Les Singes

Superiority Complex

2009-11-17T16:18:00.004-05:00

So, I guess the President bowed to the Japanese Emperor, and I guess this is a big deal somehow:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/17/pruden-obama-bows-the-nation-cringes/

I guess he's shown too much respect to other leaders as well, although I didn't notice the BREAKING NEWS when that happened.

I'm just curious, since when does showing respect correlate to expressing weakness or servitude or whatever? Since when do you have to act like an asshole in order to retain the dignity of your position? Do you really think that anyone is going to forget that Obama is the President of the most powerful nation on Earth just because he bowed?

For that matter, if you were really concerned about the sanctity of the President's dignity, then what are you doing criticising him? You can't bash him with one hand and then get pissed that he doesn't demand the utmost respect with the other. I mean, I don't agree with Obama on a lot of things, but at least I'm consistent.

To bring it down to a level most people can relate to, if I step into my boss' office, he usually greets me with "Sir" - I'll bet this is pretty common, as several of my former bosses did this as well. I don't forget that he's my boss when he does this. I don't respect him less as a result - in fact, I respect him more. If he acted like an arrogant prick, I'd respect him less. See how that works? I'll bet pretty much everyone would have that reaction, whether you're Joe the plumber or Emperor Akihito or Barack Obama. They're just men, you know. It's not like Barack Obama is some sort of god, he's just a dude, and as a dude, he's subject to the rules of politeness that normally govern dudes. It's really pretty irrelevant how powerful a dude he is; it wouldn't give him the right to be a douche.

I'm pretty sure the Oaths of Office don't include the phrase "I will be a jackass to all foreign officials." I could be wrong, though. I also thought humility was supposed to be a virtue; personally, I'd like the most powerful man on Earth to be pretty damned virtuous, wouldn't you?

Human Rights, Part 2

2009-04-21T13:01:00.000-04:00

So, let's see where we can get on this front. In order to avoid confusion, I will attempt to establish the convention of using "right" only in the sense of "a right", as opposed to "right and wrong." I will attempt to use synonyms whenever I desire the latter definition.

To start with, we should define what it means to have rights. A right, by definition, is something that you are entitled to at all times and without regard to any circumstances, correct? It is something that should never be taken away, regardless of any conceivable excuse. Then, we have certain modifiers such as civil rights or human rights. These, presumably, are rights which we are entitled to by virtue of possessing the appropriate quality; civil rights pertain to anyone who is a citizen and human rights pertain to whoever is a human. These rights cannot be taken away, so long as the person in question retains the appropriate quality - if a given person ceases to be a citizen, they are no longer entitled to civil rights, and correspondingly, if a given person ceases to be human, they are no longer entitled to human rights. For all practical purposes, this latter condition will never apply, so we may consider "human rights" to be those rights which it is wrong to take away from anyone, at any time, under any circumstances. This is the only definition I can think of that really makes sense; if anyone has another one or a modification to this one, feel free to add it.

I am aware that this runs contrary to the accepted use of the word in such cases as "rights" to free speech, assembly, arms-bearing, etc, because those "rights" can in fact be taken away; my contention is essentially that this is an improper use of the word. If it can be taken away, then why was it being called a right in the first place? The word becomes largely meaningless in this context.

This is one reason why I was hoping to avoid this discussion earlier - obviously with this definition, we will end up with very few human rights to consider, since there aren't a whole lot of things that people are unconditionally entitled to. I really don't think I can come up with a single one that is invariably acceptable, although the right to life is probably the strongest contender.

Human Rights

2009-02-20T15:40:00.000-05:00

I was having a conversation a few days ago in which an interesting question was brought up: do people have a right to reproduce? I was unable to come up with a definitive answer for this question, so I thought I'd post it and see what everyone else's thoughts are. The context was a debate over the idea of compulsory, but reversible, sterilization for all citizens as a social policy.

On the "yes" side, I believe involuntary human sterilization is generally regarded as an atrocity, from what I know of it occurring under the Nazi regime and scattered incidents of punitive sterilization, and certainly it (and its potential abuses) seem like pretty bad things. However, I cannot really come up with a convincing reason why this should be so. The ability to bring life into the world is probably one of the largest responsibilities a human being can have, after all, and as such, the unrestrained proliferation of this ability has the potential to cause a great deal of suffering - we have only to look to the innumerable cases of single mothers, broken families, etc to see the misery that it can and does cause. I'm not sure why such a huge responsibility should be regarded as an inherent human right.

Say we implemented a policy that all males were to be sterilized at birth. Then, according to some set of criteria, when the individual is deemed "fit" to reproduce, the sterilization could be reversed. This criteria could range from the mild to the Orwellian - it could be a simple age restriction (based on when a person is on average "settled" enough to have a child), it could be a combination of age, financial situation, and marital status, or it could be done on a case-by-case review basis. This final option, in my mind, would be the most ideal setup, although obviously it is also the most prone to abuse.

On a larger scale, it is also easy to see the advantages of involuntary sterilization. I'm positive that the following ideas are considered...shall we say "taboo," but again, I'm not certain why. If we were able, as a society, to choose who among us could reproduce, we could in effect reinstate natural selection without inviting the pain of death back into our lives. I promise, I'm not a neo-Nazi, but if we're totally honest with ourselves, and assuming that my previous idea that we do not have an inherent right to reproduce is correct, can we really argue against a eugenics process? We could ensure humanity's survival by tailoring each generation to be stronger, faster, and smarter than the one before; and what would we really lose?

The main objection that I can see is the simple "we shouldn't be playing God" objection, which, while I do agree to some extent, I see more as a plea for caution than a moral imperative.

