Love and Economics

First on an unrelated note, I've decided to start posting links to new blog entries on my twitter as well as Facebook. If you're interested, you can follow me @NOTdavidu

I'd like opinions on this, so if you feel like you have something to say, please say it.

Economic theory says that the laws of supply and demand are universally applicable, so in this case I attempt to apply them to love. If you increase the supply of relationships one takes part in, do you not dilute the value intrinsic to them? Decrease the quantity of relationships supplied, and do you not increase their value? I'm not talking about the pure pleasure satisfaction that results, because while goals like that can easily be met that sort of hedonism is inevitably hollow and I think undesirable.

I'm talking about the deep and substantive relationships, the kinds that the ancient Greeks conceptualized in their word eros. The desire for two to become one. Going through the motions of having lots of "meaningful" relationships with different individuals, I think, defeats the purpose. Maybe it's just me, but isn't the point of having a meaningful relationship that it is unique in some way? If they're all equally unique and special, is it also not true that none of them are?

I know a few adults who found their spouse during their time in college, and I'm really starting to appreciate now how rare of an accomplishment that is. Maybe the culture was different then, but right now there seem to be zero social institutions in place to facilitate the types of relationships I'm talking about. Everything is about drunk hookups at frat parties and bars. As a side note, I'd like to add that it's nearly impossible to initiate a meaningful relationship or even friendship with anyone while drunk. Drinking should be used to solidify preexisting relationships and not to initiate them, for they, like hedonism are invariably hollow. Given the prevalence of the alcohol in college, the task of the romantic is made that much more difficult.

But back to the initial topic. I know that the process of dating and hooking up is working, albeit circuitously, toward finding a real relationship and that it's not realistic to expect to be able to jump into a deep and profound romantic attachment, but I feel like the process itself inevitably reduces the value of the end result. Say you date a few people. Then you end up in a deeper relationship with one of them. Then you break up. Then the process repeats again, and again, until finally one person agrees to stay 'till death do ye part. That's a slightly depressing yet realistic conception of love as we know it. Do it enough times, and it seems like you never were really searching for anybody, but only using those people to either not be single or to satisfy your own carnal desires.

I know that the preexisting social norms governing courtship exist for a reason, mainly because that in general they work. That eventually people do hopefully find that one person. Of course their track record is not all that great, given that we have extraordinarily high divorce rates of people who supposedly did find that one person, but whatever. But what we have now is ultimately a sham. I decry the culture of hookups for it's lack of deeper significance and creating an illusion of purpose in which it shields itself. I decry it for eradicating any institutions that facilitated otherwise. I decry it for enabling a mentality of hedonism as an end in of itself.

Drunk hookups are fine if you recognize that they are hollow, and that the participants are just using each other for the satisfaction of their own pleasure. Thats fine if you understand that. But please don't fool yourself into reading a deeper relationship in one created by hedonism.

On the flip side of this, I find hope in not assigning profound significance to many relationships so that the value will increase of the few that actually are. I know you can't get that far in a relationship without having a few go sour first. But each one that does should be forever seared into your skull and it should burn every time you hear their name. If not, maybe you need to cut back the significance you assign to your relationships or just not fool yourself otherwise. I think that's a good measure of knowing you had something worth while.

Romney-Paul 2012

If any of you have been following the republican primary, I'm sure you'll agree with me in saying that it's been a little nuts. Poll numbers have soared and crashed in equal measure as the right has struggled to find the candidate that's not Romney. Each time the momentum shifts to a new not-Romney, that candidate has found some way to screw it all up. And so the momentum shifts to someone else. Donald Trump was a frontrunner at one point. Thats nuts.

From my perspective, people don't like Romney because he's flip flopped on a variety of issues, as well as not appealing to the core of conservative principles that the right wants in their candidate. Despite all of that, he's still managed to always be among the top tier candidates. My guess why is that despite ...whats usually true... republicans aren't stupid. They know that of the current candidates Romney has had the most broad-based support, and is the candidate that can best appeal to the moderates and independents in the general election and thus has the best chance of actually taking the white house in november.

Romney looks presidential. As superficial as that is, it really matters. I think the right wants a Romney with those core conservative principles and non-flip-flophish-ness. Thats what Rick Perry was supposed to be. Too bad the man's an idiot. The one candidate that has always stood on his principles (which I certainly respect, although not the principles themselves) and does have that appeal to the conservative base is Ron Paul. Paul's had a track record of not being taken seriously by the world of politics despite his consistent support. I think this is because he doesn't have that broad based support to moderates and wouldn't win the general. Republicans not being stupid, he hasn't built up a huge amount of support.

So the right needs the looks and wide-spread appeal of Romney with the core principles and steadfastness of Paul. So instead of creating some monstrous two-headed siamese hybrid of them, why not declare Paul as a vice presidential candidate (assuming that it's allowed by the rules of the primary)? Independents voting the top of the ticket would have a moderate republican, while the right would have a dependable and principled candidate in the vice presidency. This would also essentially be an endorsement of Romney by Paul, which might help assuage any fears of a flip flopper in the white house.

Gingrich, the current front runner, is a house of cards. The only reason why he has any support is because he's the only remaining feasible not-Romney and the momentum he gained off of Cain's fall. If the Romney campaign were to make the major announcement of Paul as VP, it would totally swing momentum back to Romney. Any republicans out there can correct me if i'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure nobody's really thrilled with Gingrich as the nominee.

I'm not saying I'd vote for them, nor am I sure of how they'd do next year in the general, but I do think that they'd have a lock on the Republican nomination.

The Modern Smothering of Artistic Expression

I feel like, deep down, we're all artists. We all have an inherent and deeply human need to express ourselves. To take what is internal and externalize it for the world to see. To express our individuality, to communicate to others what we're feeling and how we perceive the world, and to leave those sentiments in some form for those in subsequent generations to remember and know us by.

I feel like back in the day, all of our ancestors were dancers, painters, musicians, and singers. Nowadays, a very small percentage of us engage in such endeavors. One obvious reason is that few of us would be considered good enough to make a profession and livelihood out of it. Although this is rather obvious, it's highly significant. Back in the day when our species lived in tribes, we all made our living by hunting and gathering and had time to pursue whatever medium of self-expression we wanted. Contrast that with the modern man, who spends his day at a job 9 to 5, who'd get fired if his boss found him painting or playing the guitar when he should have been working out the terms of the merger or something.

The most important reason that I wanted to discuss here was about how our current society makes us afraid to express ourselves, a brand-new concept to humanity. We have the technology to send pictures, videos, and music around the world and back again almost instantaneously. The artwork of the best of the 7 billion of us on this planet can therefore be witnessed by the world, and that artwork has become the unconscious standard for our own artistic expression. Not only is this standard ridiculously high and unreasonable, but it is also historical. Today's art can be judged the world-over by every piece of art ever created. So, not only are you being judged against the creme de la creme of 7 billion people, but also by the billions of people before us. Picasso, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli.

Having seen the greatest art our species has ever created, we feel inadequate when our pencil drawing doesn't turn out to be the next Sistine Chapel or Last Supper. Our ability to experience the best art of our species has stifled our own individual desire for creative expression- we fear the mockery of our fellows, who too judge our art by the same global and historical standards.

Note that the effect is even more pronounced in industries like musical entertainment. Many of us play instruments, but far fewer of us create original pieces. We fear that we won't be able to create the next Free Bird or Stairway to Heaven, and will be judged by such by our peers. This standard is even more ridiculous in our current context. Modern pop music has essentially made a science out of creating music that will sell eg. Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus. That's how our creative work is judged. The effect is that we fear what we might create in our own work.

There are several problems with all of this. One, self expression is very, very important for one's psychological well-being. It's the same feeling as being furious for some reason, and then spending a lot of time in your room yelling and screaming and punching things, then feeling better afterwards. It's like adding Mentos to Diet Coke. Keeping those locked securely inside the bottle means the pressure will build until it explodes. Release the top, and the mixture will pour out, leaving the bottle structurally sound.

Second, it precludes us from participating in a pleasurable activity. Being afraid of trying to create art means that you will never be able to experience the pride of a completed work. Also, it's usually pretty fun in general.

Third, it's changed our meaning of art. We look at something our friend drew as technically art, but not art in the sense of a Da Vinci-an work of art. It's made us not appreciate art that's sitting right in front of us. As a beholder, think of art as a way to experience the feelings of somebody else. Whatever your friend drew is merely a physical representation of whatever was inside of them they wanted to express. Appreciate the art not in terms of how it compares to somebody else's, but the sentiments and emotions behind it. The best will make you feel as they did at the time. That's true art.

The Case Against Facebook (I appreciate the irony)

I've recently been inspired by a south park episode, of all things. I'm going to try and minimize my use of facebook from here on out, and I will observe the effect (as objectively as I can) it has on my life. It may sound like a trivial thing to do, and I don't know, maybe it is. The point is that I'm going to find out.

