Tentativity

2004-03-04T22:14:00.000-08:00

I'M MOVED
http://tentativity.davidsj.com

2004-03-02T23:14:00.000-08:00

Psychology

I've decided that when I finally start college sometime next year, I'm going to study Psychology, inspired by a personal hero of mine, Nathaniel Branden. Since deciding that, I've become aware of a school of Psychology called Rational Emotive Based Therapy, which is fairly cool.
I've also been discussing with some people whether therapy could in and of itself have value for people, and have been encountering a lot of contrary opinion. I will share my thoughts when I'm less tired, but everyone just chime in on what they think now ^^

2004-03-02T23:11:00.000-08:00

I'M TENTATIVELY BACK

Hey everyone! I HAVE RETURNED.
I intend to try and resume writing semi-interesting things for the peoples who used to read my blog.
My first topic: this Wired article from a while back.
The implications of opening up the land underneath cities for development is vast, and could make city-dwelling much more affordable...but I've got to wonder how actually feasible it is, and whether government regulation and short-sighted real-estate owners might keep that from coming to fruition.
What does everyone else think?

2003-10-28T11:14:00.000-08:00

The Matrix Revolutions: An Unmitigated Piece of Tripe (Warning: the entire movie is about to be "spoiled" if you haven't seen it, though I'm wondering about the appropriateness of describing as "spoiled" something which arrived Rotten)

Wow. Just wow. A franchise that started out with a fascinating premise and ubercool visuals, winds down with more predictability then a form letter and more numbing special effects then Jerry Bruckhemier's entire cinematic portfolio. Nothing is answered by this movie; the killer twist at the end of Reloaded which sparked so much controversy (Neo being able to stop the machines in the Real World) is dismissed with the explanation that Neo "is connected to the Source". How? Why? The nature of this connection? Neo didn't feel the need to follow up, since he just nods his head as the conversation moves to ANOTHER TOPIC. Perhaps Neo needs some interpersonal communications skills coaching.

Well maybe that would be useful, if he wasn't DEAD. Yes, Neo dies, and pointlessly, after Trinity, kickass leather-clad bodacious uberbabe Trinity, dies by getting poked with a metal thingy in the real world. Before dying, she gives a death speech longer then SNL would even do as a parody of an overly long death speech, then Neo goes to negotiate with the Big Machine Head for peace for humanity in exchange for defeating the Smiths. Big overly warbled machine head agrees, and the final battle begins.

I did skip over the defense of Zion; some pointless characters we don't give a fuck about re-enacting the end of Aliens with CG for about 20 minutes; lets just say the machines break through and are about to kill all the humans when they're saved by Neo striking his deal up.

Then the final battle. Superman vs Superman, until Neo lets Smith "turn him" into another Smith, yet somehow corrupts him from within. All the Smiths die, Neo dies, pointless characters in Zion are saved. Hurrah! Erm...

Those killer twists you were expecting? Pfft, keep dreaming; Star Wars is a Twilight Zone-marathon of twists next to this predictable piece of crap. Emotional impact? Pfft. When Trinity dies, its hard to care. When Neo dies, its just kind of annoying. When pointless characters die, its vaugely satisfying. The only good performance in this entire movie is, of course, Hugo Weaving; but even he gets wasted since a large portion of his screen time is spent doing Superman stunts.

There is no doubt in my mind that all this talk of the Matrix being "originally conceived" as a Trilogy are total crap. The thing is, even if that's true, it could have ended so, so much better then this. I could jam out a script in a few hours that would be way more satisfying then what was actually filmed. In short, it sucks, wait for the video if you need to see it, and start making rationales for how "The Matrix was really over with the first one" ala fans of the original Star Wars trilogy; you'll need them as coping mechanisms.

2003-09-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

This post is to vote for Virtue Pure's On Roleplaying post in the Truth Laid Bear New Blog Showcase. I really liked it.

2003-09-05T23:05:00.000-07:00

Minds and Meds

What constitutes personhood seems to me to be an eternally slippery concept. Especially slippery when forced mental alteration is brought into the picture.
A simple example involves a schizophrenic and the decision of whether or not to forcibly adminster drugs. Certainly, the old "personality" will be altered, but is that such an awful thing? And shouldn't a better-then-tenuous connection to reality be a requirement of assuming one has the moral agency to make such a decision for oneself? The fact that one is person-shaped does not grant individual sovereignty.

On a related note, we not-quite-schizophrenics need to confront the fragile notions of self that might prevent us from leading happier lives. Prescription mind-altering chemicals cannot fix an empty and unfulfilling life, but they can allows us to confront our problems better by tuning the biofeedback noise in our brains to a more agreeable volume. Such drugs are not "shortcuts" to happiness, nor circumventers of free will; agency must be excercised to choose to take them, and true happiness found while on them. "Hacking" the brain neurochemically towards the ends of improvement is no more a circumvention device, a 'cheat', or other negative euphemism connoting "destructive of one's basic personality", then meditation, listening to music, or reading Popper. So lets drop our pretensions and march bravely towards our drug-assisted future happiness.

2003-07-26T17:04:00.000-07:00

Stop this Process, Win a Prize*

A moral idea is born in the mind of a genius.
This idea contains much truth.
However, like the ideas before it, and after, having been born in the minds of fallible humans, it only contains an approximation of the truth.
The idea gains adherents.
The adherents collasce around the genius; its superiority to previous ideas creates a sense of superiority among the adherents. This sense of moral superiority makes interactions outside the circle of ideologues difficult; if one knows The Truth, interacting deeply with those who don't seems as plausible as discussing politics with a baby; the baby just doesn't have the prequisite knowledge to keep up.
An anti-critical culture develops; owing to many things: the sense of moral superiority fills the adherents with a sense of having found the Truth so profoundly that those who attack this Truth must be immoral idiots; a fear of going against the mainstream of the group and losing all of one's ideological friends; a fear of falling into a moral abyss if one rejects one's Truth and all the "Certainity" it brings; etc.
An ideology is born.

*That prize either being a million dollars or praise from me on this website.

2003-06-23T13:22:00.000-07:00

People fall into dogmatic thinking in a quest for easy answers on life's difficult problems. This phenomenon can pervade cultures that have many true ideas (libertarianism, TCS) and corrupt and retard the further growth of knowledge within those cultures. The reason this problem arises seems to be a combination of our constant quest for answers, coupled with intellectual laziness. The fact that memes far less advanced then even say, a dogmatic faulty approach to TCS, still have sway with huge portions of the populace (i.e. religions) bears this out.

While truer theories correlate to reality better, it occurs to me that only a certain minimal level of correlation is necessary to function in society, and that the anti-knowledge-growth memes embedded within the prevailing worldview in a society may retard growth beyond this minimal level. Thus, religious people continue to believe in God because, well, how would morality exist otherwise and how scary is it to think that when you die, its final?

Thus, while theories more closely correlating what is True give those who adopt them an advantage in their daily lives, if a critical mass of people doesn't adopt them and demonstrate the competitive advantage of doing so en masse, most people will continue believing in their millenia-old dogma while adapting to the current context to the minimal degree necessary. Which sucks.