Obviously there are immediate emotional responses to such an idea, and I'm not suggesting that it is any way likely or feasible for this to be introduced as a serious proposal. There are also simpler, less Orwellian ways to achieve a similar result, like, say, a free, easy, 100% effective contraceptive; I'm sure the majority of "undesirable" pregnancies are probably also unwanted. Free abortions would probably also achieve a similar result - the book Freakonomics proposes that the legalization of abortion was responsible for the crime drop in the 1990s. I'm just curious as to the actual ethics of this particular concept.

Semantics

2009-02-13T15:38:00.000-05:00

Speaking of semantics - the economic stimulus.

I just have one thing to say:

It's not investing if I take 5 dollars from you and then give you back 3.

That is all.

So Greedy, Foul, and Infantile

2009-02-06T15:06:00.000-05:00

I generally try to keep up on the most important news of the day. I don't watch TV, but I check news websites about once a day during the week. I saw a link to a story titled "Cambridge Girls Booze and Sex Shame," which, naturally, I had to investigate further. Midway through the article, the following list appears:

Other snaps to have emerged from Cambridge's bizarre boozing rituals show:

- a male and female student simulating oral sex simultaneously in front of a historic university building in broad daylight
- a male student proudly holding up two jugs filled with his own vomit and
- male and female students frolicking with midgets dressed as Oompah Loompas from the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The vile photographs, taken earlier this year, illustrate the twisted initiation rituals students must go through to enter some of the top university's clubs and societies.

I think that list probably should have been looked over a second time; I'm pretty sure frolicking with Oompa Loompas doesn't qualify as a "vile" activity; twisted, maybe, but vile, not so much. There's a fairly large gap between the offensive quality of the first two examples and the third one.

I guess you could interpret it as offensive to vertically challenged individuals, but judging by the use of the word "frolicking," we must assume that it was a consensual activity. With the number of stories we read about people dying during actually dangerous initiation stunts, I think we can chalk this one up as relatively harmless...

Absurdity

2008-12-23T22:07:00.001-05:00

I have officially become frustrated enough to make a new post. Technically this belongs in my conversation with Tao over at the Atlantean Conspiracy, but in the event that this rant would even be read, it would be sure to be interpreted as rude (to be fair, it is rude) and surely wouldn't be welcome in that forum. Therefore I shall use the power of the Internet to rant on my own forum, in which I define what is welcome.

"Tao" over there, who appears to be a regular commentor (although I am not, I have read a decent number of old posts, and his name appears as often as any other), has finally expressed an opinion which I cannot call anything less than insanity. He has postulated that the universe is inherently unknowable, and to use rationality is "irrational." In the interests of being fully accurate, I have quoted his statements below:

"feeling over rationality: I'd rather be feel happy than be right, and as no one can know only guess then it is a good place to sit."

"In a universe that ultimately no one can ever know, then to use rationality is entirely irrational."

To start with, the universe is knowable. To deny this fact is nothing short of insanity. It is impossible to function at all without accepting this. There is no point in eating if you don't know whether it will satiate your hunger; there is no point in drinking if you don't know whether it will slake your thirst; there is no point in Mr. Tao pressing the "post" button if he doesn't know whether it will put his post up or not. When I push my foot against the ground, I know that I will move forward; otherwise, I would never walk anywhere. If Mr. Tao truly believes the universe is irrational, then he might as well wave his arms as his feet in order to cover distances, he may as well press "delete" as "post." The fact that he does things with clear intent, as he must in order to survive, indicates that whatever he may say, he knows that the universe is rational and follows rational laws. It is impossible to live without this. The rationality of the universe is apparent not only in the sciences, but in every minute of every day, when events proceed in a predictable manner.

Now, I know there are mysteries. We don't know why gravity exists. We don't know what the smallest particle is. We don't know if matter is particles or waves, or both. So what? It doesn't matter how or why it happens; it just matters that it happens rationally. If I hold a ball 5 feet off the ground and then drop it, it will fall. I don't have the slightest clue why it will fall; but I know, with absolute certainty, that it will. And so does Mr. Tao. A denial of this is indicative of what I can't describe as anything but an underlying insanity - a denial of what you know to be true.

On to the second thing that irks me: "I'd rather be feel happy than be right." This...saddens me, actually, more than it irks me. Man is reason. Reason is that quality which distinguishes man from beast. Without reason, therefore, man is not man, he is beast. To deny our reason is to deny the gift we have received (from God or evolution, I don't care what you believe) and relegate ourselves among the animals. A lion might as well shed his teeth and claws and live with his prey. I cannot comprehend why anyone would willingly do this to themselves. Why don't we all just get doctors to induce artificial comas and set up intravenous dopamine drips? You'd be feeling real good for the rest of your life - setting aside for the moment the little problem that the universe is unknowable and therefore, so is your brain, and therefore, dopamine is as likely to stimulate agony as pleasure.

It's completely absurd. Sorry for the rant.

Memes.

2008-04-13T23:19:00.000-04:00

A while ago I was challenged by a certain amateur philosopher to respond to one of these "meme" things - a challenge which I have, thus far, failed to undertake. This changes tonight.

Three out of the four options, while intriguing, didn't interest me enough to make a post about. Sorry bro. The one I'd like to respond to is the following one:

2) You are a selfish, bad person. Odd, I know. We don't think of ourselves this way, but can you honestly tell me one good thing you have ever done? Something which was good in and of its self but didn't do ANYTHING for you personally? Not even make you feel good? This one gives me the heebie jeebies.

