Dilbert Musings (Food Poisoning for Thought Reprint)

(*Reprinted from Food Poisoning for Thought as part my ongoing process to unify my web presence.*)

I am currently reading "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big" by Scott Adams, the Dilbert guy. He is talking about the difference between goals and systems. People with goals, he says, go from low to low to occasional high and are constantly failing because their goal has them looking at what they do not yet have. Whereas people with systems can call every day a success where they have practiced their system.

I know me. I am not good at consistency. I really would like to be. But I am not good at consistency. I like habitRPG, because I can balance what I need to do and and when I miss something I am paying a cost to the system, choosing one thing over another. I like the skill progression of role-playing and I like the constellation system that skyrim uses.

I have an idea about how to structure this:

• I need to account for my will power reserves, which are low.
• I need to account for the time I must contribute to my relationship with Megan. Megan is uncomfortable trying things at this point. So I will need to support her, as I have been these last two days.
• I need a way, like Skyrim and Wishcraft, to track my progress towards my end goal.
• I need a ritual, approaching samurai-esque, a coat rack to hang my Scott Adams system system on.
• I need a system that allows me to touch my many and varied goals and ambitions without overloading me.
• I need to structure my habits so that I can Multi-Task my aims and Minimum Effective Dose

Too much I need this and I need this and I need this. This is interesting. I don't like the preponderance of 'need' in this language. I wonder about the difference between languages that have words for 'to be' and those that don't. How does this effect their thinking?

I will use my ideal day as my guideline for my habits and my constellation of milestones. I don't want a timeline. Those don't seem to help or work much. I think I need to work by hand for the roughing out of the constellations and I think I need a book that I can carry with me that I can use for my personal reference and as a constant reminder.

Dear Employers: Not Your Soldiers (Food Poisoning for Thought Reprint)

(*Reprinted from Food Poisoning for Thought as part my ongoing process to unify my web presence.*)

Dear Employers of the world,

We are your employees. We are not your soldiers. We are not zealots for your cause. We do not believe in your mediocre vision statement, and we do not care about corporate profits beyond the minimum amount that we are required to care in order to keep our jobs. We have not drunk the Kool-Aid and no amount of seminars and business management books will help change that.

We are here because we wish to fill the plates upon our family dinner table with food and being a hunter gatherer is a path now denied to us by course of civilization. We are here because we desire a warm bed, comfortable clothes and a same home to shield us from the elements and modern population growth and urbanization means that such things cost more now are more fiercely contested than at any time in history. We are here because our child has a toothache and our spouse needs Chelation Therapy and these things cost money. We are here because although it is possible to buck the system and go against the flow, we didn't understand what would be required of us until our school system wasted all the best time to learn just how to escape this trap of false adulthood. 

The Cannibal Left (Food Poisoning for Thought Reprint)

(*Reprinted from Food Poisoning for Thought as part my ongoing process to unify my web presence.*)

Why we're inherently tribal and exclusionary

I loved Mad Max: Fury Road. It is almost certainly my favorite film of the year. It includes a strong depiction of sexism and religion gone mad, and also provides strong female characters acting against the sexism and characters questioning the religious dogma forced upon them. The film also succeeds as a relentless breathless action movie.

But according to some on the so-called progressive left, this doesn't make the film feminist. According to one commentary that I read, the fact that the former 'wives' of the villain are impractically thin and willowy despite being ostensibly meant as breeding stock, and the fact that they are clad in objectifying clothing means that the film cannot be sexist. This despite the fact that the film explicitly deconstructs the acceptability of the assumptions that would lead to the design decisions in a lesser film and that the film pretty explicitly points out that the film's villains are not as smart as they like to think they are- and thus would likely pick brides based on superficial standards that would appeal to a sexist overlord. According to other critiques I have read, the movie cannot be feminist because it endorses violence as an acceptable means of solving problems. Apparently, this line of thinking conflates gender equality with pacifism by directly linking violence with masculinity and non-violence with femininity. If find this analysis to be sexist in its underpinnings, but that is not my point.

