A Long Long Time Ago

It appears that Penrose, for all the derision his claims can generate, is a pretty fucking smart dude. His theories that the Big Bang wasn't, in fact, the beginning of everything, and that traces of past universes can still be seen, has borne fruit: there is now evidence in the cosmic background radiation of events that happened before the Big Bang.

Excuse me while I go listen to some appropriate music.

Go on - steal yourself!

This is absolute gold:

Derren Brown: The Heist

I fail to see why this guy hasn't conquered the world.

Liberty and Transhumanism

Consider the story of Andrew and Bob:

Andrew is the victim of an oppressive theocratic government where he lives, where the religion states that it is a holy commandment that one's right arm should be permanently tied behind one's back, and thus has only the use of his left arm. Other than this bizarre edict, the religion has few rules, and Andrew's life is otherwise entirely normal.

Bob lives in the country next to Andrew's, under a normal government. However, a chemical spill near his hometown had contaminated the groundwater shortly before he was conceived, and, as a result, he is born without his right arm.

Who is more free?

Let us consider it like this: who is more hampered by their problem? It is actually fairly equal, with the tiebreak going to Andrew, since it is more likely that Andrew will regain the use of his right arm at some point than that Bob will gain the (entirely new to him) use of a right arm. So we thus conclude that Andrew is as free as Bob, as Andrew's problem limits his actions in the same way that Bob's problem limits his.

Now consider Charlie and Dan:

Charlie has been condemned as a political dissident in his country, and the ruling government has implanted a microchip in his brain in such a way that any political thoughts Charlie might have are blocked by the action of the implant.

Dan was born in a freer country without systematic oppression of dissidents, but he has a peculiar brain defect that means he physically cannot comprehend political statements, and cannot think political thoughts - the necessary circuitry simply doesn't exist.

Again, the conclusion we reach is that Dan and Charlie are equally free - the sets of thoughts they can think are identical, and the sets of actions they can pursue are also identical.

So we can conclude that cognitive and physical ability is a key component of freedom, as opposed to just a lack of legal barriers to your actions. Whether a fish lives in an aquarium or in the ocean, it is less free than a human being (even someone living in a shithole like North Korea), by the very nature of our cognitive abilities. We are more free than they could even imagine being. Thus, by extension, superhuman AI (and transhumans), particularly if qualitative improvements on human intelligence are possible (as I believe), are by the same token inherently more free than any human can even imagine to be.

The Strong AI Project

I hear many definitions of the goal of the General AI Project, but the most common is that the idea is to build a 'thinking machine' that possesses a self-aware mind. Unfortunately, self-awareness is not a trait observable by an outside viewer. So I'm going to state my own goal for the General AI Project: the obsolescence of humanity. The weak goal is to reach a state where there is a machine that is capable of performing any task faster, better, and more reliably than any human (excluding dumb things like 'wiggle its toes' since a machine probably won't have anything like toes), with a heavy emphasis on cognitive tasks. The strong goal is to create a machine that is qualitatively better at thinking than we are - a machine that is to us as we are to mice or goldfish. Only when the weak goal is achieved will we be free from the tyranny of work, and only when the strong goal is achieved will we be able to develop along lines currently unimaginable to us. In the end, the goal is not scientific, nor is it material in the commercialize-and-turn-a-profit sense; it is rather humanitarian and utilitarian.

Of course, this means we'd probably better pair these goals with the Friendly AI Project, whose goal is to create mechanisms that will prevent a superhuman AI from simply getting rid of us for whatever reason it comes to.

The Banality of Stupidity

Recently I got an awful shock to my already-low assessment of the mental capabilities of my fellow man. I had thought that there were indeed depths to which some intellects could or would not sink - after all, our world functions (barely, but it does), and in any case there are some people who should simply know better than what they say. I thought that at least people would have some knowledge in the areas that they study and work in and would be able to avoid the stupidest most blatant pitfalls - that the average plumber or carpenter would not necessarily know anything about politics (and thus be one of the 40% in Delaware deluded, ignorant, or just plain dumb enough to vote for the witch Christine O'Donnell), but if you ask them about plumbing or woodworking you'd get decent answers. Even in a more nebulous, less well-defined and more debatable expertise like Economics or Philosophy, I would expect a certain level of competence or cleverness, even in the absence of common sense. After all, I'd expect the average freshwater economist to have some grasp of micro and some knowledge of basic models even if they wouldn't understand how to respond to a recession properly, and I'd expect the average Objectivist philosopher to understand Ayn Rand's arguments and positions despite not understanding that said arguments are clearly batshit insane. Well, it turns out I was wrong: working in, and even having power and status in, a profession like finance does not necessarily translate into ability to tell obvious fact from obvious fiction; studying economics does not necessarily translate into something as basic as the ability to distinguish a meaningless sentence from a real argument. I was confronted with a series of baffling mistakes and plain hostility from two people who really should have known better.

I attended a networking event hosted by prominent investment banking firm XYZ (I do not wish to name names, so the investment firm and all parties involved will be referred to by pseudonyms). This was the kind of event where you dress up in suits, get some promotional material, listen to a talk, eat small snacks and chat it up with various employees and officers of the bank. I arrived and all was well. We sat down to hear a speech given by a very high ranking officer at XYZ, a certain Mrs. A. She had, prior to moving to XYZ, worked at another prestigious investment firm ABC until it went bankrupt during the crash of 2008. Her speech was the usual mix of platitudes and pep talk - not particularly noteworthy in any way - until she dropped this bombshell: [I paraphrase for clarity] "The financial crisis of 2008 was an event that was 12 standard deviations away from the norm. I asked around for an analogy when I came here and the analogy I eventually got was that a 12 standard deviation event was like flipping 100 coins and having them land all tails. We will thus never see another crisis like this again".

My piss started to boil. It was crazy, and demonstrated a total lack of understanding and critical thinking. A 12-sigma event, as it is called, is amazingly improbable. That there was even one financial crisis of this magnitude suggests that it is far more frequent than her estimate; the fact that a larger one occurred, not to mention several lesser ones, proves it beyond any doubt. And the assertion that we would never see one again - how on Earth could such a claim be made? Asset price bubbles are hardly uncommon, so where's the basis for this?

Then the floor opened up and the vaunted networking began. I suck at networking. I can never make a good impression, even when I give my best efforts, so I decided to take a risk and ask her about her ludicrous statement. I figured, 'hey, it'll get their attention'. I made a beeline for her and waited for an opening to ask my question.

My question, it must be stressed, was not rude in any way, and I had a real question, not just "you totally failed to comprehend the mathematics and logic behind your false statements". I simply pointed out that the fact that the crisis did happen meant that another one was very possible and asked what steps XYZ was taking to protect itself from the next such crisis.

I absolutely did not anticipate what happened next; I guess I hit a sensitive nerve. Mrs. A immediately began vehemently explaining to me that the federal reserve failed to do its duty, and did not protect ABC when the time came. Aside from the fact that the federal reserve has no obligation to bail out private companies when they go bust, this tirade didn't answer my question in the slightest. I wasn't accusing her of triggering or mishandling the 2008 crisis in any way; she just felt like she had to defend her work in ABC or something. I just wanted to know what lessons were drawn from the experience, but she seemed determined to shift the blame away from where I hadn't put it - I hadn't even raised the issue of what triggered the crisis! Not particularly useful for me to figure out how XYZ actually dealt with the 2008 crisis and how they planned to avoid or weather the next.

