Jainism

A minority religion in India (4.2 million) followers. They believe in the sacredness of all life. Jains are vegetarian, often wear a cloth over their mouth (to avoid inhaling insects) and sweep the path in front of themselves (to avoid stepping on insects). Sam Harris makes a great point -- no matter what, there will never be any Jain suicide bombers. From that perspective it's a definite plus. But not all's peachy.

The highest calling for a Jain is to starve him/herself to death. It's a special religious act called Santhara. It's not done frequently nor taken lightly. Still, it's no coincidence that a pacifist religion would be ok with violence to oneself. Much like VHEMT who advocate voluntary extinction of humans for the sake of "Mother Earth", Jainism's ultimate goal is to do no violence to a plant. There are 25+ types of fasts in Jainism: it's literally an obsession. Even without suicidal tendencies, pacifism is a straitjacket. If you're worried about swallowing insects you're not free to act. You can never achieve much -- doing anything remarkable always requires you to at times forget about the 600,000 species of beetle you might step on.

Quakers

Quakers are the pacifist wing of Christian denominations. They're probably the least dogmatic of pre-20th-century denominations, not believing the Bible to be the complete inerrant word of God (quite a mean feat in the 17thC when they originated). Quakers have been closely associated with the women's rights, civil rights and anti-slavery movements.

All great but still, dogmatic pacifism has disadvantages. Quakers obviously didn't fight in the US War of Independence. If the US lost, it's hard to say for sure if the world would be worse off (now or then). But there are reasons to believe it would have been terrible. Since the American revolution helped propel democracy, people would have been stuck under despots for longer if the US lost.

From Goodbye to All That: (A pacifist during WWI responding to the chairman of the military tribunal's question: what would you do if you saw a German soldier trying to violate your sister?) I would try to get between them. This is not true for most people. Quaker views are less extreme than Jainism but they can lead to just as much harm. They suppress the natural instinct most people have to fight for their loved ones if need be.

So What's Wrong With Pacifism?

• Pacifist 1: "it would be great if everyone practiced it". As pointed out by the Reason Driven Podcast even if everyone practiced Rush-Lumbaughism (I add Osamaism & Ann-Coulterism) the world would be great. There'd be no disagreement. So you don't need pacifism: almost any value system would be good if universal. The whole problem is that the world is so full of disagreements.
• Pacifist 2: "pacifism is an effective principle of dealing with those who disagree". It worked a few times but not in the general case. As long as there are people who are unpacifist AND won't shirk from massacring pacifists (and there's plenty of such people), the strategy loses. For pacifism to work already requires a level of enlightenment in society: how good would an American Indian pacifist resistance have been against the West?
• Pacifist 3: "the act of killing a human being is so morally wrong [says Jesus/Krishna/The Benevolent Leader] that even if this human being will massacre thousands, you still have no right to do it". Not wanting to swear too much, I leave the refutation as an exercise for the reader.

• Most know about the caste system, but underestimate its brutality. It still keeps hundreds of millions in the gutter. Literally: take a look at the diver caste whose hereditary occupation (since they're untouchables) is to swim in sewage canals fixing them. The image at the top is of one such unfortunate (22,000 die in the sewers yearly from gas poisoning etc).
• For an insight into how divisive the caste system is, check out Bharat Matrimony (a matchmaking site with a formidable 12 million profiles). The search form assumes you're seeking a very specific race/caste -- and there thousands. A racial mystic's wet dream.
• Speaking of which, the Nazis considered the Germans as descendants of the allegedly-superior Aryans (conquerers of India). Today many Hindus affirm the connection & claim Hindu superiority over non-Hindus. They read Mein Kampf as a solution to Indian problems. They can't be dismissed as the fringe: they've been intimately connected with mainstream Indian politics (including the ruling party) for decades.
• During the Delhi riots (after Indira Ghandi's assassination by a Sikh) about 4000 Sikhs were killed by Hindu mobs as revenge. Children were stuffed into tyres, doused with petrol and set alight. Politicians actively participated, whipping the crowd into a frenzy of religio-nationalist superiority. Sikh families were identified using the official electoral roll.
• Pogroms against other minorities, eg. Muslims, are also common. In Ahmedabad in 2002, 5000 were killed. The riots are accompanied by police apathy (or explicit participation).
• There's great violence between castes: entire villages of lower castes in Bihar have been massacred by thugs who hate "uppity Untouchables".
• Two great books on all this: The End of India by Khushwant Singh and The Age of Kali by William Dalrymple. From the second book:

