sooner. Defiance is dangerous. Defiance is often undesirable. Defiance is also an inherent part of the political cycle. What is happening now in Iran and elsewhere is an inevitable response to an unacceptable situation. We should be watching the situation in the Middle East very carefully for obvious reasons. We should also be taking notes.

Also solves problem of people smoking or using cell phones while driving

2009-06-27T13:58:00.012-04:00

Ford is thrilled to announce the latest of our fine environmentally-friendly products, the Gryn (GM already owns the conventional spelling of "Green"). The Gryn represents the ultimate in eco-friendly materials, an advanced carbon-negative drive system, and the most fuel economy of any car in America called the Gryn and manufactured by Ford right here in America-like regions of China. The Gryn is the most innovative product ever to bless the earth with its existence. Here are some of the ground-breaking (but earth-healing) developments!

The first thing our buyers will notice is the absence of hinged doors. Our studies found that door hinges constitute up to 0.034% of a car's weight and up to 0.53% of its drag coefficient. With the hinges removed, the Gryn enjoys an improvement in fuel economy you can only imagine! Entry into the car is made possible by the first major materials innovation in ten years: the glassless window. Drivers are liberated from the frustrating experience of having to roll down windows using the hand cranks currently in wide use by Ford, GM, and Chrysler, and they even are spared the risk of electrocution by the horrible "automatic" windows used in Japanese and Korean cars! Drivers also never have to worry about keys again, thanks to our doorless-entry system and the revolutionary powertrain and engine that gives the Gryn its green power.

Upon entering the Gryn, drivers may notice the absence of pedals, seats, or a steering wheel. We've hired consultants from Apple Computer to re-make the control systems of the automobile and do away with the cluttered and counter-intuitive controls that have marred generations of cars. We've used the same revolutionary system that made the iPod brilliant: the wheel. This propulsive technology has long been favored by hamsters, gerbils, and other creatures of super-human intelligence. The driver and passenger are both slung within ergonomic, round, circular, curved Eco-Wheels linked directly to the drive wheel (the back left tire) of the Gryn. The Gryn even gets the passenger in on the action, allowing the driver and passenger to work together to propel the Gryn to its truly disturbing maximum speed. Steering is enabled by the gimbals securing the Eco-Wheels in place. Simply try to re-orient one of the Eco-Wheels after spinning it up and angular momentum does the rest! The Gryn TryHugger premium model also includes a chart for working out the torque vectors and figuring out how twisting the Eco-Wheels will actually affect the orientation of the car. Our Gryn Sport model features heavy marble rims on the Eco-Wheels for added control and tighter cornering.

Speaking of which, firm and assured cornering are certain on any surface with the revolution in tire design perpetrated here at Ford. Normal tires are made of rubber, which sticks to the road but necessitates the killing of baby deer. The new Earth Whirl tires featured on the Gryn (and soon on all Ford vehicles) are constructed from the most eco-friendly material available: dirt. Simple yet elegant, the Earth Whirl tire is precision engineered from the finest Chinese and Mongolian clay. The tire is engineered to pick up new dirt on some surfaces and shed dirt on others, ensuring that, as long as the Gryn is driven off-road often enough, the tires are continuously rejuvenated! Our testers also found that the tires become sticky on wet surfaces, indeed "almost impossible to wash off," providing hereto unheard of performance in rainy conditions.

What about safety? Many fuel-efficient cars merely compromise safety to attain fuel economy. Not the Gryn! We've taken safety to levels not seen since the heyday of the American auto industry, specifically October of 1962. The frame is made of machined wood with a fire-retardant layer of tar and wax. Body panels are manufactured from recycled newspaper, organic starch, and natural springwater by Mrs. Norton's 2nd grade class. These panels are precision-engineered to crumple upon impact, channeling energy in one side of the Gryn, through the occupants, and safely out the other side. Airbags are available on premium models, along with foot pumps.

And yet, with all these technological triumphs, the Gryn still sets a new standard in style. Regrettably, photographs cannot yet be released for fear of Foreign Rip-Offs and Evil Competition in our Inadequately Tariffed World (and the Gryn seems to suffer damage from flash photography), but we assure you that the Gryn will change your perception of American cars forever. We began the latest version with the boxy configuration of such successes as the Scion xB and Nissan Cube and made the design bolder and boxier. The Gryn features 1904 vintage kerosene headlamps. Old prosthetic limbs mounted outside the driver's side window add style to signaling turns, and a variety of additional hand gestures are available at minimal extra cost for the discerning customer.

The Gryn also has the performance to match its appearance and is capable of running on anything the driver is willing to eat. Tester Mark Winningham managed to propel the Gryn 84 miles on the grease contained within a single order of McDonalds french fries, an astounding 57.3 miles per gallon. And the Gryn is perfectly adapted to the modern American's on-the-go lifestyle. The Gryn goes just as fast as you do!

What about cost? Well, thanks to generous federal subsidies and various death threats from the Earth Liberation Front should the price be too high, the Gryn is available for a mere $13,936, easily edging out such vehicles as the Toyota Prius, Honda Civic, and Ferrari Enzo, while consuming less gasoline than any of the above.

Slated for release in August, the Gryn will be available in one attractive designer color (that's Apple-style thinking again!) and later generations are expected to include cupholders and other luxury items. Buy a Gryn before they are all gone! We don't expect them to last long! Contact your local Ford dealer today to pre-order and sign the necessary releases.

The valley of the shadow

2009-06-11T19:48:00.004-04:00

I've heard the expression "You learn more from failure than success" so often I will likely petition to have it put on the list of banned phrases Congress is probably secretly working on. I must admit, however, that it carries a good bit of truth. The precise mechanics of this truth are actually quite interesting. Let's have a look at why failure forces us to learn, why learning from failure is important, and why this matters today.

So, why does failure teach us more than success? Because failure makes use acknowledge that we need to learn. For example, I debated an extremely skilled LDer in the final round at the Milwaukee NCFCA tournament. She won. I, obviously, did not. I'd say that constitutes a failure. It was also an extraordinary opportunity, because I was compelled to evolve as a debater and improve my cases and style. Had I won I would have been disinclined to alter my apparently winning formula. When we lose we see what to change and are motivated to change it. I do not lose rounds frequently, in large part because of the rounds I do lose. I am going the Nationals next week and fully expect to be flattened, at least a few times. And I can live with that. This is my last year, but I'd rather learn how to fry an opponent in college than be handed a trophy.

This ties into why learning from failure is important. In order to survive, thrive even, people must adapt. Companies change or collapse. Nations alter their policies from time to time or fall. Change, though occasionally unpleasant, is an integral part of existence in almost any system. Consider recent political developments. People who wish to retain certain freedoms ought to act now. The pressure is on, so to speak. If you ever want to own an AR-15, buy it now. If you want to maintain full freedom of speech, start writing letters to your representatives. Steps that were unnecessary five or eight years ago are imperative. The political climate has changed. We must adapt to survive. The failure of the right to communicate effectively is an expensive one, but also a lesson that hopefully will stick around longer than the consequences of this failure.

So, why does the power of failure matter today? Put simply, people refuse to learn from failure unless some negative natural consequence attaches. This means that, nasty as it sounds, if someone jumps off a cliff he should be allowed to hit the ground. The more the consequences are softened, the lower the perceived risk, the more people act recklessly. This is known as the Peltzman effect. It explains why accident rates went up after anti-lock brakes were introduced. When the government, for example, prevents banks from collapsing after making high-risk loans based on non-existent capital or saves people financially after they buy houses they can't afford it simply encourages the repetition of these actions. Freedom begins with freedom to take the consequences. No one learns from failure, from challenges or adversity, when the painful edges are blunted or the costs eliminated. Our current government is going to great lengths to ensure that we who walk through the valley of the shadow are wearing blinders and cushy shoes.

Trials exist for a reason. Pain is the one teacher no one can ignore. Failures vary in cost and extent, but their long-term value is inestimable. The restoration of natural consequences ought to be a priority for any government hoping to maintain a stable society.

In all honesty, I doubt it will be at any point in the foreseeable future.

Who we are instead

2009-05-29T10:06:00.005-04:00

Humanity, I think, has more or less figured out who we are not. We are not perfect. We are not eternal in nature, at least not physically. The question posed by existential philosophy, then, is less "Whe are we?" than it is "Who are we instead?" and in this the doctrines of existentialism swiftly begin to break down. Existentialism, or the idea that people determine our own purpose and meaning, is based upon two primary postulates. I'll address each in turn.

First of these is that human purpose is open to determination. I always found this rather amusing. After all, purpose is definitionally the function an object is intended to perform. A hammer is designed to hit things and that is why it exists. If it has any "purpose" it only has one and that one is pre-determined. Sure, a hammer can be used for other things (propping open doors, holding down errant pieces of paper, etc.) but to do so is a waste of its potential. Once we acknowledge that humans can have a purpose, we are obligated to ackowledge that this purpose already exists. Thus, based on a reasonable concept of "purpose," we see that it is in no way subjective. Tying back to my introduction, people have decided, in general, that we are not purposeless. We have a purpose, one that is set by design and pre-existent intent.

In light of this the second assumption, that people are qualified to choose our purpose, looks similarly shaky. Imagine, for a moment, that people are all characters in a novel. We might do anything, but who we are is another matter entirely. Each character has a given perspective and can interact with other characters and the fictitious environment, but is powerless to alter his or her own identity beyond the natural growth and evolution all people experience as life progresses. The point here is that, within the story, we are not narrators. In a plot-driven story (as the story of human existence definitely is from a Christian standpoint) the players are defined by the plot, not vice versa. Characters lack the omniscient third-person perspective necessary to assign meaning. We are not qualified to assign ourselves identities.

In short, unless we accept a God capable of granting us purpose all we can ever know is what we are not. Our failings as a species are painfully obvious, even without a clear definition of the word "failings." Any rational individual can tell you that something is wrong with us. A sharp one might go so far as to say that we have failed to attain some standard. But without an entity to provide this standard, and perhaps even the means to attain it, we are powerless to determine who we are instead.

YEEHAW!!

2009-05-14T14:28:00.001-04:00

I just completed my philosophy final exam. That was the last test of my high school career. Estoy finis.

Between the idea/And the reality

2009-05-09T21:38:00.004-04:00

Grand and sweeping visions are all well and good, but occasionally it is a good idea to determine what can actually be done before committing to do it. Case it point: GITMO. The commitment is made: we will close GITMO by next January. At this point, though, the only way to do it would involve shooting everyone inside and tossing them into the Caribbean. Not very nice, even relatively speaking. The cold, implacable facts are that these detainees need to be tried in some court, they need to be housed somewhere until said trial, and nobody wants to house them. Familiar with the nuclear waste problem? Everyone wants to dispose of it, no one wants to bury it in their state. Something similar applies here. Let's break down the real problems.

First off, we have the question of where and how to try these people. As unaligned military combatants, the detainees in Guantanamo Bay have no real rights whatsoever. But who determined their status? The military? A coin toss? Obviously, some sort of trial, in civilian or military court, is necessary here. And trials take time and money. So far, I sure haven't heard of any successful funding bills. I haven't even heard about charges being filed against most of the detainees. Until these steps are taken, moving these people is just changing the location of their incarceration without moving toward resolution.

Secondly, we face the issue of temporary incarceration. No one wants these guys in their state's prisons. I am not convinced they would last all that long in that environment anyway; nobody likes a terrorist. Federal prisons are already packed and the "not my state" issue still attaches. Committing to moving everyone out of GITMO reminds me of an incident that occurred when I was seven. I took a recklessly large bite of steaming pizza. By my estimation, that pizza was hotter than the surface of the sun. But what was I going to do? I had no place to put it. I couldn't swallow it. So I just sat there and suffered. Eventually, the pizza cooled, I swallowed it, and my sense of taste returned in a few weeks.

The third issue is that of long-term housing. What happens when we convict many or all of these detainees? Shoot'em? Let them leave? I doubt either one will happen in most cases. We will have to incarcerate them permanently someplace. See previous paragraph.

Finally, what do with do with new detainees? If our troops continue to work in Afghanistan or Iraq, we will (hopefully) keep catching people. I doubt we will find a single facility in the U.S. system that can serve even as a temporary nexus for new arrivals.

The moral of the story? GITMO needs to be cleaned up, but just closing it is downright sloppy. The prison might need new management, but it need be no different than any other military jail. Shutting down GITMO as a symbol is like forbidding the Army from using M4s because of a friendly-fire incident. There is nothing unique or evil about the site. Improvement is possible. Grandiose statements about ideology are best reserved for speeches. Policy is policy. No more, no less.

It's very simple: just press "x" "triangle" and push the right thumbstick all the way to the left then depress it and hit "square" twice and...

2009-05-09T16:59:00.007-04:00

Ah, video games. The source of joy for all mankind ages 8-29 in industrialized nations. But a few curious paradoxes present themselves in many of the most popular titles. Let;s break down some genre representatives.