During this increasingly agitated speech on the precise mechanics of the 2008 crash (and she got pretty emotional several times), Mrs. A explained that it was not a natural phenomenon. It was (and I quote directly here) a "man-made event". I gleaned from this sentence that she was actually defending the unlikely (not to mention dangerous) notion that recessions of this magnitude were destined to never happen again. I also gleaned that she had not the slightest idea what she was talking about, as it is the most banal and thoughtless explanation I can think of.

Okay, Mrs. A. The crash was a "man-made event", as you say. Great. I have just a few questions: (a) the financial and asset markets are run by people; what, exactly, would a non-man-made crisis have been? A volcano erupting on Wall Street? And (b) how do you back up the implicit claim that because it is man-made it won't be appearing again? Is it thanks to humanity's sterling record of never making the same mistake twice? Not feeling combative enough (unfortunately) to point out problem (a), I pointed out (b): man-made crises can occur multiple times. How are you going to prepare for the next crisis?

'No,' replied Mrs. A. 'Look at the past 200 years of history. There are no examples like 2008's crash'. Uh... right. 2008 was an asset price bubble, lady. Ever heard of the Great Depression? How about the Internet Bubble of the late 90's? Fuck it, all the way back in the 1600s the Dutch had possibly the most ridiculous bubble of all - friggin' tulips rose in price so much that a valuable one could be several times the yearly wage of a working man. Unfortunately, as a not-economist, I was too timid and unsure to point this out. I instead responded with the (equally valid, if not quite as cutting) response: "I don't think it's all that unique, but even if it was, isn't this a hint that unexpected crises can occur? After all, suppose it is unique. Then something totally unexpected caused a major meltdown. So wouldn't it make sense to build in some robustness to guard against unexpected crises?"

To her credit, she then explained something about Basel 3, these accords supposed to prevent things like this. Not really understanding what the complicated international accords meant, what I took away was "we'll leverage less, so maybe we won't be wiped out quite so hard next time". My economist friend later explained that Basel 3 was a step in the right direction but not nearly enough.

However, this leaves us still with the fact that this high-ranking officer in a powerful, prominent financial firm (a) gave a ridiculous forecast based on flawed models to a roomful of students and (b) defended it with the most pathetic, meaningless, limpdick excuse I have ever encountered. She even at some point mentioned that unemployment would be high in the near future and that this would make it very hard for me (and yes, she said "you" while looking at me) to find a job - something which was totally irrelevant since I hadn't asked about government policies. Thanks, lady. Way to promote reasoned discussion here.

But the worst part is this: when she gave her pointless excuse of a 'man-made event' (somehow implying that this was not something they should be expected to safeguard themselves against), my friend, Mr. B, was standing nearby, and he enthusiastically agreed with her. "The more I read about it, the more I understand that it was a man-made event". Yeah sure. At first, I guess, he must've thought that it might be that pesky Wall Street volcano.

Did he opportunistically see a chance to suck up to her, intellectual integrity be damned? Did he simply agree with the authority figure, critical and independent thought be damned? Did he actually come to that conclusion himself, basic intelligence be damned? I don't know, but I don't like any of the choices here, and frankly, I care more about this than about the crazy stuff I heard from Mrs. A. Sure, Mrs. A is a powerful banking officer, and this stupid head-stuck-in-the-sand attitude could well lead to under-preparation for the next crisis. But I know Mr. B personally, and I find it disturbing that he either didn't see or willfully ignored the fact that what she was saying made no goddamned sense. The fact that he actually does study economics makes it even worse.

It proved something I don't want to think about: the banality of stupidity. Just as that Stanford experiment showed the banality of evil - that even normal, well-adjusted people will turn into crazy sadists with the least hesitation - this showed that even the most well-informed, brightest, and reasonable of people can simply accept and even embrace the dumbest, most pathetic assertions at the drop of a hat.

What's the Matter with Israel?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/7790781/Gaza-ship-attack-analysis-Israels-bad-timing.html

http://www.mediaite.com/online/israeli-military-attacks-gaza-bound-flotilla-pm-netanyahu-cancels-us-visit/

I don't even know how to say it properly. This is retarded. This is horribly retarded. I've already posted my humble opinion on Israeli policy, and I now see that the problem is worse, much worse, than I'd originally thought. They're just not serious about any of it. They're not serious about punishing the terrorists - not when they're trading 1150 prisoners for 3 soldiers and 65 prisoners for the remains of one dead soldier. Worse, they're not serious about peace, international law, or securing real living conditions for their neighbors, the Palestinians (after all, what could be better for your stability than to be right next door to a madhouse of poverty and extremism?), as can obviously be seen by this knuckleheaded raid on the Freedom Flotilla, in addition to ruining Biden's visit by announcing more construction in the West Bank.

I'm not saying this because I'm particularly sympathetic to the Palestinians, who, had they been rational and not insane in 1948, could've ended up with a state occupying up to 3/4ths of what is now Israel. I'm not saying this because I'm particularly sympathetic to the Freedom Flotilla, a collection of morons who thought the Gaza Strip (a great name for a strip club, now that I think about it) would be an ideal spot for a summer holiday and who thought that attacking fucking Israeli commandos with crowbars would be a good idea. I'm not sympathetic to them at all, the damn idiots. Who am I sympathetic to? The portion of Israelis who are reasonable, who want to live their damn lives without the two camps of extremist nutjobs blowing everything around them up, who don't think religious promises from thousands of years ago trump international conventions and common sense.

In any case, what does Israel even want to do? It has four options: go on some sort of genocidal rampage against the Palestinians; become an apartheid state on the shining South African model (it's even partially taken this option already, which is frightening); keep the status quo by doing nothing worthwhile at all and bleed credibility and strength while making sure that birthrate disparities generate an increasingly large, angry, impoverished, and desperate mob aligned against them; or drop the idiotic and racist pretense of "the Jewish State", withdraw from the West Bank, and become a proper damn republic. What we need is an Israeli F. W. De Klerk or Charles De Gaulle, some politician who understands the sheer danger that Israel is putting itself in and engineering, from the top down if necessary, a real end to the madness in the region. And if the nutjobs in the West Bank want to stay, well, they're free to discuss it with the Palestinians.

Deportation and Good Ol' American Values

Just as food for thought: if you're a religious right-winger who believes that people 'belong' in certain places (i.e. if you're not white, you don't belong in America) and ought to be deported there, doesn't that imply that a lot of people in America ought to be deported to Hell? Thanks for believing in American values, guys. I'm sure "kill the heretics" is in the Constitution somewhere.

Also, to the Confederate-flag-waving wingnuts (you know, the kind of people who would totally read my blog - with this kind of blog, it's impossible NOT to preach to the choir), congratulations on your embrace of true American values, you know, like TREASON. It's gladdening to see that the 'real America' is truly strong in its faith to American values and virtues.

You Can't Not Spend Your Way Out of Recession

I just came across a famous quote about how economic policy should work, a famous attack against the Keynesian system that is generally accepted as the way governments should deal with recession:

"You can't spend your way out of recession"

Although I understand the sentiment at a gut level (if your personal earnings went down, you're best response is probably to tighten your belt some), I genuinely don't understand the economic concept here. A recession is a period of time in which the economy shrinks, in which GDP goes down. GDP equals the amount of stuff produced in the country that somebody bought. Thus GDP is directly correlated with buying, which is really the same thing as spending. To quote Wikipedia, "In contemporary economies, most things produced are produced for sale, and sold. Therefore, measuring the total expenditure of money used to buy things is a way of measuring production." It's not like the productive capability isn't there - remember that since the economy is shrinking, it used to be bigger, proving that we have the productive ability on hand - so what's lacking is a willingness to spend. So the only way to get out of a recession is to spend, by definition, if only to get the wheels of production rolling again and to get the public to spend as well. Spending is a civic virtue, thanks to economics; we might as well accept that. You can't not spend your way out of recession. Which raises the question: why are so many politicians and members of the general public against recession expenditure increases when you can deduce that they are a good thing just from a few definitions and a little logic?