2003-06-16T14:00:00.000-07:00

Unified Theory of the Matrix (warning MASSIVE SPOILERS)

The Matrix is a wargame, of sorts. A battle between humans and machines still does rage on, but not at the level we are led to believe. The humans that have thus far been enslaved in the war were used to create the Matrix, not as a power source (that was always a bogus explanation), but to gather information on the way human beings think and behave. While the primary level of the Matrix (the "Real world" that was shown to be an illusion in the first movie) is somewhat useful for this, the really juicy stuff happens at the level of conflict most closely paralleling the actual situation: the "Real World" of Zion, the layer of reality our heroes are aware of. Thus, the real world of Zion is not a control mechanism that the machines let people escape to, as the Architect leads Neo to believe in the second movie, but in fact PRIMARY to the whole simulation, *it* being a simulation itself, another layer of the Matrix (Agent Smith's body-jumping and Neo's superpowers in the Zion Real World are hard to explain without using the theory that they are still in the Matrix).
Each of the movies thus far has been based largely on demolishing a basic premise. The first, of course, being that Reality was as it seemed; the second being that Neo was a mystical Christ figure assured by divine prophecy to save them all; the third, I think, will be somewhat of a repetition on the first; the Zion Real World will be shown to be fake, and Neo will somehow lead humanity into the realm of the True Real, and True Freedom at last. Thoughts?

2003-05-31T03:05:00.000-07:00

Why the hell am i getting scientology ads in my ad window. "Have Self Doubts? Dianetics explains irrational behavior and how to handle it."
*rolls eyes*

2003-05-31T02:48:00.000-07:00

The WeirdHat Phenomenon

Those who don't actually know me may not know about the Weirdhat Phenomenon and might be puzzled by my referring to Ray Kurzweil as MrKurzweilHat below.
Basically, I have a friend who goes under the nick Mr Weirdhat; I decided it'd be a funny-sounding experiment in meme propagation to start going by the convention of referring to people, places, and things as "Mr"(whatever here)"Hat". As maximally ridiculous as it sounds, you'd be surprised how successful the experiment as been within my circle of friends (to the point of where i've actually seen people call MrWeirdHat "MrMrWeirdHatHat".
And that is basically the phenomenon.
heh. :-)

2003-05-31T02:45:00.000-07:00

My bro MrKurzweilHat thinks the Matrix Reloaded is lame for many of the same reasons I do:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0580.html
I'm still gonna buy Animatrix for myself though. Unless someone wants to beat me to it. *giggle*

2003-05-31T02:33:00.000-07:00

This is hillarious:
"The population of an entire Shadowbane town was forcibly moved to the bottom of the sea, where they drowned. City guards turned feral and attacked town residents. Mobs of never-before-seen superpowerful creatures, seemingly spontaneously spawned from the ether, began to prowl the streets unchecked, killing characters in the most painful way possible. "
from: http://wired.com/news/games/0,2101,59034,00.html
And you'll be happy to note no avatars were hurt in the making of this story, as the company reset time in the universe of Shadowbane, undoing the whole alternate timeline and restoring the world to semi-normal.
As one resident put it: "Hallelujah, I was dead and now I'm not," said player Brian Buttoloer. "This is way better than real life."
I couldn't agree more.

2003-05-31T02:04:00.000-07:00

Pics More Representative of My Appearance Preferences

The Pretty Girl linked below was linked largely to make an outfit-related point about the stupidity of sociobiology (though I did find her fairly hot and still think all you commenters a buncha weirdos, but i digress); in order to clear up any confusion, I offer a more representative selection of my taste here , here , and here.
I was going to include a link to a pic of Carrie-Anne Moss in Trinity garb and possibly Shirley Manson as well, but
A: was too lazy
B: was worried about scaring away the Hillary Duff fanboi crowd with such aggressive female imagery.
Yes curi, that was an unprovoked jab at you. :-)

2003-05-31T01:33:00.000-07:00

Note to self: screw the philosophizing; blog about pretty girls more. Even if people hate your taste, you get lots of comments, and even linked :)

2003-05-28T01:12:00.000-07:00

Look! Pretty girl!
Now, (assuming you like girls as I do, and found the image pleasing as I did) tell me: if our genes "control us" to the extent people who believe that BS think they do, why would certain *outfits* be sexually attractive? Presumably Patent Leather outfits haven't been around for millions of years and woven into our genetic code as a stimulating sight.
What does this leave us with: theories about sexiness causing us to find stuff attractive.
Sociobiologists can consider themselves duly 0wned.

2003-05-28T00:54:00.000-07:00

Why do so many people i ask think that living forever would be a bad idea because "you'd eventually get bored"?!
And on top of that ascribe to a vision of the "afterlife" where even the Utopian Happy Place sounds dreadfully dreary ("And the happy happy angels sing and everyone is super happy fun in the land of puffy white clouds and the all-seeing God")?
Screw that, i say; I'll spend my eternity on Earth with the joyful hedonists of the world, thank you very much.

2003-05-27T01:07:00.000-07:00

(even more on the Meme Machine)

A theory of knowledge that rejects that knowledge grows in the *conscious* minds of human beings seems to have a fundamental tension in its premise. This is borne out by the fact that following the premises of such theories to their logical conclusions annihilates any attempt at understanding morality, psychology, the choices people make, etc. Whole realms of important and useful knowledge are annihilated by the denial of the self. The denial of the self, therefore, removes from consideration theories of powerful explanatory power, without offering any alternative. An explanation for why songs get stuck in people's heads, or even why humans have big brains, as clever as it may be, is worse then useless if it comes attached to a theory which annihilates morality.

To say that the ideas that become popular are those that are adaptable, well-protected against what often passes for criticism, and play on the human desire for comfortable explanations (i.e. Christianity) is one thing; to pose these memeplexes as the ideosphere equivalent of sociobiology's interpretation of the all powerful gene, driving and controlling and manipulating us hapless and deluded humans, and using us as dupes in their scheme to propagate themselves, is quite another.

This is where people like Blackmore veer off the rails, in my humble opinion. But understandably and forgiveably so; the often psychotic and irrational behavior of not mere individual humans, but entire civilizations, can lead to an earnest search for explanations that winds up plunging one into the abyss of self-denial, itself nothing more then a comfortable delusion. For its far easier, I'd think, to view the horrors begotten by humanity's worst as the result of mind-viruses capturing the fickle attentions of deluded monkeys, then to imagine the horror of people actually consciously sanctioning such things.

2003-05-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

Since I have nothing to blog about right now I will just point you in the direction of the smartest woman in the world, Woty. :-)

2003-05-14T00:29:00.000-07:00

Despite the annoyingness of Blackmore's self-denying stuff in her book (mentioned below), I still found it filled with fascinating theories. Her approach to the Meme as a second replicator (the first being the gene), driving the development of the human brain, getting songs stuck in our head, and all other manner of things, is most interesting. I have an intuition that some of her insights can perhaps be reconciled with a non-bucket theory of knowledge, since A) they seem worthy of being so, having a certain level of explanatory power, and B) I doubt she made a serious attempt, given her self and consciousness-denying proclivities.