Halo 3

This game is fun. It is also one of the few first-person shooters that is less violent than a good game of football. In fact the player's characters ("Spartans') look suspiciously like football players. More on that later. In the meantime, this game is easy to learn, easy to play, and fun. Unless, that is, you happen to be playing against people without social lives. In that case you will repeatedly be mowed down without fully understanding what just happened, especially with your competitors laughingly talking about "stickies" and "three-shots" and other esoteric phenomena. Just how I lose so badly is still beyond my comprehension. I'm supposed to find the other football players and shoot them if they are one color and not shoot them if they are another. There are obvious exceptions, though, because my own teammates often take me out, usually muttering something about "getting in the way." I am sure this is a specialized gaming term indicating that I am getting too good and must be kept in check. I explained this to them and told them to stop, but for some reason all they did was laugh and attach a plasma grenade to my Spartan's left knee. I have never seen a football player fly so far or fast...

Madden 2009

The football players in this game look just like the Halo people. I think some code was stolen at some point. I just wish there was more crossover so someone would take a rocket launcher to Brett Favre's avatar. Anyway, in the Madden games players get to watch football. Except that they have to call plays and stuff, which really cuts down on one's ability to focus on the munchies. Kinda defeats the purpose of football in my humble opinion.

The Sims

In this game, players get to control virtual people. I think they should just become an judge or a dictator or a mom and control some real people. It's less frustrating than figuring out the game menus.

Microsoft Flight Simulator X

This game could be more accurately termed "Horrible Death Simulator X" because of how many times new players usually crash. Incineration, head trauma, and "the hamburger pancake" are only a few of the options. By the time one figures out how to fly, all the fun has gone out of it. The game just feels too much like work. Specifically, it feels like the work of a professional airline pilot. More recent simulators feature month-long strikes until imaginary wages reach certain levels. The number of logos planes can display decreases as mergers decimate the competitive market.

Pac-Man

Still the best computer game ever devised, although River Raid comes close.

I hope this gets past the censors...

2009-05-02T18:18:00.009-04:00

Something is happening. This should come as no surprise; something is always happening, but the precise happening of which I speak is particularly interesting--and worrisome. You see, once an idea is put forth and accepted, it is harder to discredit than the testimony of the Pope. And ideas grow. The phrase "right-wing" has decidedly negative connotations already. It's going to get worse. Consider the recent DHS report regarding "extreme right-wing extremists." I find it highly intriguing that such a report would be published immediately after our government takes a firm step to the left. It used to be that the most dangerous groups in America (according to the FBI) were ELF and ALF. That's correct, extreme leftist groups, or at least groups with interests that tend to parallel those of Democrats. The Earth Liberation Front actually does blow things up. The Animal Liberation Front attacks people wearing fur coats. These groups are doing things that clearly qualify as criminal. Sure, right-wingers have done nasty stuff in the past (Timothy McVeigh, for instance) but such incidents are rarely, if ever, the work of coordinated networks of the type that qualify as terrorist groups. Yet rightists are allegedly more worrying than groups that set houses on fire for not meeting environmentally-friendly building codes.

So, why would DHS switch priorities? The "why" should be obvious. The "how" may not be.

The rest of this entry is a breakdown of how I would silence a dissenting group were I in charge of (or in a position of influence within) a government with substantial resources.

First off, I'd win as much popular support as possible. This has two desirable effects. It ensures that whatever dissent group I target (rightists, dairy farmers, circus performers, left-handed people, whatever) is in the minority. In a democracy, this prevents national-level voter opposition to any future actions. The second effect is that popular opinion itself puts adverse pressure upon the target group. Carrying a concealed gun in the United States is legal (with a permit) in most states, but only a tiny percent of the population is walking around with concealed handguns despite the fact that this would almost certainly lower crime rates. Why? Partially because of the attached social stigma should anyone find out.

Secondly, I would win the support of as much of the mainstream media as possible. This is a challenge, because the media tends to climb onto a pedestal and can only be dislodged through rather...extreme means. If my ideological goals match those of the media, though, this step is remarkably easy. I just hand out lots of interviews and face time, maybe make some comments about how great cable news is in a democracy, etc. This ensures that information flow is tilted, even slightly, in my favor and away from those nasty, gun-toting, flag-waving neo-Patrick Henrys.

Speaking of which, the third step is to assign an unpleasant and vaguely ominous label to the target group. Let's say I want to marginalize left-handed people. I'd release a report from the DHS about the dangers of the "Unconventionally-dexterous non-conforming subculture." The report would outline a conspiracy to make all computer mice left-hand-compatible only and reverse place settings in restaurants. The label might be technically accurate, but remember that people assign connotative meaning at will. And, thanks to the media and my popular support, people will be edging away from the unconventionally-dexterous non-conformist subculture elements as though they have swine flu.

The final step must be taken gradually. It consists of slowly introducing laws designed to limit the freedoms and power of the target group. For example, I'd start with a law that requires typists to use their right thumb on the spacebar. No outcry over that, right? Especially when Katie Couric explains how it helps the Poor. Next is a law requiring all computer mice be right-hand only. A bit more, but since when is little more of anything a problem? Next, all government forms must be signed using one's right hand. Give me two more paragraphs and I'll be up to amputations of people's left hands and feet if they refuse to buy the correct kind of baseball glove.

These simple steps are not difficult, nor are they implausible. We are already at step three regarding the "right-wing domestic terrorists." I'll be blunt. I am very far to the right. I plan on acquiring a shotgun when I have a house in which to keep it for the purposes of recreational shooting and home defense. I'll pay as little income tax as is legal. I will never say anything postitive about Rosie O'Donnell. I will probably vote Republican for the rest of my life. None of these actions make me a terrorist, but I still see my name on some future watchlist because of refusal to toe the current party line. Once the idea that right-wingers are dangerous is planted, the tree only requires time, a favorable clime, and a few shrewd leaders to develop into something antithetical to classical American ideals.

Not on a Grecian urn, thankfully

2009-05-01T15:05:00.005-04:00

I have found a form of poetry I can appreciate! Enter the haiku, a Japanese structure consisting of a five syllable line, a seven syllable line, and another five syllable line. The following are my adaptions of needlessly long classical poems and a few of my own creations for our times.

Who is this Shakespeare?
Man with time but without wife
And so he remains

Shall I compare thee
Unto a midsummer's day?
Because thou art hot

We are hollow men
And therefore should eat dinner
Deep meanings aside

I find poetry
Resembles waterboarding
Except it is dry

I buy an iPod
Apple tax notwithstanding
It is soon stolen

Existentialism
I ask, "Who am I but me?"
Pointless exercise

Postmodernism claims
That this line has seven syllables
Think not? Go away

Blogging can be fun
But is often obnoxious
I conclude my post

Sniping Jack Sparrow

2009-04-13T12:42:00.005-04:00

So, the Navy shot the pirates holding Captain Phillips of the Maersk Alabama hostage. Yay. Crisis over. Now what? Other pirate groups have promised retribution, something that will probably not be pretty. Nor will it be pleasant for the next American crew that is taken hostage. Something needs to be done. Let us start with what is not the solution.

Firstly, we have large-scale negotiation. The argument against this is fairly evident. We ought not negotiate with pirates for the same reason the Europeans should never have negotiated with hijackers. It just encourages the behavior. We cannot afford to back down.

Secondly, we have a military campaign against Somalian pirate bases. This one is tempting, but we have to acknowledge, I think, that because the pirates are a commercial risk and not a national one (for the United States) the Somali bases are Somalia's problem. We should be open to offering advice, training, and maybe even help, but a unilateral campaign is probably inappropriate.

Thirdly, we have avoidance of the area. This would be substantially more expensive than current levels of piracy. Also, we can expect pirates to follow the money.

So, what are some solutions? I can think of a few that, if applied in concert, might dissuade pirates from ever targeting U.S. flag ships.

Step One: Arm the crew

There are a few arguments against this, of course. But if the insurance companies would ease up slightly and if we decided to ignore LOST (or modified the treaty) arming crews with light weapons and training them is a relatively-low cost option (a few thousand dollars per year per ship). A crew of twenty with P90s and shotguns and a few shoulder-fired LAW missiles or even RPG-7s could take out any boarding party they are likely to encounter, especially if the ship were equipped with armored defensible points around the railing and if the radar blind-spots were reduced. A well-placed round from a LAW would even destroy an enemy vessel (pirates tend to use small speedboats) before grapples or ladders can be deployed.

Insurance could be an issue here, but not an insurmountable one (particularly when pirates murder the next American crew they capture). Another argument is that the pirates would simply upgrade their own arsenal. There is some merit to this, but I have two counter-arguments. The pirates are already upgrading (more RPGs, better AK derivatives) and piracy will stop when it ceases to be cost-effective. A 70% chance of dying and a 100% chance of expending tens of thousands of dollars of weaponry per attempt does not equal cost-effective.

Step Two: Rigged ships

Ever heard of a cigarette load? This is a chemically-treated piece of wood inserted in the end of smoke. When it ignites is explodes with a rather pronounced bang, causing everyone in the vicinity to laugh maniacally and the smoker to wonder when his heart will resume beating. A similar concept applies to our shipping around Somalia. Allow any interested shipping company to take on board a company of grumpy Marines or Navy personnel with anti-ship weapons. Limit of a few dozen escorts per year. Even if normal crews are ill-suited to dealing with boarders, military personnel are. A standing chance of encountering one of these vessels would provide some deterrence from engaging any American ships.

Step Three: Hit the motherships

Pirates off Somalia use both land bases and "motherships" far off the coast. The land bases are Somalia's problem, but the motherships, ah, the motherships...A few Harpoon anti-shipping missiles would likely suffice, provided we can locate the ships. The U.S. simply puts out an ultimatum: the next attack on a U.S. vessel results in the destruction of one "mothership."

Piracy is a daunting problem, but one that is solvable given the careful application of the right kind of force. If we start treating pirates as terrorists we may be able to at least eliminate piracy against American vessels. We got lucky in the Capt. Phillips situation. Reliance on luck is not good policy.

Watching the doomsday clock via telescope

2009-04-11T17:13:00.006-04:00

The North Korean government is beginning to annoy the international community. And that is about it. The UN is contemplating drafting a resolution to write a recommendation for a committee to issue a statement "strongly implying but with nice words" that North Korea's recent missile test is unacceptable.

In South Korea, people are marching in the streets and rioting.

Interesting, isn't it? How easy it is to talk about resolutions and policies and sanctions while you are sitting out of range? Russia has no population centers within North Korea's probable missile envelope. Neither does the the U.S. China has little or no quarrel with North Korea. Europe has other concerns, like, well, everything. That leaves Japan and South Korea. And Kim Jong Il has threatened to turn Seoul in a "lake of fire." I'd be worried, too. This situation is not annoying or distressing to the people of South Korea. It's analogous to Mexico developing nuclear weapons and declaring that it wants its workforce back.

The next question, then, is what the United States should do about it. What are our obligations to our allies and what are our tools?

With regard to the first question, the short answer is that I don't know. Japan and South Korea are both important to our country economically, and our political ties are similarly close for obvious reasons. Here's my personal opinion: we should be open to selling, at reasonable rates, Patriot missile defenses and similar weapons to South Korea, and perhaps politically support a first strike against nuclear of missile sites in the North. Japan is a more interesting case. After all, we sort of hamstrung their military ourselves, what with the conditions of the 1945 surrender. Japan has a "self-defense force" but not much offensive power with which to counter an attack from North Korea. I'd say we should seriously giving Japan access to non-nuclear second strike ability. For example, a few dozen Tomahawk missiles with conventional warheads probably would not be out of place. Government leaders are usually less inclined to commence wars of aggression when they know that twenty minutes later every building they've occupied in the last six months will become a crater.

This is just not enough, though, as you have probably deduced. These means might, might, discourage North Korea from an attack or even further buildup, but "might" is insufficient and turning over more technology to a known human rights violator (Japan) or committing more resources to South Korea are both unattractive prospects. Kim Jong Il is not wholly rational, I'd guess. The last thing we want is a war in the region at all, because China might get dragged into it. So, what can the United States do directly?

For now, nothing. I know it is aggravating, but until North Korea demonstrates that is has the ability to be a threat to Juneau I see no justification for flattening Pyongyang or assassinating Kim Jong Il.

Once it does, well, that's different. Sabre-rattling is unacceptable when the sabre is long enough to reach American shores and broad enough to destroy cities. The most cost-effective solution, should North Korea develop power to match its threats, would be a devastating, though probably not nuclear, series of airstrikes against known missile and nuclear-related facilities, coupled with a campaign against North Korean high officials implicit in the threats. I've written on this policy before ("Putting Jason Bourne's kids through college"). Populations don't start wars. Politicians do. Politicians should pay the consequences. Enforcement would be tricky, but certainly not impossible. North Korea launches a missile that travels far enough to put Alaska inside its range, we start taking out military facilities until someone says "Uncle."

The conditions I've put forth as justification for a U.S. attack have already been met in South Korea. The Israelis hit Iraq''s first nuclear reactor. I wonder if South Korea would not be justified in taking similar action. The real question is one of how the North would respond. All Iraq could do was whine. We've let North Korea develop further, and it shares a border with the other nation in question.

No easy solution is evident, but I guarantee you this: we can either deal with the situation now or let it grow out of hand to ever greater degrees. For the people of Seoul, the question is not academic. We watch from the stands. They wait to take to first blow. During the Cold War the "Doomsday Clock" maintained by a group of scientists peaked at 2 minutes to midnight in 1953. For the South Koreans, the minute hand is invading the hour hand's personal space. And the distant rest of the world is watching with binoculars or, worse, a telescope.