What I find interesting about this is that this is the exact conclusion I came to about human behavior a couple years ago. I think, actually, that I did a post about this once; the idea that seemingly altruistic behavior is not actually altruistic, but in fact a selfish act designed to either make you feel good or prevent you from feeling bad. I believe the discussion on that post turned to the topic of the martyr, and how in order to be a martyr, you must either be religious or confused.

It seems to me, from looking at all of these ideas, that the only way to be absolutely certain that you are a selfless person is to become a martyr, while not believing in a life after death. People who believe in a life after death can't be certain they're good people because that act could simply have been selfishly intended to get them into Heaven. Only by actually becoming a martyr and giving up your life can you be absolutely certain that the act wasn't intended to get a good feeling or to avoid guilt.

Of course, the trouble with this is, up until the very point where you die, you can't be certain that you're good, and after that point, well...it doesn't really matter anymore, because you're dead, and there is no afterlife. I suppose there might be an infinitesimal instant between before death and after death, when you'd know you were a truly selfless person, but...man, that sucks.

To take this further, people who die for a cause aren't really selfless, because they are simply dying for something that they know they want even more than life itself. It's still something they care about, and something they want, so they are achieving their own goal in death. So really, the only way to know that you are truly selfless is to die for a cause that you know you hate.

I think I'd rather accept the possibility that I'm selfish...hopefully that in and of itself isn't selfish...shit!

On Inquiries.

2008-04-07T16:05:00.000-04:00

I have a bad habit of talking to people about philosophical issues. Strictly speaking, it's not the talking that's the problem; it's how worked up I get over the question. I tend, especially after a round or six of Beirut, to get extremely excited about whatever deep question might be brought up. I have gotten into lengthy discussions on several occasions, which invariably last several hours and involve me speaking loudly and at great length, explaining to some poor, unsuspecting soul why their beliefs are wrong.

Now I, of course, think that I am perfectly in the right to pursue these discussions. I find it infinitely fascinating to discover truth by means of conversation and reason. I don't think I'm hypocritical about it - I think, actually, that I have modified my own ideas with every discussion, occasionally in a fairly important way. For instance, this weekend saw a discussion in which I came to the conclusion that the universe will have an end, while trying to discuss the beginning of the universe with someone else. I find it somewhat ironic that at the end of this discussion in which I probably spoke 75% of the time, my worldview was probably the one, out of 5 in the room, that was most modified. In any case, that is not the point...

I find it very interesting - and occasionally frustrating - how uninterested people are in ascertaining truth in this fashion. After my presentation of a logical argument, the rebuttal, more often than not, consists either of an emotional appeal or a simple "no, I don't think you're right." It is strange to me that anyone could be content to continue believing in a worldview that the light of reason very handily defeats, even when this is shown to them. If someone were to come up with a reason why my own worldview is incorrect, I think I would want to know... how could I be content believing something that wasn't true? The rejection of reason especially shocks me in today's world, when people often pride themselves on having a "scientific" worldview, and not blindly believing in false deities or what have you. These are discussions that I have with university students, who one would think would have some interest in the pursuit of knowledge, who have not the slightest interest in discovering some of the most fundamental truths of reality. Often, they get offended if you even attempt to discuss such things with them, as if it's a personal insult to suggest that they might be wrong.

Is it not the most important quality of the scientific method that theories must be able to withstand a barrage of tests under all possible conditions? In an age of science, I would expect this kind of attitude to extend to the more fundamental searches for truth, as well.

Insurmountable Obstacles

2008-02-07T09:59:00.000-05:00

It seems Israel is going to proceed with a plan to secure its border by building a fence along its 150-mile border with Egypt. There has also been talk of fencing the US border with Mexico, although I didn't follow the news closely enough to know whether that went forward or not. Apparently, fences are becoming a common method of securing borders.

I'm a little worried that this is the best idea we can come up with. I don't know about you, but I've been jumping fences since I was a kid. It's really not all that difficult. Unless they're worried about terrorist midgets, this doesn't strike me as a particularly effective measure.

You know, over in China, they made a fence too, only that one is 4,000 miles long, 25 feet high, and 20 feet of solid rock thick. This was a couple thousand years ago. Now that wall could keep people out. Build that along the border with Mexico, and then we'll talk, but I really don't think we should protect against terrorists the same way we protect our houses from being T.P.'d.

Extrapolation.

2008-01-31T09:49:00.000-05:00

A little while ago, I was involved in a discussion on abortion which had five people up until 4 in the morning. I don't intend to start the discussion over again here, but I do want to talk briefly about something someone said during the conversation that has bothered me ever since: the classic "no uterus, no opinion" appeal.

Now I understand that this is a powerful debating tool, used to argue that the opinions of about half your detractors don't even matter, but as a logical argument, I find it quite frightening. What this statement essentially means is that if something doesn't affect you directly, you can't have an opinion on it. I don't think this needs a whole lot of examination to show that it's a frightening concept, but let's take a quick look at what results from this standpoint...

Probably the most poignantly, I, as a man, can no longer have an opinion on things like rape. As a white man, I can't have an opinion on things like racial discrimination. As a member of the middle class, I can't have an opinion on things like welfare. If you accept "no uterus, no opinion," then logically, you should accept all of this, too, correct?

I think that in itself is enough to debunk the whole idea, since I do have opinions on all those things that don't affect me directly, and I'm sure 95% of white, middle class men do too. I find it interesting that I would never be yelled at for stepping out and saying something like rape, racism, or poverty is wrong, but if I were to put my opinion (which really isn't very hard-core anyway) on abortion out there, it can be discredited because I am a man.