2003-05-14T00:24:00.000-07:00

I have yet to see an explanation of free will not based on a faulty axiomatic theory of knowledge. This pisses me off greatly.
In the Meme Machine, Susan Blackmore presents some interesting theories on memetic effects on the development of the human brain and cultural evolution, but winds up the book with some annoying self-denying stuff (i.e. we are deluded monkeys).
OTOH, the pro-free will arguments are generally based on crappy axiomatic non-fallible theories of knowledge (ala Objectivism) that, while recognizing the existence of morality and human consciousness, have huge deficits in other important areas.
A theory of free will and human consciousness that integrates the existence of morality, memetics, and the fallibility of human knowledge, seems like something that desperately needs to exist, and should.
Thus inspired by Blackmore's self-denying tangent (who says bad rants can't inspire good things) I am beginning research into the heady area of Free Will Theory, having just ordered a book entitled Freedom Evolves on the subject. If any of you have any recommendations, links, or wanna buy me some more research material ( ;-) ) feel free to comment/click on my wish list ;)

2003-05-06T22:15:00.000-07:00

I truly must update more often.
Anyways, I've started reading a fascinating book lately entitled "The Meme Machine", by Susan Blackmoore. It amazes me how many times I've invoked the concept of the meme without fully realizing its potential implications as a theory of the mind. Starting out from simple premises, such as "why do tunes we don't particularly like buzz around in our head" and whatnot, Blackmoore builds a fascinating theory of mind that seems to have great explanatory power for everything from the size of human brains to the development of language. I'll make an attempt at having some scintillating commentary once I'm fully done with the book :)

2003-04-25T00:27:00.000-07:00

Goals in Life

So here I sit, wondering what in the heck to do with myself.
At the moment I'm working at a McDonald's, saving up for a car so I can have some freedom of movement not dependent upon coughing up plane/bus fare or relying on public trans. The acquisition of a vehicle seems probable in the relatively near future; its the Great Unknown beyond that I'm working out.
I've had an offer to stay with cool people, along with a suggestion from my amigo DSJ that I investigate working at Democratic schools, which many people seem to think would be a good idea for me, and which I'm inclined to agree with. Mind you, there's some logistical issues to be worked out with visiting/getting hired at one, but it seems like course worth investigating.

It occurs to me in all this pondering how fundamentally coercion fucks people up. For the first time in my life now, being as I'm not constantly stressed out or under pressure from someone or worried about a roof over my head, I can really think through what I want to do with my life. But some people never get to this point. Whether they're coerced by their parents in the form of blatant physical abuse, or pressured to do well in some profession of the parent's choosing, or not helped sufficiently so they can "learn self-sufficiency", many people get stuck in a permanent rut of coercion, first external, but then internalized and self-inflicted, a destructive self-coercion meme that they then replicate to those they interact with; "hereditary mental illness" often being nothing more then the vicious cycle of parent being damaged by bad memes in youth, then passing them on to their children, who grow up, and pass them on to their children...

I guess I can consider myself lucky that I'm not in that rut. The sea of options life offers, however, is no less overwhelming...

2003-04-15T15:21:00.000-07:00

Invade France?

Many-a-comment has been tossed around about sending a cruise missile in the general direction of Paris since the war started, but I seriously pose the question: might it be necessary at some point in the future?
Two articles from Guy Millere caught my eye today. This one and this one paint a vivid picture of a decaying society swamped by an Informal Invasion causing de facto changes in the law, very much so for the negative (i.e. horrific violence being done to women not wearing the veil, even native French woman). We see a picture of a society which is looking square in the face at a demographic conquest within a few decades...and paralyzed from taking action against it. The obvious question is: are we looking, plausibly, at the first Islamic conquest in Europe in a very long time, are we, indeed, looking at such a conquest resulting in a nuclear-armed nation based on immoral life-hating religious fundamentalism existing in the very heart of Europe? Are we being gifted with the ability to see a Hitlerian-level threat decades in advance, or is it not nearly so dire? And what is the moral range of actions to deal with such a threat, should it be made manifest?

Much guffawing has been had at the expense of France's supposed self-made irrelevence, but I daresay that France's Compact with Evil has made them most relevent indeed; not as the political center of the socialistic federated Europe they sought to be, but as a proto-authoritarian Sick Society who's nuclear status and virulent anti-Americanism could define international relations in the early 21st Century and prove to be the most dangerous political minefield to navigate in the "Fourth World War"; or, at the very least, provide a very reasonable justification for the quick deployment of a functioning missile defense system (as if North Korea's bluster wasn't enough).

2003-04-15T01:41:00.000-07:00

NASA has GROWN carbon nanotubes that could one day mimic the brain (talk about a killer app).
This and the news about the human genome project being completed have put me in such a splendid technotopian mood today :)
You got to admit its gettin' better, its gettin' better allll the time....

2003-04-14T16:57:00.000-07:00

Essential Pessimism

If bucket theories of the mind are bogus, and everyone must interpret stuff according to the theories they currently have, then it seems depressingly likely that it could take a long time for most people to dump their mystical and stupid ideas overboard.
Consider this. In an age of Reason, where incredibly rational theories of tremendous explanatory power exist, FAITH HEALING is on the rise? A belief in MAGIC? WTF?
The kind of stuff that should be confined to D&D sessions is actually being BELIEVED by more and more people, even in some of the most rational societies on the planet.

If reason cannot prevail, if reason can be actually PUSHED BACK, in the most rational and secularized societies in the world, what hope is there for the darker corners of the earth, still enmeshed in millenia of mystical and tribalistic religious medievalism or even animism?
The answer is none, unless we can identify the root cause of this resurgent belief in such nonsense as the importance of planetary alignments in one's personal life and cast it out of our culture.

2003-04-10T01:10:00.000-07:00

Perry De Havilland says:

"Some who opposed the war on grounds which had nothing to do with Iraq (but rather domestic issues of cost, encroachment on civil liberties at home, etc.) will be unmoved in their views by the success of the war, and that is entirely logical. That 'the good guys won' is frankly an irrelevance if the basis of their opposition was an antipathy to the growth of the state at home (a concern which I share in spite of my support for this war of liberation).
However those whose opposition was based on the 'welfare of the Iraqi people' or the 'doomsayers' ("impregable defences of Baghdad" anyone?)... these people are the willful blind and deaf, walled off from seeing anything which does not fit their distorted subjective world views."

I think he lets group A off the hook too easily, though I have much sympathy, having been there, erm, was it weeks ago? Eh, I'll say months. *grins*
One who cares about liberty cannot reasonably say in the current situation the a big blow for freedom was struck here. Without a draft, without rationing, with minimal casualties, and without (so far) inciting a larger war, an evil tyrant was removed from his seat of power, to the overwhelming joy of his oppressed people and the benefit of all the world. What more could you want?

There's a fundamental divide emerging in Group A though, a divide that is slowly but inevitably revealing itself and causing the spontaeous combustion of the organized libertarian political movement. There are people who opposed or still oppose the war but are actually *listening* to arguments, realizing the facts, and changing their minds, and those who take each civilian casualty and each dollar spent on a laser-guided bomb as obvious proof of their position that war is virtually always bad for liberty. People who, while still concerned with domestic liberties violations and cost issues, recognize the tremendous good being done, and those who think the whole think is a giant plot to make our society Orwellian. Those who try and get their information from as many outlets as possible, and those who self-censor their access to those outlets that agree with them (at least in their minds; condemning contradictory news information as "propaganda" while trusting the most dubious of sources).

While the dogmatic libertarians watch a fringe-party that largely agrees with their positions implode due to scandal and stagnating membership rolls, the pro-war libertarians are left even more politically homeless. Despite their occasionally supporting good causes, the Republicans are fundamentally no good, being as they are an amalgamation of statist RINO Democrats and statist fringe religious conservatives who take offense at artistic representations of naked women; and the Democrats themselves aren't even worth mentioning. So what's a fringe political activist now on the fringe of a dying political party to do? Form a new one, of course!

