a Nadder!

A Creationist Connundrum

michael — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:26:19 +0000

A connundrum popped in my head from reading this great post

Creationist question: If we are descended from apes, why are there still apes around?

Answer through counterquestion: If creationism evolved into Intelligent Design why are there still creationists? (Effective due to its truth.)

And then Harsh Reality hit: whenever you get an idea you ain't first. Sigh.

The Time of My Eternal Life!

michael — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:54:26 +0000

Times seem bleak. In the US there's the fabulous CrackerGate. (A Florida student walked out of a church with a communion cracker and has since caused a media farce complete with death threats, claims his crime was "beyond hate speech", "worse than kidnapping" etc. Then PZ Myers [links above] mocked the stupidity and is now getting the same treatment.)

Meanwhile I'm in an extended metaphor of CrackerGate in Sydney. The government generously kicked in $86M of public coinage for World Youth Day. The 200K pilgrims paying for plane tickets can't possibly chip in an extra $200 each. The Catholic Church can't possibly find the remaining $46M behind the couch. Guess they have a slight cashflow problem from their recent SIX HUNDRED AND SIXTY MILLION settlement in LA for the molestation class action.

I live near the celebration zone. I've included a map of road changes for your convenience (left). Feel free to read the map metaphorically. This rant isn't about the specific religious nature of the celebrations either, it's more on the fact that all of these are part of a much larger universal gargantuan human stupidity that striketh folk of all kind. Even the semi-official slogan (the time of your eternal life) is ridiculous. It implies that everyone in Sydney (even the pilgrims!) are going to hell: if now is the time of our eternal life then it doesn't get any better than this, so none of us can possibly going to heaven!

Is there no end to the stupidity and darkness? There's so many vibrant young people here -- will they never be liberated from the Cosmic Jewish Zombie, free to enjoy the Woodstockean hedonism the world has to offer?

A note of hope: yesterday a friend said about my post on spam: spammers are actually helping advance technology since they're causing a coevolutionary process. Last night on Skepticality Mel Lipman said his humanist organisation tripled its membership over the last 6 years as a counterpoint to the extremism of the Bush administration. This is one bright aspect within the insanity. There is a coevolutionary process between the forces of sanity and insanity. The more ridiculous one side gets the more incentive people on the other will have to sharpen their tools. Coevolution with The Insane until at least someone, somewhere, achieves a reasonable level of advancement? We could do worse.

Recent Milestones in Spam History

michael — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:57:37 +0000

I can't help but be awed at the ingenuity shown by composers of spam in the last 2 years. No longer is it just bland Viagra emails with the occassional 419 (Nigerian scam). These creative geniuses have found ways of capitalising on the following: (These quote/paraphrase actual emails I've received. If you have other examples please comment!)

Logic: I have successfully spammed you. Therefore I can successfully spam others. Therefore you should use my services to [successfully] spam others on your behalf.
Civic Duty: This is your friendly bank. Did you know most emails from banks are actually phishing attempts? Well if you click here and submit your details we'll be on our way to stopping these monsters!
Fear: Your Google Adwords account has been suspended since billing has failed. Click here to update your details and your ads will be up in no time. (Anyone who's used Adwords knows the everpresent fear of the Overlords switching off your business most Suddenly and Unilaterally -- of all items on this list it's probably been the most successful and fiendishly evil).
Work Ethic: "Re: Monday's report." (This is your boss speaking. This email is about work. Therefore it's about your work. Therefore this link is very important for you. Therefore click here.)
Internet-Based Laziness: Clicking to download porn will only be a waste of your valuable time. For your convenience, we've embedded fellatio or penis enlargement images in the body of an email itself! And who said spam isn't customer-focussed?
Appreciation for Mixed Metaphors: Take any 2 common spam topics and combine (eg: expired website + get your phd online = expired academic qualification). Recipient will be so relieved at the breath of fresh air, they're bound to take the offer. .
High culture: From a recent email: "the next day between karna and arjuna. o selfborn one, say". I'm meant to have such love for the Bhagavad Gita (I think that's where it's from) that I'll buy from the spammer on principle.
Compassion: Every major calamity or disaster is followed by a barrage of spam emails getting you to click on their "story", eg. thousands more dead in Szechuan. Of course some of these are simply out of the box in a less-malicious way. Here's a subject line from today: "Beijing Olympics cancelled, moved to Atlanta".