The Best Counter-Argument Yet

http://www.butimleaving.com/2009/10/atheist-douchebags.html

This is by far the best counter-argument to my views yet. I currently have no good response to it whatsoever, but I can't just ignore it since clearly I'm one of these "Atheist Douchebags" he talks about. However, before I start discussing this in earnest, please, for the love of the God that doesn't exist, read the damn article, and don't think I'm surrendering my position to a theistic viewpoint. God that would be terrible.

Anyways, the article makes a damn good point, and that is that I'm not helping the atheist/rationalist agenda with my blog as it is pure preaching to the choir and fuel for the theistic extremists. I am compelled to agree with him. Am I helping the rationalist agenda with this? Hell no! Of course not. I'm doing this purely to entertain other rational atheists, especially those with an extremist bent like myself. However, I hope that I am making up for this little guilty pleasure of mine with my personal interactions. After all, I live in America, a heavily Christian country. 2 out of 3 of my roommates next year are very Christian. My best friend is a Christian. I discuss religion openly and logically, and even though I do insult religious ideas on a regular basis, I feel like I'm at least respectful of the people themselves, if not the beliefs. A terrible atheist (I know several) is worse than a reasonable Christian (I know many), although better by far than a terrible Christian (the whole damn religious right).

In any case, if you read some of my posts, such as "My Offer", I hope I convey the fact that I am okay with reasonable religious people, i.e. those religious people who DON'T want to impose their religious values on the American people and for whom religion is personal. I still hate evangelists - it's indescribable how much damage they do to humanity. But scientific, rational people with a few irrational beliefs (like, again, my economist best friend) aren't harmful in the least - at least until he betrays me, as an evangelist once hilariously predicted.

In any case, I still plan to be angry. It's my thing, really, and I'm much better at anger (reasoned anger - using reason as a tool to express exactly why I'm so damn angry at [insert irrational belief here]) than I am at non-anger (even reasoned non-anger). I'm an entertainer (or try to be), not a crusader. So yes, I'll still blast theism and other crazy beliefs. Yes, I'll still work myself into a tantrum so that I'll be at risk of bursting a blood vessel. But I won't pretend I'm really helping so much. That, again, is for later. And maybe, just maybe, one day I'll win a convert, like I came so close to during high school. And then Hell will freeze over, and I'll ride away on my winged unicorn leaving a trail of fairy dust in my wake.

The AnthEmmys

If there's one form of music that I truly respect, it's the national anthem. All the patriotic pride and national power you can muster stuffed into one rousing tune. Which is why it totally sucks balls when we have preschoolers and pop stars singing our anthem. I feel no patriotic pride when I hear our anthem before baseball games or whatever with a pop star belting out the lines - where's the sense of unity you get with a choir, the sense of strength you get with a military choir? For crying out loud, I want to feel proud of our country, and Beyonce just doesn't make me feel like that (I feel something different when I see and hear Beyonce, but let's not get into the details of that). And, worst of all, although our anthem isn't bad per se, it's far and away not the best, so I figured I was bored enough to write a post detailing the all-time winners for anthems in various categories:

Category 1: Music:

The criteria for this are simple: does the music inspire pride in the members of that country and envy in outsiders? Does it convey a message of monolithic strength and unity? When I hear it, do I wish that I was a citizen of that country?

The Nominees are:

Germany - the iconic tune sung to "Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles / Uber Alles in Der Welt" is inspiring enough for me to forget that that was the music under which my people were exterminated, and that is a huge damn feat for that music. Damn awesome tune.

South Korea - a rousing tune set atop a strong baseline; the result is a feeling of hope atop a basis of strength.

Russia - the tune that won WWII. Replaced the kumbaya-style Internationale with a strong dose of pure Russian manhood. Goes well with vodka.

Serbia - another song of slavic power. A massive thunk-thunk-thunk baseline to let you know that you're just inevitably going to be squashed like a bug, and that's it.

Honorable Mentions:

Israel - a stirring tune but too sad to achieve the 'bastion of strength' feeling you get from the above anthems.

Poland - the same as Israel, only in the opposite direction; while Israel's anthem was slightly too mournful to make the list, Poland's is too upbeat, and thus also misses the solemn "we will crush you" strength of the nominees.

North Korea - although a song fit for their "Dear Leader", it's too cookie-cutter and boring after the first few stanzas to stand up to the nominees.

The Internationale - amazing, but was replaced by something even better (see above), so it's unable to make the list.

And the winner is... (highlight next line to see answer)

RUSSIA. A tune deliberately composed to win a war, and does the job admirably. Bonus points especially for being sung by the manliest musical group ever to exist, the Red Army Choir, enough to eke out a victory over the still-fucking-amazing German anthem.

Category 2: Lyrics:

The criteria for this are simple too: do the lyrics motivate me to go out and crush some enemies of the state? Are they filled with a blood-curdling pride? If so, they win.

And the nominees are:

France - Come on, seriously? "They came and slit the throats of our female companions, so we'll water our fields with their fucking blood!" Fucking awesome. Don't mess with the hookers of the French, they'll kill you.

Poland - "Bonaparte showed us how to be victorious... March, March, Dabrowski, we're going to conquer all of Europe! We're going to fucking march all the way to Italy!" I've never seen a country declare in their lyrics that they're going to subjugate all their neighbors, less a country whose history is actually one of being dominated by everyone around them, but hell, what a spirit there.

USA - Summary: "You blew the hell out of our fort, but we didn't give up and you lost the war, so suck it Britain!" That's badass.

Soviet Union - Starts badass and gets better from there: "Unbreakable union of freeborn republics / great Russia has welded forever" and goes on to describe how they kicked the ever-living shit out of the Nazis.

Honorable Mentions:

California Uber Alles - Not really an anthem, but badass all the same: "Hippies won't come back you say / Mellow out or YOU WILL PAY! / Mellow out or YOU WILL PAY! / California, Uber Alles! / California Uber Alles!"

Borat's Kazakh Anthem: "Kazakhstan is the greatest / country in the world / all other countries / are run by little girls". The more shameless insults thrown at other countries, the better, and Borat understood this damn well.

And the winner is (highlight next line for answer)...

FRANCE. Come on, they explicitly declare that they'll water the fields with the blood of their enemies, and their chorus is a call to arms. No way anyone can top that.

Category 3: All-around:

Criteria: the best all-around anthem.

The nominees are... everyone nominated above.

And the winner is (if you don't know how to view it this time around, you're hopeless)...

SOVIET UNION. A badass tune with badass words from a badass country sung by a badass choir makes this anthem the best anthem ever.

Philosophical Fiction: why it must be either boring or bullshit

As you can tell from my "Story Idea" posts, I really want to be able to write good fiction. Not just entertaining fiction (although that already would be quite an achievement), but fiction that promotes my ideas - I'm taking more cues from Ayn Rand, which, although probably not that great a source for inspiration, at least means my methods will be tried and true; her most famous book espousing her (nutty) ideas and the one that shot her into the public consciousness was a novel: Atlas Shrugged.