The United States could greatly benefit from a rational, liberty-oriented, non-statist, gradualist political party. I even have two name proposals, harking back to the very beginning of time (i.e. around the time the U.S. was founded). Either the Jeffersonian Party or the Federalist Party would, in my view, do nicely. I'm personally inclined to the Jeffersonian Party, just because Jefferson has more name recognition today then the Federalists, and I think I'm mildly disclined to vote for a party going under the abbreviation "the Feds". Your mileage may vary though.

2003-04-09T00:38:00.000-07:00

I've been wondering if opposition to public schooling necessarily makes sense. Not the coercive aspect, mind you, but in principal; if they adopted rational curricula and non-coercive attendance policies, they might provide a place for kids to go who'd otherwise be in totalitarian private schools or get badly religiously homeschooled, parents opting for them by virtue of their being free. And given the tremendous demand for/belief in public schooling, do we really have any other plausible choice besides trying to make public schools less evil? (along with constantly spreading the TCS meme of course :) )

2003-04-07T17:13:00.000-07:00

Freedom of Speech

Curi's been blogging against the right of Nazis to march. He states that "my criterion is not to ban unpopular ideas, but intimidating and harassing ones."
The problem here is that establishing this as legal principle would have tremendous negative unintended consequences. I can almost picture the scene; liberal Manhattanites suing organizers of an anti-affirmative action march on the basis of feeling "intimidated" and "harrassed" in their own neighborhood.
Now of course Curi means only to ban intimidating speech that is *immoral*, as opposed to protecting the feelings of relativistic anti-American New York liberals, but can one possibly imagine an anti-intimidating speech code as envisioned by Curi passing the United States Congress? What would emerge, were Curi's legal principle to be adopted, is a free-for-all of lawsuits based on hurt feelings and political agendas; a powerful legal tool of both the PC Liberals and Wacky Religious Conservatives to try and squelch their political opponents. Without the admittedly dogmatic but useful-purpose-serving interpretation of the First Amendment as a blockade, not much would stand in their way.
Of course, I could be full of crap on this. Comments welcome :)

2003-04-07T16:35:00.000-07:00

Profiling

If you have one group that, while being largely good, happens to have people who make up almost the entire proportion of people doing X bad thing, doesn't it make sense to screen those people more carefully for the possibility of doing X bad thing, especially if X bad thing has catastrophic potential? Note I said screen; not jail in perpetuity, not round up and put into camps, just screen (we're talking about people who are largely good, not an invading army, so the measures have to fit the risk level).

2003-04-07T16:23:00.000-07:00

Ironic Historical Quote of the Indefinite Period of Time

"If the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone, 'Died of a Theory.'"
-Jefferson Davis, President, Confederate States of America

2003-04-01T23:08:00.000-08:00

How does one reconcile the American Revolution with an evolution is generally better then revolution point of view, without the benefit of hindsight?
Because with the benefit of hindsight, we can of course see that America's unique experiment in modern capitalistic democracy has been one of the most successful political and social experiments in the history of mankind.
But how do we justify the initial decision to revolt? The taxes, heavy-handedness, political slights, and heavily-exaggerated and propagandized instances of violence (i.e. the Boston Massacre), were they to provide justification for revolts in similar circumstances in general, would seem to necessitate revolution in many more instances then even many anarcho-capitalists would advise. The colonies victory was by no means assured; if not for the combination of British ineptitude, a prolonged war in France distracting the British, direct French support to the Americans, the selection of the ideal candidate for the war fought (Washington), and, now and then, helpful weather, the Continental Army could have been decimated, and the Americans placed in a far weaker bargaining position relative to the Mother Country.
So what about the Revolutionary War made it a moral war to choose to fight at the time, based on the best available theories of the day (if indeed it was so)?

2003-03-25T22:48:00.000-08:00

Interesting feedback I've gotten off of that last post.
I was hard on the idea of commitment because I'm so revolted and repulsed by the common understanding of commitment (i.e. restrictive monogamy, jealousy, and all that bad crap).
I'm now convinced that there exists an understanding of the word that contains none of these connotations, but is more about people non-coercively trying to work towards common goals.
I'm still a wee bit nebulous on the positive side of the concept, but I'm willing to grant nonetheless that I may have thrown out the conceptual baby with the connotational bathwater in regards to commitment.

2003-03-24T22:55:00.000-08:00

Posted this to my new list, Rational Polyamory, in response to a curi post on my list; thought my blog audience might like it too :)

In various areas of life; hobbies and professional pursuits and artistic passions, we pursue things when and to the extent we value them. If we want to write a novel, or become a lawyer, or get heavily into a computer game, we do so, for the period of time during which it is either inherently fun or advances other goals.
To "committ" to one of these things, in the sense of dedicating oneself to them whether or not they continue to affirm your values, would be folly; your enjoyment of the task and the quality of your life in general would suffer from the lack of real interest, real passion, resulting from your lack of continuing, serious interest in the thing.

This follows for relationships as well; the only way one can truly have a "committment" to something in a meaningful sense is to coerce oneself from pursuing other, more interesting relationships. If the one relationship one had was truly fulfilling, formal "committment" would be unnecessary, but instead come naturally; if one has to force oneself to commit to something that's supposed to be based on mutual love and enjoyment, well, it's just not going to work; having to coerce oneself qualitatively changes the nature of the relationship.

The inherently coercive aspects of "committment" in the traditional sense are borne out in business committments; the coercion of the written contract backed up by the courts, often against the angry murmurs of contractees, is an example of a relationship where committments are enforced. And for that matter, an example where they are necessary. Contract law is about the enforcement, through coercion if necessary, of written agreements upon occassionally unwilling contractees for the purpose of making a trustworthy market economy possible; romantic relationships are about mutual happiness-finding and common-preference seeking. The model for one does not carry over into the other.

2003-03-18T23:13:00.000-08:00

Some people are skeptical about my claims regarding nanotechnology and the way it seems to be a "panacea" to all our societal ills.
Part of the confusion is a poor choice of words on my part. When speaking of scarcity ending in the material sense, I specifically mean that many of the "basic needs" people and welfare states so struggle with now, like housing, food, medical care, internet access, etc.

David Deutsch rightfully points out that scarcity has always been and will always be a creativity problem, and not a mere lack of certain molecules. He is quite right, and my theories about nanotech reinforce this point. Nanotechnology is a tremendous application of human creativity and ingenuity down to the molecular level, and will help us solve many, many problems, and also open up the path to entirely new experiences (like virtual reality). But of course there will always be a scarcity in the realm of knowledge, ideas, creativity, thus necessitating future intellectual growth; for scarcity to *cease* exist in *this* realm, would seem to require a rejection of philosophical fallibility and embrace of a secular theory of omniscience; not to mention necessitate a vision of the future that seems dreadfully boring to me.

Tom Robinson posits a theory in comments about vain politicians being megalomaniacal attention-fetishists. I think this accurately describes some of the more evilly ambitious ones, though I still stick to my original premise that most sleazy politicians are just self-interested cash+comfort-seeking missiles. Regardless, a reduction/elimination in "basic needs" scarcity affects them all. By eliminating the "need" for many of the most bloated government programs, nanotech weakens the power concentrated in government institutions overall, thus lessening the draw for all those vain attention-loving megalomaniacs. I also don't buy that politicians will be able to keep up in terms of taxation and government power; the explosion of the economy in the coming years will make government an increasingly smaller player, and the effects of that explosion will likely be felt worldwide, bringing wealth and prosperity to the benighted cesspools from which those who have the least to lose by blowing themselves up come from.