My target here is a left wing progressive subject, but I could just as easily pick a right wing hot button topic and do the same thing, with groups factionalizing into little balkanized tribes over what they appropriate response is. The right, at least, has a counter term to try and suppress this phenomenon in their conception of 'Big Tent Republicanism'.

But the observation remains the same, we have trouble dealing with allies who have slightly different views from our own. Christians have warred with each other arguably as much as they have warred with the 'infidels'. Both the left and the right are infamous for their intragroup squabbles. What constitutes a proper member of every group is subject to constant reassessment. And I have a hypothesis regarding why that this. My hypothesis involves the law of 150, and out tribal roots of our current neurological limits.

Our brains are hardwired to relate to small groups, we exclude outsiders as a normal course of doing business because our brains aren't wired to know that many people well enough. The world as modern humans experience it has expanded and extended due to the reach of technology. No longer are our small groups limited to the people in our physical and biological tribe. We can pick and choose from amongst a multitude. But, our neurological limitations remain the same. And so, we get pickier about who is part of our in group. We exclude people more rigidly based on their ideological conflicts with our own ideas.

Harnessing the Five Inner Demons (Food Poisoning for Thought Reprint)

(*Reprinted from Food Poisoning for Thought as part my ongoing process to unify my web presence.*)

I don't like the body of work that linguist Stephen Pinker has amassed. I think his adherence to Noam Chomsky's field work antagonistic theory of language leaves him on barren ground with regarding to the field of linguistics. I feel he is out of his depth regarding his forays into other fields, as evidenced by his willingness to use discredited sources (Napoleon Chagnon for instance) and to even then mischaracterize the research he finds to suit his conclusions.

I find the most to disagree with in his work "the Angels of our Better Nature". I find the work paternalistic and racist in its assumptions. I feel that it misuses the data that is does show accurately and misrepresents other data, presenting it as things that it isn't. But this isn't a critique of Pinker's attempt at creating what amounts to a work of propaganda for the myth of human progress. He makes an interesting and useful point amidst all the poor logic and misrepresented data, although his conclusion after making this interesting point is precisely wrong.

Pinker asserts that much violence derives from five sources, what he calls the "Five inner demons": Predatory or practical violence, dominance, revenge, sadism, and ideology. He then asserts that empathy, self-control, the moral sense, and reason are civilization's "Four Better Angels"- as though we somehow lacked these things before civilization- but I digress. Pinker needs to draw heavily on the ludicrous work of Thomas Hobbes- whom he argues was 'undervalued' in an attempt to justify Hobbes' fetishism of state violence to remove individual violence. But the point stands, for a culture to survive, it must harness those five inner demons. Pinker seems to prefer repressing them, missing the point that tribal cultures recognized and used them as tools.

Practical violence is a function of situational need. As I said in the fall of the Liberal Dilettante, in times of need most of us become pragmatists. This was what Hobbes' observed when he called the state of existence without civilization "nasty, brutish and short". The tribe of course is anything but that. Physical archaeological data shows that we lived longer (if we didn't die in childbirth or early life- the primary time of mortality in tribal cultures) that any civilized group did until the mid to late 20th century. Likewise, tribal people were taller and healthier, based on physical archaeological data, than civilized peoples until (again) the mid to late 20th century. How does this relate to practical violence? These tribal people's were not fighting over scraps, in equity was low to non-existent. Practical violence was directed outwards, towards the stranger and not towards the tribe. And this may sound violent to civilized ears, but it was powerful population control. And if this sounds harsh to civilized ears, remember that we too are animals and we too have sustainable levels of population.

Skipping ahead to sadism, Lt. Grossman pointed out in 'On Killing' that the small percentage of the population which is unaffected by the stress of combat and can take sadistic joy in the act of violence is mobilized by tribal cultures into a warrior caste or other in group and given direction and leeway, their sadism used as a weapon to the advantage of the tribe. Once again, the violence was pointed outward.