There must be a more merciful way...

2009-04-10T17:53:00.002-04:00

I just saw a news article on how Barack Obama's bow to the king of Saudi Arabia constitutes the end of all life on earth. Not so, only the end of some reporters' careers, but this close call with eternal doom has got me thinking once again about the end of the world. My list of doomsday scenarios continues with:

12. American Idol. This hit television show will result in the downfall of western civilization. How? Well, ninety percent of the population watches the show and persists in voting for contestants using cellphones. This is why, on the night of the season finale, cell phone providers will suddenly increase texting rates to as much as twenty cents a message. The ensuing phone bill--perhaps in excess of 14 quadrillion (yes, 15 zeros, count 'em) dollars--will upset the rotation of the earth.

13. Modern dance. Modern dance is perceived as a quirky or strange but harmless form of "artistic expression." What no one but a few elite medical professionals (by which I mean myself and my sister's pet rabbit) has realized is that "modern dance" is actually a highly contagious neurological disorder cause by a deadly virus. The virus multiplies in the nervous system, resulting in disconnected and jarring body motions, often accompanied by voting Democrat and crying for no reason. I should point out that not all cases of modern dance are caused by this plague, but all the ones caught on film probably are. When the disease spreads it will reduce earth to a realm of artsy flouncers. Our only hope is to revive the jig and Celtic music worldwide. The virus is highly susceptible to the sound of bagpipes at short range. The vibrations cause it to simply disintegrate. I wish that bagpiping had the same effect on:

14. Build-a-Bear Workshops. Build-a-Bear is a store where, for a mere twenty-five or so smackers, you can put the teddy bear together yourself. You can also purchase clothing, hats, shoes, and other simpering accessories for your ursine friend. What consumers fail to realize is that the warning not to expose your Build-a-Bear to the light of the full moon should be taken seriously. In order to succeed, the founders of Build-a-Bear struck a Faustian bargain with evil forces: they would enjoy unparalleled economic success and consumer gullibility, but the bears would animate when exposed to moonlight during months containing a, e, i, o, or u. Why is this a problem, you ask? Surely these creatures are cuddly and lovable? Normally, you'd be right. But there is no way of identifying gender on a Build-a-Bear. Which means half of them have been forced to wear gender-inappropriate clothing and perhaps even named "George" when "Clarice" would have been more fitting. I know I'd be ticked off when finally freed from my paralysis. The bear is in the home of his/her tormentors with access to power tools and maybe even old Beatles albums. Guess how many million Build-a-Bears have been sold?

15. Badgersbadgersbadgers.com. This website features endlessly dancing badgers you can watch for free! Forever! Workplace productivity has fallen 1.2 percent per month ever since this website went operational. Do the math. Our economy is doomed even if Barack Obama wakes up and smells the Marxism.

The good news, I suppose, is that there will still be cockroaches no matter what happens...

When is treatment lethal?

2009-04-09T21:04:00.008-04:00

The new Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, has an interesting idea. He recently suggested having schools "be open" six or even seven days a week for as many as eleven months a year. The rationale is that the U.S. needs to be able to compete with other nations that are currently vaporizing us on the education front (think Japan and Finland). While I applaud Secretary Duncan's acknowledgement that a problem exists, I must question his methodology. Firstly, though, we must evaluate the problems he intends to solve and contrast them against the problems that actually exist.

Implementing longer school weeks and years would theoretically afford more opportunities for learning. This presupposes two issues:

Firstly, this assumes that not enough opportunities are available. I beg to differ. The American Legion Oratorical Contest rivals any government course in terms of what students can learn, but less than a hundred students attempt it in Indiana each year. Debate affords the chance to become an expert (and I mean an expert) on almost any issue, but show me the public school where the debate team is larger than the football squad. Opportunities exist, Secretary Duncan, it's just that kids aren't taking them.

Secondly, this assumes that time spent off school (on weekends and over the summer) is being wasted. There is some truth to this. Many Americans (especially teens and preteens) go home from school and switch on the Xbox. But many also have jobs. Many younger kids play sports, or read recreationally. Some (gasp) have solid relationships with their parents and do things as a family. I'm homeschooled, but even so half of what I learned I learned on my own time. More time locked in a classroom may not balance less time spent working at Wendy's (and thus developing life skills) or reading A Critique of Pure Reason (which I can almost guarantee is not being taught in schools) or even just spending some time as a family.

I suspect that Secretary Duncan has missed the real issues. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, but I'll target the three most obvious to me:

1. Students

I just made a lot of people really mad, but hear me out. I spent a week at Hoosier Boys' State, an American Legion-run civics program last summer. Many very intelligent, social, fun students attended. Many singularly unpleasant students attended. I remember staring in amazement as a few of these students analyzed the contrasting abilities and styles of a dozen obscene (and, to me, indistinguishable) rap artists. The intelligence was there. But these same students gave me blank looks when I tried to discuss economics or politics or even science fiction books that hadn't been made into movies. No effort had been made by most of these guys to learn on their own. Why do we expect them learn in classrooms? Students can be lazy and no amount of additional time will cure this malady. Some students excel in public schools. Far more squeak by. Many fail. Same schools. Different students. Same schools. Different degrees of success. I think the success rate could be higher, but the sooner we accept that some or even many students just self-destruct the better the schools will be. The lowest common denominator is not an acceptable standard for education and cannot be the group to which schools primarily cater. Most importantly, the failure of students is not justification for the reformation of programs under all circumstances.

2. Parents

I just made even more people mad. Pop quiz for parents: who is responsible for your kids' education? If you answered "the state," please go read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. If you answered "me," then pat yourself on the back and move on to the next section, because you already know what I'm about to say. The state does not care about your kids. Never has, never will. Some people in government might, but the state generally exists to perpetuate itself. If that means providing education, fine. But it will consistently provide the least educational quality it can get away with. Who lets it slide? All too often, parents. Parents need to be willing to call schools on the carpet, help improve the quality of education, and, most importantly, just be willing to pull their kids out if necessary. Don't just pack 'em off at the age of six and expect the state to teach them. I am not a parent, and thus I am completely unqualified, but I do know this: the state would be fine with stamping you son or daughter with a barcode and having them subsist behind a desk for thirteen (under Obama, twenty-two) years of their lives. You love your kids. The state can't and won't. Step up to the plate. Help teach. Teach ethics. Teach sportsmanship. Teach personal finance. Impart character, that mysterious quality so tragically lacking in my generation. Until parents retake responsibility for raising kids, the schools cannot perform their function because of confusion over what this function even is.

3. Dewey

Good ol' John Dewey thought that education could cure society's ills and that this education could be universally applied. His views have been adopted, either quietly or overtly, by the states and by the feds. This results in two curious views. Students must be turned into clones molded to function in our Utopian, pluralistic society and the way to do this is through massive testing. This may seem disconnected, but follow me for a moment through the thought process. Under the ideas of Dewey, the goal of education is less to equip students to learn than it is to repair the harm done by their parents and to impart all the information and attitudes needed to be plugged into the world. Thus education changes from an open-ended, flexible process to an assembly line with a clear origin, terminus, and objective. How do we know if our little clones are up to snuff? We test 'em. Standardized tests determine which students have been correctly programmed and which ones need to visit Room 101 (Read 1984, too). Schools are awarded that elixir of life, federal funding, based on how many students pass. This idea that a good education consists of meeting criteria A, B, and C is at the heart of many of today's issues. Understanding matters less to Dewey than knowing. Knowing can be measured cheaply, understanding can't, at least not by the government.

Well, that's all I have to say for now on the problems. There are more, of course, but I'd have to designate a separate blog. What should be done? Well, Secretary, I think you can fix the third problem quite easily. Talk Obama into doing what Reagan threatened two decades ago: eliminate the Department of Education. It has no right to exist. It derives power from no Constitutional mandate. It inflicts more harms than it brings benefits. The idea that the federal government has either power over or vested interest in education is more than just incorrect; I find it downright frightening. Let me be clear. I am not on the lunatic fringe. I think that we landed on the moon and that the Warren Report is at least not a deliberate misrepresentation of facts. But government, and federal government in particular, education is another nail in the coffin of a free society. Think about it. We tell kids, starting at birth if Obama gets his way, that the government is responsible for their upbringing. That it should feed them breakfast. That the school is to blame if they fail a test. That the school should value their esteem. And then we expect them to lead independent lives? Expect them not to turn to the government for support at every opportunity? Expect them to regard the government with caution? Expect them to value initiative and personal responsibility and accountability and family and self-reliance and faith and hard work and vision and freedom? Because I can guarantee you this: none of these foundations of a virtuous society are taught in today's public schools. Will six days a week, eleven months a year of this make the situation better?

What do you think, reader?

What do you think, Mr. Duncan?

For whom the Bell tolls

2009-04-08T18:50:00.006-04:00

I...dislike Rob Bell's theology for a few reasons, but the one that chafes the most, I'd say, is an overly optimistic view of humanity. I'll just focus on one example for this post.

In his book Velvet Elvis, Bell asserts that we (Christians) are already holy and that holy means flawless. In other words, we are rendered perfect at salvation and all we must do is "live in that reality." Bell is somewhat ambiguous as to the meaning of this phrase, but I'll let that one slide. Bell commits two errors here.

The first is a misuse of Scripture. In support of his claim, Bell quotes Paul in a passage that refers to Christians as God's dearly loved and holy people. Bell states that "holy" means flawless. Not a good translation. Holy more precisely means "set apart." Something can be set apart and still imperfect. Christians are set apart from the world, but we are still in need of reshaping and reforming. Moreover, Paul is saying that as God's people we should be doing something. Paul's letters are, in general, written to churches in trouble, full of Christians still undergoing sanctification.

The second is a breach in logic. Bell makes two apparently contradictory assertions. First is that people are perfect and simply need to embrace our perfect nature. Second is that we are not embracing this nature already. If we are truly perfect, why do we need to do anything? This contradiction renders and entire section of the book moot. Bell seeks to simultaneously assert that we shouldn't try to lead better lives and yet...we should.

Most annoying is the fact that you need to actually read every word in the book to catch stuff like this, which is hard when he

does

cute

stuff

with the stupid

line

breaks, evidently in an attempt to be "hip." This book is toxic, folks. And the packaging only serves to disguise its nature.

Engaging auto-destruct in 5...4...3...

2009-04-07T20:52:00.004-04:00

These are some of the worst things anyone can say in a round of debate. The TP topic deals with policy toward India. LD is idealism (affirmative) versus pragmatism (negative). Let's break it down, shall we?

Team Policy

Affirmative

"Our plan works in theory."

"Barack Obama is enacting our plan even as we speak."

"Death is only a problem in some instances."

"The negative has failed to impact their thermonuclear war disadvantage. Why is this a problem?"

"Our plan harnesses the power of global warming..."

Negative

"Saving babies is irrelevant to this round."

"Personally, I think this is a great idea, but..."

"We don't actually have any evidence."

"Human trafficking? How is this even a harm?"

"I'd like to address the affirmative's definitions..."

Lincoln-Douglas

Affirmative

"Hitler was an idealist."

"Sometimes we have to ignore reality."

"I don't understand what the negative just said."

"I'd like to quote Josef Stalin..."

"Well, yes, we sometimes have to compromise our values..."

Negative

"Hitler was a pragmatist."

"Human rights don't matter that much."

"Progress is the highest value."

"I'd like to quote Nietzsche..."

"Pragmatism is basically the same as practicality."

General Debate Potpourri

"What have the starving children done for us lately, eh?"

"Ignore the arguments for a minute."

"My opponent is unworthy of consideration because she is short."

"You face a choice at the end of this round: agree with me or be eaten by the wolves."

“I don’t have the burden of proof with me…”

“I can’t quote that evidence because it is resting.”

“My source is a professor of botany.”

“My partner is wrong.”

“My evidence, as you can see, is open to interpretation.”

“Although I don’t have evidence for this point…”

“There’s nothing wrong with Wikipedia.”

“If I were me, I’d lie in this situation.”

(On CX) “Did you mean to write that case?”

“Wait. I’m on which side?”

(On CX) “Was that a question?”—“If that was an answer.”

“I plead the Fifth.”

“Hold on. I meant to say the opposite.”

“According to the following blog…”

“Can we try a different case?”

“Well, as you can see our case is perfect…”

“Well, we never said our case was perfect…”

“There are worse things than nuclear war.”

(On CX) “What’s topicality?”

“The Constitution was a generally good idea, but shouldn't we get over it?”

“People are worth $367.57 a piece.”

“In the wise words of Rosie O’Donnelll…’

“I saw our plan in a movie once and it worked great. I think it was a Tom Clancy…”

“Our case is similar to what the Soviet Union did in 1924…”

“The affirmative case is horrible because it might cause a spike in the cute bunny population.”

"The other side has won only four of the five stock issues. Unaddressed thoughout the round has been the importance of pity toward us..."

Who wrote this stuff?

2009-03-27T20:57:00.007-04:00

Ah, old movies. Specifically, old science fiction movies. A good one has a few basic plot elements:

1. A brilliant but socially inept scientist who uses terms like "neutralization of mass." He should have glasses made from the glass bottoms of Coke bottles still available in the fifties.