Those in innovation, technology and science need to pay attention to spam. Not just to stop it but for great ideas.

And I wouldn't trumpet the end of the world just yet. People may decry cynicism but one advantage of a cynical population is they are less likely to get bamboozled. The spammers will lose since internet users are becoming jaded at an exponential rate. In fact, the internet may just be the thing that gives us the critical thinking we need to pull ourselves into the next Enlightenment. But more on that later...

Why the UN Should be Disbanded

michael — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:34:25 +0000

Ok, maybe I'm being a tad sensationalist. But the UN has no moral authority whatsoever. Extending Poe's Law, the UN's real dealings are hard to distinguish from a Catch-22-style parody thereof:

In 2003, Iraq chaired the UN Conference on Disarmament (despite lack of WMDs Saddam did spend years gassing the Kurds in the marshes of the south).
The same year, Libya was elected to chair the UN human rights commission.
In 2007, the UN Human Rights council passed a blasphemy law, ruling against defamation of Islam, urging countries "to take resolute action to prohibit the dissemination of racist and xenophobic ideas and material aimed at any religion or its followers that constitute incitement and religious hatred".
The same council has made a ruling that bans discussion/criticism of Sharia law. See these appalling videos where those criticising female genital mutilation are shouted down because that constitutes prohibited criticism of Islamic law.
The same council has only ever officially condemned Israel whilst only being "troubled" by Darfur.
The UN has completely failed in Rwanda, Darfur and virtually every major conflict since its inception. Kofi has blood on his hands for much of his reign.
Meanwhile in 1993 UN troops in Cambodia were sent 800,000 condoms so they can visit local brothels without getting STDs.

Ok, will stop there before the rant goes completely loony (and before cataloging these makes me completely sick). Some more rational arguments about the UN to follow -- with 30% less mouthfrothing!

Does Religion Provide Comfort to those Suffering?

michael — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:49:35 +0000

Religion is commonly believed to provide some kind of psychological benefit to people's lives. This may be true some of the time but the argument can easily be turned on its head. When something really really bad happens, an atheist can simply say "this is fucked". They might learn from it or they might not not. Either way, they're not burdened by the Goodness of the Fabulous Traffic Cop. The religious person must often try scramble in:

explanations for why this was all part of some grand plan, that it was all best in the long run
visions of a benevolent god hiding his face
finding some fault (sin) in themselves (or others)
thoughts about some ultimate reconciliation

Even if religious people believe in the infamous free will defence, this would be only an intellectual response. They're still likely to have emotional struggles like those listed above.

Take an example, my high school teacher thought Hitler's purpose was to show the world the extent of human depravity. My counterexample: I punch you in the face. I tell you "it was to show you of the kind of evil people are capable of, so that you'd be better prepared against some hypothetical other evils in the future". Plus I've taught you the value of forgiveness-reconciliation-and-all-that. In other words I did you a great favour. Thank me!

Talk about religion providing meaning! People's deepest emotions are trivialised; they become a farce, a puppet theatre with all the brutality but none of the fun. Here religion creates a pseudoproblem (since people must go on a frantic search on how to reconcile ultimate meaning with the terrible nature of what happened). This causes much discomfort and diverts focus from actually trying to prevent bad things.

All religions bar a few proclaim some kind of ultimate justice (even eastern ones), but this actually makes them less meaningful. When we try to reconcile the harshest of realities with justice, the meaning of those words becomes inverted in a religious system. Meanwhile, the Nihilist Atheist Boogeyman gets the greater spiritual peace! To paraphrase Hitchens in his debate with Boteach: would anyone actually want it to be true?

Wishful Thinking: Some True Examples

michael — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:57:56 +0000

The wishful thinking fallacy (more):

I want P to be true
Therefore, P is true

Surely people use this fallacy only indirectly, believing in something because they want to but still tying themselves into knots of cognitive dissonance to come up with other reasons for their belief? Surely nobody actually uses the above as an actual argument?

Wrong. One blatant example: the justification used by religious moderates when trying to argue for a universally-pleasant afterlife (even if they're Christian and this directly contradicts the NT). Some specific quotes:

I was not created in the likeness of a fraud/Your hell is something scary, I prefer a loving God (source)
I have always felt that God/Goddess Creator was not capable of making mistakes and therefore needed no place to send people who were made perfectly in the first place (source).