And so my point is thus clarified :)

Thoughts?

2003-03-18T23:08:00.000-08:00

More on my Dogma

I have a natural (I don't mean this in the biological sense, don't worry; just as a basic attribute of my thought and personality) tendency towards self-criticism and improvement of theories.
What happens when this natural tendency runs up against deeply entrenched memes, and one is willing to neither dogmatically reject a better theory, nor quite ready to embrace it.

*drumroll*
*dramatic voice*
INTELLECTUAL PURGATORY *echo, echo, echo, fade*

That most annoying state of being deeply conflicted and feeling unable to figure things out.
I was like this regarding the war, and mainstream libertarian theory, for quite a long time.

Another part of the reason for the purgatory, besides dogmatic memes, was that much of the criticism I saw of the Libertarian position was poor. Often times, Libertarians are RIGHT, on the terms they are arguing on. For instance, if you're arguing that a war on Iraq can only be justified in a retaliatory sense, and you're straining to connect al-Qaeda and Iraq, that looks like a pathetically weak justification for war.
The attitude of many pro-war people was also off-putting. i.e. "Why do you want to defend a ruthless dictator". It doesn't ALWAYS make sense to invade the nation of EVERY ruthless dictator, and emotional appeals are just as invalid as arguments if you happen to be on the right side of an issue as if you're on the wrong one. Pleas and bloody pictures are not substitutes for argument, and the truth is not self-evident. Not everyone who has a bad position on an issue does so out of a willful desire to embrace evil, people. Try and remember that and temper your criticism accordingly.

A turning point for me was when I saw commentary that posited a consistent moral and strategic framework under which invasion made sense (kudos to U.S.S. Clueless, Bill Whittle, and my amigo Curi for that). My reaction to these people followed something like this: "Here are people arguing from MORAL positions of expanding freedom that made *sense*, and yet they AREN'T LIBERTARIAN (in the mainstream sense). *gasp*
How could this be?! Unless....MY PREMISES ARE FLAWED! NOOOOOOOO! IT CANNOT BE"
Well alright, that was a slightly dramatized representation, but you get the gist of it. It could, of course, "BE", and my theories are changing accordingly.

Political and worldview roller-coaster rides are rather strange journeys. I started off as a liberal, morphed into a liberalatarian, as I call it, then a true-blue Libertarian, then an Objectivist, then an anarcho-capitalist, and now an anarcho-capitalist who tentatively supports a U.S. invasion of Iraq. I just hope something really stupid like socialism doesn't wind up making sense one day; that'd really piss me off :)

2003-03-16T13:11:00.000-08:00

The Economics of Destruction and Liberation

A Fictional Scenario:

The Unified Empire of Evil is a cancerous rot upon civilization. It's intents are to spread a militaristic empire of state socialism and rigid authoritarianism throughout the globe. It also intends to eliminate a significant portion of the population it has deemed insufficiently good. Our best available theories indicate that, if they go unchallenged, the Empire of Evil will annihilate 100 million people, and claim most of the planet under their umbrella of totalitarian insanity.

The only significant moral countervailing force to the UEE is the Alliance of Civilizations with Flawed Yet Nonetheless Significantly Better Ideals. The Alliance undertakes a war to destroy the UEE; in said war, 25 million UEE civilians are killed. The Alliance triumphs.

Did the Alliance "murder" 25 million civilians, or save 75 million?

Well, you say, we can't know for *sure* that the UEE would have actually killed those 100 million. Well, you say, an internal coup could have overthrown the evil regime, sparing us all the deaths of the war.
Well, you say, the UEE, left unchallenged, could have weakened and possibly brought an early demise to the Union of Ridiculously Stupid Socialists (U.R.S.S), which later developed into a tremendous menace to the free world, thus sparing us a great horror.

This is all true. These are all plausible arguments. But were they the best at the time? Were they the best available theories?

Or, was it more likely that the plans for genocide would have gone unhindered?
More likely that the current leader would endure for a long time, or that, even allowing for a change in leader, the basic structure of and theories underlying the government would not have improved significantly?
More likely that either one evil nation would triumph, unifying most of the world under a banner of horrific totalitarianism, or that both would agree, ultimately, to a tyrant's truce, content to allow each other Rights of Slaughter in their respective spheres?

Citizens of the Alliance can condemn the intervention of their government sincerely and without malice towards other peoples or their own society's values; indeed, much has been written by brilliant men in the Alliance about the dangers of unnecessary intervention. The traditions of isolationism run deep. And one of the glorious things about the Alliance is that its citizens are free to vehemently disagree with government policies without persecution.

And many such dissidents would no doubt be quite worried about the deaths of innocent civilians at the hands of their government. They do not want Alliance Planes carrying Alliance Bombs with Alliance Explosives, paid for by Alliance Taxes, being dropped upon the heads of innocent civilians whose only crime, it would seem, is to live in territory either appropriated or conquered by the UEE.
They want to help people, and prevent the death of innocents.

Yet what's required here is what want might call an economic perspective.

Another scenario:
A liberal sees a rich person, well-heeled, sharply dressed, and Rolex-wearing, walking by an unshaven rag-wearing homeless person on the street. He sees unfairness, poverty, injustice, and, out of a true desire to help people, formulates a mechanism (wealth redistribution) and an engine for that mechanism (government) to remedy this situation. Let us presume our liberal here has not thoroughly thought on the moral implications, does not revel in the destruction of wealth and prosperity, but, instead, is our prototypical Misguided Idealist.

An economist sees this situation and understands many truths. Firstly, that in a free society, people get sharp clothes and Rolexes by *creating wealth*, for the benefit of themselves and all others. The rich get richer, yes, but they drag everyone else along with them in the same direction. Secondly, that wealth redistribution from the rich to the poor punishes and discourages wealth creation while encouraging idleness. Born from the liberal's instrument to eliminate poverty are the very conditions for its sustaiment and growth. Thirdly, if our economist is as good with moral analysis as he is with financial, he will understand that to hold one having greater wealth then another as an inherent injustice is to pave a moral path straight to the hell of Communism. A communist's moral analysis ends with the primacy of Need; a capitalist is content to let the Market award people according to their Ability.

What does this have to do with our war scenario?

Those fictional Alliance citizens, opposed to the intervention, motivated by a sincere desire to do good, are stopping two steps too short in their analysis. They are seeing the corpses left from the Alliance bombers, but not the horrors that are being *prevented* by those bombers, nor are they looking forward towards the glorious future when the UEE joins the world of civilized nations, and their people are set free.

They are committing the common liberal error of determining that they want to help people, that this is sufficient, and that anyone who disagrees with them must be motivated by malice towards the innocent, or hatred, bloodlust, greed, or any of another thousand horrors which blight the hearts of the human race. And they will not even grant that those who oppose them might share their motivations to help, to be good, to do right, since to cease this dehumanization of their ideological competitors would *force* them to take the opposing view seriously; something, of course, no dogma can allow.
But those with the larger perspective on the issue must stand steadfast in the face of this dogma; the very fate of civilization may very well depend on it.

2003-03-14T16:15:00.000-08:00

This article plunges with extraordinairy depth into the subject of the motivations behind al-Qaeda's suicide squads.
The monumental strategic stupidity of inciting the U.S.'s wrath by launching an attack on civilian structures reinforces my point about the inevitable strategic-knowledge handicap evil people have to deal with. Harris, in this article, paints a vivid picture of the twisted, demented mentality one needs to have to view such an act as a "success".