I heard some statistic about how the average person spends some large amount of time on facebook, and I always thought it didn't relate to me. Whenever I do homework on my laptop or anything else on it, it's become almost habitual for me to open up facebook. The justification being in my mind, that I'm not spending my time on facebook only using facebook, that I'm multitasking and concentrating mostly on other things. The truth is though, and I'm sure that many of you can relate to this, is that the multitasking ends up really hurting your productivity and focus on the other thing you really need to do.

In many cases, it's simply become a time waster. Often on sunday nights like these with little homework due the next day, I'd pass time sitting on facebook, watching youtube videos, etc. Thats the thing though. It's just passing time. I've really come to appreciate how time is a valuable thing, and it's really important to allocate what time you have doing things that are actually important and useful. If the past 3 hours are anything to go by, I'm going to have a lot more time to allocate to things I enjoy.

Back home I really enjoyed reading for pleasure, both fiction and non fiction. Some of the books I read really transformed me into who I am today. In college the passion has dimmed somewhat. My thoughts have been that college reading and general school work has kept me busy and away from reading what I love, but thats really not true. I've simply spent too much time doing things that act as a screen saver for my mind. As soon as I finish this post, I'm going to read a book from the long queue I have waiting for me.

In a broader more sociological context, I'm interested to see how this is going to affect my interpersonal relationships. Especially under current conditions, we as a population have come to rely more on virtual relationships as substitutes for real, face-to-face interpersonal relationships. The problem with virtual relationships is that they are virtual. They don't fulfill our deeply human needs for close interpersonal contact and relationships. They're hollow, a sham of what a meaningful relationship is, and ultimately meaningless. So, I attempt to lessen the presence of virtual relationships in my life, and hopefully substitute more humanistic face-to-face-type relationships. We'll see.

I'm not saying that I'll never be on facebook. Like any addict there'll be a time period where I'll have to consciously stop myself from using the site. And again, if the last 3 hours are a good indicator, this process will be pretty arduous. Similarly, facebook itself is a useful tool for getting in touch with people when you want to. I won't deny that value, and I'll certainly use it as such when I need to (like posting this blog entry). The point is though, is that from now on, I will use facebook. Facebook will not use me.

Reconciling Science and Human Existence, or The Cheerful Existentialist

I don't have a definite plan in mind for this post. What often happens though, is that as I write it forces me to think deeper and deeper about a subject until I end up somewhere i never planned to be.

I'll start by assuming a fundamental base of science and logic, in things like evolution, modern cosmology, etc. Recent work that I've seen by Stephen Hawking and other string theorists suggest that universes themselves have the capacity to spontaneously spring into being. I won't go into the details of how this work, mostly because I dont understand them myself (though i encourage you to google around for it yourself), but what I will focus on is how this affects human purpose. This base-principle immediately cancels out a need for god(s) as we commonly understand the term, although if you want to call the elusive theory of everything god, then go right ahead.

This essentially rules out objective purpose to human existence, leaving only subjective purpose or that which we give ourselves. On first glance, this seems to be very dark and sobering, and this is the wrap that existentialists have been dealing with since the philosophy's inception. I disagree. Liberated from the shackles of someone or something else giving purpose and meaning to us, we are free to choose our path for ourselves and make our lives what we want them to be. This freedom can be a burden for the indecisive and the submissive, but for others it is empowering to an extraordinary extent. It may be corny to quote Palahniuk, but it think it applies here: "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."

Ruling out objective purpose also has ramifications for human morality. The lack of something objective to give us morals again implies that they're inherently subjective. I basically covered this in "Why Every Moral Philosopher Ever to Philosophize Was Wrong", so I won't go into great detail here. This too has a bright side however, in that we are free to act with or against our societally agreed-upon morals because we choose to. Not because we face divine retribution if we don't. This is why people who use "atheist" with a negative connotation implying 'immoral' realllly piss me off. I have faith (somewhat ironically) in humanity in that we can act morally towards each other because we choose to, not because we face eternity in a pit of fire if we don't. Ghost stories like those keep immature minds in subjugation. Mature minds know better then to fear the boogeyman.

Life itself appears to be the product of the energy, matter, and fundamental dimensions of our universe. Meaning that given the prerequisite proteins and certain other conditions, life will inevitably be produced. Besides precluding the existence of a god, I think this impacts us in that it pierces the concepts of uniqueness, supremacy, and importance that we associate with ourselves and Earth. The probability of those proteins and energy and other matter mixing in a way to form life may be astronomical, but the size and timeline of the universe are even more astronomical still. A gambling man would bet heavily on the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, but he would not bet on the chance we will ever meet in the vast cosmos.

I guess the last bit to explore involves the future of our universe (as it was explored in "The Last Three Minutes" by Paul Davies). Many of us, myself included, have entertained notions of some part of us living forever, whether it be in our biological descendants, our accomplishments, etc. but the possibility of this is inevitably tied up in the ultimate fate of the universe (which remains uncertain). Regardless of whether the universe is steady-state or dynamic, it seems ridiculous to suggest that any part of humanity can live forever. This fact may again appear dark and gloomy, but its really no different then confronting your own death. Maybe not the most cheerful of comparisons, but it is something that you can come to terms with and accept.

This is a very post-modern-style post in that it disenchants a lot of the Marxist superstructure we've constructed in our lives. I guess the lesson in this is that we may not have an inherent purpose in our existence, but that in of itself is no reason to despair. For instead of a world built by others for us, we build our world as we see fit. A burdensome freedom, but a freedom nonetheless.

Marx: The Powder Keg

This semester I'm taking a social theory class and an introductory political philosophy class, and in the social theory class we've started by examining the works of Karl Marx. Needless to say theres been a ton of crossover and tons of food for thought. I'd imagine that there'll be a few more political/societal posts in the near future.

For those who haven't studied him, Marx's mere name brings about feelings of horror and aversion because of the historical geopolitical things done in his name. Understand that the man himself is very much different from what his followers have done, and note further that his "followers' aren't actually enacting what Marx had advocated. Names like Che Guevara, Castro, Cienfuegos, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, etc. deserve negative connotations, Marx's name does not.

That being said, I've really enjoyed studying his works. I think of him as a brilliant analyst of capitalism and the society that it creates. I had one particular insight about the effects of his works that I thought i'd share here.

Marx saw that capitalism sharply divides society into two general classes: the have's and the have-not's aka those with capital and those without. He saw that over time capitalism deepens those class divisions to the point where the lower classes would be oppressed to the breaking point. They (the proletariat) would then revolt, over throw the capital-owners (the bourgeoise) thus ending capitalism. He was wrong however, and to further explore why i'll reference the work of Eric Hoffer.

Eric Hoffer is another brilliant mind, and I highly, highly recommend his book "the True Believer". Hoffer noticed that mass movements (like the kind that Marx envisioned) do not come about by the horribly oppressed finally rejecting their position in life. In fact, those born into abject poverty and who have never known anything else will not revolt. Those that are ripe for a mass movement are those that are both in abject conditions and have also seen that there is a possibility for a better life. The middle-class merchant who experiences a series of business failures and thus falls into poverty is more ripe to join a mass movement then the man held in life-long servitude.

Back to Marx. I agree with him that unfettered capitalism does lead to sharply divided classes, and that eventually the gap between the two would be huge. (Note that we in the US now do not have unfettered capitalism, but capitalism with government regulation and the gaps between classes are lessened [though i still think theyre huge]). Keeping in mind Hoffer's work however, those who had always been in abject poverty would not revolt. Their life-long servitude would essentially make them into a wet powder keg.

This begs the question, then why have so many revolutions occurred in history bearing Marx's name? The truth is that there are many people living in abject poverty throughout the world. Marx gave them the vision of a better future. His (though vague) picture of communism incited the abjectly poor into action by giving them hope. Although Marx's theories predict that the revolutions were inevitable, the truth is that they never would have happened if Marx himself hadn't written them down.

Anyways, I feel like i've been writing for long enough. Expect more Marx/political philosophy/sociology posts in the near future.

The Debt Ceiling Part 2: Taxes

A lot of the conversation surrounding the debt ceiling revolved around taxes. We Americans have a very difficult relationship with taxes that I thought I'd share my thoughts about. If it were facebook official, America would be "it's complicated" with taxes.

I wanna start with a hypothetical interview I wish I could have had with some asshole that was on the Colbert Report. This guy was the head of some interest group that had politicians (a lot of them) sign a pledge to never raise taxes. He then publicly held this pledge over them, especially in the recent weeks. He is essentially of the opinion that it is absolutely never evereverever ok to raise taxes. Here's the transcript of my interview with him. Since I can't do it in person, I'll vent by enacting it here.

Me: So it's safe to say that you don't like taxes. Is it safe to assume that you'd enjoy a tax cut?

Asshole: Absolutely. Taxes blahblahblah bad blahblahblah

Me: So why not lower taxes to zero?

Asshole: because then the government couldn't function..oh wait I guess taxes are good for something after all. I really AM an asshole! I certainly don't deserve the amount of media attention nor access to politicians that I've been given! I bow to your wisdom and debating prowess.