However, this presents me with a problem. Most of my ideas are heavily anti-instinctual (since I see no need to fight for that which is already instinctual - I believe, and state, that people should maximize their utility functions, but I see very little need to press the point given that everybody does that anyways), and technologically centered. No aesthetic whatsoever enters into it. I fight to defy "one death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic", while the human psyche affirms it. And that is the problem. Good fiction appeals to the human instinct; my philosophy appeals to logic. The two seem very difficult to reconcile. Let me illustrate with an example:

A while back I had an idea for a story (tentatively called 'Honor'). The plot concerned a young, enterprising sergeant in the SS at the beginning of the Holocaust who is repulsed by the ghettoes and decides to covertly help the victims. However, after he is nearly caught helping four people escape and two days later learns that the four were found and killed, he decides that to really help, he needs to be more than a sergeant. He then proceeds to work hard and try to please his superiors in order to quickly advance to such a rank that he can save as many people as he wants. He moves up the ranks through the years to become the second-in-command at a concentration camp by late 1943, with a reputation for grim efficiency thanks to his tireless efforts to secure his promotions. He decides that by far the greatest good he could do could only be done as a commandant of a camp, and continues to work alongside Nazi hard-liners in an attempt to achieve that rank. However, he never attains such a rank, is captured in a surprise Russian advance, and ends up hanged at Nuremberg since the only evidence as to his real views is the fact that he was a 'grimly efficient' second-in-command.

The only problem with this story is that I abhor the implied moral, which is 'changing a bad system from within is a bad idea' and that 'despite the good intent of your motives, working with the Nazis in order to eventually help victims is wrong', neither of which is true. He could have succeeded, and if he had, many more people would be alive. In effect, given the correctness of his assumptions, his decision was a worthy gamble. I could change the story to make him succeed, but I feel this lowers the emotional punch of the plot and turns the story into something very banal. I feel that I will have a hard time reconciling 'effective plot' with 'morals I wish to convey', which is why I probably won't even attempt to write this story (as opposed to 'Immortal', which I described in an earlier post) let alone actually succeed in writing it. And that's why I have such a problem with my stories - because good storytelling and rational morals mix like oil and water.

The Angry Hypocrite Despises his own Tribal Instincts

If you're familiar with my philosophy (and who isn't, really, given the world-renowned renaissance figure of towering influence that I am, with almost four followers on blogspot, and a couple dozen others who are nervously aware of the existence of this thing), you'll know that if there's one thing in the world I despise, it's the irrational instincts that happen to pervade mankind. Those instincts, at least for the social judgment aspects, have a deep root: tribalism. Tribalism was an attitude born from the days when you and your kin stuck close and fought together over scarce resources. Any outsiders were treated with suspicion at best and outright hostility at worst. However, even as civilizations began to develop and the logical rationale faded away, the tribalist attitude persisted.

Tribalism not only causes rifts on its own; it often exacerbates existing conflicts (or the converse, where other factors exacerbate tribal conflicts). Religions very often rise and fall along tribal lines, with the Arabs fighting to convert the pagan Berbers, the European Christians crusading against the Muslim Turks and Arabs, and so on. Even today, for example in Sudan (Muslim 'Arabs' fighting against Christian 'Blacks') and Nigeria, and the continuing ethnic distinction drawn between the Jews and other white races (far more culturally visible than the distinction between, say, the French and the Germans), religion and tribal animosities go hand-in-hand. In the end, it simply undermines rational thinking and promotes prejudices, which is bad for progress (I consider progress the only true good).

There are probably a few people who are naive enough to think that I succeed in my efforts to practice what I preach (the very existence of the blog actually attests that I don't; logically, if I harbor extreme opinions, I should try to keep them mostly to myself because of the risk of social stigma). As I already stated, this is unfortunately untrue. Every time the Olympics come up, I try to remind myself that according to logic, I ought to root for those countries that most closely resemble my values. And I partially succeed; for example, I always root for the Swedes and the Swiss during the Winter Olympics, mostly because I want prestige to go to a country whose government is very similar to the style of liberal democracy I support. However, the main problems with my logic appear when the Summer Olympics come around; I root for China, on the basis of half my bloodline and Israel on the basis of the other half. I know that the Chinese government is not exactly a paragon of freedom and democratic values; I know that the Israeli government, particularly those that have been unfortunate enough to be headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, are not exactly kumbaya-singing peace-lovingly rational and that they infuriatingly (given that I value Israel's security out of a tribalist sympathy for Israel) provoke the Palestinians and other Arab groups when there is a chance for peace. But I root for them anyway. And these sentiments are real, not just confined to the sports arena.

I'm currently trying to think how this tribalist problem can be countered. Unfortunately, it seems simply too deep-rooted to effectively combat. Hopefully one day we'll realize the importance of a united sentient front to spread life and thinking as far as we can. Until then, we'll be mired in that same old ugly thought: as the War Nerd so aptly put it, "My tribe YAY, your tribe BOO". What an infantile creed that is.

Open Mindedness, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the F-Bomb

Open-mindedness and tolerance is something of a creed where I come from, a major feature of my high school, where once every couple of weeks we were herded into an auditorium for a presentation from culture so-and-so so that we could appreciate their culture and respect them and all the bullshit that you hear from kid's shows that we're all just one big happy family. We were 'treated' to, among other things, a didgeridoo performance (the novelty wore off rather quickly), Irish folk dancing, religious plays, a propaganda piece about immigration (look at these charming Mexican people and the ignorant white people who want to keep them poor! - yes, showing the nutjobs that inevitably crop up on one side of a political debate counts as argument, I'm sure YOUR side has no nutcases) that actually ended with a song called "Yes We Can" that was (unsurprisingly) an outright campaign ad for Obama, and a particularly enlightening session where we were informed that there are ACTUAL CITIES (*gasp*) in Africa. This all added up to maybe 20 extra hours of sleep for me per year.

However, despite our almost cock-sucking respect for other cultures, we weren't open-minded in the least. I can virtually guarantee, with 99% certainty, that a colloquium on how illegal immigration could hurt the US would be booed out in less time than it takes to yell "Viva La Revolution!" while waving a Zapatista flag. On the political scale we were collectively somewhere between Vladimir Lenin and Mikhail Bakunin. A donor who donated money for an American flag on campus was roundly rejected by a school-wide vote (I, totally apathetic, abstained for reasons of laziness) because of our hatred for George W. Bush (I hate him too, but the flag ain't his flag) and American neo-imperialism that was destroying all the cultures we so loved. So I decided to do what few in my school seemed like they could: I decided to become open-minded.

But what exactly is open-minded? In "How to Be Open-Minded" on eHow, they give the following recommendation:

Helpful words and phrases: "That could be true"; "That makes sense"; "Looks like you're really strong in your beliefs"; "Oh,"; "Mmm-hmm"; "So do you believe..?"; "I can see where you're coming from"; "Well, that's a good point."

Wow, these phrases sure don't seem like they could be insincere. "Looks like you're really strong in your beliefs *cough* you fucking retard *cough*" Also, open-mindedness seems to be, in the mind of the author of this particular gem, being too much of an ass-licking dipshit to challenge or debate anyone's beliefs on the grounds that 'they deserve respect'.

wikiHow has this to say on the subject:

While waiting (in line at the bank, a coffee shop, a restaurant, the grocery store, or waiting for someone to pick you up, or a show on TV to start), ponder things, calculate, memorize. You can, for example, memorize digits of Pi (you can get to 50 in a matter of hours, 200 in a matter of weeks), try to remember all of your high school teachers' names, memorize Prime Numbers, get fast at reciting the alphabet backwards, the Greek alphabet (forwards and backwards), remember how many movies Tom Cruise has been in, try Doubling numbers, start at 1, to 2, to 4, to 8, till you get to larger numbers than you can handle.