Also, not to overreact, but I do think that this idea, if it were to be accepted by a logical populace, would inevitably lead to the downfall of civilization. Society is based on things like compassion and sympathy, and cannot function without them. The Social Contract is all very well, but I don't think that it alone could support a civilization without being augmented by compassion. Compassion and sympathy mean caring about things which don't affect you. We cannot have a culture in which people don't care about such things, and even if we could, I don't think I'd want to live there.

I guess in a way it's fortunate that the populace isn't particularly logical, then, so everyone won't reach that conclusion...of course, if everyone was logical, then the issue probably would never be raised...

I Hate Pigeons.

2008-01-22T07:46:00.001-05:00

Well, the good news is, I don't need an alarm anymore. These little pricks wake me up at 6:30 every morning with their damnable "coo"-ing.

I tried to find the Invader Zim pigeon chase scene...no luck.

Is it Really that Surprising?

2008-01-17T17:03:00.000-05:00

So, every morning at work, my coworker turns on some public radio station or another and listens to a program called "On Point." On this program, they discuss various things which don't really have any pattern at all. A couple days ago they spent an hour talking about bananas. Today, they spent some time talking about the recent investment in U.S. banks by foreign countries.

If you are equipped with two functional ears, you probably know that the U.S. is supposed to be headed for a recession caused by rampant loan defaults. Banks and financial institutions have been hit pretty hard, posting some pretty big losses in recent months. If you happen to pay any attention to financial news, you also know that some of these companies have received very large amounts of cash from places you might not have expected - the Middle East and (although I never saw this news story, they say it's true on public radio) China.

I just find it pretty funny that people are surprised by this. As far as I can see, this is an inevitable result of trends dating back to the end of the Great Depression. I'm no economist, to be sure, but this seems pretty obvious to me. Correct me if I'm wrong:

Since the Depression, the U.S. economy has been fueled by debt. Massive government spending was credited with getting us out of the Depression, both by war spending and (often pointless) civil infrastructure projects. This puts our government deeply in debt, debt from which we have not recovered from, and certainly don't seem close to recovering from. Government spending has continued and even accelerated, miring the government further and further in debt.

The economic theory that we currently use (at least as I was taught in high school - and I see no reason to doubt this as of now) is also based on debt. Low savings and high spending leads to higher GDP. Borrowing is one way of increasing spending; this is why when the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates, it's considered an economic stimulus - when rates are low, people borrow more money, and then they spend more money.

The average American also lives a life of debt. Home loans, credit cards, and student loans are something practically everyone in this country lives with. Our entire society is based upon this culture of debt.

Now I can't argue that this is all bad. Certainly it's done wonders for our economy - we're the largest economy in the world, yet we produce practically nothing. We do nothing for the world besides consume and invest. But all of this, our whole system, our whole way of life, is based on debt. There is nothing substantial to any of it. The fact of it is, if you owe more money than you have, you're essentially living a lie, spending what isn't yours. Most of us are like this: living on borrowed money, spending money we don't really have. Our entire system is based on nothing more substantial than a promise - a promise to pay money which, in all likelihood, doesn't exist, but is backed only by another promise, which is backed by another, and so on.

I admit that this is pretty awesome. We've basically built this whole system on nothing at all, and we're feeding all of our 300 million people by it. But it's pretty obvious that it's a house of cards. It may be the biggest and most powerful house of cards in the world, but it's still fragile.

Places like the Middle East and China, on the other hand, while they aren't as powerful as us, are built not on promises, but on real goods and real profits. Where we spend and consume, they save and produce. Saudi Arabia is rich off of exporting oil; China is rich off of exporting labor. They become wealthy by extracting real money from the fake systems of the U.S. It's genius in a whole other form, really. The ultimate result seems inevitable - eventually, the producers of the world will surpass the consumers. Then, when the consumers begin to falter, as is happening now in the US, the producers can infuse the consumers with a small amount of cash - a small amount which may keep the economy limping along for some time, all the while buying more from the producers, who continue to rake in massive profits. It's quite genius. With minimal investment they maintain a status quo which is making them very rich. Not being an economist, I can't say that this is what will actually happen...but I think it seems likely.

Even without formal economic training, however, I think I can tell that the culture of debt has a timer attached to it. It can't be possible to maintain an economy the size of ours purely on debt for too long. Now would be an appropriate time to champion drilling in ANWR, I think...

Oh, and what's really funny is that people are looking to the Fed to fix things by lowering interest rates. Because the best way to get out of a credit crisis is - you guessed it - borrow more money!

I could be a lot Angrier if I wasn't so Jealous.

2008-01-07T15:48:00.000-05:00

It seems another comic lawsuit has been filed. A bunch of Texans have filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for not keeping their Xbox Live servers up during the holiday season. The plaintiffs claim that their "suffering" can only be repaid by a sum of $5 million.

I don't think I need to comment on the ridiculousness of the situation. If I so desired, the writer at Ctrl-Alt-Del pretty much said it exactly as I would. What I really need to say is, why didn't I think of this? I don't own an Xbox, so I couldn't very well sue Microsoft...but I've played MMOs. Servers have gone down while I was playing, and been down when I wanted to play. If someone had told me that this was an example of suffering and I deserved compensation in the millions of dollars, hell, I'd have filed this suit. A couple million for not playing video games for a few weeks sounds great to me. I wonder, maybe I can sue my parents for grounding me....

But we Sacrifice Like Lambs

2008-01-03T00:09:00.000-05:00

Tax Reform

2007-12-24T21:50:00.000-05:00

Everyone hates taxes. There is nothing about my financial situation that pisses me off quite as much as getting my paycheck and seeing exactly how much money the government has dug out of my pockets. Not only that, but in the US at least, taxes are a pretty complicated procedure. I have no clue how to do anything with taxes except pay them and seeth with impotent rage about it. So I'd be pretty open to the idea of tax reform.