Everyone hates paying taxes, and in a very short-sighted way cutting taxes appears great. People will theoretically have more money to spend/hire people, stimulating the economy. Except that human behavior is not that easy to predict. Turns out that while some will spend more, other will hoard that money. Also, cutting government revenue means that government workers will be fired, and less money will be going out to government contractors, etc. etc. My point here is that there are both pros and cons to taxes, unlike what other people are espousing.

Its amusing how many of the people that dislike "big" government and push for it's downsizing are really hurting themselves. Cutting government spending means less government farm subsidies for the midwest, less funding for schools, defense programs, social security, medicare, infrastructure building, etc. etc. etc. All of which will end up destroying jobs and could end up hurting the economy. That's not to say that it couldn't help the economy either- I won't pretend to be some expert economist. It's simply a double edged sword that might hurt you in the longer term.

So nobody likes paying taxes, but everyone likes when Uncle Sam covers the tab. It's why playing politics with advocating a "smaller" government is a very tricky thing to do. Reduce anybody's government funding and they'll hate you. Maybe why the right worked so hard to demonize teachers and their union in previous months. And now, they'll probably be hurt by playing with defunding medicare- they've alienated the elderly.

Specifically in terms of the recent debt ceiling crisis. I don't find it unreasonable to raise taxes on the wealthy. We have a really large gap between the poor and wealthy, and our wealthy are so wealthy relative to world standards, that I don't think that asking them to contribute a little extra to the society that gave them so much is unreasonable. Corporate tax increases could end up hurting the economy, I guess it'd depend on what the taxes actually are and how they work, but increasing them I wouldn't find to be too unreasonable. Again depending on how they actually work.

The concept of a balanced budget amendment is utterly ridiculous. First, I feel like our constitution is too important to be edited to have something as unimportant as a balanced budget in it as law. Keeping a deficit under control is important, but having it absolutely balanced isn't. Secondly, our government would have to be either have to be so small as to be a non-player in global economic and military events, or taxes would have to be so high as to de-incentivize doing business in the US. Either way, requiring this as a prerequisite for saving the US economy again points to the Tea Party as being unfit for power.

The Debt Ceiling Part 1: A Nation Pokes Itself in the Eye

I really think that this financial crisis has really brought out that which is worst in Washington. I find it utterly ridiculous that we have come this close to defaulting on our debt as we drown in partisan squabbling and posturing. But we got what we paid for, did we not America? Did we not vote for this in the midterms?

In the past midterm we Americans voted in these Tea Party freshmen Representatives on the promise of smaller government, less taxes, and basically opposing Obama on everything. During the negotiations, the close-minded and compromise-adverse Tea Party caucus did a great job of making the crisis a thousand times more difficult to solve. I feel like John Boehner is a rational negotiator, but he was seemingly held hostage by these wackos on the far right. I do applaud the Tea Party for bringing our huge debt to light as a public and political issue. I sharply criticize the single-mindedness with which they pursued their own solution.

Boehner's plan seems to be pretty rational to me, although I don't know the exact details. His was essentially to cut future spending, raise the debt ceiling, create a committee to work on future debt reductions either through raised taxes or spending cuts, and require votes in both chambers on the balanced budget constitutional amendment. Remove the required vote on the constitutional amendment, and his proposal sounds quite reasonable to me and it's essentially what Obama's balanced approach wanted, albeit with tax increases as a possible committee recommendation rather then put into immediate effect as law. Which to me is totally reasonable. His proposal did not pass the House to which he is Speaker of, because the Tea Party Caucus didn't like it. They wanted a guaranteed passage of the balanced budget amendment and more cuts. That kind of refusal to compromise, i think, clearly demonstrates that the Tea Party isn't fit to hold power.

Reid's plan was something along the lines of even more cuts with no new taxes, saving revenue with the winding down of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not really sure why this didn't pass the Senate, buuuut I think we can rest assured that House republicans would have killed it there anyway.

And on a related note but different tack, I can't held but feel Bin Laden's hand in this. Bin Laden and his cohorts learned about fighting superpowers in the mountains of Afghanistan, fighting with the Mujahideen there in the 80's against the Soviet Union. Essentially what happened was that the Soviets found themselves in an area with an unfriendly populace, and an invasion that was quickly bogged down (thanks in part to American assistance to the Mujahideen). Public support for the war quickly dropped as their economy was drained, and so the Soviets retreated.

Sound familiar?

Our two wars combined with things like the Bush tax cuts, the Tea Party, etc. etc. to lead us to yet another economic crisis.

Part 2 will be out in a little bit.

Why Books Are Better Than Movies (Harry Potter)

This is something that I've always believed, though it's really come to a head with the release of the final Harry Potter movie and all of the hype surrounding it.

I hate the Harry Potter movies, but I'm a die hard fan of the books. When I explain it to other people, I often offer reasons like "they don't stay true to the books", or "when I read the novels, none of the characters have British accents (which does ruin a lot for me)". Thinking about it a bit deeper however, I think I came up with a more profound reason that can be applied to most movie-vs.-book cases.

Written stories are more like skeletal outlines of the actual story, and your imagination fills in the rest. That's one of the great things about books, that their meaning and power are so relative from person to person because your imagination is most of the story.

Movies based off of books end up confining the story into a smaller box, taking away the imagination aspect of the book. They give to you what each character sounds like, looks like, and acts like. They explicitly show you what every event in the story line is and exactly how it unfolds. Although a book may specify these things in writing, all of these details are still under the power of your imagination. A good example here could be the British accents of Harry and his friends. I do know that they live in the UK and would have British accents, but my imagination didn't give me that, and saved them from trying to sound heroic and macho with those prim and proper accents.

Another aspect of this is that because the power of books lies in each of our imaginations, we can assign greater meanings to the characters and events then we could with a movie. For example. The Tyler Durden of the Fight Club novel is the physical embodiment of an entire philosophy into one man. Tyler Durden of the novel is not just a man, he is an idea. Tyler Durden of the Fight Club movie is still a great character, but seeing him in the flesh detracts from the magnitude of his character. He becomes less idea and more human, which is not all that he truly is.

Through the power of our own imagination filling in the blanks, books engage our higher level cognitive faculties in a way that few movies ever could. Movies are only greater then the books when you enjoy the director's personal imagining of a story more then your own. And that rarely ever happens.

Note, however, that this is not a 2-way street. Books based on movies are generally not that good because the authors have to follow the strict guidelines that the movie has already imposed on the storyline.

A Study in Incentives (Freakonomics-Style)

For those of you who don't know, Freakonomics is a book wherein the author studies human behavior through the variables of incentives affecting human behavior. He then analyses those incentives by using regression analysis or something. It's essentially something I dont know how to do. At any rate, this post is me discussing various incentives that exist in our world. It'll be somewhat incomplete though, as I have no data to analyze, nor the means to analyze it even if I had it.

The first example is rather trivial, but it was the first I thought of and led to me thinking about greater topics. A short time ago, I was watching a TV show dedicated to various "experts" finding bigfoot. Through the course of the show they supposedly witnessed howls of bigfoot, found tracks of bigfoot, talked to witnesses in the area... and then the show ended. It was a lot of foreplay with no sex. Thinking about it however, I realized that the show's creators had an incentive not to actually find bigfoot despite the show's name. They find bigfoot, and the show's over. Instead, they gradually increase the suspense over and over again to get people to tune in. If they finally found him, all of these self-proclaimed bigfoot expert's careers would be over.

That sort of incentive also applies to theoretical physics, though in a different manner. Individually, there is a huge incentive for scientists to discover the theory of everything. Their name becomes a household one like Einstein, they win a Nobel prize, etc. etc. For the scientific field as a whole however, there actually exists an incentive for them to not discover everything. If they do, their careers are essentially over. One might say that those scientists could transition into utilizing their discoveries into practical applications, but that is the role of engineers not theoretical physicists. There is an interesting conflict of incentives here, between individualistic and group-based.

The same thing can apply to cancer research too. Again there is a huge individual incentive to cure cancer, but to the industry at large it might not be. Cancer research is actually a huge industry, and once it's cured the entire thing would go away.

The same rationale could be applied to a myriad of different things. There is an incentive for auto manufacturers to never produce a car that's maintenance-free. Otherwise the demand for new cars would drop, and the entire auto maintenance industry would disappear.

There is an incentive for environmentalists to never let environmental problems go away, otherwise their industry disappears. And yes, there is an industry for it.

This is where my theorizing reaches it's end, for I have no data to analyze to calculate the strengths of these various incentives. It may be that these I listed are trivial, but I think it's interesting enough in that they actually exist despite common beliefs. One would hope that the counter-incentives would be greater then the ones i listed to encourage actual progress.

Also, I highly recommend the book to anyone even vaguely interested.

Where Have All the Great Men Gone?

Maybe I'm alone in this impression that I have, but I thought I'd write about it anyway. It seems to me that today's politicians in general are nowhere near as great as those of the past. By great I mean in their leadership and inspirational ability.