The last one is a bit more knotty but even variations of the first (which explicitly uses the word prefer) are quite common. Another example is when someone thinks "people should have the freedom to do X because I want to believe in the goodness of people". Regardless of what X is, come on! (PS. If you don't think wanting to believe in the goodness of people is a ridiculous concept in itself, check this out -- usual disclaimer about head exploding applies)

Seems people are willing always willing to put in the effort to delude themselves, even if the elephant's right in front of them. Not to be some talking head but I place the blame squarely on excesses in trendy relativist enterprises. I mean religious fundies are unwilling to compromise on the objective nature of their crazy truth and so almost never use the fallacy. When I find myself intellectually on the same side as religious fundamentalists something's gone wrong, right?

Homosexuality, Choice and Dreaded Dark Overlords

michael — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:10:53 +0000

Our society places much importance on the idea of choice in sexual orientation. In the Kerry/Bush debates the one question about LGBT issues was "Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?". This tends to set up the worst answer to anti-gay arguments. Here are 3 popular versions:

I didn't choose to be gay, therefore nothing wrong with it
With all the discrimination, would any sane person choose to be gay? Therefore I did not, therefore nothing wrong with it.
X from genetics/biology suggests sexual preference is influenced by [INSERT COMBINATION OF NATURE/NURTURE CRAP]. Therefore I did not etc, therefore etc.

When someone provides an answer like this one many things go wrong. Answers like the 3 above:

Appear to assume that if this were a choice it would be wrong. (Logically this doesn't follow -- but many will get this impression).
Definitely invoke the naturalistic fallacy, the Dreaded Dark Overlord of Fallacies. The argument that something's not wrong because the person doing it has no choice is very similar to the argument something's not wrong because it is "natural".
Portray the gay person in question as powerless. This even leads to backlash groups like this. It is this last point that's most interesting.
Another insightful view of the problem here

Framing the conversation this way forces you to make a statement about free will and determinism -- the Dreaded Dark Overlord of Philosophy. Seriously, there have been few questions with such a verbal diuretic effect. Even the Wikipedia article (meant as a summary), is some 8000 words!

I've found people tend to avoid bringing up some "Higher Idea" of choice. With good reason: they know it leads into labyrinths that have nothing to do with the original subject. It plays no role in their life. (The extent to which it's our choice to be something doesn't impact the fact that we follow a certain process in choosing.) Whatever sexual, romantic or emotional attractions you might have, their cause is not somehow different to all your other thoughts & urges. They're all physical processes happening in your body (your brain obviously being a part).

Imagine how ridiculous it'd be if someone evaluated a person, say (1) being a Catholic or (2) killing someone or (3) producing a great work of art, and referred only to whether or not they "had a choice" to do it. Our next question would be "So what? You still need to discuss the merits of each point without referring to choice." Why should sexual orientation be any different? The Choice Conversation answers nothing, since other arguments must always follow it. It's just a waste of valuable time. If you're talking to an anti-gay bigot and they bring out the choice card, the best response is simply: "This is irrelevant. Next!" (PS. Will post on the free will bullshit pseudo-problem later. In a nutshell, it all adds up to normality )

A Loving Tribute

michael — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:13:10 +0000

A break from the usual...This is not the greatest graph series in the world -- this is just a tribute. (Inspired by reactions to a few women at a cold Melbourne train station -- bigotries tend to follow their own similar logics):

If you haven't seen Jessiga Hagy's masterpieces, go forth and soak in the goodness! (She also has a book out.)

PS: fuck shit piss cunt cocksucker motherfucker tits. The world's a lot darker starting now...