The closer one stays to reality in terms of executing one's lunatic plot, the more dangerous the plot is. The Germans did not rely on one act of destruction to prove to God their worthiness in expectation that he'd take care of the rest, but instead relied on legions of brilliantly engineered tanks and bombers to make the dream of the Third Reich real. In this respect, then, the strategic problem of an enemy who is all-too-happy to die for their cause is more then balanced by their utter lack of strategic judgment, as well as their total inability to mount a conventional threat.

2003-03-14T15:33:00.000-08:00

Might European opposition to US policy *actually* be motivated by a sort of misguided idealism, as opposed to the other theories which have taken root here? (i.e. of European economic concerns and cowardice)

This very long and utterly brilliant article seems to propose exactly that. What follows is a rather serious chunk of the article, but this is necessary to give you a sense of the ideas discussed:

"During the Cold War, few Europeans doubted the need for military power to deter the Soviet Union. But within Europe the rules were different.
Collective security was provided from without, meanwhile, by the deus ex machina of the United States operating through the military structures of nato. Within this wall of security, Europeans pursued their new order, freed from the brutal laws and even the mentality of power politics. This evolution from the old to the new began in Europe during the Cold War. But the end of the Cold War, by removing even the external danger of the Soviet Union, allowed Europe's new order, and its new idealism, to blossom fully. Freed from the requirements of any military deterrence, internal or external, Europeans became still more confident that their way of settling international problems now had universal application.
*snip*...many Europeans, including many in positions of power, routinely apply Europe's experience to the rest of the world. For is not the general European critique of the American approach to "rogue" regimes based on this special European insight? Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya - these states may be dangerous and unpleasant, even evil. But might not an "indirect approach" work again, as it did in Europe? Might it not be possible once more to move from confrontation to rapprochement, beginning with cooperation in the economic sphere and then moving on to peaceful integration? Could not the formula that worked in Europe work again with Iran or even Iraq? A great many Europeans insist that it can.

The transmission of the European miracle to the rest of the world has become Europe's new mission civilatrice. Just as Americans have always believed that they had discovered the secret to human happiness and wished to export it to the rest of the world, so the Europeans have a new mission born of their own discovery of perpetual peace."

Quite a counterpoint to the view of sniveling French poodles and German shepards with their noses up dicators' asses being popularized in both comic strips and serious commentary here in the states, eh? Even though the Europeans are wrong, especially in regards to this theory that having lots of power itself tends to lead inherently to destructive consequences ,the knowledge that their policy might be driven not by sheer America-hatred, nor cowardice, nor a reworking of an "it's all about oil" conspiracy theory to their side of the Atlantic, but by a different and reasonably plausible view of how to maintain peace and security in the international order, has serious strategic and diplomatic implications. It reminds us never to underestimate our ideological competitors; by chuckling self-assuredly that the motivations of the French are guided entirely by their innate cowardice, we are missing the picture as much as some schmuck in the street waving a "socialist revolution is the only way to end capitalist imperialism!" sign.

2003-03-14T15:32:00.000-08:00

(If you're the type whose head explodes anytime anyone gets passionate over the definition of a word, ya might wanna skip this one)

Pride is a glorious word that deserves to be liberated in the same way Ayn Rand liberated selfishness.

To take Pride in something, whether that thing is anything from a successful business to a poem to a blog essasy, is to honor said thing as a standard bearer of one's values made manifest; a glorious thing that by the spark of one's ingenuity, the fire of one's passion, and the diligence of one's effort, has been born into reality for all to see.

Pride also has another, unfortunate meaning. I'm sure we've all heard the statement about someone having "too much pride". People who can't stand criticism without getting visibly upset, people who refuse to change their ways/methods of doing things even when they've been clearly refuted, etc., are all accused of this crime of having more then their allotment of pride. But what is it that they are supposedly so proud of? Their low self-esteem? Their embarrassment at being shown to be wrong? Their delusions of competence? What does the pride connote?

The answer is nothing... *positive*. Instead of pride at something glorious, we find delusions and anger and tradition-bound thought. Being defensive of such things, such irrational emotions, is no more Pride, then stabbing oneself with a sword because one is so shamed at one's incompetence to live on is "Honor". Honor what? Honoring what? A value system where the ultimate act of cowardice is held in higher moral standing then carrying on with the knowledge of one's screw-up, and fighting another day?

Pride does not deserve these connotations. Pride deserves to stand unblemished as a concept which connotes the best within us; goodness knows we already have a multitude of concepts which describe the worst.

2003-03-10T21:46:00.000-08:00

Dogmas are systems of ideas accepted uncritically, containing memes that are hostile to rational criticism, and circularly logical "proofs" designed to support and explain all things in the universe according to the dogmatic theory. Dogmas are one of the single biggest blocks to the creation of knowledge in existence.

Religion is probably the most common form of dogma, though it is not the only one. Any system which causes one to think in terms of shoehorning the facts of the world into your theories, as opposed to creating theories which can explain the facts, has in it dogmatic elements. A rather recent revelation for me was the realization that I myself had somewhat bought into Libertarian dogma, and was not analyzing problems in terms of trying to find optimal solutions, but in terms of trying to find solutions compatible with popular Libertarian theory, which I was accepting as a given and not challenging sufficiently. For example, I'd analyze WWII in terms of "Maybe we shouldn't have gone to war, since doing so resulted in multiple violations of the non-initiation of force principle" as opposed to, "was defeating Hitler the optimal choice in terms of defending and expanding liberty, and if so, what actions at various junctures were justified in the context of that goal, and which were not". Criticism from multiple peeps close to me, especially one in particular, helped correct my thinking on this issue; ya know who ya all are ;)

This is not to say that I don't still have doubts and conumdrums about such issues (you can see below for some examples), but it occurs to me that far more important than what you think is HOW you think, and given this, the answers which have eluded me for so long, remaining ever out of my grasp, will reveal themselves much more easily given my recent upgrade in philosophical outlook.

2003-03-10T21:45:00.000-08:00

Alpha Centauri is, in my far less than humble opinion, and for all its flaws, one of the greatest computer games in the history of mankind.

One of the reasons I say this is it makes a serious attempt at modeling various forms of human government, economic interaction, societal values, ideologies, and Utopias. The ability to mix-and-match seemingly unusual combinations which actually exist is another cool aspect (i.e. Free Market Economics/Police State government, ala Singapore), and is far, far above Civilization's Democracy/Anarchy/Despotism model of monolithic, undifferentiated governments.

The game even has moral elements. Nerve-gas happy atrocity-doers face economic sanctions, certain factions are natural enemies do to clashing ideals (no greater fun then nuking dirt-worshippers with Better Then Nuclear Weapons made by the Free Market, let me tell you!), and various snippets try and flesh out the underlying ideologies of the faction leaders (i.e. Chairman Yang is the crown prince of asceticism and bucket-theory epistemology, and appropriately leads the most evil faction, the Human Hive, a.k.a. "We Make the Bolsheviks look like Libertarians").