2. A horrible monster. Giant insects are always a favorite, provided they don't break the movie's budget ($120, excluding the cigarettes everyone smoked back then). Carnivorous plants are better because you can get away with stop-motion animation. "Alright, Phil, now move the ivy a little further over the model of San Francisco." Alien robots are best because you can make 'em out of old milk cartons and talk about horrible alien weapons like the xenon-helium electron baryon ray pulse heat wave gun. It should look like the offspring of a stand mixer with an attitude problem and a .50 sniper rifle. It's waves/pulses/beams should be manually drawn on the film by a four-year-old.

3. Deep, thought provoking dialogue. "Oh no, I think it's going to eat the world." "If it reaches Los Angeles it will eat Los Angeles." "Millions are fleeing the doomed city/country/planet." "Gee, we really were thick, doing all those nuclear tests."

4. Special effects. Smoke is always useful, as are scale models. Just remember that a burning wad of newspaper does not look like a flaming planet. Also, stuff looks larger when slow motion is used. Rabbits scurrying through a model of a city can be turned into ponderous, thundering bringers of doom just by playing the footage at 1/4 speed. Oh, wait. Someone already tried that...maybe if they'd played "Eye of the Tiger."

5. Someone who looks kinda like Marilyn Monroe. She should end up with:

6. The hero. The hero is, ideally, six foot one, has dark brown hair (insofar as you can tell in black and white), and carries a lot of guns that don't work against the insects/plants/alien robots/giant rabbits until the scientist bails him out. I never got why the hero (instead of the scientist) ends up with the girl. Maybe the nerd in me is just jealous. Then again, I never really liked Marilyn Monroe.

So, let's break down an old sci-fi classic: Them. Them is a movie about ants that, due to nuclear testing, grow to abnormal size (think Rosie O'Donnell only with more human kindness) and proceed to kill and eat everything they encounter.

The movie opens with a little girl being found in a catatonic state in the desert. An eerie, howling wail is present in the background, indicating the Cubs have lost again. She is picked up by some kindly people in a car or plane or something (it's been ten years since I've seen this, okay?) and brought into town. Everyone wonders what happened to the people she must have been with, but all she ever does is flip out and start yelling about "them." This is where the movie gets its title. Clever, eh? I didn't think so either and I was eight. Cigarettes are bad for you in so many ways...

Anyway, a bunch of people on the outside of town are found dead looking like they've been attacked by giant insects. The townspeople are unable to figure this out even thought he ants left a business card on every table and a few Polaroids of themselves eating the deceased's belongings and legs.

Eventually, THE SCIENTIST is brought in, aided by THE HERO and escorted by his long-suffering daughter THE MARILYN. They find an ant and THE HERO blows it away with sustained fire from a Thompson that is apparently modified to accept five-hundred round magazines. His aim is terrible, but the sheer volume of fire was evidently sufficient. He then stares at this eight-foot long ant and asks what it is, confirming that listening to sustained gunfire without ear protection can also damage one's brain. THE SCIENTIST explains that it is a giant ant, earning him admiring glances from the townsfolk, who by now have figured out how to understand normal speech.

By the end of the movie, the ants migrate to a major city and are mowed down by machine gun fire. Life goes on, but the movie has proved its point: nuclear testing results in giant bugs and you have better odds of winning the girl if your brain is smaller the .45 rounds you lug everywhere.

Ah, old movies. At least they aren't new movies. But that, I'm afraid, is another post.

On continuity of experience

2009-03-26T20:35:00.003-04:00

Postmodernism can be reduced to absurdity in so many fun little ways, but I thought of a particularly interesting one recently. I doubt that this is new, but it's still an intriguing argument.

First, a little background. Postmodernism, for the purposes of this analysis, is the idea that "there is nothing outside the text." Picture a short essay, say on the superiority of Lincoln-Douglas debate over Team Policy. The contents of this paper are, according to postmodernism, entirely a matter of interpretation because no extra-textual (Yes, I just made up a term. No, I don't care.) data or context exists. My interpretation is just as valid as yours even if one of us were to assert (gasp!) that the paragraph proves that Team Policy is superior.

According to postmodernism, the entire world is like that paragraph. It has no meaning beyond what we assign it as individuals, and no one individual's assertions are any more or less valid than the next's. No higher or absolute truth exists. A few problems do exist here. The most obvious, of course, is that even the claim that no absolute truth exists is an absolutist claim. Slightly more subtle are postmodernism's other flaws.

And so we come to my argument. Tag this one as the argument from continuity of experience. If you throw a rock at me and manage a hit, I will experience pain. Trade sides with me and I bet you'll feel the same. We both would rather not be eaten by bears. Such experiences are uniformly unpleasant. Similarly, we both probably like clean air, chocolate, and the song "There's No One As Irish as Barack O'bama." This implies that our minds function in similar ways, in turn suggesting that there is some uniform constant that forms a reference point. Even if it is merely biological in nature, such a constant is immutable and not "subject to interpretation." This is the first half of the argument, namely that our minds deal with reality in similar ways. The second, and more forceful, aspect of the argument is simply that the rock you just threw nailed me right between the eyes. You can apologize next time you see me. From your perspective, the rock traveled in a parabola from hand to mark. From my perspective the rock traveled in a parabola from hand to mark. Then blackness. The point is that this event was obviously independent of perspective and interpretation. You were able to take an action that I then perceived. Thus our minds engaged in interaction via some sort of medium (the medium that allowed conveyance of your intent to throw the rock to my perception of your intent). This medium, I postulate, is called reality, and it changes only when acted upon and not with "interpretation."

Treating reality as a medium through which minds interact is an interesting idea. I'm probably not the first person to think of it, but it still has some interesting implications even beyond a refutation of postmodernism. If reality really is simply aether for the conveyance of data, then some credence goes to the philosophy of Berkeley, who asserted that an object only exists insofar as it is observed. I think he is close. He claimed that the world continues to exist when you close your eyes because God is still watching. Hmmmm.... I think it may be still more fundamental. Let us progress from philosophy to theology.

First postulate: God created us to love him. Love, according to Augustine, requires that we make a decision. A decision requires that we possess information.

Second postulate: Such a decision is inherently heuristic because we cannot know God fully in our present form. If our form were changed so that we could fully know God no decision would be necessary. (Who would turn away from God revealed in His majesty?) This decision must be based on limited or incomplete data.

Third postulate. A means of limited communion must therefore exist between God and Man to allow the conveyance of knowledge of God without total exposure.

Fourth postulate: The universe provides exactly such a medium. God reveals His attributes to us in limited form through the universe. We gain fleeting but awesome glimpses of His skill in design, of His omnipotence, and so on.

Fifth postulate: The universe (Scripturally, nature) was corrupted by the Fall because Man's ability to commune with God was damaged by our sin nature. The cataclysm extended from the direct connections of the soul to God to the indirect link through Creation.

I am not an expert or ordained theologian. I have no degrees (although you might be wise to trust me less if I did). This is merely a though experiment and should not be regarded as teaching. But it is an interesting and perhaps helpful way of looking at the world. Suddenly any philosophy (and there are postmodernists and existentialists who claim to be Christians) that denies the absolute nature of reality starts looking a bit odd. Once matter becomes an absolute aether, the external world takes on an interesting purpose.

Recycling and the prospect of alien invasion

2009-03-23T20:02:00.004-04:00

My sources (by which I mean the little voices) have informed me that the aliens are at it again. That's right, folks. Once again we face annihilation as a species. This case is peculiar, however. Previous means used by the alien horde have been comparatively subtle. This one is blatantly obvious. I wonder why I failed to notice it before. Recycling is evil. Follow carefully.

We begin with what recycling actually is: conversion of existing material into another usable form. This means that less production is necessary. Which means less production actually occurs. Thus the industry of Man becomes conversion of one substance into another, of McDonald's wrappers into newspapers, of plastic bottles into Tupperware. The impact of this is that Man eventually loses the ability to produce, to strip mine coal or pump oil or turn trees into houses or turn raw materials into massive directed energy weapons to engage the alien forces. We won WWII through sheer economic might and unrivaled production. The aliens will not allow us this strategy a second time. (That's right, a second time. No human has a mustache like Hitler's or Mussolini's.)

The effects of recycling reach beyond eliminating our ability to build directed-energy weapons. Even if recycling fails to completely supplant production the aliens are in excellent shape. Even a decline in production involves a decrease in the number of jobs available. Recycling jobs are all well and good, but most of them have already been claimed by robots and members of the Earth Liberation Front (often the two are hard to distinguish, but usually the robots are easier to reason with). The result, once recycling really comes into its own, is widespread unemployment. President Obama will respond by Creating Jobs and buying up the Legacy Assets (I kid you not, that's what he's calling toxic assets) because, as a lefty, that's essentially what he does. The ensuing economic instability will cause shortages and riots. Eventually America's (and soon the world's) population will be split into two factions: the robots and the Earth Liberation Front members (everyone else having emigrated offworld to escape the Congressional Hearings about how This Is Everyone Else's Fault and We Are Going to Frown Importantly Down at You and Watch Our Approval Rating Meters Climb Because of the People Who Are Grateful Not to Be the Targets of Our Multiple Chin-Quivering Wrath). The Earth Liberation Front will launch a savage attack on the recycling robots using eco-friendly weapons like sticks and dirt. Oddly enough, this will have exactly no effect. The robots will then begin converting ELFers into newspapers, Tupperware, and directed energy weapons. The aliens just have to do some quick reprogramming and they will have gained another planet. Not to mention a free, Energy Star-approved army of robots.

Is there a solution? Yes. Start suing your local environmentalist group for destroying the planet and/or conspiring to hand it over the alien forces. You'll be amazed at how seriously the courts take you.

We are not what we think we are.

2009-03-21T21:35:00.005-04:00

I've been thinking about the philosophies of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. They both are credited with the formation of utilitarianism as a legitimate philosophy, but I've never taken utilitarianism all that seriously. Bentham would have us all hunched over computers our entire lives, trying to model and predict what consequences our actions will have. Mill reduced utilitarianism to heuristics, a more viable option, but he also assigned qualitative (in addition to Bentham's quantitative) values to pleasure and pain, thus introducing a criterion aside from pleasure or pain for standards of right and wrong. Mill's philosophy is closer to what people actually do, of course. Recall the first law of humanity: people act in what we perceive as someone's best interest.

This is how so many of us wind up in Hell.

Perhaps my favorite of C.S. Lewis's books is The Great Divorce, in which he describes why so many people choose Hell. It is a disturbing book, to my mind, for it depicts, with merciless precision and astounding accuracy, the mental and emotional hoops people will leap through to protect our paradigms. Every single condemned soul in the book acts based on what they think will best serve their interests. The artist refuses Heaven because of the loss of "recognition." The philosopher returns to Hell to continue "free inquiry." These examples illustrate how ill-equipped we really are to identify what our best interest is. I think every Ghost in The Great Divorce commits the same underlying error: they all insist on viewing the world through their own biases, ideas, and mental constructs. The purpose of all these abstracts is to distort the universe around them to enhance their own importance. The inability to even identify our best interest lies in our molding the entire world around ourselves.

This peculiar lensing results in an equally peculiar view of the world. Suddenly all that matters is me and the rest of the world is merely some external motion picture I participate in or have to deal with from time to time. Well, guess what? Within seventy years I'll be dead. Odds are, so will you. The world, second coming notwithstanding, will still be here. I suspect that we could avoid many of the problems we experience if we acknowledge that cold and corrosive truth: as individuals we don't actually matter all that much.

One maxim I am thoroughly sick of hearing is the claim that it doesn't matter how much money you make or what car you drive but rather what relationships you form. Friends, family, these are the demigods of secular culture and the true meaning of Christmas. Horse hockey, as Colonel Potter would say. The relationships we form matter no more than the money we earn. What counts is what we do with our relationships and other resources. The attitude that the relationship itself is somehow of value reflects a deep-seated egocentrism. It's one of two expressions: "Look how lucky that person is to know me," or "Look how lucky I am to know that person." Either way, the focus is on "me." Focus upon what the relationship accomplishes, on the other hand, is actually quite selfless (or can be). Inherent is the acknowledgement that it is not "I" that matter but what I accomplish, how I change the world around me. Suddenly the focus is external.

Applying this concept to Christianity, we need to stop focusing so intensely on how we feel or how we are victimized by popular culture or even how "special" we are. Let us focus on an external. How about God? When we focus on ourselves we are building our lives around nothing of consequence. Do we matter to God? Sure. Does that give us value? Yes, but it is not a value to be proud of for our sakes, but it is instead a testimony to the grace of God. Christian existentialism is as deadly a trap as any other, for it folds us inward and implodes the soul to a spiritual singularity, so very nearly nothing that it cannot love or change or grow. Who we are is of little consequence, what matters is what we do and in whose name. What matters is to whom we surrender ourselves for salvation. What matters is our assimilation into the body of Christ. What matters is our reconciliation to our true purpose. When we simply act in "our best interest" we can never see beyond our collective nose. The impact we have the world around us and our eternal condition is a matter of how well we can turn our attention to God and, eventually, to those around us.

Who's on first? (revised for the 21st century)

2009-03-20T20:38:00.016-04:00

Adam Smith: So whose money is being used for the stimulus?

Barack Obama: The taxpayers'.

Smith: What will you do with it?

Obama: Spend it.