Apparently, Mike Huckabee has a plan for this. He has embraced the idea of a national flat sales tax of 23%, instead of the current system. Now I don't know if 23% would be enough to support the monster that is the federal and state governments of this "free" country, but it occurs to me that the adoption of such a system would have one major bonus: the dissolution of the IRS and all related government organisations. There wouldn't really be any way to commit tax evasion; there's no income to lie about or tax returns to file. I'm not sure how much it costs to run the IRS, but I'd bet it's a hell of a lot of money. It would take a more informed man than me to figure out how much that would offset the much larger total budget, but in theory, it seems preferable.

Such a system would also remain progressive - people with higher incomes would still pay more taxes. Not because they have higher incomes, exactly, but because they would (theoretically) be spending more. The percent of thier income that is taxed might be less, but the absolute amount of the tax would be increased. This would mean that everyone would always retain the incentive to make more money; there would be nobody bent on making no more than $49,999 so that they stay out of the $50,000 tax bracket.

The article mentions that this system would be an incentive for people to save money, since it is a tax on spending and not on income. This makes sense to me, but I am under the impression that our economy improves by increasing spending, not reducing it. Rampant spending and lots of debt fuel the fires of the US economy - more spending means more income and more GDP. Not to say there's anything wrong with saving, exactly, but I wonder if excessive saving would save us from the credit failure we're supposed to be entering, only to plunge us into a completely different kind of recession, where people just don't spend enough money.

Seriously?

2007-12-07T00:09:00.000-05:00

I just saw a very disturbing video on the Philosopher-King's sheeple-liberating friend's web page, although probably not disturbing in the way he intended most of those videos to be.

In this video, some psychologist guy designed a zombie-shooting game intended to put the player into a "catatonic trance." When they finally get someone to play the game and they pass out (still standing, by the way - a little suspicious), the psychologist comes out of hiding, puts the player onto one of those hospital beds, and wheels him over to a set designed to look exactly like the video game. They leave him (again standing up with a paintball gun in his hand - even more suspicious) and blow a horn to wake him up. After the subject runs around for a little bit trying to find his way out of this creepy place he's woken up in, doors around the room open, and people dressed as zombies come out, walking in the zombie fashion and groaning for brains. Shockingly enough, the dude freaks out and eventually starts shooting them with the paintball gun.

I'm not sure if this was supposed to be surprising or something, or if we're supposed to be shocked at how easily this guy started shooting at people, but come on... what would you do? If you woke up in a strange room surrounded by deformed people who looked like zombies and kept coming at you while groaning for brains, what would you do? Most people would be freaked out if a single hobo came up and tried to touch them. I don't think his reaction was surprising at all...

What was surprising was what happened afterwards. Eventually the psychologist dude came out and put the subject into a trance again (by putting his hand on the guy's face and saying something - also suspicious), wheeled him back to the video game machine, and woke him up again. The subject looked around at his friends and said "awesome game!"

His friends, by the way, didn't try to stop this at all, but actually helped the psychologist do all this crap. Which is also suspicious, because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't let some random dude do this to anyone I know...

So basically, I have two questions for everyone. First, isn't this illegal somehow? Second, what would you do if you woke up in a room surrounded by zombies?

Genius!

2007-11-15T03:02:00.000-05:00

Facebook is a pretty popular network these days. Personally, I don't use it very often, but whenever I do log in, I usually have 10 or so invitations to various groups or events, most of which I ignore without reading. Sometimes, however, a group catches my eye as intriguing: 1,000,000 Strong for Colbert, for instance, or I bet I can Find a Million People who Dislike George Bush. I was reading through the discussion board of the latter group, chuckling to myself at all the comments, when I came across a link that I just could not pass up - a site called Kill Bush.

I imagine you can all figure out the agenda of this site without much help, but what I found really funny (besides the fact that sites like this exist) was a clever grammatical device they used in one of their stories. It's pretty apparent that whoever made the site is not exactly a grammarian, as the majority of the text is wrong in some way or another. However, a phrase that I noted immediately was the figure they cited as the number of people Bush has killed, or something like that: "tenths of millions."

This is pure genius.

I actually didn't even notice when I first read it what it actually said, until, a few sentences later, it occurred to me that the entire population of Iraq is something like 30 million. I admit I haven't been keeping up on the death tolls, but I think I would have heard about it if a third of the country had died. The author of this article has come up with a way to inflate figures without actually inflating them: use fractions that sound like big numbers. The next time I complain about my tuition bill, I'm going to say that I'm in debt by hundreths of millions of dollars. Maybe I can get a tax break that way.

Either that, or the author actually meant to say "tens of millions," and just sucks so bad at writing that he/she didn't notice that they used the wrong word. That's probably more likely.

"So what are your opinions on the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the precipitation of World War I?"

2007-11-05T14:37:00.000-05:00

I imagine if the Treaty of Berlin had remained inviolate ad infinitum, the entire issue might have been avoided. Alternatively, I suppose if the July Ultimatum was never sent, the fallout of the assassination, while still throwing Austria-Hungary into chaos, would have been significantly alleviated for the rest of the continent.

I never actually expected someone to respond to that question...

Well, I suppose in any case it's better than "would you believe me if I told you I was black from the waist down?"

Sometimes I wonder...what do normal people talk about?

I am an Idiot.