Yes, open-mindedness apparently has some magic correlation to how many boring lists you're willing to memorize or your tolerance for performing amazingly repetitive tasks, usually of the sort that cognitively-challenged math-genius-wannabes and MathCounts competitors (they're the same damn thing) do 'for fun'. wikiHow also recommends that you:

Learn about different people and lifestyles. A great gateway into this is Wikipedia, where you can read articles on a wide variety of practices, such as Swinging, Wicca, Christianity, the Green Party, Conservatism, Communism, Anarchism, Sunnis, Discordianism, Tutsis, and the Yakuza. Consider how many members they have worldwide. Volunteer with an organization that works with a community of people you are unfamiliar with.

All I can say about this recommendation is, hell yes, I'm volunteering with the Yakuza.

And another pearl of wisdom:

Walk backwards through your whole house. (But be extra careful not to trip over anything, or fall down the stairs)

Actually, on second thought, if you take this piece of advice, feel free to fall down the stairs.

And finally,

Attend churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, trade union meetings, places of worship and meditation that you never have. Read about and learn how to recognize cults or cult-like behavior and avoid them!

Yes, it is open-minded to 'respect' various popular religions but to treat unpopular ones ('cults') with disdain and to avoid them like the plague. And anyway, aren't 'worship' and 'meditation' cult-like behavior by definition? wikiHow seems to be in the business of training robots rather than cultivating open-mindedness.

However, wikiHow's entries are merely puzzling; eHow's entry is my real target because this is what open-mindedness seems to be in the popular consciousness: being too spineless to debate out of fear of offending, regardless of your real feelings on the subject. My definition of open-mindedness doesn't come out of the seeming desire of the writer of the eHow recommendation to have every cock in the world in his mouth; it comes out of my experiences with my high-school colloquia, those sermons on 'open-mindedness' intent on showing how happy poor people are when they live under the rule of mystics (as put by a friend of mine when I was discussing with him the topic of my last post) and yet failed to consider real political movements within this country as worthy of 'respect', let alone discussion. The point of real open-mindedness is to be willing to consider logically any idea that comes before me. If logically it is unsound, I am then free to slander it to my heart's content. I took up this as my goal.

This is how I learned to be a real person again, how to disagree and disagree strongly with things, to ridicule and to blaspheme. I had a debate about the death penalty with another student at my school, where I argued that the death sentence is occasionally fully justified. She started off her argument with "it is more punishment to imprison them for life, isn't it?" hoping, I guess, to shut me up since obviously support for the death penalty stems out of a love for cruel punishment. I responded that cruelty wasn't the point, the point is deterrence (and I argue that life imprisonment and death are roughly equal in deterrence since it is impossible to imagine either) and removal of the offenders from any position from which they could harm society again. Her response: "But aren't we stooping to their level then?". First of all, no, what the fuck are you talking about, if someone steals something from you and you take it back, you're not stooping to their level, that should be obvious. Secondly, and more importantly, her argument is that the death penalty is wrong because it is not cruel enough and it is too cruel. This is a perfect example of what close-minded means: you cling to your precious opinions without examining them first, repeating flawed and self-contradictory arguments in a feeble attempt to shield them (by the way, I've heard many good arguments against the death penalty, just not from this person; the best I know of is that death offers no chance of correction if the verdict is erroneous). Phony, ass-kissing 'respect' for beliefs can only perpetuate this by encouraging people to consider their beliefs as inviolable, immune from argument, not answerable to the demands of reality. Arguing, blaspheming, ridiculing people's beliefs - that is what forces them to reconsider (unless, of course, they're idiotic assholes) and forces them to create a logical backing for their ideas. You cannot ridicule effectively what has a sound logical framework. "Ha ha ha, you believe that 1+1=2" carries no weight behind it, but "Creationists must be right - after all, whenever we discover a fossil b that fits perfectly into a so-called evolutionary gap from a to c, we have only replaced that gap with two gaps" is a strong argument against the 'God of the Gaps' mentality of Intelligent Design proponents.

My quest was for open-mindedness, first in myself (I take this ideal to extremes, even to the point of acknowledging that from a purely logical standpoint racism is totally consistent, even though empirically it is racist, tribalist societies that are the most backwards and that empirically prosperity seems to depend on culture and ideals rather than race - I consider myself a culturalist in that I consider many cultures to be inherently inferior to others, as opposed to a racist), then in others. I consider myself, as I have already stated, to have succeeded in being open minded. Now I attempt to do the same to others. And this is why I relentlessly taunt the beliefs I consider horribly, destructively wrong; why I never tell anyone I respect their ideas when I don't; why I feel proud that I am able to overcome my inherited liberal knee-jerk reaction and freely insult anyone; why my favorite word starts with an 'f' and ends with an 'uck' (hint: it's not 'firetruck').

It's liberating to be open-minded, the real open-minded. Try it out, spread the word, and fuck with any illogical bastards who cross your path (only be careful that you yourself are logical, otherwise it might be them who fuck with you). Together we can start the foul-mouthed revolution in the name of progress and reason.

Indigenous Cultures

If one thing has the ability to make me puke, it is hearing first worlders (especially those that own Priuses) talk about the 'beauty' and 'heritage' of this or that indigenous culture and lamenting the fact that greedy corporations are destroying them. Look at their idyllic villages, say the concerned first worlders. Look at their traditions, their language. They have been this way for generations upon generations, living in spiritual harmony. And the greedy corporations the Wal-Machts of the world, they want to take all this away for their lebensraum of the same cookie-cutter strip malls and factories! The bastards!

I hate the assholes who talk like this, the same assholes who protest WTO meetings and hate factories, the hippies who sit in the oak trees in Berkeley for two years to save them while the Amazon is being deforested, who despise foie gras while millions of domestic animals are starving strays roaming the streets of third world slums, who bemoan environmental degradation and third-world poverty yet oppose the development of GMOs, the one ready-for-use technology that has the potential to cure both, who vote for Ralph Nader and leave George Bush in charge, who write blog posts blasting the use of technology, who believe in spiritual communion with nature as if nature gave half a fuck about them, who value animals above people. They make me sick, the fucking hypocrites.

The cultures they talk about can be found almost everywhere that isn't the first world, from Tibet to Africa to the Indian Reservations (no, the Reservations are NOT what I'd call first world) to South America. These cultures have much in common: their mentality is almost always overtly tribal, they have pronounced 'spiritual traditions' (which usually take the form of either constructing and then destroying elaborate works of art or slapping on paint and dancing around a fire to drums and chanting). They have 'traditional medicine', typically administered by shamans, and there is always, ALWAYS, a massive concentration of power into the hands of a few chieftains and shamans (or, in the case of the most vile of these cultures, in Tibet, the Lamas) who rule by the 'will of the gods' or simply by fiat. These societies are poor, ignorant, illiterate, backwards. Their first world 'supporters' consider them 'beautiful' and 'inspiring', yet most fail to actually live in those societies and forget, above all, that these societies are composed of people and do not primarily exist to 'inspire' unimaginative people in tye-dye shirts and hybrid sedans with 'Free Tibet' bumper stickers on the back bumper (given the scum that are the Lamas - one of the happiest days of my life was the day I read about how a boy who was believed to be the reincarnation of one of the highest Lamas quit the order saying "It was like living a lie" - who take the wealth of the region, pour it into temples and prayers while the people lack access to basic utilities, the closest thing to 'Free Tibet' I can think of is a Tibet where the Lamas are all dead and the temples have been turned into tools to vamp up the tourist industry - did you know that pre-PRC-controlled Tibet was a feudal kingdom where upwards of 95% of the population were downtrodden serfs, or that in 1997 the EU was "putting pressure on the government of Nepal to make slavery illegal"?) The fact that every time an evil capitalist factory opens in the third world there are more than enough people willing to work there is proof enough that the people there are willing to trade in their picturesque huts for something better, even if it is minimum-wage factory work. Certainly factory work is not a pretty thing, but neither is rural poverty, and every nation that is wealthy and enjoys a decent standard of living - EVERY SINGLE ONE - went through a period of nasty industrialization before becoming truly free and prosperous nations. The people who build the factories are helping economies and livelihoods worldwide; the people who protest them are, in essence, fighting to keep much of the world mired in poverty.