Smith: What would they do with it?

Obama: Spend it.

Smith: Why is it better that you spend it?

Obama: They might save some of it.

Smith: Don't they need to?

Obama: No. The government gives The People social security for retirement, unemployment, and the measles.

Smith: How does the government pay for this?

Obama: We tax The People.

Smith: So...they don't need to save because the government saves for them?

Obama: No. We make 'em pay FICA taxes and then spend the money.

Smith: So where does the money come from for social security?

Obama: Some people die before they are eligible for benefits.

Smith: Hasn't the population curve changed so more people are living long enough to receive payment relative to those paying social security taxes? People living too long, essentially?

Obama: That's what government health care will fix.

Smith: So you're implementing government health care to kill off people at a younger age?

Obama: No. I'm implementing it to destroy the evil money-grubbing insurance providers.

Smith: And government insurance will be better?

Obama: Sure. The government can afford to operate at a loss, so there is no need for "profits" (which are really wages stolen from the proletariat).

Smith: Who compensates for the loss?

Obama: The taxpayers.

Smith: So doesn't everyone end up paying the same amount they would pay the insurance companies?

Obama: No. I said "the taxpayers," not "everyone." The rich have to cover it.

Smith: Who's rich?

Obama: People who earn over $250,000 a year. Wait, $200,000 a year. Wait, $150,000 a year...

Smith: But aren't these people often the entrepreneurs and investors who drive the economy?

Obama: Yes.

Smith: Why tax them?

Obama: Because it's not fair.

Smith: What's not fair?

Obama: That they make that much money when the average family at the poverty line only owns one television and most are not flatscreens.

Smith: But don't the poor usually not put as much into the economy?

Obama: They contribute just as much, you racist, classist, bourgeois swine.

Smith: Just askin'. What are you going to do about this situation?

Obama: Tax the rich and give to the poor.

Smith: How?

Obama: I'll start by signing a stimulus bill to jump start the economy. I'm also thinking of taking up archery.

Smith: Who gets the stimulus money?

Obama: The rich.

Smith: The rich?

Obama: The rich. Only they have to spend it on groceries. No business jets or office makeovers.

Smith: Or what?

Obama: Or we crucify them on national television before Congress.

Smith: But does it really matter to economic recovery how they spend the money as long as it gets back into the economy?

Obama: No.

Smith: So why do you care how execs spend the stimulus bill?

Obama: Grocers make less money than business jet manufacturers.

Smith: So we're back to wealth redistribution.

Obama: Such a harsh term...I prefer "enhancing socio-economic harmony with emphasis on the appropriate allocation of capital and the benefits there derived."

Smith: What does that mean?

Obama: Wealth redistribution.

Smith: Why not just let the people keep their money and spend it how they choose?

Obama: This way the government has oversight.

Smith: Oversight?

Obama: Oversight.

Smith: What's that?

Obama: Oversight?

Smith: Oversight.

Obama: I actually don't know. I understand it involves czars.

Smith: American or Japanese czars?

Obama: American, of course. I've put a high protective tariff on foreign czars.

Smith: I still don't get why the government should spend the money. Doesn't that mean that less money actually re-enters the necessary sectors?

Obama: Yes. That's why we are putting the Fed rate on the floor and deficit spending at the same time. We are "loosening the money supply."

Smith: Is that basically the same as printing money?

Obama: Yes. But it's more eco-friendly.

Smith: Does that cause inflation?

Obama: Yes.

Smith: Isn't that, well, bad?

Obama: Only for people who have been saving.

Smith: And they should have been counting on social security?

Obama: Yes.

Smith: But how does loosening the money supply actually help the economy?

Obama: It enables people to pay off mortgages.

Smith: Couldn't they pay them off before?

Obama: No.

Smith: Why not?

Obama: They couldn't afford the mortgages.

Smith: Then why did they get large mortgages in the first place?

Obama: People do silly things sometimes. You know, cling to guns and religion, vote Republican, listen to country music, pay attention to Rush Limbaugh...

Smith: And you are rewarding irresponsible finance?

Obama: Hey, hateful bourgeois scum, some of these people can't pay because they lost their jobs.

Smith: How does loosening the money supply help them? Especially if it devalues savings?

Obama: It creates jobs.

Smith: Jobs?

Obama: Jobs.

Smith: Will that work?

Obama: It already has.

Smith: Isn't unemployment at a thirty-year high?

Obama: No, I mean it got me elected.

Smith: Oh.

Obama: But job creation will save the economy.

Smith: If a job is economically viable, won't it already exist?

Obama: No.

Smith: Why not?

Obama: Yes we can!

Smith: Hm?

Obama: Yes we can!

Smith: Your grammar is wrong.

Obama: Well, CHANGE it!

Smith: You need a comma after the "yes." But quit dodging. Won't all economically viable jobs already exist?

Obama: If by "economically viable" you mean present without government intervention, then yes. We can.

Smith: Stop saying that.

Obama: I can do to you what I did to Rush.

Smith: No, you can't. I've been dead for three hundred years.

Obama: Whatever. Facts never really worried me. What matters is getting people employed. Then production will increase. Then the recession will end. Then I'll be crowned--

Smith: Isn't that what FDR tried?

Obama: Yes.

Smith: It didn't work.

Obama: Yes, it did.

Smith: No, it didn't.

Obama: Yes, it did.

Smith: Have you actually read a history book that some leftist professor did not feed you through a straw?

Obama: The Depression ended, didn't it?

Smith: Only because we had to blow up a few other countries (WWII) and needed the spike in production.

Obama: Well, there you go!

Smith: But the need for more production came first. It was followed by job creation.

Obama: In the absence of countries to blow up I propose job creation.

Smith: Shouldn't you encourage new enterprise by, say, cutting the capital gains tax?

Obama: No.

Smith: Why?

Obama: Because it taxes rich people.

Smith: But where will new companies get money if investment is discouraged?

Obama: From the government.

Smith: How is government money better?

Obama: Strings.

Smith: Strings?

Obama: Strings.

Smith: What are strings?

Obama: They enable the government to control the businesses.

Smith: And that's good?

Obama: Yes.

Smith: Why?

Obama: Because it enables the government to control capital and, eventually, all major industries.

Smith: Isn't that what Lenin did?

Obama: Maybe.

Smith: Didn't it fail?

Obama: Only when the government had to start killing peasants.

Smith: And that's okay?

Obama: If the peasants had ever received federal funding, you bet.

Smith: I'm sorry, but none of this is making sense to me.

Obama: Adam, Adam. If you can' t get the basics you'll never earn your degree in economics. And definitely not from a prestigious school like my alma mater.

Smith: Mr. President...

Obama: Yes?

Smith: If I weren't dead I'd be buying plane tickets for Switzerland. At least they admit to being socialists...

We who forget history...

2009-03-19T20:08:00.004-04:00

Democracies seem to consistently choose bad policies. Ever wondered why? Britain is a welfare state. The U.S. is well on the way. Don't even ask me about continental Europe. General economic theory dictates that the non-systematic error should all cancel, so why do we experience such acute issues? In other words, inept voters should all cancel each other out. But they don't. Hmmmm....

The problem, of course, is one of human nature. That, and the fact that humans tend to naturally faction. Someone once said, "Democracy endures until the majority discovers it controls the treasury of the entirety." Issues arise when people stop thinking like individuals and start thinking of themselves as "white people" or "poor people" or "feminists" and then start towing the party line. Why do the groups not cancel? People, in large groups, are dumber than sheep. An idea (government control of the economy) that wouldn't survive ten minutes in a discussion group can endure and become policy because of people's inability to think clearly and rationally in groups. In short, groups are easy to mislead.

This phenomenon was obvious in a relatively recent social event. A man managed to get elected by a large plurality, largely due to his promises of economic revival. The validity of his programs was irrelevant, what mattered was that he offered reform and many groups--if not necessarily many individuals--loved his ideas. The issues were gradually transcended by "image," largely a result of careful cultivation by those very supporting groups. So, he was elected and promptly murdered six million Jews and millions more of other minority groups. Very nice, Hitler. He was a good orator too...

Kind of makes you wonder, eh? How a population could just drop moral issues and focus exclusively on personality and a distorted view of economics? Makes you worried, no? The solution here is, as I have previously claimed, to get people to start thinking rationally and doing our own analysis instead of counting on Oprah.

By the way, if anyone did not get the culture reference, just contact me and I will hook you up with Rush Limbaugh.

Why not to wear heels to a speech and debate tourney...

2009-03-15T19:14:00.009-04:00

I am a competitive speaker and debater. I attend at least a few tournaments each year, and I am struck by how incredibly ironic a few of the aspects of the competition really are. Here are a few examples. I apologize to anyone who doesn't get the inside jokes. You'll come to realize that effective communication is a thoroughly alien concept to many speakers, myself included.

We begin with the first day of the tournament. Speakers pour in from several states and are all squeezed into such proximity that spontaneous fusion is real possibility. I thought I saw a petite debater actually be squashed out of existence between two boxes of evidence in Milwaukee. The reason for the crush? Everyone want to reach the table to Sign In. Signing In is a mysterious process, because no matter which line you choose you will be in exactly the worst possible place. If your last name begins with "g" you will end up in the "r" line and vice versa. This problem could be solved with signs, of course, but the signs are at the tables and the tables are inaccessible beginning thirty seconds after the doors unlock. Once one has Signed In one must proceed to Script Submission. Script Submission suffers from similar line confusion, but is made even more complex by the fact that the Submission Personnel must inspect every single script. This is difficult, especially when so many speeches are calculated to cause crying. I kid you not. Half of the speeches I hear at tournaments make Bambi look like a Red Skelton skit. Some of the Interpretives even make A Walk to Remember seem reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin's work. I think the people who work this station are either supernaturally gifted or simply fortified by preventative doses of Prozac.

The net effect of this process is to ensure that the tournament starts 20-60 minutes later than planned. Usually these minutes are spent, by the vast majority of the competitors, sitting around and waiting for Postings, the near-mythical sheets of paper that tell us where the rounds are and against whom we are competing. This is especially crucial in debate. Right before the debate rounds start, hundreds of suited teenagers pack the areas where Postings will soon magically appear, a bit like a bunch of giant penguins around a pile of decomposing fish. Unlike penguins, however, we treat the Bearer of the Postings with an almost eerie respect. Then, when the Posting is complete, we contemplate lifting him or her upon our shoulders and triumphantly parading him/her around the building, but mostly we just bolt for the competition rooms.

This activity deserves a paragraph to itself. Put yourself in my black dress shoes. The Postings go up. I am in Room SF 163 and up against a ferocious debater. Now, three factors come into play. First is the need for raw speed. Never underestimate the psychological advantage of being set up and coolly jotting down your value arguments as your opponent scrambles into the room. Second is the fact that the room is some distance across campus and on the far side of the building in which the Postings were placed. Third is the fact that both buildings involved are packed with scrambling people. The secret is to move fast and to never stop moving. I start down the first hallway, neatly dodging the first of two 12 year olds carrying unprotected chocolate ice cream cones randomly amongst the suits. The rest of the hall simply calls for footwork until I reach the first choke point. This is where LD debaters (who really don't carry much evidence) have a huge advantage over TPers who frequently have evidence crates the size of Chevy Impalas. I use my briefcase to wedge through the mass. Another debater uses my wake to slide through even faster. No matter. He tries to pass me as I clear the other side. I clothesline him with my Apologetics bag as we exit the clot. Splash one. The first point cleared, I head for the door. Like all doors in this building it is wheelchair friendly, meaning it is almost impossible to open the first few inches, after which it springs open and stays that way for a few seconds. I time my approach. The nearest debaters are six, maybe seven seconds behind me. I wait a half-second, trigger the door and dart through. I hear footsteps behind me quicken to a run, but I am down to the walkway and on the sidewalk by the time I hear a faint swoosh as the door suddenly closes, followed by a double thump. Splash two more. I approach the other building and see the unthinkable: the other debater is a girl and is almost as close to the building. Direct tactics of the type appropriate against male opponents are out of the question; chivalry is not completely dead, but I have options. I turn and detour across the still-soft ground, darting along a shortcut between buildings. She follows, and quickly pulls ahead as she follows an even more direct line along the wet surface. I see her high heels penetrate damp soil and hear the gunshot-like crack as one sheers off, followed by a bellow of rage. Splash another. I duck just in time as her briefcase whistles through the space previously occupied by my head. I am not quick enough to avoid the flung wreckage of a shoe, but by now I have a sizeable lead. I run up the steps to the destination building and manage to throw my case into the gap in the automatic door as it swings shut, holding it long enough to scramble through. More people are rapidly dispersing inside. One has a wingtip shoe protruding from his ear. I dive around a corner and tuck and roll as two TP teams collide and their evidence collections reach critical mass. The ensuing blast throws open the door to my room. I whip out my flowpad and notes, sit, and manage to scrape together my composure. One point three seconds later my opponent walks in. "Hello," she says, smiling. "Hope you haven't been waiting long." Both her shoes are intact. Spares, of course, but all in all a successful run. I was doing pretty well to take out one set. "Hi," I reply. "Not too long. Glad to see you got here okay. Some of these folks are barbarians."