2007-10-30T18:31:00.000-04:00

So apparently the Boston Red Sox won the World Series sometime over the weekend. Through an unfortunate coincidence of assignments and exams, I somehow managed, despite living in downtown Boston, to remain completely unaware of this until today. I didn't find out until I walked into my Introduction to Philosophy elective at around noon, mentally running through everything we'd learned up until now, since we were supposed to have an exam today. I entered the room, only to find it empty but for the professor, who informed me that on account of the celebration in progress downtown, the exam was cancelled. Instead of administering the test, he handed out a couple questions and told us to do them at home and email our answers to him at our leisure, as long as he gets them by Friday afternoon. So rather than taking an exam, the class gets to go celebrate with the Red Sox. Well, except for me, of course, because I still had a road to design by 4:30.

Why the hell aren't I a philosophy major??? I'm fairly certain none of my engineering professors would cancel an exam so that the students could go get drunk before noon.

Question...

2007-07-20T18:33:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I went to the library in an effort to follow in my more philosophically-minded brother's footsteps and read The God Delusion. I am interested to see what he says, as I have heard him described, albeit hyperbolically, as the greatest thinker of our time. Unfortunately, the book was checked out, and so I settled instead for another book by Dawkins, entitled The Selfish Gene. I am probably about 3/4 of the way through it, and so far it is interesting and I have had almost no major disagreements with what he says. He focuses on evolution with respect to the genes of an individual (his catch phrase is the "survival machine", manufactured by the gene to facilitate its replication), and appears to be able to explain the theory pretty well as far as I can see. I do, however, have one big question about evolution which I have not found in his book thus far, which perhaps someone might be able to help me with. Natural selection is pretty much a universally accepted principle nowadays, and it seems perfectly sound to me - using Dawkins' language, genes which produce flawed bodies would fail to reproduce themselves and become less numerous in the gene pool, while genes producing fitter bodies would become more numerous. Eventually the unfit ones would die out completely and the species could be considered to have evolved.
The problem with this is the enormous complexity that we observe in the world. Evolution can explain species changing, but it does not seem to explain them growing more diverse. In fact, Dawkins himself points out that genes which fail to replicate themselves perfectly would become less numerous in the gene pool. Natural selection does not account for variation, it should actually eliminate it.
Suppose an animal's (say, a giraffe's) habitat is suddenly changed in such a way that only by having a long neck could it survive. We are inclined to say that the species develops and "evolves" a longer neck, but this is not how it happens. In reality, giraffes with short necks die off and giraffes with long necks live. This is the essence of natural selection. While we could say that the species "evolves" a longer neck, all that really happens is that the average neck length increased, because you killed off all the animals with short necks. The genetic makeup of a giraffe did not really evolve; that's like saying a school gets smarter when the stupid students drop out. No individual student will get smarter - it is only the average which increases. In the same way, a giraffe's neck could not get longer because giraffes with short necks died out. The giraffe could only have developed its long neck if there existed, prior to the need for a long neck, at least one individual of each sex within the population with the long neck that we see today. After the change, all the other giraffes would die and only these relatively few would be available to "rebuild" the species in their own image, namely, that long neck. But that neck would not, barring extremely fortuitous genetic mutation, be longer in the next generation than it was in the previous.
Natural selection can take advantage of an existing variation within a population to change the average genetic makeup of that population, but it cannot actually perform a feat of evolution as it is purported to have done. Proponents of evolution then seem to be left with random mutations to provide this variation which natural selection can then choose between. It is my understanding, however, before reading Dawkins' book, that mutations are incredibly rare and random occurrences which are overwhelmingly more likely to harm an animal than help it anyway, and in addition, Dawkins himself seems to say that gene mutation should decrease through evolution, as it is only genes which replicate themselves to the most reliable extent possible that persist through the ages.

Anyone care to explain this discrepancy to me? I may not have much respect for Dawkins, but too many other learned people are staunch supporters of evolution for me to dismiss it readily. I feel as though I must be missing something.

Damn It, Ray!

2007-05-16T22:06:00.000-04:00

So I've just watched the YouTube rendition of Ray Comfort's ABC debate with a couple atheists. I'll admit I only watched part of it (I got too pissed off to finish the whole thing), but one question struck me pretty quickly: Why are the people we see arguing for Christianity on television always so stupid? I know at least a dozen people who could have done a better job than Mr. Comfort in that debate, and half of them aren't even really Christians. I should mention that I'm not too happy with the atheists either (although I think one of them was at least smarter than Ray), but the burden of proof was not on them, so all they had to do was find out how Ray screwed up... a much easier task.
What really gets me is that I think Ray started out with a good point; the idea that when we see a building, we know there was a builder - when we see a painting, we know there was a painter. And then he does something really stupid. He uses this to say that since we "prove" the existence of a painter from the existence of a painting, we can "prove" the existence of a Creator from the existence of Creation. This is where he pissed me off. The atheist on the other end of the debate made the point that we can call the builder or the painter, while we cannot call the Creator.
Almost a good point, but this doesn't really prove that the builder built this or the painter painted this. Now what Ray could have done is said that it is reasonable to believe that the painter and the builder are not lying to us, and whatever documentation exists is accurate. We therefore take it on faith that the builders and painters we call are not lying to us, and that the documentation was not forged. We cannot prove this; but it is reasonable to believe it. By the same token, you could say that it is reasonable to believe in a Creator. You could say that we take things on faith every day of our lives - why are we so opposed to taking something like the existence of God on faith? But Ray doesn't do that. He continues to pretend that he can prove scientifically the existence of God, when really it is impossible to prove almost anything at all. Scientific proofs are not about what it true anyway, they are about what it is reasonable to assume is true. If people could see this, then they could make much more intelligent arguments.
People like Ray's biggest problem in these debates is the burden of proof; if they would stop thinking of it as proof and start thinking of it as reasonable belief, maybe they'd get somewhere. Or maybe they still couldn't go anywhere with it. I don't know. They might not be smart enough to ever get anywhere. I just wish we could start finding real intellectuals to consider intellectual.