Just thought I'd mention that, since part of the reason I've been scarce lately is my level of Alpha Centauri playing has gone up dramatically ;)

2003-03-06T11:34:00.000-08:00

How many times have I gotten into historical arguments over WW2 I cannot count. A common thread in such discussions is "We're lucky the Nazis didn't do X, cuz if they had they would have won". Examples: if the Nazis hadn't enslaved and killed so many productive members of their populace and caused a brain drain to the U.S.; if the Nazis hadn't been so overly confident in their belief that the British would simply surrender to them; if the Nazis had more rationally allocated resources, better managed their economy, shown more strategic insight later on in the war, etc. etc. etc.
The thing about these arguments is that you can carry them further and have even better results. Instead of simply avoiding the enslavement and murder of the population (and subsequent economic and scientific consequences), you could posit a more generally free society overall ( more like England or the US), with all the economic and scientific benefits therein; instead of positing a better-planned Sealion, how about not invading one's neighbors at all, which would have been to the benefit of Germany and the rest of Europe; and so on and so forth.

The point is this: the further away you move the Nazis from the course they actually took and towards the more rational courses of action, the *less they become Nazis*, and the more they become rational, civilized individuals. The moral knowledge needed to move on to the proper course at many of these junctures (like realizing that killing innocent, moral, productive people is NOT a good) is precisely what the Nazis (and evil people in general) lack, what made them evil, and thus it's NO SURPRISE that they blundered as tremendously as they did.

Given this, military assessments of a situation between two opposing forces of vastly differing moral knowledge that are based on the notion of both sides acting with about equal rationality are almost always overly pessimistic, for the "morality gap" is of tremendous strategic importance, though not nearly as measurable as troop concentrations and pieces of artillery. Even so, one must keep the realization of one's superior moral position in mind, and even against seemingly overwhelming odds, realize that it is one's evil enemy who is far more likely to blunder.

2003-03-04T02:18:00.000-08:00

Scarcity (in the material sense) is set for a recategorization from an annoying everyday fact to one of those abstract mental-masturbation topics in our new future, thanks to nanotechnology. I offer the theory that this will greatly weaken nation-states and transform the very structure of our society.
When it comes down to it, governments are basically stuff takers, redistributors, and protectors. Taxes, welfare programs, and the defense of some modicum of liberty and property are pretty fundamental government functions nowadays (except that last one in the case of commies and fundies). So what happens when technology allows us to hack our Civilization scenario and give everyone near-infinite gold?

A: The impetus for welfare programs (a HUGE part of the modern nation-state) vanishes.
B: Most crimes involving stuff taking stop
C: Poor people in other countries lose their reason to be envious of us cuz they have stuff too
D: Everyone can afford really big guns to stop the few remain wacko criminals anyway

Now, while some form of law and arbitration will still be necessary in this future society, with the lack the crime and the tremendous weakening of government, the conditions will be ripe for the development of that ubercool anarcho-capitalist society knowledge we're all pining for.
And if it turns out that states DO survive in any form, they'll be so weak (by, um, unnecessity) as to make L. Neil Smith novel governments look like totalitarian regimes.
Thoughts?

2003-02-26T22:23:00.000-08:00

What makes power-related sex imagery and play intriguing?

There are very often intriguing elements to immoral stuff. That narcotic sense of safety, protection, and getting taken care of people can sometimes feel when they allow themselves to fall into controlling, abusive relationships; the intriguing, disarming uninhibitedness and aggressiveness of a domineering person with little respect for other's autonomy; sexual hunger and emotional need being used as a tool for manipulation.

These are all real, DANGEROUS things that are elements in genuinely bad relationships every day.

However, they all have their positive counterpoints: the sense of safety and calm and joy one feels in a healthy, deep relationship; the attractive strength and confidence of someone with a healthy sense of their own competence and pride; the pleasure people can take in stoking their desire for each other to a fever pitch before consummating it.

In most cases (or at least when it's done right), power-related sex play manages to touch on something good and genuine and not at all immoral while at the same time harnessing the excitement of the immoral side. And why do we need this simulacrum of an immoral aspect if we have this genuine and good and wonderful thing already?
One reason: because conflict and struggle are exciting, and to be able to experience the sensation of "losing" a moral conflict in a way that doesn't involve actually losing to evil can be fascinating (and deeply satisfying).
There's more to be said here because this knowledge is really deep, but I'm tapped out right now.

2003-02-25T22:04:00.000-08:00

Few things annoy me more then when people confuse the superficial with the substantial. People watch sci-fi movies and see guys with laser guns running around after funny-looking guys with laser guns, and presume that sci-fi is *about* battles between laser-equipped good guys and funny-looking bad guys (when in fact this is only true of Star Wars, which I happen to enjoy anyway thank you very much).

Science fiction, though, even in it's watered down, presentable-for-TV form, is about ideas, morality, and the future of human progress. And one of the most enduring of science fiction's icons is that of the galaxy's most famous Vulcan, Spock (he's from classic Star Trek for those that have no clue, heh).

It is often said that Vulcans reject emotion (and that, in The Next Generation, Data simply "lacked" emotion). This is based on a popular misinterpretation of the nature of emotions which results in the unfortunate anatogonistic-duality view of reason & emotion that many people have.

Emotions are inexplicit theories. They are controlled by the ideas we hold explicitly, and they help bring inexplicit ideas out into the light. They are every hunch, every intuition, every desire to keep thinking at a problem in the middle of the night waiting for that last piece to....*click*. Without some level of emotion, thought would be impossible.

Now obviously Spock and Data are not mindless dummies. So what's lacking here is not emotion per se but *emotional intensity*. And it's among this lunatic fringe of emotional reactions (blind rage, obsession, suicidal depression) that Trek's implicit Stoicism starts to ring a bit truer.

With a proper understanding of the nature of emotions and their place in rational thought, we can realize that what's required is not the rejection of emotion (an impossibility anyway) or blindly following emotions (advocated by those types who'd advise you to always follow your intuition), but realizing that emotions are subservient to and guided by rational thought, and working to keep that intellectual power structure in place.

There's this great scene in Star Trek: First Contact where Data and Picard are about to enter an unnerving and dangerous situation, and Data moves his head a certain way and shuts off his emotional intensity chip (and Picard brillaintly observes: "Data, sometimes I truly envy you.") While we can't directly adjust the "volume" of the biochemical processes and neuron interactions which represent emotional intensity as quickly or easily as Data can (though we do have limited capacity with prescription medication), we have the same ability to realize that our emotions need to be kept in check, and the rational capacity and moral responsibility to do so.

Such an ethic runs contrary to those who'd use "passion" or "depression" as a cover for the committment of evil acts like murder. For if one is at the stage of intellectual development where one can explicitly feel things like obsession or depression, one has the rational capacity to overcome them. If reason and emotion are not segregated but inseparably intertwined, then within each murderous evil impulse lies the seeds of its own rejection, and the moral guilt that comes with following the impulse before counseling one's better judgment.

2003-02-25T22:03:00.000-08:00

A friend really got me today with a question. (Note: for the purposes of this discussion I will assume that the FDR did in fact endeavor to provoke the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. The moral point to be resolved assuming this factual is far more important and interesting in this circumstance then whether the factual is true or not).

I don't think the U.S. intervening to stop Nazis is bad. But, the American populace was very antiwar at that time. Embracing FDR's provocation seems to give sanction to an emperor-like executive involving a nation of millions in war on a manipulative whim without consultation of the legislature or populace, a VERY VERY VERY bad precedent in ANY society, especially one as basically cool (and one thus with as much to lose) as American society. On the other hand, the plausible alternative scenario seems to be letting the Nazis own Europe, barring them doing something profoundly stupid like directly attack the U.S. itself before taking everything else over.
*head explodes*
Thoughts?