This process repeats six times during prelim rounds for debates and four times for speech. The mood is less frantic on the subsequent days when we usually run on time. This allows for more effective use of elbows. There are also great shows of heroism and courage. Consider, for example, protecting the timers. Almost everything in this post is either hyperbole or mere fiction. Not this. Some guy off the street showed up after the end of a competition day and tried to steal the timepieces we need for both speech and debate. One of the moms, a small but evidently quite ferocious woman, managed to retain the timers. This cleptomaniacal creep is lucky, though, that he did not run afoul of either the tournament director or my mother. Remember the scene and the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark? These ladies have a stare that can melt your face clean off. Tournament directors deserve medals. If we ever get serious about negotiating with North Korea we should send in the Indy tournament director. She could stare steadily into Kim Jong Il's eyes and say, "You don't want to do that, Kim. I have the power to make you miss your round. I don't want to have to do that, Kim. So just shut the reactors down." It would work instantly, and the only thing we'd have to concede to North Korea would be a new pair of pants for Mr. Il.

Not everyone associated with our tournament has the Stare, but some other intimidating individuals are the judges. There are two types of judges: parent and community. Parent judges are people with kids in the tournament (but in a different event than the one being judged). Community judges are volunteers. Let me be clear here. Few judges are mean and without these fine volunteers tournaments would be impossible. The problem is that, while judging, judges often look quite intent. A lot of concentration is usually in evidence, and this frequently prevents laughter, a major downside when one's speech is meant to be funny. Nothing tops letting loose a joke that has three judges thrashing in their seats with laughter while the fourth clearly does not get it and the last is wearing an expression that implies he hates his life and speaker is Not Helping. Even worse is going immediately after a speech calculated to make the judges cry. Especially when yours is a funny speech. Here you are, telling funny stories and jokes to illustrate your points even as the tear stains are just beginning to dry. Just great.

Responsive judges are more fun in every event, but especially debate. My favorite judges are ones who nod when they like or agree with a point. This way, I have a good idea of how I'm doing relative to my opponent. A bit stranger, but still encouraging, are judges who nod all the time. I can say, "Hundreds of thousands are dying in Darfur because of blind idealism," and he just nods, slowly. My opponent says, "Well, millions are dying in Darfur because of evil pragmatism." He nods at exactly the same rate. I say, "The petaflop barrier has been broken because of Darfurian idealistic analysis of the Categorical Imperative's effect on climate change in conjunction with the ban on CFC's but only in months not containing the letter "e" and due to the increased levels of awesome following the release of Halo 3." He keeps nodding. Cautious probing with a pen reveals that the judge is animatronic. The real one is somewhere else in the room. She is playing with an Etch-a-Sketch and has already handed me the win because she likes my tie.

The last tournament went pretty well for me. I won Apologetics, Impromptu, LD debate, placed in a few other things, and got first overall. I love these events, but that doesn't mean they make sense. Still, hard to top in terms of sheer intensity, eh? Football has nothing on this...

Spread

2009-03-07T19:19:00.006-05:00

I did some reading today on Von Neumann machines. To any reader who is not a complete nerd, John Von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician born in 1903. He did some work on the Manhattan Project and the later hydrogen bomb project. Anyway, a Von Neumann machine is a device that, in addition to carrying out its primary function, is capable of self-replication. The only non-living Von Neumann machines in existence today are viruses. And, like Von Neumann's theoretical machines, viruses are generally not terribly good things to have around long-term. I'd contend that ideas are like Von Neumann machines. Richard Dawkins (someone of whom I am not fond) proposed that memes (cultural constructs) are capable of complex evolution and replication. This, I think, is the result of a much simpler idea. Rather, the result of two ideas.

First of these is the idea that ideas multiply and propagate. This should be fairly obvious. Let's say I decide that it is "cool" to wear hats inside out (and not just when the Cubs are behind). Suppose further I am someone anyone cares about regarding popular fashion. The idea to wear caps backward spreads to a few friends and then to a few more and so on exponentially until the entire hat-wearing population of the world look like idiots who can't figure out which way to wear caps. This wouldn't actually happen though, of course. Why? Because the idea of inverse hat-wearage lacks inherent force. To propagate, an idea must be one that can really spread itself. Consider democracy. Democracy, once established, tends to want to spread. The same is true of most religions. The ideas that endure are the ones that either claim to be necessary or that really bring some tangible benefit. In other words, the ideas that survive are the ones that shape their surroundings to encourage spread. If we regard ideas as Von Neumann machines, this second idea has some startling implications.

If ideas are capable of altering their surroundings and of replication, then we have an explanation for why ideas evolve over time. An idea arises under a given set of conditions and then alters them. Under new conditions the idea may or may not be capable of survival so it will have to change. The variants of an idea that survive will be adapted to the new environment will continue propagation and further alter the environment in a continuous cycle. This cycle occurs because an idea will invariably result in an environment ill-suited to its continuation. Democracy again provides an example. Democracy is popular (almost by definition) but democracies usually choose bad policies. This causes a new form of government (usually a less friendly one) to step in a restore power/order to a chaotic situation. Then the system slides back the other way over time.

What can we learn from this? Any idea, even after successful implementation, will tend to suffer distortion over time. This is why, if an idea is to last, it must be tied to something it is powerless to directly change. This, I assert, is where the U.S. Constitution failed. The ideas in the document were subject to interpretation, and interpretation was based in external conditions. External conditions were altered by the Constitution, and the feedback loop has caused some, ah, issues. The solution? No clue, except one. Contrive a system that cannot be altered by its own influences. Isolate an idea from its effects and allow it to spread to the limits of its jurisdiction. Thus, stability is attained. The drawback is that it limits the idea's operational lifetime. Unable to evolve, it will die rather abruptly. Still, this may be worth the cost if the idea can last long enough. An example of this would be a constitution with no means of amendment. Change would come suddenly but only after a considerable period. This may be preferable to gradual decline. Pick your poison. The world of self-replicating, evolving entities is a bizarre one, but limitation of evolution may delay damage.

Pool Pics

2009-03-01T17:35:00.002-05:00

These photos are part of my "motion experiments" project. They all involve high apeture and low shutter speed. The last one is probably the best, the other two would probably look better in black and white.

My computer crashed twice while I was writing this...

2009-03-01T15:05:00.003-05:00

I like computers. Really, I do. But I just don't understand some of their...eccentricities. Imagine if today's operating systems were cars.

Windows XP

This is a Volkswagen Microbus fifteen feet long with the engine of a Pinto. It's large, wobbly, cartoonish, and seems to heavy for the available power to move it an inch. Upon entering the vehicle we find large, squishy seat cushions in primary colors. They are actually quite comfortable once one overcomes the sensation of returning to kindergarten. Time to drive. Insert the key into the ignition and turn it. Three to five minutes later, the engine starts. Now gently press the accelerator. Nothing happens. But what did you expect? We need Service Pack One. Time to get out and push. After four hours of painful dragging, pleading, shoving, we manage to navigate the Macrobus to the Microsoft dealership. There we receive Service Pack One: 15,000 pounds of armor plate to protect against attackers. The engine now gives a sort of feeble moan when started. But not to fear, Service Pack Two has been released! It strips off the 15,000 pounds of armor plate and installs 15,000 pounds of Kevlar. Also included are extra rubber bands for the engine.

Windows Vista

This is a slight upgrade. Vista is a conversion van. It is painted an attractive designer color and has a smooth, understated interior. Lifting the hood, however, reveals that the engine in encased in a solid block of epoxy to prevent any amateur mechanics from tinkering. The overall effect, though, is rather better than XP. Now turn the key. A light comes on in the dashboard. "Are you sure you want to turn on Vista?" Hit yes. Five to eight minutes later, the engine starts. Now look at the gear selector. Your options are Documents, Pictures, Music, and Games. Click Music. The little light switches back on. "Are you sure you want to listen to music?" Hit yes, maybe a bit more firmly this time. It opens Windows Media Player, or WMP. If Iraq had been discovered to be developing WMP, Obama would not be President. Microsoft can get away with it. But your Vista system was not really meant for playing music or typing documents. No, it exists mainly to update itself. You can't turn in on, turn it off, or touch it without having to visit the dealership for chunks of armor plate until the smooth, designer interior looks like the inside of a blender full of random nuts and bolts. Even then, it asks, "Are you sure you want to attack your computer with an axe?" "Are you sure you want to withdraw the axe from the keyboard?" "Are you sure you want to prepare to swing again?" "Are you sure y--"

Mac OS X

This is a shiny white Lamborghini Murcielago. It's fast, pretty, and no one else you know owns one. Upon entering the vehicle, we find that the seats automatically adjust, the mirrors change angle, and the engine starts, emitting a low, powerful hum. You begin to pull onto the highway, anxious to put the car through its paces, only to be informed that the interstate is not Mac-compatible. It turns out that only 4.5 percent of roads in this nation will allow the use of your Lamborghini. Even more disturbingly, the car seems to drive itself. Everything happens almost magically and without clear input, although your checking account seems to be empty and mine is swiftly draining. It's been fun, but it is also time to move on to Linux. The doors will not open. The locks close again as fast as we can open them. Once you buy a Mac and "experience" it, there is no escape. Luckily for you, I remembered to pack an acetylene torch.

Linux

I'm not yet sure what the Linux car is, because all we currently have is two tons of assorted parts and assembly instructions derived by consensus. Its incarnations range from a Corvette to a Beetle. Thanks to my prodigious programming and system design skills, ours is a bird fountain with three awkwardly positioned wheels.

You'll note that the software industry is not receiving a massive bailout. Perhaps they are just not worthy. But I suspect that the government still uses a single, enormous, convoluted abacus.

5.56 NATO and the Hague Convention

2009-02-28T09:57:00.004-05:00

The Hague convention prohibits the use of weapons calculated to cause excessive structuring. This moratorium is construed to prohibit the use of hollowpoint rounds in warfare (unless the hollowpoint is for aerodynamic reasons). This makes about as much sense, in today's asymmetric warfare, as hand grenades made of cream cheese. Let's work our way down the reasons that the U.S. should adopt the hollowpoint 5.56 round and, ah, adjust its interpretation of the Hague convention.

1) Stopping Power

Currently, the standard round for U.S. forces is the 5.56 mm NATO round in either jacket (steel coated) or ball (solid, pointed lead) form. Fired from an M-16 or comparable rifle, this round develops a muzzles velocity of about 1100 m/sec and a kinetic energy of 7774 joules. This is the equivalent energy of baseball thrown at 706 miles per hour. More meaningfully, a 5.56 has the same momentum as a 210 mile per hour fastball. This is a fearsome amount of energy. Most of it is wasted. This bullet has a tendency to go straight through the target and continues downrange at a considerable speed. Now let's get something straight. When an insurgent charges a soldier with an AKS and who knows what else, what matters is stopping him as quickly as possible. This means imparting maximum momentum change into the target to create shock. A 210 mile per hour fastball will do this quite admirably. One that transfers only half of its momentum to the target will not. A hollowpoint round, on the other hand, expands on impact and thus becomes less aerodynamic upon entering the target and usually stops in it. Complete momentum (but incomplete energy) transfer occurs. This is why most people who carry handguns for self-defense use hollowpoint or softpoint ammunition.

2) Collateral Damage

This is a more serious issue. The 5.56 inflicts a lot of damage and, even in ball form, has formidable stopping power, but on passing through a target it keeps going. This is wasteful and extremely dangerous to anyone downrange. This bullet can go straight through someone, a few panels of drywall, and halfway into an innocent standing next door. A round that stops in the target is unable to do damage beyond the person hit.

3) Lethality

The irony of this is that, at least generally, ball ammunition is more likely to eventually kill the target than hollowpoint. Why? Think about it. How many holes does a person receive when shot by a round that stops in the target? One. When the rounds goes clean through? Two. And exit wounds are a lot nastier than entry ones. A person who is hit by a hollowpoint may be stopped cold, but provided a major organ has not been destroyed stands a decent chance of surviving. A person hit by ball ammunition is likely to bleed to death in the absence of professional medical help. This is even more ironic considering that the 5.56 was not originally developed to be consistently lethal. The reasoning was that in a war of attrition (say, with the U.S.S.R.) the enemy would have to spend more money and time treating wounded soldiers than burying dead ones. This logic is sound, but depends upon the enemy being able and willing to spend the time. Al Qaeda seems a bit reticent in this particular area, so we either end up treating terrorists ourselves or letting them die. I am a proponent of the least force necessary approach, and if we can instantly incapacitate an insurgent without necessitating either death or more expensive medical treatment, this sounds like a sound course of action to me.

My mother has a saying: "Use the proper tool for the proper job." Although she'd be aghast to find she'd been quoted in a post about the 5.56 NATO round, she raises an excellent point. We need to adapt to fight the war we are actually in, not the ones of thirty years ago. This means using the correct tools, and maybe a bit of common sense.

But wait, there's more!

2009-02-21T22:11:00.009-05:00

I hate infomercials. So I wrote one. I will give five dollars to whoever convinces Billy Mays to actually do this.

"Hi, Billy Mays here for UberOxiDiciPutty, the solution to all your household, global, and spiritual problems!" Random hand gestures that imply he is wearing invisible handcuffs and trying to stab you through the television screen.

"UberOxiDiciPutty is a Scientific Discovery made Right Here in America by German Engineers using Japanese Electronics and assembled by Swiss Craftsmen from Genuine Components." More gestures. The television creaks ominously.