They all seem to be so intent on dividing the country and slandering their adversaries rather then actually leading our nation as a whole. The Founding Fathers were great men of all schools of thought, and their ideas and creative power defined our nation as it is today. It really saddens me that such ability seems confined to the 1700's. Why can we of today not have that same power in our own leaders? We still quote the writings of Presidents dead for 200 years, but no one will ever quote George Bush, Bush Sr. or Clinton in that same capacity. Same with John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, etc. etc.

Nobody seems to have anything profound to say anymore. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, etc. all made contributions to political philosophy/science that continue to influence us today. Whens the last time that you heard of any current politician writing about their theory of governance?

I'm sure present day politicians are capable people, but they don't inspire us. It's really sad that nobody watches CSPAN because it's so dull. There are no great debates over meaningful ideas anymore, only candidates attempting to sell themselves to the public. There are no great impassioned speeches anymore that unite rather then divide us.

Barack Obama is probably the closest to a great politician that I can think of in the present era. Regardless of his actual politics, he is a great orator, and he did inspire millions throughout the country during his campaign. He has since retained his speaking ability, but he seems to have lost that inspirational power. That may be the fault of others opposing him, but he have nevertheless failed to inspire since his inauguration.

The Founding Fathers and other great politicians since may be a high standard to compare other to, but I don't understand why of a population of 300 million we can't have people of similar abilities elected to high office more often. I guess one explanation could be that our nation has an incentive to propagandize the history they teach us, and that there is an incentive for us to believe that our founders were perhaps more extraordinary then they actually were. Maybe everyone since has had similar ability. Somehow, i doubt it.

Free Speech

First on an unrelated note, I'm going to stop posting every wednesday. Summer laziness has gotten to me and I'm not surrounded by intellectually stimulating material as I am at school. Not saying that I won't be posting at all, but expect that there will be longer time gaps between them. Ill probably be resuming a weekly schedule once second year starts. Also, as a teaser, I'm working on a certain subject in greater depth and I hope to get it published as a book one day. Working very slowly, but working nonetheless.

Onto the actual topic, which I'm pretty pissed off about. The first amendment states that "Congress shall make no law...prohibiting the free exercise... or abridging the freedom of speech". Note that it doesn't say "except when people don't like what you're saying". Specific examples of why i'm pissed include movie ratings, internet site blockers, obscenity laws, and getting arrested for "disorderly conduct". I'm sure there are others that'll piss me off but these are the examples I have off of the top of my head.

Lets start with movie ratings. As I see it, a non-governmental organization gets to determine who is allowed to see what movies in terms of age by law. This is a huge violation of the freedom of speech. I'm fine with movies being rated on certain criteria, and with the public being well informed on what those ratings mean, but under no circumstances should they be used to bar certain individuals from viewing movies. I see it as such a flagrant violation that I'm not even sure how to discuss it in further depth.

Internet site blockers, ESPECIALLY in public schools. When young minds are being educated they are very malleable. It is therefore essential that they be allowed to access the internet in it's entirety. Maybe kids will waste more time on facebook, but I see the free exercise of speech via the internet as a much more important thing.

Obscenity laws. First, the Miller Test is bullshit. Wiki it if you don't know what I'm talking about. The first amendment doesn't say "..or abridging the freedom of speech unless it's obscenity". Obscenity is not some subcategory of speech that isn't protected. EVERYTHING is protected. We protect racist speech, homophobic speech, sexist speech, and obscene speech because that's what the first amendment is for! There's no interpreting the amendment to except obscenity from it's protection. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS TO THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH. As i said im kinda pissed about this so please excuse the rant-ish tone.

Disorderly conduct could fall under the previous paragraph. I'm remembering a specific incident on the TV show Campus PD where some college kid gets arrested for cursing at a cop. Before the arrest, the cop explicitly warned the kid with something like "one more curse and I'll have you for disorderly conduct". He is speaking. It is free. If the kid had been smart enough to get a lawyer from the ACLU he would have ripped the cop a new one, especially with the whole incident being captured on high quality film (not some handheld crap).

The first amendment is perhaps the most precious one we have. In the text there are no exceptions to the freedom of speech. All is speech and all is free. Including speech that society doesn't like. Including politically dissenting speech. Including threats, even very specific threats. It might warrant extra police protection, but you can't be penalized for any of it.

Justice William J Brennan Jr. once said "if there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable".

Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote "If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a State has no business telling a man, sitting in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch."

Author Evelyn Beatrice Hall wrote "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

All speech is free. No exceptions.

Lebron James

Lebron James's current standing in society is very interesting from a sociological and crowd-psychological standpoint. He engenders such virulent hatred from people all over the country as if he wronged each of them personally, which I'm fairly certain he hasn't. So, why do people hate him?

One of the most common reasons is given by Cleveland fans, who say that Lebron betrayed them by leaving the Cavaliers, and embarrassed the whole city in the show ESPN's The Decision. As a professional athlete, he nor any other athlete is held beholden in any way to the very first team he plays for. Its like the difference between an army of domestic citizens and an army of mercenaries. You can't be surprised or feel betrayed when the mercenary leaves your city, for he by definition is a mercenary and has no loyalty to country, only money.

As to The Decision embarrassing Cleveland, that kind of thing only has as much sway as you give it. I really doubt that people from other cities watched that special and then pointed and laughed at Cleveland. I think it's more that by leaving the Cavaliers, he embarrassed them by saying they were losers and leaving them for a team he thought he could win instead. The really big thing to notice here, is that people every where shouldn't equate the Cavaliers to the city of Cleveland. Maybe the Cavaliers are losers, but in no way does that represent anything about Cleveland or it's citizens. The only people that should feel embarrassed should be the Cavaliers franchise. And in that case, should any of us really care?

I think that people hate Lebron because he broke the archetypal storyline of the hero. Pre-The Decision, Lebron was a young prodigy playing for his native team the cavaliers, leading them each night to victory. He carried the entire fandom's hopes of glory on his back, he single-handedly made them a relevant franchise. And he wasn't a felon. Apparently thats a new standard of achievement for professional athletes. One can imagine Prince Hektor of Troy as a metaphor, a young soldier who led his armies for the glory of the city. When he left, it's as if Hektor left Troy to fight alongside Achilles and Odysseus because he felt like they'd win more often. Its also how people who know nothing about Dirk Nowitzki felt him to be the hero of the series solely because he stood between Lebron and glory.

That kind of storyline, of a domestic hero-turned-traitor, engenders spite nearly universally except in Heat fans (Mycenaeans). People all over hate Lebron because of this.

He also seems to exude personal traits that have been taken in a negative way: ambition, greed for both money and glory, and arrogance. But really, I'd say it'd be pretty hard to find any professional athletes, politicians, CEOs, movie stars, and musical artists that don't have all of those too, often in even greater quantities. I think its more that he broke the storyline, therefore his negative qualities have been amplified past what they truly.

People really took him to be arrogant after his post-game press conference when he basically said that it didn't really matter that people hated him or really wanted him to lose, because at the end of the day he was making millions and they still had their mundane lives to live. That is pretty offensive to say, but that doesn't mean that it's not true. It's like he broke through the fog of people believing that there is an actual caring relationship between professional athletes and their fans. It's really only a one-way street.

I'm not trying to defend Lebron, because I do still think he's an ass. I just think that maybe people shouldn't care so much.

I googled the topic beforehand and here are some articles that give other points of view, probably more eloquently then myself. If your interested.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/735875-why-the-world-hates-lebron-james

http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post/2011/06/15/why-do-you-hate-lebron-so-much/

Thoughts About Power

Yeah, I am listening to kanye's song power.

It's useful to start by first defining what power is (I dont like dictionary.com's definition). I define power as the ability to inspire emotions in people. I think most would define power as the ability to impose one's will upon others, but that is contingent upon first inspiring the emotion in them. You may have the power to kill a man, but that does not put him under your power unless he first fears death. This is an interesting side note: by not fearing pain nor death you become completely free from anyone else's power over you. This also means that other things besides humans can be powerful, like artwork, music, stories, etc. I'm not going to be focusing on those too much though.

Politicians are defined by our constitution as the holders of power in our society. Fear of the repercussions of violating the law gives politicians a hold over a large percentage of the population, considering the ratio of elected politicians to US citizens. It makes me wonder, what kind of person would actively seek to be a politician and hold reign on that much power? Obviously they would have to be very ambitious and greedy, in one way or another, to hold power. To win an American-style campaign they also have to be surprisingly narcissistic in order to project the kind of image that voters want in their politicians.

There is another category of politicians who I suppose you could call idealists who actively seek office in order to bring about what they perceive to be good things for those they represent. Based on our current political events and dialogue, i'd imagine that idealists's numbers are comparatively pretty small. With those kind of personality characteristics of the average politician in mind, it's not that surprising that so many of them become embroiled in some scandal or other.