The strength of caste feeling can be horrifying. Bhera Ram is a charming old man of the Bishnoi caste. He has ebullient moustaches, has never touched alcohol and is strictly vegetarian. He has 18 grandchildren, readily offers tea to visitors and smiles amiably as he chats about the harvest. Yet when I mentioned the plan to reserve government jobs for the lower castes, Bhera Ram narrowed his eyes.
"In the old days, under the Maharajah, everyone knew their place...how can a sweeper be my equal?"
[...]"Would you let a Harijan come in to your house?"
"If a bungi ever tried to come near my house I would beat him with my shoe, then I would kill him," said Bhera Ram without hesitation.

People often say fanatics "pervert" religious teachings. I think Hinduism shows this isn't true. It separates people into superior and inferior castes. Karma means lower castes deserve everything they get (they were bad in a prior life). It idealises India's mythological past and sees the land of India as "holy" -- laying the groundwork for a bigoted nationalism.

The extremists aren't perverting Hinduism, they're taking it to its logical conclusion.]]> http://anadder.com/debunking-myths-a-peaceful-hinduism/feed/ http://anadder.com/blog-day-08?utm_source=rss http://anadder.com/blog-day-08#comments?utm_source=rss Sun, 31 Aug 2008 07:55:45 +0000 michael Uncategorized http://anadder.com/blog-day-08 "One long moment on August 31st, bloggers from all over the world will post recommendations of 5 new blogs, preferably blogs that are different from their own culture, point of view and attitude. On this day, blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, unknown blogs, celebrating the discovery of new people and new bloggers". Instructions:

• Find the 5 blogs
• Notify the 5 bloggers
• Write a post with links and a description
• Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st)
• Add the BlogDay tag (by linking to http://technorati.com/tag/BlogDay2008) and a link to the BlogDay web site.

My 5 (not all are new, some are relatively new to me or a bit off topic from what I blog about):

1. Markets in Everything -- a great chronicle of unusual products from Second Life tutors to tourists feeding a sheep to a Siberian tiger for $75 a pop.
2. Kafir Girl -- ok not really from an alternate viewpoint but still, something from a culture I'm not 100 familiar with -- she's taking a hilarious journey through the Quran's many quirks and cruelties.
3. Elder of Ziyon -- he's way more right wing than me and (probably) way more right wing than you -- but I find many of his posts interesting, especially when he brings in tidbits from Hamas/Hezbollah/Ahmadinejad/Egypt etc that you wouldn't otherwise get.
4. Dispatches from the Culture Wars -- with a caustic tongue and a die-hard libertarianism Ed Brayton brings daily nuggets of the that goes on in the mad intersection of science, religion & conservative politics.
5. Strange Maps -- catalogues weird and wonderful maps based on some principle other than geography (eg. this gem)

From another perspective it's bullshit. The bee's not in control at all! She's a dupe of the flower who's really the one pulling the strings. The nectar is just bait. A tiny wage for the much bigger job: helping one flower mate with another. More on the plant's eye view of the world in this great video.

I've just read The Covenant of the Wild which makes a similar case for domestic animals. We've definitely contributed to their reproductive success (1.3 billion cows in existence can't be wrong!). But there's a deeper claim made by the book: the animals we've domesticated escaped extinction by getting us to domesticate them.

The book argues persuasively that the assumption that domestication was solely due to our efforts (or hegemony) is false. In body and behaviour, domestic animals resemble babies of their wild cousins (eg. adult dogs are more like wolf cubs than adult wolves). This is called neoteny and is common in the animal kingdom. Of course humans played a major role in domestication, but it was co-evolution. These animals were probably neotenous before we could start selectively breeding them. The alternative makes no sense: why would hunter-gatherers want to approach wild wolves "just to see what happens in a few generations"? (Interestingly we ourselves are domesticated and neotenous, resembling baby apes).