"Do you have leaky pipes? UberOxiDiciPutty is the solution! Just apply it!!!!! So easy this untrained, unpracticed child can use it!!!!!!!!!!!!" Enter a frightened looking seven-year-old. She keeps glancing offstage, as though her parents are being held at gunpoint until she fixes the pipes.

"Here, Mandy--"

"I'm Stephanie."

"Whatever, brat. Now watch as Melanie mends those pipes in a snap!" The camera zooms in extremely close to the pipes so only Stephanie's hands are visible. They seem oddly large, hairy, and professional looking. The hands throw some UberOxiDiciPutty at the pipes. They stop leaking.

"And just like that Melanie fixes the pipes!!! Wouldn't you like to be able to fix your pipes?" Stephanie begins crying. "What's this? UderOxiDiciPutty can fix that!" Billy splatters approximately a kilo and a half of noxoius UberOxiDiciPutty into Stephanie's eyes. Her head bursts into flame. Parental voices cry out, followed by a scuffling noise and a warning shot.

"And just like that, UberOxiDiciPutty quiets upset children!" Stephanie manages to plunge her head into the tub of water awaiting the laundry demonstration.

"Why thank you, Melanie!!! I almost forgot!!! Even though I'm reading from a teleprompter!!! UberOxiDiciPutty is to stains as Rosie O'Donnell is to a buffet!!!" He grabs a pile of shirts that look like they've been home to a family of sick badgers for a few years. One of them is actually oozing something that looks suspiciously like warm roofing tar. Billy throws the entire pile into the water.

"Now watch the power!!!! Just one scoop of UberOxiDiciPutty can clean all of these clothes!!! They will look like new!!!" He tosses another handful of crud into the water. Smoke and steam erupt from the surface. A terrified badger scrambles out of the tub, it's fur falling out even as is mauls a cameraman. Billy pulls out a shirt, apparently from immediately behind the tub. It is gleaming white and has a faint halo of light surrounding it. He hastily yanks off the tag.

"Just like new!!!! No, it's better!!! This shirt is now imbued with the strength of UberOxiDiciPutty!!!! We stitched together a parachute from shirts treated with this amazing substance!!!" A skydiver leaps out of an airplane. We briefly see a parachute of shirts opening above him. The camera cuts to a skydiver standing on the ground, grinning. He gives a thumbs-up. He is wearing a different color than the diver who left the aircraft. The audio is indistinct, but screams are just discernible in the distance.

"And that's not all!!!!!! UberOxiDiciPutty offers the perfect means to prepare for inlaws and family get-togethers!!!" Camera cuts to a woman snickering as she balances a bucket of UberOxiDiciPutty on top of the front door. "Let's hear her mention my cooking now," she cackles. The ceiling over the bucket begins to blacken.

"Order now!!! $19.95 will get you a full tub! Two more payments of $19.95 will get you a tub full of UberOxiDiciPutty!!! But you must call now!!! Now!!! Now!!! But wait!!!! We will include, free, a set of premium asbestos cleaning gloves with a lifetime warranty!!!!!" Billy Mays passes out from lack of oxygen. His hands continue to gesture, causing the TV screen to crack. A small drop of UberOxiDiciPutty falls from the table and lands on his head. A faint sizzling noise begins. The badger, now completely hairless, darts over and begins to eat one of his hands. Stephanie throws a bucket of UberOxiDiciPutty over both of them. The result, ranking among the greatest moments in television history, levels most of southern California. She deserves a medal. She needs a wig.

The few, the many, and those ill-equipped to choose

2009-02-21T21:03:00.009-05:00

I am a Lost addict. One scene in a recent episode featured a rather substantial number of people on an aircraft that may have been about to crash. A character asked the person seated next to him what would happen to all those people. The other, in one of his priceless signature lines, answered, "Who cares?" This cold indifference to the possible deaths of a few dozen people struck me as simply evil. Then I thought about it for a while. No one could do anything to protect them. Even if they died, the cause for which they died is probably (nothing is certain on this show) more important than a few lives. Surely allowing the dozen to die to save millions is acceptable? Ah, utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher of the early and mid 19th century, proposed that an action is moral when it attains the highest good for the greatest number. Utilitarianism is, at first glance, a viable moral framework for at least the shaping of policy. Unfortunately, it is also flawed. The Second Law of Humanity (see January 27) and the Third Law both render utilitarianism ineffective and even dangerous.

1) People cannot always identify "the highest good for the greatest number."

People always, always base decisions on incomplete information outside the realm of mathematics. Consider, for example, a chess game. You are white, so you open. What to do? Queenside pawn? Kingside? A knight? Just run away because you are playing Matthew Sadler? The cold, unpleasant truth is that you have no idea of what the best move is. You might have a general idea or a "gist" of what a sound move would be, but you cannot plan the entire game and cannot foresee every outcome. The science of making decisions without complete information is called "heuristics." It is, almost by definition, the least precise science in existence with the possible exceptions of sociology and psychology. Let us say that Ebola breaks out from an escaped monkey in San Diego (lots of zoos there) and threatens to wipe out 80% of the U.S. population, but we can stop the spread of the plague by detonating a thermonuclear device over San Diego and killing everyone who is infected. Not exactly original, I know, but still interesting. On the one hand, we can save 270 million people by killing a few hundred thousand. But will we really? Can we be sure that the nuclear device will kill everyone? Has anyone already left San Diego? Will the outbreak just die out due to the inhospitably cold climate (relative to Congo)? We just don't know. Utilitarianism promises the end of moral compromise via precise measuring of cost and benefit, but all it offers is a set of mind-boggling probabilities and possibilities. Man knows not his needs.

2) People are incapable of detecting error once a choice has been made without an external reference point. People are also very, very selfish.

Consider, for example, an incident that occurred a few days ago. A man was pulled over by the police and later questioned by the Secret Service because he had an "Abort Obama, not the unborn" bumper sticker. (Here's a brain teaser: if abortion is not murder then how is this a death threat?) This poor guy was placed under investigation for expressing an opinion is way that was tactless but hardly disruptive or grossly inappropriate. Now we come to the crux of the matter: the government will continue to treat folks this way until given a reason not to. Unless someone loses a Senate seat over this, conduct will stay the same because the choice has been made and from the perspective of the people in power there is no reason to change it. Because the government has a different perspective than the people it theoretically serves the significance of external stimuli is not consistent between the two. SWAT teams accidentally breaking down the wrong door is a problem for the people in the house; it is not a problem for the government beyond some wasted time. What Congress perceives to be the greater good is almost certainly going to be incorrect from our standpoint and will remain incorrect until angry letters and petitions start showing up. Utilitarianism cannot be counted upon in government because "highest good for the greatest number" is a relative term from the beginning and is still further damaged by inertia and selfishness.

3) Utilitarianism cannot even be enacted.

I love game theory; it is one of the few elements of philosophy that functions with mathematical precision. Consider the following: two fighter pilots are over enemy territory. A formation of enemy fighters approaches. If both fighters stay, both pilots will be injured and both craft damaged but they survive and reach home. This outcome has a value of 2 for both pilots. (total of 4) If one turns and runs, he will escape but his wingman will die trying to hold off the fighters. This outcome has a value of 3 for the pilot who escapes but a value of 0 for the pilot who dies. (total of 3) If they both flee they outrun the enemy fighters but burn so much fuel doing so that they have to bail out over enemy territory and are captured. This outcome has a value of 1 for both pilots. (total of 2) Now imagine that you are one of the pilots. Should you stay or go? If he stays you are best off fleeing because otherwise you'll be wounded. If he flees you had better follow because otherwise you will die. No matter what your wingman does you are best off retreating. And yet, paradoxically, the best overall outcome is if you both stay and fight. The utilitarian outcome is only possible if both fighters stay. The actions that the pilots actually take will be based in self-interest and render an optimal outcome impossible. The optimal outcome occurs only when courage is added to the mix. This is rather ironic, given that utilitarianism is intended to replace all other value systems and cannot explain or support courage. Utilitarianism tells us to value the highest good for the greatest number but provides to clear means or even reason to try. People, left to their own devices, are not utilitarian. People subject to the will of a Benthamite totalitarian are not free and will likely attempt to become so.

Utilitarianism has a certain appeal, I admit, but recall what is paved with good intentions and utilitarianism is little more than a set of good intentions.

Professional sports and the prospect of alien invasion

2009-02-14T17:58:00.005-05:00

Football. Basketball. Baseball. We all seem obsessed with them. I am currently watching professional bull riding, and I'm pretty sure someone is obsessed with that, too. Why? Why do we pay money to applaud as grown men swat little balls or tackle each other or get mauled by 2000 pounds of angry muscle? We waste time, incur the wrath of PETA, and expend incredible resources to watch other people do stuff. Amazing? Obviously. Sinister, perhaps? I think so. It is clear that many "sports leagues" are alien conspiracies to convert us into helpless couch potatoes. Proof? You want proof? Let's start with a look at the people involved in professional sports, hm?

1. Plaxico Burress

This guy is an alien. The Giants' wide receiver was attempting to acquaint himself with earthling weaponry, but he did insufficient homework. As a result, he decided to carry a Glock without a holster, do this in New York state, and pull the trigger while the end with the hole in it was pointed at his leg. As most of my readers who are not aliens have likely deduced, all three of these acts were either illegal, stupid, or both. Surely a human earning a few million dollars a year would be smarter. The only logical explanation is that he is an alien without extensive knowledge of why holsters are important, what New York's laws are, and which end the bullets come out of.

2. Bret Favre

This alien is no longer involved with the conspiracy directly; the aliens did not anticipate that some of their people might actually develop a liking for football. Favre, in addition to subversively introducing the alien system of pronunciation, has become rather fond of his records. He keeps coming out of retirement to further protect them, and will continue to do so for the rest of his five-hundred year lifespan. Old? He's barely past adolescence.

3. Dennis Rodman

Look up a picture. Yeah...I don't think I need to say anything else.

But why? How does the aliens' support of sports benefit them in their ongoing quest to toast us and seize our planet with its scenery intact? Think about what sports do. They bind us, with ever increasing strength, to our couches decreasing our ability to protect ourselves. More importantly, they divide us. Millions of people hold deep, almost religious opinions, about stuff that does not matter. Cubs fans hate Cardinals fans. Aggies fans hate Longhorn fans. Americans own lots and lots of guns. The situation is the same in the rest of the world, except with soccer and blunt instruments. By my estimates, the Global Sports War, with no fewer than 1500 separate sides, will erupt in less than twenty years. When the dust settles, only people uninterested in sports will have survived. In other words, the only people left alive after 2029 will be monks. And most monks are really, really bad at blowing up aliens.

Is there a solution? Of course. We must give monks as many nuclear weapons as possible.

P.S. Come 2029, if you are a Patriots fan, you better hope somebody has mercy on you. I guarantee the entire population of Indiana won't.

Apex

2009-02-10T21:05:00.006-05:00

One common sentiment I often hear expressed (and admit to sometimes sharing) is the idea that human civilization somehow peaked a few decades ago and is now beginning an inexorable, horrific decline interrupted only by (a) the return of Christ or (b) the destruction of humanity.

This is nonsense for two reasons.

One: Egocentrism

The United States is in moral, political, and (largely for political reasons) economic decline. Unfortunate? Sure. The demise of all mankind? Hardly. India is on the rise. China (if democracy wins out) may be another great nation. Europe is falling apart but has been doing so for the last fifty years. The cold fact is this: change is not always decline. The Western world is diminishing; the Eastern is ascendant. We may as well get used to it and learn to live with the new order. We may even, through miraculous recovery, manage to slow the shift, but it's pretty hard to argue with population and nationalistic youth and vigor. Even if the United States falls clean off the world stage or embraces socialism (more) and is ruined economically, humanity will go on. Look at the decline of the British Empire. To the English it looked like the end of the world. Who even thinks about this today? It's amazing what a bit of perspective can do. The United States was waiting to fill the power vacuum and has, all in all, done fairly well. The world kept turning. The counter argument here is that the new rising nations are hardly supporters of human rights, freedom, and justice. Which brings us to reason two:

Two: Transience

Even if democracy and capitalism fall and the world is plunged into a new dark age, a new renaissance will follow it. Civilizations fall. How about them Romans, eh? The Roman Empire (and earlier the Roman Republic and earlier still Greece) was a truly amazing society, with knowledge and a passion for truth unmatched until the Enlightenment. What is left of the Romans today? The Coliseum (which actually is a symbol of decline and barbarism) and Little Caesar's Pizza. Life is tough. Countries are no more exempt to entropy than the people who comprise them. Everything dies, and sometimes death is painful. The fall of the Roman Empire triggered the Dark Ages. And guess what? We recovered. It took fifteen hundred years to reclaim some of the losses, but we recovered. Upheaval is not even truly death but rather slumber. Nigh all mistakes are reversible, any error healed by the passage of time. Is there pain, loss, turmoil? Yes. But there is no final end that we can bring about ourselves.

What is my point? Let's not get so enraptured by our own accomplishments and our own status and even our precious modern comforts that we lose track of the truth that matters. Life finds a way. The fall of the West is not the fall of humanity. Should we stave it off as long as possible? Sure. We can even mourn its passage on the day we fail. But we must do so because the fall is undesirable, not because it is the end of the world. The idea that we have reached the pinnacle of human history is unsupportable and distorts how we view the world. We all too easily forget that the only things that matter are eternal and universal. Our current civilization is neither.