"I wanna dedicate this book to my dick"

2007-04-29T21:48:00.001-04:00

Excuse me while I laugh hysterically.

Guilt; the Destroyer of Good Deeds

2007-04-29T13:19:00.000-04:00

I've decided that Uriel is right after all. People, by and large, are hedonists. But I don't just mean the prostitutes and tax collectors; I also mean the lady who helps out every week at the homeless shelter, and the boy scout who helps that lady cross the street. Ask somebody who does these "good" deeds why they do them, and you will, nine times out of ten, get a response similar to "I like helping people." People who do good deeds inevitably feel good about doing them; people who do bad deeds inevitably feel guilty about doing them. This does not, of course, prove that these consequences are why people choose to do good deeds and not bad ones, but once we accumulate a certain amount of purely circumstantial evidence, it would be foolish to ignore it.
Now I'm not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing. Certainly the homeless person doesn't care why that lady helps them every week, and that lady doesn't care why the boy scout helps her across the street. Our motives do not affect the consequences of our actions upon society. I think it does, however, affect the inherent goodness of those actions. A good deed done out of fear of guilt or out of desire to feel good about doing it is no more a good deed than a criminal sentenced to community service. It has good effects; it is not a good deed. It is, in essence, hedonism. And a hedonistic act that helps society is no less hedonistic because of that.
Through mechanisms such as guilt, we are programmed to do these "good" acts not out of selflessness, but out of our own selfish desires. I'm not arguing that guilt is a bad thing - our society depends upon said mechanisms to remain stable. As the Good Reverend once said, "People without guilt are called 'criminals'." However, it seems to me that only in a world without guilt can any truly selfless act occur.

The main flaw that I see with this idea is that of the martyr; or more specifically, an atheistic one. People like the ancient Christians or the modern suicide bombers do not count, as they believed they would receive their reward in Heaven. After all, what's a crucifixion or two compared to eternal bliss? But a true atheist who sacrifices themselves without any hope of a reward, now there's a problem. By the argument this post presented, the only reason an atheist would give their own life is that they are so afraid of the guilt they'd feel otherwise that they would rather die. Which, of course, is possible, but I don't think it would be provable.
Oh well. It was kind of a depressing idea anyway.

tDoI, Part Two

2007-03-27T18:42:00.000-04:00

I'll come right out with it - I have been accused of being a racist. Rather than defend myself against this woeful injustice, I have chosen to respond in a far superior manner - attacking the person who accused me.

As someone who grew up in the age of computers, I spend a decent portion of time "on-line." This necessarily involves some degree of interaction with other people who spend time "on-line," and, of course, when people come together under condition of anonymity, disagreements must necessarily arise (The folks over at Penny Arcade lend their insight to this issue here, if you are interested). During one of these interactions, it seems that I fell victim to Mr. Gabriel's theory and said something that came off the wrong way. Frankly I don't see the offensive quality of my comment - I said "peace niggas!" before going "off-line" one day - and if anyone is really offended by that, they have much bigger problems than my racism to deal with. But anyway, that is actually not my point.

I was later contacted by someone who had heard of the incident. The first thing he asked me - and I laughed about this for quite some time afterwards - was "are u black?" Despite the aforementioned warm blanket of anonymity, I chose to tell this man the truth (if some random blogger is reading this, I'm about as white as it gets), after which he proceeded to chew me out and inform me that I should never say anything like that.

I have been waiting to see this person - who, I'm told, is black himself - again, so that I can ask him this question: "What would you have done if I had lied and said that I was black?"

The Definition of Irony

2007-03-27T18:14:00.000-04:00

One of the interesting things about riding the subway or the bus around here is the newspapers people always leave in their chairs. Today, on my ride home, I picked up one of these papers and saw a story about the trial of two men for a shooting four years ago. Apparently, they were aiming for a man on the train, missed, and ended up - accidentally - shooting a pregnant woman in the stomach, killing the unborn baby.

They have both been convicted of first-degree murder and now face life sentences.

I don't think I really need to draw the comparison here, but allow me to quote a statistic from Wikipedia to make it painfully clear what I'm getting at: "According to the Centers for Disease Control, there were 854,122 legal induced abortions in the US in 2003." Of the people who - purposefully - performed this near to a million abortions, how many do you suppose are now in prison for life?

Only connect!

2007-02-28T23:07:00.000-05:00

I think the subway might just be the saddest place in existence. Nowhere else can you see so many people completely devoid of all emotion. It always amazes me when I look around at all the people who are concentrating so very hard on not looking at anyone. They stare at the advertisements. Listen to their IPod Nanos. Pretend to be sleeping. There are only so many ads on the train, you know - I think I've read them all about 50 times now. They're not really all that interesting. It's just something to look at so you don't have to make eye contact with the person across from you.
It reminds me of the song "Dark Blue," the refrain of which contains the words "have you ever been alone in a crowded room?" It's interesting to see so many humans with so little...humanity.

And that is the whole of my sermon.