From an evolutionary perspective, getting domesticated was the best thing that happened to 18 lucky mammal species. Unlike most mammals they're in no danger of extinction. In fact we clear land for them (a stupid amount), feed them (ahead of of millions of people) and spend billions curing their diseases. The problems with our current use of animals are gigantic, and we've taken a huge toll on ecosystems. But the idea that evil-cancerous-humans-are-ruining-pristine-stable-&-romantic-nature is human-centric, incoherent & false. If we have any chance in hell of fixing things we need to change to a more even-handed and correct perspective.]]> http://anadder.com/domestic-animals-tamed-us/feed/ http://anadder.com/good-of-the-species?utm_source=rss http://anadder.com/good-of-the-species#comments?utm_source=rss Sun, 24 Aug 2008 09:07:03 +0000 michael Uncategorized http://anadder.com/good-of-the-species Since evolution is taught badly in schools (and few go on to learn it at uni), we have misconceptions. One is that evolution is "for the good of the species", with each species becoming refined as a whole. Not true: evolution doesn't necessarily cause a whole species to become better adapted. Sometimes it does, like the classic example of giraffes' necks getting longer. Other times it backs species into a corner.

Evolving to Extinction

A species might become better and better adapted by edging towards a cliff, then falling off. Say a herd of wild horses can eat all the grass except the bottom 2cm. Some will have longer necks that let them graze more and only leave 1.5cm. Their genes will spread and this will be the new norm. Next stage is to have the horses evolve to eat a bit more grass. And so on, until we reach the "optimum" solution for an individual horse: eat all the grass. The grass can't grow back, horses become extinct, oops. Each step is a perceived improvement on a small scale but it's not for the good of the species. (HT)

Sexual Selection

The best examples of a species backed into the corner are the fancy birds. Birds of paradise, peacocks etc. are forced by sexual selection to keep these ridiculous extravagances. The "good of the species" would dictate that all males stop this nonsense and start producing tails that might actually help them run away. Impossible: the females have a wild and insatiable fetish for bright plumage. A male in more practical dress simply wouldn't get any sex.

Why No Good of the Species? No Group Selection

How did altruism/morality evolve? If you're under the "good of the species" misconception, you might say: "Cooperation improves a population's chance of survival. Therefore, altruistic populations will have more offspring than selfish populations. Eureka." Alas this doesn't work. Yes IF a population were made of altruists everyone would benefit. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone was nice? But how would such a population get started in the first place? In a nice population a few individuals who take advantage will get an edge over everyone else. Eventually their genes will take over. 10,000 years of human history show the same -- pacifism is immoral as it only works if everyone else is a pacifist; one non-pacifist fox in the henhouse and we're screwed.

Altruism and morality do exist but they need to be explained only in terms of individual reward. How the hell is this possible? One day I'll try summarise it in a 300 words post. Till then consult the classics.

It's hard for our brains, which evolved to see purpose and foreplanning everywhere, to think in these terms. But we must, so as not to live in a fantasy world. Nature only optimises for an individual's reproductive success; completely overlooking the same individual's suffering and certainly any benefit to the species as a whole.]]> http://anadder.com/good-of-the-species/feed/ http://anadder.com/natures-stinginess?utm_source=rss http://anadder.com/natures-stinginess#comments?utm_source=rss Thu, 21 Aug 2008 02:58:34 +0000 michael Uncategorized http://anadder.com/natures-stinginess Another common misconception of evolution is the idea of design optimality. It's as if all creatures are perfectly honed to take advantage of their environment, and every species is getting better over time. Utter rubbish of course but it's wrong for two main reasons. Reason the first: when evolution tries to optimise, it often fails. Miserably. Reason the second: nature never optimises for the sake of an organism. It's just too stingy.

On reason one here's a great video of Neil deGrasse Tyson (what moron would put an entertainment system in the middle of a sewage canal?). I'd like to talk about the reason two. Evolution's all about making as many copies of a species as possible. Everything else is not just secondary, it's non-existent; and invisible to evolution. 2 examples:

Why Do We Sleep?