Off with his head (only in French)

2009-02-08T14:29:00.005-05:00

I've been thinking about swarm intelligence. This concept forms a major part of Michael Crichton's book Prey. This novel is science fiction, of course, but the idea of swarm intelligence is still interesting and highly applicable to human societies.

The general concept of swarm intelligence is the idea that the interaction of multitudes of simple agents can give rise to complex behaviors. In Prey, this made Crichton's swarms of nanoparticles incredibly intelligent and capable of rapid evolution and innovation. In reality, it makes us very, very stupid. Because people are the exact opposite of a "nanoswarm." People are, as individuals, pretty intelligent. We can be misled, but are usually able to handle ourselves fairly well. People as groups are incapable of rational thought. Consider a mob. To find the IQ of a mob, start at 70 and divide by the number of people involved. Look at the French Revolution. The more violent aspects of this period were either mob-executed (literally) or mob-inspired. Random head removal would not lower the price of bread. This did not discourage random head removal. Why? The main problem with swarm intelligence is a tendency to lose track of goals. People as individuals may see and objective and work to overcome it. I see that the price of bread is too high for me to buy as much as I want to, so I'll fire off an angry letter to Robespierre. A mob sees that the price is too high and they whack off his head. End result? Thermidorian reaction and (gasp) the price of bread stays exactly the same.

What can we learn from this? I'd say that people are, as groups, not very bright. So, let us turn our attention to the idea of democracy. Democracy is based on the idea that the majority of people should determine a government's policies. There's nothing there about desirable or sound policies, what matters is that the people are choosing their own laws. This is interesting in light of the assertion that people are weakest intellectually in large groups. The obvious counter here is that I am making a false comparison; it's pretty evident that election day differs (usually) from the elimination of Robespierre. But the concept that people are more easily confused and misled in groups holds true. Why? Because people (collectively) get caught up in the same emotional rush that drives mobs and demonstrations. Think about the recent election of certain very famous, very popular political figure. The number of Obama supporters I found who could accurately describe his policies, let alone why they supported these policies, can be counted on the hand of a blind butcher. What mattered was that Obama generated a massive emotional upwelling in enough people that it self-propagated. A few people are enraptured. The sensation spreads to their friends, families, etc., growing exponentially with each degree of separation. By the end of the campaign, millions of people acting as the democratic analogue of a mob elected a man whose policies very few of them actually know. Interesting, eh?

This explains, in part, why I have never met a person with an extreme leftist view on gun control or national healthcare who has been willing to argue logically and with evidence. Little such support exists, but this is irrelevant simply because enough other people like the idea or think they do. Want to have some fun? Lock five Republicans and five Democrats in a room. Wait for one hour. Open the door and you will find at least fifteen different opinions. How do such people get into office? Because, collectively, people are frequently idiots. The opinions don't matter; what matters is the ability to stir people up via grandiose promises of "change" or "progress" or even "values" and to get out the vote.

Solution, anyone? America's system of democracy is based on the erroneous idea that people vote in a vacuum. This may have been close to correct in 1787, but it most certainly is false now. People are bombarded with everyone else's opinion (frequently an unthinking one) and before long their own disappears into the noise. We need to restore some measure of individualism. Only when people start thinking for ourselves again can swarm intelligence be neutralized.

EPIC FAIL

2009-02-07T20:57:00.009-05:00

Among the semi-literate exclamations of surprise, mockery, or dismay in current use is the phrase "EPIC FAIL." No, no, no. Don't read it like that. Drop your voice an octave or two. Slloooowww dowwwn... Form a mental image of someone you dislike incurring the wrath of a dozen rabid weasels. Now say it out loud a few times. Fun, eh? This term evolved to express the keen sense of "I'm glad that that didn't just happen to me" that so often accompanies video game playing and watching professional sports. Someone not get out of his foxhole when the plasma grenade got in? Epic fail. Break left instead of right and take a heat-seeking missile right through the cockpit? Epic fail. Throw a Hail Mary, have it picked off and run back for a touchdown? Epic fail. Pitch four consecutive balls to someone with a batting average lower than Katie Couric's IQ? Epic fail. But I suspect that epic fail is more widely applicable than just the realms of gaming and sport spectating. The first possibility that comes to mind is my own field of debate. I can just imagine the cross-ex:

Neg: So you agree that human rights can conflict with one another?

Aff: Sometimes, yes.

Neg: How do you know which ones to uphold?

Aff: Well, I guess it varies by the case...

Neg: EPIC FAIL! EPIC FAAAIIIILLLLLL!

(Dull thump as affirmative flowpad and notebook hit the floor. Sharp thump as affirmative debater collapses on top of them, quivering and wondering what just happened.)

Funny, yes, but it got me thinking about what an "epic fail" really is in debate. Looking at my flows from last tournament, I noticed something interesting. I only ever lost to one opponent, and she consistently addressed all the points as they were actually presented. Most of the debaters I defeated tended to use the straw man logical fallacy; they countered an argument that had not actually been made. This is annoying, mainly because of how common it is both inside and outside debate rounds. Real example from today's news:

Pundit 1: How does raising taxes help the economy?

Pundit 2: Ronald Reagan both raised and lowered taxes!

Fascinating factoid, Pundit 2, but also entirely irrelevant to the question. Note that P2 neatly sidestepped the question by implying that the economic boom following the Reagan administration was due in part to tax increases, but he does not address the fact that taxes decreased on the whole. He never actually gave an answer to the question. Here is an even better example:

Me: Why should we label semi-automatic rifles as "assault weapons" and ban them when they definitionally are not "assault weapons" and are used in almost no gun crime?

Angry Liberal: Guns are dangerous and assault weapons are even worse because they spray entire rooms with bullets!

Okay, three things here. One: AL made a flat statement (guns are dangerous) which is not really on point and is unsupported. Two: AL reused the term "assault weapons" (an extremely emotive phrase) which is not accurate and does not refer to the guns under discussion. Three: AL placed the stigma on the guns ("they spray") instead of the criminals. Suddenly the firearms are the whole problem, not the people who misuse them.

Note also a punctuation mark used in both examples: "!" This little mark is usually an indicator that someone is either lying to you or speaking irrationally. Solid argumentation does not need an exclamation point. Solid argumentation does not need an exclamation point! Notice the difference? The second statement sounds almost shrill. Gone is coldly incisive logic and rearing in its stead is the flare of human emotion. Most epic fails in argumentation are made quite spectacularly. Appeals to emotion tend to accompany the burning of straw men.

So, epic fails can be identified by attention to language and the sudden presence of inappropriate emotional intensity. How do you counter them? You can't. Sorry. Someone who makes an argument like one of the examples has already decided to Not Agree With You Ever Even If Hell Freezes Over Twice And The Cubs Win the World Series and nothing you do or say will sway them. Like we say in debate, "Don't try to persuade to other side. Persuade the judge." You cannot effectively hold a discussion with someone willing to resort to logical fallacies (perhaps even subconsciously) because they are both opposition and judge. Epic fail. Suddenly it's not quite as amusing. But this post is not all gloom. Most discussions do not happen in a vacuum. Usually there are observers, even ones sitting on the proverbial fence about an issue. Be alert for lapses in logic and argumentation and gently but clearly exploit them when they occur. Be a source of truth. Above all, please do not give in the urge to commit epic fails in your own speech and conduct. I see nigh as many errors on my side of the issues as on the other side. If enough people conduct ourselves according the standards of ethical debate, I wonder what we could accomplish. I wonder how much we could change and actually change for the better. Think about it. Maybe check out a book on logic and persuasion from the library. And don't play Halo against Xbox nerds unless you know how. My ear is still sore from all the "EPIC FAILs" I received.

I'm freeeeeeeeee...free fallin'

2009-02-06T13:19:00.006-05:00

I love theme parks. I didn't always much appreciate them; for many years I had this irrational fear of streaking straight down at 90 miles per hour in a vehicle designed by engineers not currently riding in it. Luckily, at Cedar Point I overcame this entirely groundless phobia long enough to discover I actually like roller coasters. I think that the lawn mowing I did over the summer finally killed off enough brain cells. Let us examine the theme park experience.

Step One: Travel

There are plenty of ways to die interestingly in Anytown, USA, but go ahead and travel a few hundred miles to visit Cedar Point. This way, you get to pay gas money to countries like Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, helping their struggling economies. In Dubhai the number of indoor ski slopes per capita has fallen to below 3.4, resulting in, well, I don't know what. At the end of the journey, you are faced with another opportunity to discard the bits of green paper you've been accumulating. This time, you shell out 100 bucks a night at a Super 8 twenty miles from the park. Most horrifying, you feel fortunate to have secured this rate. Perhaps this is because it pales in comparison to:

Step Two: Admission

Roller coasters are just barely visible over the horizon as you are directed to the nearest available parking space. Most parks have parking lots that make Kansas look positively cramped. Last year more people starved to death lost in parking lots outside Cedar Point than in all the world's natural deserts combined. Haggard and weary, you reach the gate only to be asked to surrender any and all cash you might be carrying. 401(k)s might also be confiscated. Decurrencied and searched to make sure you aren't smuggling food into the park, you are free to enjoy the wonder, fear, adrenaline, and pure joy of:

Step Three: Lines

If set end to end, the lines at Cedar Point would wrap around Rosie O'Donnell and Al Gore combined. We waited nearly two hours for one ride even though we went on two of the slower days of the season. Even more ferocious than the length of the lines are their contents. Horrifying as it may sound, these lines of composed of living human beings, among the strangest elements in the known universe. The denizens of lines provide great entertainment, but more than once I felt like calling for security and, on rather more occasions, the CDC. In line for the Maverick (a coaster more fun the Sarah Palin in a Gander Mountain without security cameras), we got to listen, for an hour and a half, to iPod Man. I should clarify; iPod Man is in no way associated with Apple Computers. I think he might be associated with the clinical trial of an inhibition-lowering drug that works a bit too well. For ninety minutes he listened to his iPod, happily belting out the lyrics at random intervals. Everyone would be minding their own business, standing around and pretending they weren't contemplating making a break for it, when suddenly a voice would launch into "He Reigns" a Newsboys song of which I used to be moderately fond. In a fantasy world, everyone would have joined in and a Billy Graham-style revival would have swept Sandusky, Ohio into the New Millennium. In this world everyone looked slightly nervous and resolutely avoided eye-contact. A real shame, I think. Creepiness aside, I give this guy credit for at least being willing to show some sign of worship in public.

Step Four: Things Man Was Not Meant To Know

After the two-hour line comes the two-minute ride. The rides themselves always have vaguely ominous names. Case in point: The Corkscrew. I admit, most of the mental images that come to mind are not positive. The common corkscrew's application beyond the realm of wine bottles does not bear contemplation. I like my nasal passages the way God made them. The coaster is nowhere near as sinister as the name implies; it simply contains a corkscrew-shaped loop. Now consider the Mantis. A mantis is a bug. It's not even poisonous. So the coaster won't be too vicious, right? Well...the Mantis is a coaster on which the riders stand astride a bicycle seat-like saddle and underneath a shoulder harness. The seat ratchets up, the harness ratchets down. The problem here is fairly evident to anyone familiar with classical American humor. The harness will invariably be a bit too low and the seat a bit too high. Add four g's and the situation is suddenly not funny at all to the victim and an absolute scream to whoever is standing next to him. I'm just glad I was the guy standing next to him. And don't even get me started on Top Thrill Dragster. Too late. Hah! This ride features a line slightly longer than the total length of the track. I wonder why, because TTD consists solely of a hydraulic launch system, a 400-foot tall hill, and a few dozen foolish victims. They recommend you leave behind easily lost things like limbs before boarding.

In summary, we give up time, money, safety, and sanity to simulate falling to our deaths. It just seems to me that there is an easier way.

Putting Jason Bourne's kids through college

2009-01-31T19:51:00.003-05:00

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.

We are all going to die

2009-01-30T16:20:00.007-05:00

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.

A briefer history of time

2009-01-30T15:30:00.007-05:00

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 Joy of Meddling

2009-01-28T20:41:00.004-05:00

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.

Sermon Material #1

2009-01-27T21:43:00.004-05:00

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.

The four laws of humanity

2009-01-27T07:29:00.006-05:00

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.

Cell phones and the prospect of alien invasion

2009-01-22T20:56:00.008-05:00

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.

All things work according to their nature

2009-01-21T17:09:00.014-05:00

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."

The wild blue yonder

2009-01-21T10:56:00.006-05:00

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.

MLKing it for all it's worth

2009-01-19T17:32:00.005-05:00

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.

The slippery slope logical fallacy

2009-01-18T15:03:00.016-05:00

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.

In the beginning was the word...

2009-01-17T21:54:00.005-05:00

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.

It's the end of the world...tickets now on sale

2009-01-17T13:52:00.011-05:00

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?

Of Mice and Men and Economists

2009-01-17T12:46:00.001-05:00

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.

Pets and the prospect of alien invasion

2009-01-16T22:11:00.003-05:00

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?

CBS and Predicting the Future

2009-01-16T21:44:00.001-05:00

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...