"I Gotta Jet"

2007-02-25T16:58:00.000-05:00

As you may know, this Thursday was the last episode of the show "The O.C." When I first heard of this program from my roommate last year, I thought it would be retarded and refused to watch even a few moments of it. Then a friend across the hall had a guest who happened to have the first two seasons on DVD. It was one of those situations where it's 2 am and you have nothing better to do, so we decided to watch one episode or another, I don't remember which. Anyway, at the end of the episode, when everyone else decided it was time to go to bed, I took the guy's DVDs and went back to my room, where I proceeded to watch one episode after another until 11:00 the next morning.
When the guest left and took his DVDs with him, I found someone on another floor who had the disks and watched his. When he got annoyed with me having his stuff all the time, I bought my own. For the next week, if I was not eating, sleeping, or in classes, I was watching the O.C. I saw the entire first two seasons in that week.
I was not impressed with the series finale. I actually didn't even watch the whole thing. The last two seasons have been little more than a mockery of the show's former glory. I will admit that I was a little sad on Thursday as I watched the O.C. come to an end, but it was not because I would never see a new episode. Rather, it saddened me to see such a good show in ruins.
So here's to the first two seasons of an amazing show. The candlelight vigil will be on Tuesday.

Rise of Zit Boy

2007-01-19T19:22:00.000-05:00

I recently had the inordinate pleasure of watching the popular television show "American Idol." On this program, "wannabes" and "gonnabes" exhibit their talent, or lack thereof, to a panel of judges who unerringly target and mock those who show some degree of imperfection. I especially like it when they burst out laughing before the contestant finishes. Classy.
The popularity of the show, of course, comes from the people who absolutely suck. People with no talent whatsoever who come on the show and embarrass themselves on national television. And then they have the nerve to act disappointed when they are not chosen to be stars. This is the show where I saw an overweight, unattractive girl with absolutely no dancing talent attempt to perform a ballet routine. As I recall, it resembled a huge, hideous egg rolling about on the stage. She also threw up off the edge halfway through.
I am convinced that no human being is this stupid. No one in their right mind thinks they will win this thing. Clearly they are being brainwashed. Who is the culprit? Parents. That's right. Instead of encouraging your child's ambitions to succeed at something they suck at, share with them the wise words of a modern-day prophet: Tyler Durden. Instead of saying grace at dinner every night, repeat his words: "You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake." Let each child know, let them truly believe, that they are indeed "the same decaying organic matter as everything else."

Maybe then we wouldn't have to bear witness to this hideous montage of humiliation and shame.

Tributaries

2007-01-19T18:38:00.000-05:00

For your information, I've been fighting Mom to stay away from my laundry since I began high school. I am convinced that somewhere there is a massive box where she collects all the socks she has siphoned from me over the years. Pure evil, I say!
I would also like to point out that before January 2, 2007, I had not seen the hour of 6:30 am in at least a year and a half unless I was staying up a few hours later than normal. Unlike the residents of the arctic North, I am not accustomed to leaving my room before the sun comes up and returning after it goes down.

Gambling

2007-01-18T22:13:00.000-05:00

In keeping with my elder siblings' tradition of whining about things that piss them off, I have decided to discuss something that annoys me to no end: gambling. I don't mean the kind of gambling that most people think of; I've nothing against poker or Las Vegas or putting a few bucks on the game. No, the gambling I speak of is of a much more sinister nature. Indeed, it is so vile that few even recognise what it is. I tell you now, I am one of those enlightened few. And while the burden of this knowledge is a heavy one, I am confident that you, my worthy disciples, will be able to handle the strain.
Let me first make one simple clarification of how I define gambling. When you enter into an agreement with another person or organisation that if one event happens, you get their money, but if another event happens, they get your money, you have gambled. The implication is that some element of chance is involved - if there's no chance you could lose, it's not a gamble. I think this is a fairly reasonable definition. If anyone has a problem with this, please, let me know so that I can express my complete disregard for your opinion.
Now, consider how casinos make their money. You're all aware; the odds are massively stacked against the gambler. The chances of winning are significantly lower than the chances of losing. You can tell this because the casinos consistently make large amounts of money. If they didn't win most of the time, they would not be in business. The gambling I speak of operates on the same principle, except on a much larger scale. The customer base of these companies is enormous - it is actually required by law for most people to gamble with them.
What companies, you ask? The insurance companies. These places make tons of money. Berkshire-Hathaway, which you may know as Warren Buffet's company (Forbes' 2nd richest man in the world), a company whose stock is currently worth over $100,000, is an insurance company. People make deals with these companies saying that if they get hurt, the company gives them money; if they don't, then they give the company money (actually they always give the company money, but the end result is the same). Per my earlier definition of gambling, I hereby accuse people who fraternize with insurance companies as gamblers. That's right. You thought your old man who blew his paycheck down at Foxwoods was bad? You're just as bad, because you are sinking massive quantities of your own paycheck into a similar gamble. Really, it's a worse gamble, because you're betting that something bad is going to happen to you.
For some reason people do not seem to understand this. Insurance companies make money by preying on people's fears. Statistically speaking, you are as likely to collect on your insurance as you are to win the lottery. And the insurance company is going to raise your premiums if you do collect. Most people are simply too afraid to play the odds. They live their lives behind the bars of insurance, too frightened to step out into the freedom of statistical analysis.
Instead of cowering in a corner and wondering "what if I get cancer?", try canceling your insurance and putting the money you usually spent on premiums into a bank account. Even better, invest. Earn 15% off the money you were previously throwing in the trash.
Now normally I would not be mad about this. All you infidels are welcome to give away as much of your own money as you like. I couldn't care less what various ill-advised investments you make. But when I get a letter advising me that I am required as a student to have health insurance, then I get pissed off. A year ago I wasn't allowed to gamble, and now I am required to? Whose idea was this?

Time waits for no man

2007-01-18T19:33:00.000-05:00

I regret to announce that Mandal Man has passed away. He took his own life some nights ago, after a tragic encounter with a band of monkeys which left him maimed almost beyond recognition. He felt he could no longer stand to live after the humiliation. What can I say. Shit happens.