2003-02-24T23:55:00.000-08:00

Marriage and monogamy are generally pursued in modern society as really really bad attempts to solve the problem of people who use other people and treat them merely as ends to self-gratification.
It's unfortunate that many people who reject marriage and monogamy have "rebelled" by embracing shallow sexual-utility relationships, but they make marriage no more correct then abandonment parenting make child abuse correct.

It's funny how people expect processes to work sometimes. People pine for "committment", i.e. a deep and abiding love and desire to be with and create knowledge with someone, and somehow expect that a coercive non-compete agreement finalized with the property transfer of a large rock equal in value to at least two months salary of the male contractee will somehow facilitate the development of this deep relationship.

Now I'm not saying all relationships involving a marriage suck. But those that work work because the people involved are basically cool and rational to begin with, not because they happened to have gotten married and, in the emotional and legal steel cage of the institution, managed to "work it out".

So basically we're left with an institution that's a redundancy for people with real relationships (the only real rational reason to adopt it being to simplify social interactions with all those boring "normal" people out there), and a painful trap of shattered divorced-from-reality romantic notions of relationship-building for those whose interactions are less healthy.

2003-02-24T23:08:00.000-08:00

Something's been bugging me. There's an argument against intervention that says Bush is using the war as an excuse to trample on civil liberties at home. Now, I'm no big fan of Bush's domestic agenda, but wouldn't politicians be able to use the "we're at war!" excuse for crushing civil liberties even if no Iraq invasion was planned, perhaps even *more* effectively?
Think about it. Bush's argument for War against Iraq is partially based on the potential threat Iraq poses to the U.S. . Since Bush is pursuing a big military campaign to remove this perceived threat, civil libertarians can say stuff like "well you're saying you're getting rid of the threat at it's source over *there*, so why the police state over *here*?"
But in an almost purely defensive war the "argument" for a police state would seem that much more compelling to Americans scared of more smoldering skyscrapers; after all, if we're not doing stuff over *there*, then "Homeland Security" over *here* is *all we can do*, would go the reasoning.
So it would seem to me that the "Bush is crossing the Rubicon with Iraq as an excuse" argument is one of the weaker links in the antiwar talking points. Feel free to try and prove me wrong though :)

2003-02-24T22:45:00.001-08:00

Ayn Rand once said that if you told her what a man found sexy she could tell you his philosophy on life. This theory of divining theories strikes a chord with me.

Consider two ideals: Guy A wants a strong, competent, intelligent woman, and considers standard measures of female physical attractiveness (i.e. large breasts, full lips, long legs) secondary if not tertiary. While he has a minimum standard of physical attractiveness for entering a sexual relationship, it's more a requirement of non-repulsiveness then a requirement of uberhotness; i.e. as long as looks aren't a problem, a drawback, a *negative*, it's all good. (Way to a woman's heart, eh?
Hot Chick: How important are my looks to you honey?
Dude: Well it's really your non-repulsiveness that's primary, love. Everything past that is just gravy)
Guy B a woman who "needs" him in an extremely-dependent-kinda way and values the standard measures of female attractiveness so much he has to restrain himself from breaking out a measuring tape at the singles bar.

Which of the two is more likely to have a healthy, pro-voluntary, non-abusive relationship, and for that matter, be happier in life in general?

The answer is not coincidental. A basically moral approach towards life involves valuing people as people, not respirating sex toys (or punching bags, a common approach towards both spouses and children), and winds up spilling over positively into all areas of life.
The moral superiority of what Guy A finds attractive is a result of this valuing the person rather then the perceived sexual utility or emotional malleability of the person.

Am I saying that finding hot chicks interesting cuz they're "physically" hot is immoral? No. I believe, however, that perceptions of hotness of, say, celebrities are based on a series of theories and sexual stereotypes connected with our own personal desires and fantasies. I'll give you a for-instance. I find Angelina Jolie hot because her appearance and mannerisms are that of an aggressive, powerful, intelligent woman, based on implicit theories that reveal themselves in the form of getting turned on. When I find out she's into mysticism this is disappointing and reduces my interest in her because it doesn't fit with my idealized vision of who she is and thus interrupts my fantasy. I imagine it'd be the same for someone who liked some model because she looked sweet and caring, and then watched an interview and found out she was a raging bitch.

To put it simply, perceptions of physical attractiveness are largely based on our own personal desires AND our stereotypes of what certain "looks" connote. It gets a lot more interesting when you introduce power-related sexual play into the mix (w00t!), but I'll save that for another day. For now, Discuss!

2003-02-24T22:45:00.000-08:00

I think the debate over whether Iraq is a clear and present threat to the United States is largely a smokescreen, though I'm not positing it's an intentional one. More like an incidental one arising from all the intellectual ammunition being spilled on the battlefield. The core issue seems to me to be whether the U.S. should go around trying to liberate other countries (particularly in the Middle East) that ARE NOT a current immediate threat to us. On this issue I am deeply confused.

On the one hand I've been swayed in a far more pro-intervention direction lately by the horror stories of what goes on in these countries; the virtual chattel slavery of woman who get stoned for that horrible criminal offense of being raped, the brainwashing of children into suicide-zombies, and the generally disgusting state of their culture. Combine that with the fact that in the city where I lived most my life there sits an empty lot where two pillars of capitalism once stood, and the imperative for intervention seems strong.

Yet there remain those nagging voices in my mind, ghosts of Founding Fathers with their admonitions against interventions bearing the standard of freedom, worries about the saddening state of domestic liberty in our own nation, and of the extra-Constitutional process through which this war seems to getting pursued through.

Voices on either side of the debate can be useful for pointing out relevent facts, but in terms of moral arguments can be a bit lacking. Some of the pro-intervention people often like to think of war-skeptics as a gang of America-hating paranoid tinfoil-hat wearing fringe lunatics, and the anti-war people like to imagine their opponents as mindlessly flag-waving, state-worshipping, war-fetishizing neanderthals. The truth as I see it, is that on either side, the people *worth listening to* at all have a deep concern with liberty, and the argument here is about how to best preserve and extend that liberty.

Several points seem to be under dispute in that argument, including:
1. The scariness of the Islamic countries
2. The moral uses a coercively funded standing army can have
3. To what extent we should treat the U.S. Government as an imperfect solution vs. as an Active Threat

In order to reach any kind of convergence here, I think its important that people on both sides realize that they are not mindlessly repeating talking points from either a Justin Raimondo article or a Robert Kagan policy paper (depending on your flavor), but are actually critically thinking on these issues and deeply concerned about the impact of war (or lack thereof) on liberty.
As you can tell I'm undecided on this issue myself; my uncharacteristic lack of relative certainity in part inspired the name of this blog. I'll post more stuff later on, but for now, Discuss!

2003-02-24T22:44:00.000-08:00

This is a brief introductory/test blog (skip this if you want interesting stuff). My name's George Justin Mallone, but all my amigos call me Justin. I'm originally from Brooklyn, NY, but the great Game of Life has currently stationed me (doesn't that sound cooler then "I had to move"?) in Central Oregon (Redmond, specifically; that's near Bend for those trying to find it on a map, or about 3 and a half hours from Portland for those looking at a reasonably-sized map); I've been told I'm close enough to a Critical Rationalist and TCSer to be welcomed into those circles, but I've yet to receive my membership card (I hear there's hot rational chicks at the Secret Meetings too, *sigh*). I'm 20 years old for those who care about that kinda thing. And now I'll stop before this devolves any further into one of those noxious "this is me aren't I interesting" web pages that polluted our web browsing before Google subjected them to the merciless Darwinian webolution process of its PageRank system.