Power also has an interesting corrupting effect on people; i'm sure some of you have heard the phrase absolute power corrupts absolutely. When you have the ability to impose your will on other people (through inspiring emotions in them), it's easy to see how one could end up abusing it. It ends up amplifying what some consider negative characteristics. For example, most of us don't enjoy doing menial chores. Say though that you have a slave to do it for you. Then you have no incentive whatsoever to do it yourself, and soon it grows until the slave is doing everything for you. And so, your initial laziness in all of us soon compounds into a much bigger problem.

I think the key thing to the corrupting effects of power is not that you have the ability to impose yourself on another, but that in many instances there are not consequences for doing so. For a theoretical example, there are legal checks on American politician's power which attempt to prevent such abuses of authority, like preventing illegal relationships between politicians and their interns/staff whom they certainly have power over. What happens with power though, is that once a powerful person gets away with a small deviant act, they eventually begin to build an impression that they have an inherent immunity to being caught because they are so powerful. And so their deviant acts grow in scale until they are caught. Hence, anthony weiner.

Applying Formalism: Yeardley and Tom, and Love and Marriage

We studied this in law and society this past semester. Legal formalism is the idea that law is formally and uniformly applied to cases which results in justice. Sociological jurisprudence contradicts legal formalism in saying that sociological factors like race, social class, etc. all affect how a case is handled, and therefore law is not uniformly applied.

That was a little scary for me to take in, because it means that law is not justly applied to every individual case. That was an ideal i had grown up believing in, and to have it shattered was a dumping-cold-water-on-my-head type of experience. I drew some similarities between the conflict of sociological jurisprudence and legal formalism and other aspects of life, and I thought I'd share those here.

The first one that sprang to my mind was how society values individual life. The example that gave me the thought was the case of Yeardley Love. For those of you who don't know, Yeardley was a UVA lacrosse player that was murdered by her boyfriend, another UVA lacrosse player. When I was watching the UVA/Maryland Lacrosse finals, they repeatedly mentioned Yeardley, and when I thought about it I realized how much press her death had received even a full year after her death. I don't mean to reduce the significance of her life or death, but I question why it's deemed so much more important then Tom Gilliam's.

Here I initially had a sort of formalistic approach: I had thought that all lives are truly valued equally. They are not. Your position within society determines how much people care whether you live or die. Tom was a first year at UVA and not a beautiful school athlete. Yeardley was a beautiful upperclassman (more deeply ingrained into the social fabric of the school), and a school athlete. So people cared more when Yeardley died. So the national news covered her death, while Tom was briefly mentioned in the local news.

They were both wonderful people in life, but that had nothing to do with how much the public at large cared. It's another ice-water-thrown-in-your-face moment, when my initial formalism was crushed by the sociological reality. If someone in the ruling elite from the center of society were to die, people care. If someone in a lower class dies, no one cares but those around them. This general concept also goes along with the Stalin quote, "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic".

Love and marriage is another area where these principles apply. Being older now I'm not so sure I really believe in this anymore, but I'm sure that many of us have grown up with the Disney-movie principle of people who fall in love get married and live happily ever after. Those who fall in love are not sure why they are, all they know is that there is some inexorable magnetic force that pulls them two together.

That's not really how it works. Sometimes it may, but the vast majority of the time is doesn't. The majority of us humans look for mates based on their social characteristics (sometimes unconsciously so). Social status is key, often demonstrated by what people wear from clothing to jewelry to what car you drive. Indicators of ability to provide for a family are also looked for; again sometimes shown in status symbols as well as financial well being and outlook. Physical appearance is also very important as an indicator of health and genetic viability. Theres a reason why some people are more attractive then others. Their genetics are generally stronger then unattractive people and are more likely to have evolutionarily more fit offspring. I should also note that attractiveness is also not always based on physical appearance. People like movie stars and musicians are said to be more attractive because they have high levels of social status and ability to provide not necessarily because of their physical characteristics.

There are other factors that contribute to this, but I haven't taken a class on it nor read up on it, so I wont pretend to be an expert. We as a culture seem to aspire towards formalism in our lives, but it's simply not reality. The discrepancy between the two can be shocking at times.

Implicit American Arrogance

I was thinking one day, and it really struck me how arrogant we Americans are in dealing about the rest of the world. We don't always consciously do this, but its still there nonetheless.

For example, can you imagine the public outcry there would be if any game studio anywhere created a game ever depicting the US in a negative light? We have games like Battlefield 3 and Medal of Honor where gamers play as US soldiers killing Arabs of various nationalities in their own countries and it's morally acceptable. Imagine now a game where the user plays as an Arab killing US soldiers. Even if he's doing it for the most altruistic reasons: defending his homeland, his family, his way of life, his religion, he's killing American soldiers and thus always morally repugnant. America is always morally just, and those who disagree are always morally wrong.

Maybe a better example would be a game set elsewhere, playing as a soldier fighting against the US CIA operatives in their country trying to overthrow their government. Plenty of real world examples of this exist: the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, the attempts at Fidel Castro, intervention in vietnam, etc. etc. Once again it doesn't matter why you fight us, you are wrong because you fight us.

Another example of our arrogance came to mind when I was watching an episode of the West Wing (which I highly recommend). I dont remember exactly what happened, but it was something along the lines of a foreign diplomat telling US officials that since we are so fond of calling ourselves the leaders of the free world, we should go ahead and start leading (meaning intervening in whatever conflict was central to the show's plot). That phrase, "leaders of the free world" really struck a chord in me. First, it implies that anyone not under the US banner are inherently not free. Second, it explicitly states that we are the leaders and no one else. It's vague enough to makes us the leaders economically, militarily, politically, and morally of the whole world. Some of those may be true, but implying all of them by declaring ourselves to be the leaders of the free world reveals a vast arrogance. Imagine the opposite, that you're a citizen of America while, say, the Germans declare themselves the leaders of the free world. Yeah.

Media outlets are also very fond of jumping on moral outrages occurring in other countries. Perhaps the most frequent of these are punishments being administered in Muslim states for what Americans consider petty offenses. Again, there is an implicit arrogance in how the media portrays this and how the public perceives it. We would never stop to think that maybe that's how their societies have maintained social order for the past thousand years, but about how backward their societies are. How primitive. How if they would just eat McDonalds, listen to hip-hop and drive Fords the world would be a better place. I don't seek to take a moral stand on the specific issue here, I'm just noting the mindset that Americans are so quick to jump to upon hearing these types of stories.

We are also vary arrogant in how we approach relations with the rest of the world. We are so inherently sure that we know how people should live and therefore everyone should live like us. Just recently i vaguely remember Obama mentioning in a speech how it is our goal to democratize the rest of the world. As if we have a divine mandate to spread our way of life to the rest of the world and they have to accept it or step aside. As I have previously noted, there are plenty of problems with American society and in no way is it the bastion of peace, harmony, and fulfillment we believe it to be. I should note that what America wants is not for the whole world to embrace democracy. What we want is for everyone to accept a subjugated democracy, in which the people themselves don't interfere with American foreign policy self interest. Rest assured that if there was every an unfriendly democracy, we would meddle in their affairs one way or another.

I should point out that i don't hate America, or something. I just think that people should question the fundamental assumptions of their culture before they accept them. Maybe I should write an article next time about how great America is to counterbalance all this criticism I've given them lately.

The Purpose of College

I watched a college conspiracy theory movie on youtube, and I thought that I'd share my thoughts.

The crux of the movie is that by destroying the free market in college educations, the government has put tons of college graduates into enormous debt. Im not 100% sure what the crux was though; it was a while ago and I didn't watch like the last 15 minutes haha

As to what the movie itself was describing, I think that the government has been trying to make its citizens better educated and better able to compete in a global economy by subsidizing college educations to make them more affordable. This drove private loaners out of the market, and led to a lot of people going to college who might better spend their time elsewhere by learning a trade or something. More people going to college means that the value of a degree itself has greatly declined. It doesnt mean much anymore to have a college degree. The demand for college educations has risen as well, drastically increasing tuition costs.

College itself is an interesting topic. A small percentage of people actually go into careers associated with what they majored in. And the students that are supposedly "better prepared for a career" are often forced into entry level jobs, sometimes into career fields where no college level education is necessary. So why go?

I think college is important of our lives for a couple of reasons. One, it serves as a transition between adolescence and adulthood. We studied this in anthropology of religion, where coming-of-age rituals feature aspects of liminality (go wiki this). In this aspect college is very important in making youths into adults. Sociologically, you actually come to embody a different identity. I won't go to heavy into the theory here (you can look it up if you're interested), but identity is said to be rooted in vocation, geography, and social community. I think. This was last semester's material. Anyhoodles what happens in college is that all the things that you identity is rooted in change. You change living conditions/area, you are surrounded by new people, and you come to identify with the new identity of a college student. Hence people experiment with their own identities while they're in flux. Sex, drugs, alcohol, facial hair, fashion styles, and musical/food tastes are all ways in which people's identities begin to shift.

College also serves as a prime social networking opportunity. Even if your degree has nothing to do with your career, the faculty and students you connect with serve as a great resource for potential careers and other opportunities. The friends you make can last a lifetime, and a great number of people meet their future spouse there. It's also really fun to be under financial protection while coming into adulthood, which gives you a lot more freedom. I think we all owe our parents on this one.

College is really only useful academically when your career follows from your degree. In that case, business degrees, engineering degrees, law degrees, and other Ph. D.s are the most useful of the degrees since they do lead into career fields. The main reason why I avoid them however, is that such degrees make your college into a trade school, and often narrow the focus of your mind to your trade and not much else. I like to keep my horizons more broadened.

It doesnt really matter though if college doesnt help you in a career that much. In our capitalistic society the commonplace belief is that you better damn well get that degree or somebody else will, and there goes your future. It is valuable, just not in the ways that it is commonly associated with.

Why Every Moral Philosopher Ever to Philosophize Was Wrong

Many philosophers over the years have attempted to set down a definitive guide to human morals (I took intro to moral and political philosophy last semester). Aristotle espoused Greek virtue, about the higher ideals for all humans to aspire to like eudaimonia. Emmanuel Kant tried to create a moral law-formula, the categorical imperative, to define what's right and wrong in terms of of the context of human society as a whole. Utilitarians defined right and wrong in terms of the "happiness" utility of an action.

Early on in the semester we discussed moral relativism, the idea that everyone's morals are of equal truth value. It was dismissed however, for 3 reasons. If moral relativism is true, then no one society can justify criticizing another society because their morals are true too. You also cannot criticize aspects of your own society because every value held is true. There is also no such thing as societal progress or degeneration either.

The problem with these criticisms is that there's no logical fallacy committed in them that invalidates moral relativism. We just don't like the outcomes so we say that it's wrong.

I argue that as inherently artificial constructs, morality is entirely relative form person to person and thus moral relativism is true. From a truly objective standpoint, all morals are true which is to say that all morals are false too. Objectively human societies never progress or degenerate, they just change.

I think theres a strong difference between objective and subjective morality. Objectively moral relativism is true, but subjectively (because objective moral relativism is true), we are free to believe in whatever morals we want. That includes the ability to criticize others for their moral beliefs. This is totally valid although it should be conducted under the assumed knowledge that there is no objectivity to back such claims.

Because of objective moral relativism no attempt to set down a definitive set of moral principals will ever succeed. Societies and their morals are always in flux, and therefore anything set in stone will become obsolete.

Some claim that societal morals against things like murder invariably lead to a healthier society and are therefore proof of some sort of definitive objective morals. Thats false. Such morals maybe conducive to societal well-being, but that doesn't mean that they hold universal truth value. One way to truly think objectively is to remove qualifier words from your vocabulary.

Sex, Nudity, and Swearing. Get Your Attention? (a 2-for-1 night)

In light of recent events I figured a double post wednesday was ok. I was studying for my Law and Society final and was going over American obscenity and sexual laws when it struck me how weird they are. The laws themselves reflect cultural values we have about sex, so maybe it'd be a good idea to start my analysis there.

I find it strange that pornography is stigmatized within our society. Porn is depicting people having sex. Sex is such a fundamental part of being human, or even alive, that stigmatizing it is objectively as strange as stigmatizing videos of people eating. Granted there are types of pornography that involve criminal behavior that probably should be outlawed. But the vast majority isn't. One argument is that it objectifies women or debases them in some way. Again I'm sure there are types of porn based entirely upon debasing women, but I'm pretty sure the vast majority isn't. Does porn objectify or debase the men that participate? I'd also like to see some evidence of this happening. With the proliferation of the internet, porn has spread widely through society. There's your IV, show me a DV.

I think it far more likely that people simply don't like porn because of the puritan culture in which we are born, and make up arguments in order to justify it for the general public. Professor James Hunter's arguments about cultural conflict theory can be applied very well here.

Obscenity laws are also interesting. For starters I'm not sure why being naked in public is a crime. Is the human body itself so intrinsically repulsive that we must wear clothes to cover it up? It's almost as if we wear clothes as a shield to our base desires. It's almost as if theres a collective unconscious fear that if no one were to wear clothes, suddenly everyone would lose control and have mass orgies out on the streets.

One common argument is that we have obscenity laws to protect our children. No doubt that there are pedophiles out there who would take advantage of a universal lack of clothing in some way, and such behavior should be repressed for the health of the members of the society. But I feel that the argument is predominantly that being exposed to nudity, especially of the other sex, somehow ruins childhood innocence. Sex as an act may do that, in that many people see the act of sex itself as a rite of passage to adulthood, adulthood meaning being able to have children. I'd argue that being exposed to the other sex does not ruin children. I'd also like to point out that we are apparently the only species that cares about this. Have you ever heard about a chimpanzee, dolphin, squirrel, etc. ever being traumatized from youth despite being naked themselves as well as every other member of their species?

We as a culture seem so afraid of our own bodies. And I'm not sure theres a good reason why. Sex itself is so overly stigmatized. It's a natural part of life and yet we as a culture seem so afraid of it. This is probably due in some way to our puritan/victorian england cultural heritage.

Bad words are another interesting topic. I saw an episode of Campus PD in which an officer arrested someone for swearing in public on disorderly conduct. Thats how serious swearing can be in the US.

As we english speakers know, there are varying degrees of bad words. We have feces, poop, crap, shit. Heck, hell. Consummate a relationship, have sex with, fuck. Do any of these variations actually mean anything different? No, all that is different are their connotations, and their connotations are only different because we make them so as a culture. There is nothing inherently wrong with any word, they just seem that way because we make them so.

I guess I'm trying to point out that theres nothing inherently wrong with so many things that people perceive to be wrong. Many of these things are perceived wrongs only because we perceive them to be wrong. Theres nothing intrinsically wrong about them, and often times the things that we define as wrong we do so with no good reason.

On a random side note, i remember hearing once that some Inuit tribe in northern Canada had seven words or so for snow. As an American I thought this crazy. There's just snow. How can you have seven variations of it? Then it was explained to me that snow is a huge part of their culture, that they are exposed to so much of it that they do perceive 7 variations worthy of different words. It was defined in their language and culture as such. Then I thought, how many words can you name that all mean shit?

Osama Bin Laden

As you've no doubt heard, Osama Bin Laden is dead. I think its way to early on for me to give an educated opinion about anything that's happened since, however there is one thing i have to say. Right now, I'm pretty scared. With Bin Laden's death, al Qaeda has to respond in some way to prove itself as a legitimate organization. And it has to be something big. If they don't respond with violence or do with more small scale attacks, they're essentially finished. Which would be great. But I don't think it's going to turn out this way.

The death of bin laden is hugely symbolic. If al Qaeda is still functioning they have to respond in a big way. This logic, coupled with some recent things i've read has me pretty scared. You can google these to double check my sources. 1: in his Gitmo testimony, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the mastermind of 9/11, stated that in the event of Bin Laden's death, a "nuclear hell storm" would be unleashed on America. 2: In recently published documents on Wikileaks from Guantanamo Bay, Abu Farahal Libi stated that he believed al Qaeda to have a nuclear bomb or some facility or something hidden somewhere in Europe, and that it would be used in the event of Bin Laden's death. I really hope that these are empty threats, but if al Qaeda did have a major attack in the works, now is the time for them to use it. I'm thinking these next few years are going to be pretty tense.

Going along with this idea, I'm fairly certain that Bin Laden would have made advanced preparations in the event of his capture or death. Whatever people may say about him, he's not stupid. He would know that as America's most wanted man his time was limited. Over his ten years since 9/11 I'm sure he has a contingency plan in place which could include a large scale attack. At any rate I hope I'm wrong about all of this.

Depopulation

I have a solution to a solid 90% of our current problems. The solution? Kill humans.

Nearly all of our problems can be traced back to overpopulation. Genocide? Overcrowded ethnic groups being forced into close contact with each other. Famine? Too little food for too many humans. Epidemics? Too many humans forced into close contact with one another to spread the disease. Environmental degradation? A by product of the pursuit of the huge amount of energy and resources necessary to sustain 7 billion humans. Reducing the human population on Earth wouldn't make these things disappear entirely, but they would be greatly reduced in scale.

It comes across as psychotic to say such a thing, but it would actually solve our problems. Say one human's carbon footprint is X, and therefore the total human population's carbon footprint is 7 billion X. If you reduce the population by 4 billion, suddenly our carbon footprint is reduced by 4 billion X. It means that much less pollution, that much less famine because there's more food to go around, that much less warfare devastation because huge nations aren't competing with each other over excess resources.

Its fairly obvious now that the human population on Earth is currently far to large to be sustainable, and talking about it like this is nothing new. Daniel Quinn, Thomas Malthus, and various others have already discussed this in detail. Every solution we as a species are working on to solve our problems like environmental devastation are focused on sustainable growth. Theres a fundamental problem with this. It doesn't matter what things you have in place to protect the rainforests or to maximize crop yields. In the end, these are temporary measures to alleviate the stresses of a burgeoning population. It doesnt matter how much you reduce one human's carbon footprint. If you keep producing humans, devastation will continue. Sustainable growth initiatives are like using duck tape to seal a gaping hole in the side of your sinking ship.

The only real solution I can see is to reduce the human population. Now this begs the question, how would one actually do this? When I mentioned earlier reducing the human population by 4 billion, undoubtably some people began thinking about the Holocaust x 100, and about the horrors that would entail. If one were to reduce the population in the shortest time span possible, there would be horrors like that brought to life. Spread out over a long term however, such things could be minimized.

Reducing the population in the quickest way would also be the healthiest way for the Earth as a whole. Something like this would have to be carried out in the bloodiest genocide in human history with huge mass killings one way or another. Introducing a genetically enhanced virus would be the most efficient way I can imagine that would also minimize ecological damage.

Short timespan reduction plans also raises the question of who is to be saved? If it is to be carried out in mass killings, undoubtably there will be an uneven distribution. Those in power, those with weapons will live, and those without will not. A virus may be the most fair way of carrying it out: your social status and personal power don't matter to a virus, natural selection would prove to be a random and therefore fair adjudicator of who lives and who dies. I state it matter-of-factly here, but please dont assume that I'm underestimating the horror of what I'm describing here. I'm not advocating mass exterminations.

Population reduction would have to be carried out over a longer term with an international and compulsory 1-child-per-couple law, for the greater good. Having 8 kids per couple was relevant back when a large percentage died before their first birthday, now its not so much. I dont like advocating these things, but I'm facing facts here. The population is too large. Spreading to other planets won't work because there aren't organic things there for us to consume. We have to reduce the human population, or we will face a collapse of civilization and then our population will be forcibly reduced, and not on our own terms. Or maybe thats what the Earth needs in order to recover as an ecological system.

One way or another, we have to bite the bullet in the short term in order to ensure the future of our species.

Awkward Social Moments

First off, I think im going to try and turn this into a weekly thing, publishing an article every wednesday evening. I cant guarantee that I wont have a very pressing issue to talk about and so violate my own schedule, so i may end up publishing more frequent then that. But for the most part, expect an article every wednesday.

I think this is a pretty universal experience among students of all age groups. When you're walking from class to class and you see someone you vaguely know walking towards you. Then you have that awkward 15 seconds to decide whether you should say hi to them or not, and to decide whether they'll try to say hi to you or not. Its especially awkward if your hello is not reciprocated. Thats when your waving hand has to quickly turn into an attack on that non existent itch on the back of your head.

I think this is a common enough phenomenon that it is a direct result of our existing social fabric. What I mean by this is that not pursuing continual social interaction with someone wouldn't happen in more tightly knit communities. Even if you didnt know them that well, you wouldn't ignore a fellow tribe member walking nearby in the savannah circa 10000 BCE.

I think there are two contributing factors to this behavior, although they are intertwined to such an extent that theyre almost one factor. The first is that our population size is enormous. This leads directly into the second factor, that there is an implicit assumption underlying whenever you meet new people: that you may never see them again and thus investing in continual social interaction would be a waste of time and energy. Thus you're only likely to acknowledge someone on the street if there is a good chance of, or there has already been, meaningful and continual interaction.

So when you discuss a class subject with someone in your lecture or discussion, there is an implicit understood assumption that your association with each other is strictly academical, and very unlikely to proceed any further then that. Acknowledging someone outside of the academic context is seen as a breach of that initial assumption, and is seen as being too personal with someone with whom there should be no such interaction.

In other contexts, deliberately ignoring people is used as a method of social stratification (especially in high school). It's like saying "you are not worthy of my notice because I do not wish to associate myself with you".

Obviously there are exceptions to this rule where people meet in classes and become best friends, but i think this happens rarely enough that it doesn't disprove my assertion. Likewise, sometimes people simply don't see one another on the street, but again this is infrequent enough to not put a dent in my assertion.

Its very easy to ignore someone when you both are walking among a crowd. Both parties are able to mutually avoid acknowledging each other by the understood agreement that "there are many people here, I just didnt notice you." However take away such crowds and force the same two people to pass each other and they will (more often then not) greet each other to some extent. In this way, the context of being surrounded by many people reinforces the assumption that such interpersonal interactions are easily traded for one another and are thus not worth pursing. Take away that context and people will pursue interaction.

This is kinda sad in many ways. As such social animals I'd imagine that people should always seek interaction with one another, but we don't because of existing social norms. I think this contributes to the underlying sense of loneliness that pervades modernity.

Running and Zen, or The Art of Doing Nothing

I'm a very active distance runner since i started in cross country my senior year of high school and I've kept it up in college as well; i recently finished my first marathon. A fair number of people think me a little crazy for running as much as i do, but I can't help it. I'm addicted.

There are obvious physical health benefits to distance running, but I'm addicted to the psychological benefits. Too often in my life, and I'm sure many others feel the same, I'm weighed down by my current fears and woes. Recently it's been my internal pressure to choose classes for next semester, thus choosing a major, thus choosing a path in life for myself after college. The ramifications of my choices now are huge, and have thus created a huge burden for me. I'm too often weighed down by fears of the future, regrets of the past, worries about relationships, etc. etc. etc. All that stress does some serious physiological harm to the body.

When I run, all that shit flies out the window. It's just me, the wind, the road, and nothing else. That moment of zen is what I'm addicted to. That moment when all of my mental faculties are focused on the next hill and not whether my major will get me into a well-paying career field, what my exam grade will be, whether this relationship will turn out a particular way, etc. It's deeply psychologically therapeutic and relaxing, and a great way for me to relieve stress.

On a related note, I recently went to a guided meditation session held by the buddhist student organization here on Grounds. I went because i was curious as to what meditation actually is and how one does it. It's a word i hear a lot from all over, but i never knew exactly what it was. So i went to go try it out for myself.

Meditation, it turns out, gives me the exact same kind of zen moment that running does. All it is is sitting in a comfortable position and concentrating only on the sensations of your body. Granted this was only an hour long session and i'm sure there are other techniques, but this was all I was exposed to. By concentrating different aspects of your body, you accomplish two things. First, you can consciously relax the tension in the individual muscles. Trust me, this feels great. Secondly, you are also not thinking about the past/future/etc. In my head i called this the "Art of Doing Nothing", and it feels great.

You dont have to be buddhist or some new age weirdo in order to meditate and enjoy it's benefits. It's a very good way to reduce stress, which is essential for physical and mental health in the uber-stressful modern era.

On a final note I'll include a warning. Although it does feel great to not think about the past and future for a while, it is unhealthy to not think about them to some degree. I think it's certainly possible to seek too many "zen moments" and have it become an unhealthy aspect of your life. Stress can be a good thing, it tells you what's important in life and drives you to focus your energies upon it. Finding a balance between stress and stress-relief is imperative for achieving well being. So many college students are already attempting to do this by balancing school work with partying.

Evaluating "Is America the Greatest Nation?"

A little while ago, some friends were having an argument about which nation is the greatest in the world. At the time I didnt get much into it, but I thought I'd post some thoughts here.

The frist step to a debate such as this, is to explicitly define what it is you're debating. Meaning, how do you define what the greatest nation in the world is? If you're talking military power, I'm fairly confident that the US is the greatest of all time. Similarly if you're talking economic superiority/wealth, again I'm fairly confident that the US is the greatest in history. Defining the greatest nation by those two criteria seems fairly narrow-minded and shallow, however.

One argument espoused primarily by Fox News and other self-proclaimed patriots is that America is the freest nation of all. Well (although i have no source data for this), I'm confident that the US has the most written law governing many different aspects of our lives then any nation in history, and law is one of the largest and fastest growing profession . Many would argue that this is for the good of all within the confines of the society. Maybe that's true. However I question how truly free an American is with so much written law guiding our actions.

The main reason why America appears to be the freest is that there are limits to the powers of the powerful. The common man is empowered to speak out against corruption within the elite without fear of retribution. If this is to be the definition of what is the greatest, then perhaps America is the greatest. Again i would say that this is a very narrow definition. I should also note that although this concept was an American innovation, it has since been copied by many nations throughout the world and can no longer be used to set America apart from any other contenders.

I'd also note that in terms of societal health, I'd think that America ranks fairly poorly. Deep interpersonal social ties are very rare in America relative to other societies. The average American moves residence about 11 times in their life. In other societies, people live and die with the neighbors they've known all their life. Lack of social ties leads to depression, isolation, anxiety, stress, and loneliness among other things.

On the other hand, America does provide extraordinary wealth, opportunities, and health for it's constituents. The poor in America would still be rich relative to other countries. We have a very high average life span. And theoretically it is possible for a low class kid to make it big into the upper echelons of society. Realistically though, America does have serious social stratification that is very difficult to break through.

This post was attempting to objectively evaluate American society relative to others. The main target was those whom claim that America is the freest and greatest society that "god ever gave to man". These sentiments are rife with perhaps undeserved nationalism. All of us are indoctrinated in our mandatory elementary schooling with the alleged history of our nation. Sometime we are told outright lies, like about Betsy Ross sowing the American flag or George Washington cutting down a cherry tree, and other times history is bent to present our nation in a better light. A good number of things are skated over. Like McArthur sparing the Japanese Emperor (despite his war crimes), like sparing Japanese and Nazi scientists in exchange for their data (despite their war crimes). There are others, but I haven't got them off the top of my head. Wiki Unit 731 and Unethical Human Experimentation in the United States, and read "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen.

Defining "the greatest nation" is completely relative, based on one's definition of the greatest. In my opinion America is pretty good, but there's substantial room for improvement. I don't know what the greatest is, I just think that people should think before giving an opinion.

Israel vs. Palestine

Disclaimer: I have nothing against either Jews or Muslims (or Christians, for that matter). I have many friends of both religions, and I admire both of them. My views are in no way motivated by any sort of racism or "religious-ism"

Israel was created by western imperialism. The League of Nations/UN backed by England simply decided that the lands of the former state of Palestine were to become the jewish state of Israel. I think that act itself means that Israel has no inherent right to exist. The whole historical ownership argument is bullshit; by that same logic the Native Americans deserve the entire contingent United States, Australia should go back to aborigine control, etc. The concept of zionism as a refuge for Jews following the horrors of the holocaust is understandable, but that doesn't mean you get a right to kick people off of their land just because you want it.

I'm also very curious as to why the US continues to back Israel at all (not as a historical argument but as a practical international relations one). In the middle east the US needs allies in order to have continuing access to the oil reserves there. So to do this, we go ahead and back the one single nation that all of the oil-producing nations there hate. And that one single nation produces no oil itself.

Israel is also useless to us as a base for pursuing military operations in the middle east. As soon as Israel is seen to back a military effort against an arab nation, every single arab nation unites in opposition. This almost happened when Iraqi scud missiles hit Israel during the first gulf war.

Maybe the one reason i can see for backing israel would be that theyre a large consumer of American military arms. However that consumption is not inherent to israel as there will always be a demand for the newest military equipment.

Going forward, I can only see one realistic solution. Israel will never go away as a nation, with it's western backing and nuclear capabilities. Palestinians will never forgive the fact that their lands were stolen from them by western imperialism. So maybe instead of a two state solution there should be a one state solution. The entire area of Israel governed by one nation encompassing both Israelis and palestinians, where each as an equal political say, and where neither religion can be used as a means of governance. A sort of hybrid between israel and palestine.

I think the US itself can be an example of this, where historical religious enemies like protestants and catholics, jews, muslims, etc. do manage to live alongside each other in relative peace, where each has an equal say in government, and where no religion is forced upon any other. This would be very difficult to sell to both sides, but I think it can be done.

The Case for a UN Military

I was international relations the other day, and the professor mentioned that some people have made the case for a UN military. I agree with those people, and here ill make my case for why/how. (I think Ill start with the how)

There should be a new prerequisite for joining the UN Security council: you have to give 1,000 soldiers and a certain, but small, amount of money annually to the council's activities. Each nation that meets these two requirements will have an equal vote in oversight of how the military funds are used, and where/how/why the military force is deployed. There are 192 members in the UN, and i think a membership spot on the security council with it's voting rights is enough of an incentive for nearly all the nations to join. That would make an army of 192,000 soldiers (can also accept volunteers from throughout the world) with a certain annual amount of funds for acquiring supplies, weapons, and vehicles. Their commanders could either be volunteers from various nations, promoted from within their 192,000 men, or given from different nations. Also, these soldiers would be stationed at bases throughout the world; deliberately stationed in areas not relevant to their native country.

All of the soldiers would swear allegiance to the UN, and be retrained so that their skill levels and tactics are uniform, and so that theyd be re-socialized into being UN soldiers, not soldiers of wherever doing a short stint in the UN army. The Secretary General would have the ability to deploy his troops where ever and for whatever reason for 30 days, upon which their deployment time can only be extended upon a resolution from and only from the members of the security council. If they dont pass a resolution, the troops would be recalled. Perhaps a 3/4 vote of the council would be necessary for such a resolution.

Thats the how. Heres the why.

Such forces can be used for humanitarian missions all over the world, not just military ones. It would essentially solve the problem of western nations hemming and hawing over whether to send peace keepers somewhere or not. The 30 days power would allow help to be sent to wherever it is needed, immediately. A 192,000 man army could do wonders in relieving the problems of tsunamis, famines, and genocides around the world. National armies can then be solely for the purpose of national defense. The UN army has no such nation to defend: their purpose is to defend and help others. Domestic politicians are totally relieved of the burden of intervening in foreign civil wars or disasters, although they still may want to help. Its the job of the UN army.

The force would be small enough to never pose a threat to a nation's sovereignty, but large enough to protect ethnic groups from slaughter and to make a difference in disaster relief.

If UN forces are deployed to a civil war-ridden area, it presents an incentive for other nations to intervene as well to aid their 1,000 soldiers. Even if they are UN soldiers, they're still US nationals being shot at, and the public would want to move toward their aid.

It's a huge symbolic step forward in international cooperation and world peace, even if it costs each nation involved very little.

With security council oversight and equal voting rights for all members, such a force could never be misused in a way that could not be rectified.

I think i had other reasons in mind earlier, but for the life of me I cant remember them now, so I'll leave this post like this.

The Effects of Sexual Selection on the Human Psyche

First, some background knowledge. There are two basic types of evolution. The first is what everyone knows from high school, Darwin's survival of the fittest model. The organisms best adapted to a particular environment survive and reproduce, those that are not die off. The second version of evolution only takes place in organisms that produce sexually- sexual selection. What this means, is that a member of one sex that has the most desirable characteristics as defined the other sex will have the most sexual access to the other sex, and thus reproduce more then another without those characteristics.

This post is commenting on the effects of sexual selection on the human psyche, especially in the post modern era. With the onset of totalitarian agriculture (see the previous posts on religion), we've essentially never had to worry about natural selection. That doesnt mean that it's not happening, but its just not very high on our collective to-do-list. Sexual selection however, is still very much in play, and the extent to which humans will try to alter their traits is amazing.

The first i'll discuss is very common knowledge due to being highly publicized. Women are involved in two things i've noticed: body-form maintenance and efforts to alter their superficial features.

Body form maintenance means excessive dieting, frequent trips to the gym, bulimia, anorexia, self-starvation, etc. In an effort to make themselves appear more sexually attractive women exhibit behaviors that would, under different circumstances, directly damage their chances at survival and winning the natural selection game. No organism with bulimia or anorexia would survive on the African savanna. The desire to win in sexual selection has grown in the female psyche to the point that it's become a physiological disorder. This has also frequently been featured in the news, where young girls are being socialized into a culture that demands physical perfection.

Make up application is another interesting aspect of female sexual selection competition, in which the use of artificial chemicals are used to try and alter the appearance in a way that appears more sexually attractive. Hair is supposed to be made prettier, eyelashes/cheekbones/whatever accentuated, etc. This has grown to the point that cosmetics is a huge domestic industry. Whats interesting about this aspect of the female psyche, is that some people become embarrassed to be seen without make up. It's so deeply ingrained into their identity that theyre embarrassed of who they are without it.

The degree to which males participate in sexual selection is less publicly discussed, because it just so happens that the ways they participate are somewhat healthier. Body image is still a huge influence on the male psyche. How many jillions of hours do jillions of males spend working out in the gym? Supplements to muscle growth are now a big industry too. Its gotten to the point where some will knowingly ingest supplements that may chemically and forcibly alter their sexual identity. Of course, im talking about steroids. Personally, I've found it kind of amusing to see jacked-up guys out running. I'm somewhat of a running-style connoisseur, and i can tell you that they run with all the grace of a hippo trying to tap dance.

In an evolutionary context, a jacked-up physique is counterproductive. It'd be useful in fighting off other males or predators, but in terms of hunting and gathering it's useless. It'd be more useful to have a physique balanced between light and agile, and heavy and strong.

Both sexes have become obsessed with status symbols, which encompasses a wide variety of things. Both try to dress in fashionable ways with certain name-brand labels to subtly advertise how much they can afford on clothing. And if not in clothing, then in sunglasses, jewelry, handbags, cars, essentially any type of "accessory". Even other people are seen as status symbols: the male with the most sexually attractive female companion is given a high status by other males, and vice versa. This can even happen heterosexually between people of the same sex. The not-attractive male is still given a high status if he is included into a group of high status males.

I'd like to clarify that competing in these things is not intrinsically bad. Every organism has a right to compete to the best of it's ability in every type of evolution. I'm merely commenting on the extent to which it has become dominant in our collective psyche.

I wish I could close with a schpeel on how it'd be better for all of us to stop focusing on things related to sexual selection and focus on things that really matter, like poverty, aids, stopping genocides, etc, but that'll never happen. We've evolved to care about sexual selection to a degree second only to natural selection.