The Case for Hunting

michael — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:32:34 +0000

Why I'm a pescatarian who's very pro-hunting:

I've heard people who eat farmed meat say hunting is cruel. What baloney! Le'ts take the most generous interpretation: we're comparing a small farm (where livestock graze and then get killed) to a forest (where animals run around and then get killed). Is there really such a difference? The only difference is the animal hunted generates some more adrenaline in the moments just before it's being chased. That's it! Of course, the real scenario is that hunting is being compared with images like these. If anyone can say hunting is more cruel with a straight face they're set for a career in food politics.
Every time you hunt for your meat you're diverting some funds away from factory farming. Where would this money be going to? Well if more people hunted we would need a lot more living and sustainable ecosystems -- this is the "pernicious" side effect of choosing hunting.
Certainly people in the "western" world (and some so-called "third world" countries are catching up too!) can use the extra exercise from the hunt.
A world where more meat was obtained from hunting would de-automate the process and probably lead to less meat consumption overall. Given the overwhelming consensus that we as a society eat way too much meat, not a bad thing either.
The world is currently in a food crisis in terms of staple grains. At the moment billions of tonnes of these are grown to be used as cattle feed! 75% of EU grain, actually. A forest animal quite literally feeds itself.
You can process an animal and take the meat, throwing the carcass on the ground. The ecosystem provides a free janitorial service.
If more people hunted they would not become desensitised to where their meat is actually coming from. They'd experience reality as it is -- never a bad thing methinks. Without fostering some false noble savage mythology, 'twill do us all some good to become more mindful of what's involved in eating meat. I think a lot of urban-industrial-society-dwellers would be unable to take an animal life (whether a farm or hunt setting). This is hubristic and helps put us in the destructive bubble that says "humans aren't animals" that's causing harm to society.

Of course hunting will never be scalable enough to provide humanity with the levels of meat it needs. But that's a good thing! And even though we should of course be coming up with better farming systems as well I don't see why hunting can't increase in scale. The organic/free-range movements have been embraced by yuppies of all walks. I don't see why hunting can't become a similar boutique-style adventure camp for the affluent. In any case, if you hunt unendangered, non-human animals for food in a reasonably non-destructive manner then I think that's great.

Using Brain to Study Brain

michael — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:00:48 +0000

(MIND, n.) A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with. (Devil's Dictionary)

A brilliant quote, 1 of my favourites. But the idea is often taken too far (by critics of materialism) to produce nonsense. Some think since our brains are probably morally contradictory this can be expanded to cover everything we think about. A well articulated eg. of such nonsense: "If my brain is the result of random mutation and natural selection, what justifies my belief that my philosophy has any correspondence to the way things actually are, and furthermore why should I trust any such justification which is, after all, just a product of my brain?" (Source)

I'll be concise by spending only 2 sentences refuting this: If the brain is a result of natural selection then it was selected for its ability to help us survive by representing the world in meaningful ways. There's no reason to think the representation is perfect but there is every reason to think it corresponds to reality in a meaningful way. If you're not convinced read The Simple Truth by Eliezer Yudkowsky. If you are, read it anyway. For 6800 words it's probably the most brilliant story I've ever seen.

The above quote has more insidious aspects. I've often seen it used to argue for the existence of God, though this doesn't follow at all (worse for theists, the argument actually destroys the possibility of knowing anything including God). It's also defeatist, it can be only used to tell us to stop wondering about the universe. It's like the stupidity of the brain-in-vat-hyperskeptic who thinks we're all in a Matrix-like world and therefore everything's pointless. The shortest refutation comes fron Eliezer again: Sure, when the dust settles, it could turn out that apples don't exist, Earth doesn't exist, reality doesn't exist. But the nonexistent apples will still fall toward the nonexistent ground at a meaningless rate of 9.8 m/s2. (Source)

This also reminds me of those who think consciousness is something inherently mysterious and unknowable. Colin McGinn thinks the human mind is under cognitive closure -- that the brain simply does not have the capacity to understand its own workings. It might seem he's right (how can you use a system to describe itself in its entirety?). Counterexample: you can use language to desribe any/all parts of language. Maybe consciousness is closed to human consciousness but there's no evidence for it. We haven't got all the goods yet but this could mean that it's closed or that we've yet to find the answer. The following are examples of the same kind of stupidity:

To stop looking for the solution to problems in consciousness because the answer could be intrinsically out of reach
Someone who stops going outside because he/she could be a brain in a vat
Someone who crosses the road without looking because they believe the bold quote and think their brain's visions of an oncoming truck don't represent any aspect of reality.

Only one of these could be a real problem -- if it turns out that our brains aren't advanced enough to grasp all aspects of consciousness. But then we should be modifying our brains so we can reach that goal.