Dennett has a great point in Darwin's Dangerous Idea. You often hear in the media about "mysteries of sleep"; how we still don't know why we sleep. Perhaps true, but why should we think sleep requires any explanation at all? Why do we think organisms should be awake as the default? That's chauvinism: being awake is actually a very wasteful state. The question should not be why do we sleep? but why do we wake?. After all, most branches in the tree of life (fungi, slime moulds, plants) aren't ever awake. And doing just fine.

The point isn't about the biology of sleep per se. Just that it's an interesting question. Carlin has a great piece on the irony that only living people say life is sacred (clearly vested interest!). Here, only beings that wake ask "why do we sleep?". Evolution is stingy. Minimalist states like sleep are the default -- not extravagances like the four Fs of biology (fight/feed/flee/fuck).

Why Do Elephants Starve?

You're an elephant. You've reached your 5th decade happily munching on plants, all the time oblivious to the terrible suffering evolution is about to impose on you. You have but 5 sets of teeth that get rapidly worn out. Once the last set falls out you can't chew. You'll die a slow agonising death by starvation, just like all elephants reaching the same age as you (HT Eliezer). One consolation: as an elephant you'll spend your life blissfully ignorant of this.

At that age elephants no longer reproduce and are hence invisible to natural selection. Suppose some elephants have genetic variations that make them suffer less in old age (eg. they stampede off a cliff once they have no teeth -- to at least avoid a slow death). These elephants will NOT have more grandchildren than the regular elephants: the suicide trick doesn't affect reproduction. There are about 550,000 elephants in the world, so I'd estimate about 50,000 are starving to death right now. All because nature is too stingy to take any care of any organism.

Interesting thing is humans are no different to elephants in this respect. Of course our organism deteriorates with age. But we probably also have get-cancer-genes, which is why we get cancer in old age. These kick in after people stop having kids and so aren't selected out by evolution. Nature is too stingy to give us more life, or better quality of life in old age. But we'll show it! ]]> http://anadder.com/natures-stinginess/feed/ http://anadder.com/evolution-doesnt-care-about-you?utm_source=rss http://anadder.com/evolution-doesnt-care-about-you#comments?utm_source=rss Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:52:25 +0000 michael Uncategorized http://anadder.com/evolution-doesnt-care-about-you Steve Gould has a great analogy about natural selection:

Suppose that a population will be better adapted if it can move from A to B. In the...cruel Darwinian hecatomb, each individual stands at spot A and falls at random. If he happens to fall right along the line to B he survives to the next trial. All Individuals who fall off the line -- the vast majority -- are summarily shot...Standing now at one body length along the path to B...the process continues...The population moves but one body length towards its goal each time. The population will eventually get to point B, but would any engineer favour such a poky and punitive device?

Here's a diagram (blue dots are corpses, green dots are those who happen to fall on the road to B):

The analogy is powerful for 2 reasons. First it explains the basic process. Second (unlike others), it brings home just how wasteful and cruel the process is. The Great Wall, Pyramids and other grand projects were built on the corpses of countless victims. Evolution is the same, but with an even more extravagant waste of life. Movement towards B requires constant punishment of a population. To quote a friend's description of working conditions in a certain company: "there's a big carrot but an even bigger stick!".

Each design or adaptation is the result of tens of thousands, sometimes tens of millions of corpses. And the faster a population evolves the more punishing the stick is. (If the stick is lax, the population is likely to meander from A to B, or not get there at all.)

I think (or hope?) humans have stopped evolving. The alternative is frightening. For things to be reasonably good humans society must get as far from natural selection as possible. ]]> http://anadder.com/evolution-doesnt-care-about-you/feed/ http://anadder.com/noahs-ark-and-evolution?utm_source=rss http://anadder.com/noahs-ark-and-evolution#comments?utm_source=rss Tue, 12 Aug 2008 03:02:25 +0000 michael Uncategorized http://anadder.com/noahs-ark-and-evolution Heard a very good point on a Mindcore episode: Biblical literalists require a stronger belief in evolution than the most "radical atheist scientist". If Noah's ark had only 1 pair of each kind, the speed of evolution required to get some of the variation that exists (in under 5000 years) needs to be thousands of times faster than reality. The more I think on it the more it seems the strongest point against Biblical objections to the fact of evolution. And there's no escape: