Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Unworthy Power

As everyone with any sense will freely admit, the U.S. justice system is flawed and not even close to being perfect. Yet, we still have people who will say it's good enough to decide who is worthy of living. To allow such an imperfect system to wield power like that is to prove humanity's unworthiness to exercise it.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Theoretical Recipe

Theories are not facts, they are made up of them. Therefore, theories never "graduate" to a fact; they always remain theories, which get reworked in the face of new/corrected relevant facts. A theory can be thrown out, of course, if enough of the facts on which it is built are determined to be invalid. But the theory's demise doesn't do anything to the facts themselves.

Metaphorically, saying something is "just a theory" is like saying a cake is "just a recipe." The recipe (theory) can get updated with new ingredients (facts), but result is still a cake.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

No Pi

Even though I have sometimes been drawn into god-based stuff on Facebook and elsewhere, I still find myself seeing that whole topic as increasingly distant. The more I encounter believers, passively or directly, the less I find in common with them. It makes it very hard to connect with even the most mild of religious commenters. It would be like trying to communicate with someone who insists pi is not needed when doing geometry of a circle--and wanting you dead for disagreeing.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

One Size Does Not Fit All

It seems to me that our view of the economy and the society under which it operates could be seen similar to the laws of physics in the sense that there are two sets of rules in play. Even though there is a concerted effort to find a single set of rules to describe the universe, there are at present two--one that describes the very small (quantum mechanics) and the very large (general relativity). The very small is extremely unpredictable and hard to understand; the very large is much simpler and extremely more predictable.

These rules are not set by us, of course. They are simply the laws we've discovered from testing and observation. When it comes to economics, though, we make the rules. The society we create may need to look at setting up rules that mimic the idea of two sets of rules instead of trying to force a single set of laws to work that clearly don't.

Unregulated capitalism is perhaps the most unstable economic system ever invented, despite claims to the contrary. Let alone, the system tends to move toward the concentration of wealth in a few large enterprises and the small groups of people who control them. It also creates a huge and permanent underclass that has virtually no power or wealth. Anti-trust legislation was enacted to stop this condition from perpetuating itself, but it has failed because the forces which push for globs of wealth and power to congeal in the hands of a few have resurfaced. Capitalist "invisible hand" theory depends on every "player" remaining small, on its own unable to provide much influence on the entire system. We know, however, that if regulations to keep things small are not enforced or disappear, we end up with the large and hugely powerful players that the theory depends on being absent and can no longer be called capitalism.

Strict controls on society from a heavy-handed government, on the other hand, create a very structured and much more predictable society. But, too much of this kind of thing means that forces required to test and enact improvements get stifled. Power still gets concentrated; it's just a different path to the same result. "Checks and balances" are absent and the human tendency to grab and exercise power over others rears its ugly head here, too.

It seems that there might be a solution that allows for rules that provide stability and individual creativity. With an underlying structure that can be depended upon to support the innovation we desire, the need for a "one size fits all" approach can be abandoned as the only method to consider.

We need a government that primarily sees itself as providing for a stable foundation through the guarantee of some of life's basic needs such as clean water, health care, and education. We could also consider a minimal amount of food and housing, if needed. If people can absolutely count on not starving or dying due to having no place to live and nothing to eat, then a person's energy and focus can be directed elsewhere and allow for those people who would otherwise not be able to take risks to go ahead and do so. Capitalist forces could then be used in the other parts of society that wouldn't result in the threat of death if they fail. The notoriously unstable and volatile world of capitalism would still have to be regulated in order to keep players small, so that the competitive forces that are the key to capitalist economic theory don't disappear.

This is purely and analogy, but if the world of physics has to live with separate rules that provide separate answers in two different realms, it can allow us to see how we don't need a winner-take-all approach to creating a happy and sustainable society. If physicists eventually do come up with a unified theory that explains everything, we can be sure it won't be from forcing one of the current sets of rules from one realm onto the other.

Hidden Scrutiny

While young we quickly learn that the answers are in the back of the book, at first only available to the teacher. By the time we attack subjects for which there are no definitive answers available, we've been trained to seek them from the book writers and have a hard time giving up that process. But, what we also fail to realize is the subjects for which the answers were given are also subject to scrutiny.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

One Religion Doesn't Cure Another

It's nice to see that at least a couple of 9/11 anniversary events excluded religious themes and speakers. For those who complained, it's obvious that they didn't properly consider the religious zealotry that caused the attacks. To pretend that one form of religious extremism is a proper response to another is not sensible. The outrageous religious beliefs of one group are not a cure for someone else's.

Friday, September 9, 2011

9/11 Anniversay? Meh.

I may be in a minority, but I don't feel anything special about the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

I've looked around my own mind and find nothing hidden in any corners or any kind of otherwise suppressed emotions. What I feel can basically be summed up by the commonly used response of "meh."

So, why am I so indifferent? In general, I think it comes down to how society's right-wing fringe elements latched on to the event, infecting it with their fascist attitudes and rhetoric. Trying to see the 9/11 attacks as some sort of universal evil becomes nearly impossible when they so vehemently fuel their hatred and bigotry with the event. It pushes people like myself to the outside of the attackers and those who oppose them in a way that makes them equally unattractive. It's like being asked to pick sides between two street gangs or mob families when you are an outsider to all of them. There is no good choice other than to shun them all.

If people want this event to become something other than an annual and perpetual hatefest, with ignorance and vile rhetoric perpetuating more human suffering and violence, then the prominent parties need to see how they force the rest of us to walk away from the entire thing. Until then, those who have the view of an outsider will see no reason not to remain there.

We Could Do Much Better For Ourselves

I wonder how many similarities there are between what we see as outright corruption and theft (for example, when donated food for the poor is stolen by corrupt governments), and the attitude that rich people in more structured societies have a right to proportionally more stuff than poor people. In both cases, those who have money and power are acquiring more of them while those who need assistance the most are getting less (or none). How can such a system be rationally justified other than to claim whatever system is in place provides divine support for the rules that produce the result?

It may also be that such justifications come from group identity. If a group in power denigrates other groups enough, then it becomes progressively easier to withhold assistance and/or directly steal. This is because if some other group is seen as an enemy in some capacity, there don't need to be any rules and certainly no empathy for that group's suffering.

It seems that those who have money and power justify having so much of each by the fact that they have so much of each. The poor have also earned their place by being poor, in this mindset. Therefore, any action that maintains this setup must be "right" because it is in harmony with this "natural order." We fail to even consider the possibility that these conditions are solely due to our own actions and can change them at will. But, we have this terrible flaw we see coming from some sort of ultimate guidance that allows us to justify the maintenance of a permanent underclass and a wealthy and powerful elite. Until we realize that it doesn't have to be this way, human suffering will always have humanity itself as its root cause.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

One, Two, Three...A Lot

Studies have shown us that babies think logarithmically when it comes to figuring out quantities. They do not realize by default that the "distance" between every sequential whole number is identical. For them, the difference between one and two is massively greater than the distance between eight and nine, for example. It's not until children are 2-3 years old that they begin to grasp what we all take for granted, and only after it being drilled into them.

Non-modern societies who do not have any adults who think the way we do about numbers still think logarithmically. They were never taught out of it. They often don't have any words for quantities greater than three or four. They simply lump everything larger into one quantity translated as something like "a lot."

This provides a hint that modern societies have not completely purged themselves of this way of thinking either. We, too, after reaching a certain numeric quantity don't really grasp the reality of very large numbers, even if we do give each a unique name.

If we pay attention--really pay attention--to what our minds do when we are presented with large numbers, we will notice that meaning disappears and an unquantified haze takes over. When we teach ourselves the equidistant digital method of quantifying the world, it still has limits. We don't have the ability to understand these things because, like children, we still hit a wall where everything on the other side of it is simply "a lot." All we've done is move the point after which numbers are all basically identical.

(Another example of this type of mental reaction is when we first encounter a very long word for the first time. The now famous volcano in Iceland named Eyjafjallajokull is a perfect example. Most people will attempt to sound out the first two or three syllables but then give up.)

This is crucial to the way we make decisions about very important things like federal budget deficits and how we understand the distance to the next solar system. This also likely plays a role in the fact that people who commit multiple crimes before getting caught do not get proportionally more punishment than those who break the law once or twice. One hundred counts of dealing drugs does not get 100 times the punishment of doing it once. Killing 20 people is not really seen as proportionally worse than killing two.

Murdering millions is literally incomprehensible. Therefore, many don't even try and might even assert that it is impossible, claiming such things haven't happened at all. This kind of mental activity might also be one of the reasons  that religious believers will dismiss science. If they can't understand it because the details are lost inside that other side of the wall where "a lot" is the only value, there's no reason to accept it. Going with a simple book of easy explanations and magical beings we're not supposed to understand is seen as a valid alternative.

Our minds are wonderful things and can figure out quite a bit. But, we do have limitations and tend to skew reality in favor of easy answers. We need to be diligent about everything we think, trying to pay attention to our thoughts in order to catch those mistakes we accept too quickly and too easily. Evolution isn't done with us yet, so we do have some changes to anticipate. Hopefully they will include mental improvements, including the ability to recognize our flaws more easily.

The Strange Truth

If the adage that truth is stranger than fiction happens to be true, then holding up a religious text along side a quantum mechanics textbook would do nothing to disprove it.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Finding Our Voices

Everyone "hears" voices. Only some of us claim they are from an outside source. Most know it's just their own mind at work. For some, this phenomenon is evidence of dualism and is why some hold their "self" is separate from their body. For others, however, the response is to wear tin hats or clerical collars or create myths.