Dominance and ideology are the purview of the civilization and not the tribal nomadic hunter gatherer. But the ritualized violence of sport, martial art, dueling, and rites of passage all existed as methods of directing and controlling the violence of dominance, even in tribal days. It was not until the ten thousand years of civilized history that the need for dominance drove the creation of mass empires. Ideology as a driver for violence is again is a feature of civilization. Certainly tribes used ideology to justify practical violence, but the holy war and the cold war are not features of tribal life.

Revenge is an oft vilified and overlooked aspect of peacekeeping and population control. Social Critic Daniel Quinn describes a tribal warfare strategy which he terms 'erratic retaliator', in which tribes periodically raid their neighbours to prove their strength, and in which their neighbours respond in kind, and afterword there is a peace agreement, frequently a feast and often young people engage in cross tribal courting. The net result is a strategy that keeps population stable, diverse and genetically sturdy; but could easily be misinterpreted as revenge by a modern mind and could just as easily morph into the revenge blood feud traditions of pseudo civilized tribal cultures of the modern world- caught between the past and the present in a vice they can't escape.

 

The Fall of the Liberal Dilettante (Food Poisoning for Thought Reprint)

(*Reprinted from Food Poisoning for Thought as part my ongoing process to unify my web presence.*)

So Jonathan Haidt noted that the hallmark of a liberal is openness to experience. Well openness to experience is an easy trick when one's own dinner and home and comfort are not threatened. And although the oft cited rule about there being no atheists in foxholes has been nearly continuously proven wrong by history, the aphorism does point out rightly that maintaining beliefs is more difficult when our comfort is threatened.

When we find ourselves in situations where our morals and beliefs will expose us to trials and discomfort, we discovery quickly how strongly we believed. The Spanish Inquisition discovered the torture was an easy way to make devil worshiper that are Christians, and many a caliphate discovered the taxation was an easy way to make the infidel into a Muslim. A belief untested by the fire may not be a belief that all. The fire will either forge us or fry us alive.

And all of this brings to the educated liberal elite. Holding an ideology of non violent tolerance and openness and sharing of the wealth is easy when one's own wealth is not being shared, when one's own hone is not being opened, when the violence being tolerated is not being inflicted on those close to you.

To Quote the character of Higgins in the Robert Redford classic movie 'Three Days of the Condor'; "Ask 'em when they're running out. Ask 'em when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask 'em when their engines stop. Ask 'em when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You wanna know something? They won't want us to ask 'em. They'll just want us to get it for 'em!"

Am I saying that all liberals are conservatives with a coat of privilege on them? No, but a lot of them are. What I am saying is that liberal and conservative are convenient labels that we generally only have the luxury of applying to ourselves when times are good, even if they aren't as good as we think they should be.

When times are bad, truly bad, things change. During the special period (famine) of Malawi, during the Holodomor in Ukraine (The USSR inflicted genoicde by starvation), during the post World War 1 years in Germany, marching the trail of tears in North America during the Indian War, in the Concentration Camps of World War 2 or the Gulags of Stalinist Soviet Russia, during the Great Leap Forward in China; during these times we nearly all become pragmatists.

Who is at Fault (Food Poisoning for Thought Reprint)

(*Reprinted from Food Poisoning for Thought as part my ongoing process to unify my web presence.*)

http://climatecrocks.com/

The internet has swelled in a righteous rage recently with the news that Exxon knew about climate, knew it was bad, knew so decades ago, and still misled the public anyway. I have seen and browsed take-down article after take-down article. Angry diatribes and rants have filled my Facebook feed. And I have to ask...

Why is anyone surprised? Why is this news? We knew this in 2013.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/

We knew this in 2010.

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/04/inside-kochs-climate-denial-machine

We have known this for years and years and years and years. They have been lying to us and we have been letting them do it. We wanted to believe them, we wanted to think we wouldn't have to change. The only reason that they lies don't sound sweet anymore is that now we're feeling the pinch. Exxon and the Koch brothers are the cool kids in the Frat House who convinced us to party instead of hitting the books, and it's only now- when we've realized we're going to fail the test- that we've decided to get angry. Well the people we should blame are none but ourselves.