What globalization is, then, is the process by which the third world increasingly comes to resemble the first world. If you bemoan this for the sake of beautiful cultures, you exceed even the greediest CEO for sheer selfishness, putting your desire for an idealized rural existence above the desire of thousands of people (for every hippie, there are thousands of third worlders) for three square meals a day. The more of these primitive, tyrannical cultures fall along the way, to be replaced by nascent democracies of educated citizens (or even to be replaced by any industrial society), the better. Good riddance to the chieftains, the shamans, the Lamas. It is industrialization, not tribalism, that has cured smallpox, made cars, and sent men to the moon. It is progress, not tradition, science, not art, and reason, not spiritualism, that has brought about, for the first time, places where the majority lives above the poverty line. And yet the beneficiaries of this technology and development that made the Prius possible seek to prevent others from enjoying it. They, not the corporations, are the truly selfish ones.

My Offer

A few days ago I had an impromptu debate with an individual which I found very enlightening, if that's the word to use, even if nothing that he said can be considered to be enlightened. This individual was wearing a black t-shirt emblazoned with the words Trust Jesus in huge yellow block letters and, on the table next to him, propped up against the wall was a sign advertising "Are You Going to Heaven? - Free Test!". Naturally, with nothing much better to do (other than the obvious, such as eating my enormously overstuffed falling-apart-at-the-seams burrito, picking my nose or ramming my head repeatedly into reinforced concrete, the last of which was basically the same thing in the end) I, the Jewish-Atheist-Raised-On-Ham-And-Cheese-And-Richard-Dawkins wunderkind that I am, sat down to see whether giving God the finger every Yom Kippur was endearing me to His Holiness. And, naturally, my love of provoking religious anger led me to switch the topic up mid-test and begin questioning this pure and holy missionary (who, if one is sentimental enough to believe that dreams do come true, might one day even achieve the honor of appearing on television with his GOD HATES FAGGOTS sign curiously rendered in black over a Rastafarian-colored green-yellow-and-red background). My (admittedly religious, but at least relatively sane religious, the kind of religious person who's religion stays a personal matter that doesn't bother people who'd rather be left alone) friend saw me and joined in, and soon a decent-sized circle had gathered around us for our good-natured exchange of personal beliefs. A number of great religious pearls were uncovered during this repartee; for example, the idea that anything God does is justified because "God is sovereign" (explained by my religious friend: "he's saying God is good because God is arbitrary" - thank Beelzebub my friend doesn't buy into that kind of phony argument), leading me to remember the various other cases where acts were justified because the actor was "sovereign", good "sovereign" people like, for instance, Hitler (another such gem was "He has ordained that they suffer in Hell for His glory" - wow, sounds like a great guy). He also came up with the interesting insight that I had no friends (despite the the fact that my friend was sitting right fucking next to me) and that my so-called 'friends' would all betray me (shhh! you wouldn't want to ruin the surprise, would you?), not to mention several mind-numbingly unimaginative dodges for my standard questions about religion (one question, the one detailed in "the parable of Joe and Ahmed" on my blog, he flat-out refused to answer). He also curiously accused me of trying to belittle him when I asked when he thought the world was created so that I could assess what breed of Christian I was dealing with (doesn't asking for your beliefs only count as belittlement if your beliefs are patently retarded? if you're ashamed and feel belittled when someone asks for your opinion, it really seems like it's you who needs to change your opinions, and, failing that, at least do the gene pool a favor and get a vasectomy). In the end, the results of my test were that my main defining character trait was 'wickedness' (I thought everyone who used that word had died out around the same time they stopped hunting for witches) and that I was going "straight to Hell".

I learned from this explicitly something which I have understood in my gut for years, yet never had the courage to realize it fully. I always gave religions, by dint of popularity, some sort of veneer of respectability in my mind, as if they were a proper intellectual challenge to my system. Don't get me wrong; religions, great and small, are still a worthy target for attacks, and blasphemy still has a place in my intellectual ideas, but ONLY because they are popular. Once the task of eradication of religious belief is complete, we will only remember them as a warning to future generations. Now I have realized my error and accordingly I make my offer to the world:

To those that accept logic and rational thought, who are open to argument and willing to change their beliefs to suit the evidence, I offer debate, discussion, and examination of evidence, in order to move closer to the truth. To those who deny logic, whose ideology trumps any and all contrary evidence, I offer only silence where our differences do not necessitate a confrontation, and violence where they do.

The Great Dictators

As a liberal democrat, I often find it hard to compare my ideology with many populist dictators who lived throughout history. Many of them were plain evil, but a surprisingly large number of them were benevolent or enlightened and contributed to the progress of their countries. Even the supremely evil ones, like the WWII dictators Mussolini (well, actually, he's just evil, not supremely evil, since he rejected German Nazi racism), Hitler, Tojo, and Stalin got the economies of their respective countries going at full tilt while the West were still moving through the Depression. This post is simply a list of dictators and what they were able to do. Despite my ardent belief that in general nothing but a democracy can be trusted to run a state, I find it difficult to ignore the evidence that in times of great crisis, a swift-moving enlightened dictator could outperform an elected body or president.

Josef Pilsudski: One of the few dictators regarded both in their home countries and internationally as essentially good for the country (especially since he was dictator of Poland, which is now a democracy). During WWI, when Poland was partitioned between Russia, Austria, and Germany, Pilsudski negotiated Poland's independence from the Central Powers in exchange for fighting the Russians, and secured independence formally after the end of the war. Then, as the chief Marshal of Poland, he repulsed a massive Soviet invasion. Afterwards, he decided to resign from politics in favor of the democratic government about to be elected; he didn't run for any office. However, shortly after his resignation, a right-wing nutjob assassinated the newly-elected president, and a series of political clashes with his right-wing civilian enemies led him to resign his remaining posts. Four years later, in 1925, as Poland floundered in the midst of a political and economic (hyperinflation) crisis, Pilsudski seized power in a coup d'etat supported by leftist (socialist and peasant) political parties. He stabilized the economy, strengthened the army, and promoted religious tolerance, all while remaining popular, and maintained good relations with other countries. He died in 1935.

The fact that Pilsudski actually left politics to a democratic regime and only came back at its failure does say something about him, and the fact that he is well-remembered as a good person and a good ruler despite having obtained power (the second time around) through a coup is very unusual. I just wanted to post this as a case of a good dictator. Now I will continue with a list of dictators I consider benevolent, since I'm not inclined to write a paragraph on every dictator I mention:

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk: (I have to write a paragraph about him; he is my number-one all-time most badass leader). First he commanded the Turkish forces at Gallipoli, kicking the British invading forces off the Dardanelles. Afterwards, he took the crumbling, failed Ottoman Empire after it had been broken up following defeat in WWI and fought of numerous threats, including a massive Greek army pushing into western Anatolia, and religious and Kurdish attacks from the South and East to regain Istanbul (although he kept the capital at Ankara) to create modern Turkey. He then made peace with the Greeks, and set about modernizing and democratizing Turkey, doing away with religious radicalism and making Turkey into a prosperous and advanced nation. Despite the fact that for a while it was a one-party state, Kemalist Turkey is one of the greatest success stories for the idea of benevolent dictatorship.

Pre-Great-Leap-Forward Mao Zedong (he royally screwed up his country after that, especially with the Cultural Revolution, which was craziness that would have shamed North Korea)

Fidel Castro: gets gold stars for literacy and health care, but the large number of refugees goes against him. A hard to judge case, since Cuba's poverty could be attributed to him or to the US sanctions on Cuba; to know for sure (not to mention that this is also the fastest and most humanitarian route to liberating Cuba, and seems like a total no-brainer) we would have to open up trade relations with Cuba.

The Shah of Iran: made a public education system, fought religious dogma, industrialized the economy. Despite the political oppression, I believe if Iran had stuck to his "White Revolution" it would be a modern, powerful country today. He's certainly much, much better than the religious creeps running the place today, although he probably worsened the country when, with the CIA's help, he deposed Mossadeq.

Lee Kuan Yew: dictator (-ish) of Singapore. Singapore's political, economic, and educational development in comparison with the surrounding countries testifies to his success.

Deng Xiaoping: turned China from backward, ignorant giant to the industrial powerhouse it is today.

Saddam Hussein: a monster, but improved education and kept the place in order. Iraq wasn't a pretty place under him, but it's not much prettier now, either.

Napoleon Bonaparte: no explanation needed.

Josef Broz Tito: kept Yugoslavia in order and relatively prosperous (as compared to its Warsaw Pact neighbors) and kept ethnic tensions at a minimum. Only 10 years after his death did Yugoslavia finally get enough ethnic antagonism to break apart into civil war.

William Tubman: increased foreign investment in Liberia by a factor of 200 (!) and avg annual GDP growth rate of 11.5% (!), only cracking down on political opposition after a failed assassination attempt. Stabilized and opened his country.

Canaan Sodindo Banana: I don't know if he ever did anything except get accused of sodomy by Robert Mugabe, and he wasn't even a dictator, but he's here just because of his name. I mean, come on, "Canaan Banana"?

Charles De Gaulle: I love it when assholes (in this case, the right wing Pieds Noirs in Algeria) install a dictator only to find out he's actually not on their side

And finally, the classic original enlightened dictators:

Pericles
Julius Caesar
Marcus Aurelius
Pontius Pilate
Solomon
Liu Pang
Peter the Great
Catherine the Great

I'm sure there are more I didn't mention, I just figured this would be food for thought for liberal democrats like me.

Badass Quotes

Just to mix it up a bit, some totally badass quotes, many from very evil people:

One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic - Joseph Stalin

[Upon hearing the suggestion that he should encourage Catholicism to court the Pope during WWII]

The Pope! How many divisions does he have? - Joseph Stalin

Death solves all problems. No man, no problem. - Joseph Stalin

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We don't let our enemies have guns, so why let them have ideas? - Joseph Stalin

[I actually don't agree with this quote (obviously, since agreeing with this would make me a jackass), but find it hilarious nonetheless]

Anyone who sees and paints a sky green and fields blue ought to be sterilized. - Adolf Hitler

Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future. - Adolf Hitler

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed. - Adolf Hitler

The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it. - Adolf Hitler

The victor will never be asked if he told the truth. - Adolf Hitler

Before all else, be armed. - Niccolo Machiavelli

Men should either be treated generously or be destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries; for heavy ones, they cannot. - Niccolo Machiavelli

Politics have no relation to morals. - Niccolo Machiavelli

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell. - General Sherman

I think I understand what military fame is: to be killed on the field of battle and have your name misspelled in the newspapers. - General Sherman

War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over. - General Sherman

You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog. - Harry S. Truman

I fired MacArthur because he wouldn't respect the authority of the President... I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, because that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail. - Harry S. Truman

In Soviet Union it is hard to do comedy. You cannot improvise... if someone heckles you from the audience, you cannot say "your mother wears army boots", because she probably does, and she will hurt you. If you make joke, "take my wife... please", you come home... she's gone. - Yakov Smirnoff

"When I first came here from Russia, I went to Cleveland... In Cleveland, they made me feel at home, so I had to escape again. Now, I make fun of Cleveland because everybody makes fun of Cleveland. In every country they make fun of a particular city. When I was in Russia, for example, we used to make fun of Cleveland. - Yakov Smirnoff

I saw an ad in newspaper, it says "we guarantee your furniture and stand behind it for six months". That's the reason I left Soviet Union! I don't want people behind my furniture! - Yakov Smirnoff

Democracy is different in America. For example, woman can vote but horse cannot. - Borat

Yo, I don't play no games. The only games I play is my dick versus yo' pussy. And my dick always wins. - McCracken, a "friend" of a friend

So this bitch started yelling at me, so I said to myself, "Stay calm, McCracken! Stay calm!" So I pulled out my gun, and I shot him. - McCracken

Twelve Quick Refutations (Plus Extra)

Here are some arguments people often have used against me, and some of my responses to them:

(1) Pascal's Wager: There is x probability that God exists, and 1-x probability that he doesn't but there is infinite reward for believing if he exists and non-infinite reward for non-belief if he doesn't, so therefore you should believe.

Great. Tell you what, send me $10,000 in cash and I'll not only give you infinite money in two month's time, I'll get you into heaven guaranteed. It's too good a deal for a smart guy like you to pass off, and space is limited.

(2) Learn to respect the mystery of life.

Sure, as soon as you respect the mystery of why you have a fever or why your car broke down.

(3) Your ideas threaten our humanity.

Hundreds of years ago, part of our 'humanity' was susceptibility to things like smallpox and bubonic plague, but I don't see very many people whining about their disappearance.

(4) Your ideas are all based on other ideas. Even the concept of 'idea' is an idea. How can you argue for the correctness of your system when you make such fundamental assumptions?

Everything, even logic, needs a starting point, and I make sure this starting point is as basic and solid as it possibly can be. If you're asking for an axiom-less system, feel free to sit helplessly with your thumb up your ass without even bothering to think for fear of the possibility of doubt.

(5) (related to #4, but not quite the same) All people filter reality through beliefs, thus beliefs can alter reality as they wish, thus there exist only beliefs, not reality.

As Yudkowsky says, everyone eats food through their mouths, and these mouths filter the taste of the food, so there is no food, only mouths. If you can filter your reality, why are you arguing with me anyway, instead of willing a frozen block of lavatory waste to flatten me where I stand?

(6) You have to respect my beliefs.

Nope.

(7) By the idea of Black Swans (this opinion is usually given by that curious new breed of idiots who think they understand 'The Black Swan' and like to cite it a lot) you can't predict the future since an improbable event will dominate it, so why even try?

Yes, you're right of course. The best course to dealing with unknowns is to put your fingers in your ears and hum as loudly as you can, I'm sure that will take care of it.

(8) You argue against faith in God, but you have faith in logic.

If you deny logic you lose your right to a logical response (same as denying God removes the possibility of a theistic response). In that vein, go fuck yourself you hypocritical piece of shit.

(9) Corporations threaten ancient and beautiful cultures! You can't support their evil ways!

Exactly, the Wall-Macht is driving into charming little towns in their discount Panzers for the greater glory of Fuhrer Walton. The fact that the locals shop there and work there of their own free will doesn't mean anything, nor does the fact that you're treating their technologically-deprived little 'idyllic' towns and lives as something you can view for your own pleasure rather than, you know, towns filled with people who'd like access to things like medicine and the internet thankyouverymuch.

(10) Don't question a war-time leader.

Sure, because the best way to make sure someone is doing their job properly is to ignore any mistakes you see them make. That's why it was smart for Soviet commanders not to question Stalin's order to not respond to German attacks in 1941.

(11) You shouldn't interfere with [insert process x here - it's usually aging or death] because it is a natural thing.

I hate the idea that natural = good. Go back to your mud huts and your malaria and smallpox and illiteracy you hypocritical twat. The mere fact that you're arguing this means you don't practice what you preach, and that fact makes you not only an asshole, but not worth further arguing with.

(12) Your belief in Free Will is like trying to impose a desirable face on a reality that can't accept it. (The guy who said this also said he believed in determinism because it's more consistent with the guiding ideology behind science - excuse me for asking, but isn't THAT trying to impose a desirable face on reality?)

No it isn't. Heisenberg Uncertainty means the question is meaningless for practical purposes, so neither side is more 'acceptable'. Also, your determinist viewpoint has no place for consciousness, which obviously exists, so you need to fix that gaping hole. Also, free will isn't more 'desirable', it's just the only useful assumption you can make.

And, for good measure, some popular sayings:

(13) You can't have your cake and eat it too.

What the hell do you want me to do with a cake other than eat it? Mount it in a display case so I can "have" it? (note: I thought of this BEFORE yahtzee put it in a Zero Punctuation video)

(14) What doesn't kill me only makes me stronger.

Cool. Mind if I strengthen you by taking all your money and burning down your house?

(15) What goes up must come down.

Except Voyager.

(16) Turn the other cheek.

Such a dumb saying I don't even know where to begin. Unless it's about passive-aggressive behavior, this just about does it for sheer idiocy. Turn the other cheek when hit? No, stab the fucker, then nobody else will hit you.

(17) Slow and steady wins the race.

Fast and steady tends to do better. The fable itself is fine, but the moral ought to be "don't stop until you've crossed the finish line you fucking idiot".

Two Fallacies

After reading a huge chunk of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's hugely famous magnum opus "The Black Swan" (which alternates between brilliant and rage-inducing), I was thinking about his chapter on "silent evidence", the evidence that never makes it into the pages of history and thus causes distortion. An example of "silent evidence" that Taleb gives is Casanova, or rather, those like him who never became famous. Casanova believed that his "etoile" (star) pulled him out of tricky situations, and indeed he did weather numerous setbacks only to come back as strong as ever. However, if we consider a large number of potential Casanovas, who, upon suffering a setback, have a probability of p of bouncing back (again, each setback in reality is different, but we're keeping it simple so it's easy to follow), many will be eliminated when they don't bounce back (probability 1 - p for each setback for each potential Casanova), and, at the end, only those who made it through make it into the pages of history. This demonstrates that a lucky string of one-in-a-million will often appear when there are enough potential Casanovas, even in the absence of an outside guiding influence. It only seems miraculous and probabilistically impossible because we read about the surviving Casanovas, and not the ones who were pulled under.

This came back to me later when Taleb switched to infuriatingly wrong, in a paragraph about how casinos prepare for all the wrong tragedies. His example was that casinos try to guard against probabilistic variability and cheating through diversification and surveillance, but the things that cost them are things like tigers mauling performers. His conclusion is that the majority of risks fall outside the casinos' models. But this falls victim to his own 'silent evidence' fallacy! Variability doesn't harm casinos BECAUSE they guard against it - so the potential threats don't make it into the books. They are silent evidence. So is cheating, since cheaters get caught or scared away, so the potential risk is totally unknown.

Unfortunately, this analysis of the defect could very well fall prey to precisely another fallacy - the so-called 'Elephant Repellant' fallacy. The idea is as such: a guy walking along a road sees a farmer in a field in England spraying a very smelly substance all over the fields. Naturally curious he goes over, and, holding his nose, asks him what he is spraying on the fields. "Elephant repellant" replies the farmer. "But there are no elephants anywhere near here!" protests the guy. "I know," says the farmer, "it really works!" The point of the fable is clear: any preventative measure can only be determined to be ineffective (at least anecdotally... a rigorous scientific test can differentiate between effective and ineffective preventions well - but sometimes, like in the case of terrorism, double-blind rigorous studies are impossible, and in other cases narrative bias gets in the way anyways), since if nothing happens, it is not clear whether the prevention was responsible or if nothing was going to happen anyways.

This might explain the popularity of curative methods over preventative: we like being able to judge effectiveness. Thus we labor for a pill to cure obesity and a cure for cancer, yet preventative methods are underutilized, placing a huge strain on healthcare.

We thus have two fallacies that work in opposite ways: whether you assume the existence of no silent evidence or the existence of silent evidence, you expose yourself to risk of faulty analysis. So what's to be done? Heres a suggestion in anecdotal form:

In 1973, Israeli intelligence was observing major movements from the Egyptian Army. The military intelligence bureau, Aman, was certain that this was just an exercise. The Egyptians had done the same thing the previous year, and there had been no war, just as Aman had predicted, and nothing seemed different. The actual result is of course famous: Egypt pushed into the Sinai and for a few days it seemed as if Israel was going to lose a decisive ground confrontation to its Arab neighbors until it was able to remobilize its armies and push the invading forces back. However, here is an alternative to Aman's decision making method that to me appears far more rational than its modus operandi of trying to read Arab intentions: prepare for everything. In the case that there is a significant (>1% in my view, but I'm not a military analyst) probability of war, mobilize enough forces to repulse any initial offensive. "But you're only recommending this with hindsight!" I hear you say. "You knew there would be an attack! This tells us nothing!" No. That is not my methodology. I recommend a preparation for any movement capable of producing an attack. I think Israel should have put its active forces on alert and prepared to mobilize the reserves even in '72 when the Arabs didn't invade. The point is that sure, you didn't know if your preventative measures stopped an actual attack or if you were using elephant repellant, so to speak. But in this way you know that you were secure against any possible attack. The enemy is inherently unpredictable; ANY factor depending on human beings with free will is inherently unpredictable. "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy". However, given the level of intelligence available to the IDF, the capabilities of the enemy were known, so, prepare for any attack up to the level they are capable of. In this way, enemy intent is removed from the analysis and it is impossible for them to catch you off guard.

I will illustrate my point with another example:

A teacher tells his students that there will be a pop quiz next week, intended to surprise them. The students then go through the following logic: if the teacher puts the quiz on Friday, they will obviously be expecting it since it's the only day left after Thursday passes with no quiz. Thus, the last day the teacher could put the quiz on is Thursday. But if the teacher puts it on Thursday, thanks to this same logic, they'll be expecting it then too. And so on, so that the teacher cannot surprise the students, despite the students not knowing when the quiz will be. And indeed the teacher cannot surprise smart students. Why? Well, lets see what this logic prescribes: if Thursday passes with no quiz, prepare for it for it will be on Friday. If Wednesday passes with no quiz, prepare for it, for the teacher will not ruin the surprise by putting it on Friday so it will come on Thursday, and so on. The general advice: be prepared for the quiz EVERY DAY. You cannot surprise someone who is prepared every day.

And indeed this is my recommendation for users of 'elephant repellant': figure out how capable elephants are of coming into your fields and trampling your crops, and get the repellant accordingly. Do not try to read the minds of any elephants capable of coming in: 'they might not want to' is not good preparation. If there is a credible threat, and the costs of unpreparedness are high enough, as was the case of Israel in '73, you must prepare for it. Otherwise, you expose yourself to a (negative) Black Swan that may be not quite as unlikely as you think it is.