Regarding the Moral Landscape

(*Reprinted from Food Poisoning for Thought as part my ongoing process to unify my web presence.*)

Regarding "The Moral Landscape"

Sam Harris is one of my favorite people with to disagree.

I have spent a little time this morning attempting to read Sam Harris' book "The Moral Landscape" and am at an impasse. It is the same impasse I reach with people like Michael Shermer when debating things like GMO crops. Shermer is convinced that the only valid objection to GMO crops is and must be "Do they hurt people who eat them? Are they less healthy for human consumption?" and dismisses anyone who has objections to GMOs by convincingly arguing that his two chosen objections are invalid. Objections such as how intellectual copyright laws change the dynamic for subsistence farmers in the third world, or how pesticide resistant crops are exacerbating the rise of pesticide resistant weeds and insect pests, or other non-human health based concerns are ignored. I have a similar issued with the underpinnings of Sam Harris' premises for the Moral Landscape. I think the subject and the premise of Harris' book is very interesting, but thus far I feel he has squandered it. Harris' assertions seem to me to be similar to a man who wins the lottery and uses his millions to buy the world's largest stuffed shark collection. Yes, money can buy stuffed sharks. Certainly, purchasing things is a valid use for money. Do I think that this is the best use of that money, or returning to Harris's book, that idea? No, I don't.

Harris asserts, unless I misunderstand, that human well being and the minimizing of suffering of conscious beings should be the underpinning of objective morality. Now, I don't want to suggest that morality should ignore well being and the minimizing of suffering, but I would dispute the idea that well being sits at the center of morality. Well-being is like gas mileage. A well run car will get good gas mileage, but good gas mileage won't get you to Cleveland if you have no wheels. And further, you won't any gas mileage without a working engine, solid axles, etcetera.

So if I disagree with Harris that well being underpins all morality, then what do I think does underpin morality- objectively using science (because I agree with Harris that Science should be able to help us determine objective morality)? Well to digress for a moment, I should ask you what other species behave in moral ways? Cats are notoriously amoral and learn rules and social cues much slower than dogs. Why is this? Cats are solitary predators in the wild with a few exceptions such as lions and hyenas is we are expanding our definition to include a feliformes. Dogs are social predators and groups cooperation is necessary for survival of the pack and survival of the pack is necessary for survival of the individual (in most cases). As such, while I agree with Harris that morality is something objectively knowable, I do not agree with his idea that well being is the key. Now I suspect and anticipate that Harris will, as I continue reading, delve in and elaborate on the idea that he means 'the greater good', that is the highest wellbeing for the most number of people (or conscious beings to use his phrase), and that gets closer to my own idea, but I would like to pause here with a quote from Ursula Vernon, speaking in her work "Digger" through the character of Ed "Fair? Tribe is not concerned with fair! Tribe must work!" And that in a nutshell is my divergence with Harris.

My issue thus far with Harris is that he has found a wonderful telescope and pointed it down rather than up, whereas Harris' other critics seem to object to Harris finding a telescope at all.

John Horgan stated in his review of "The Moral Landscape' (Which Harris seemed to feel was near slander, but I found rather favorable to Harris) that "Harris might be on sounder ground if he likened morality not to science but to engineering. Science seeks one true answer to the questions it poses: How does heredity work? What keeps the moon moving in its orbit? Engineers would go mad if they thought in terms of exclusively true solutions to problems like building a bridge or designing a new cellphone. Engineers seek the best of many possible solutions given the physical and economic constraints imposed on them by particular problems."

I like this idea, I feel that it does nothing to hurt Harris' original good idea. I will keep reading, because the book is certainly thought provoking. And, if nothing else, it is forcing me to organize my own ideas better.
 

Movie Review: Shaun of the Dead (Food Poisoning for Through Reprint)

(*Reprinted from Food Poisoning for Thought as part my ongoing process to unify my web presence.*)
 
Shaun of the Dead

I think what I like/loathe about 'Shaun of the Dead' is the way everyone takes the zombie apocalypse in stride. Nobody panics and nothing is done to solve the zombie virus (although celebrities have started the 'Zomb-Aid' charity). The movie ends (spoiler alert) with the military systematically and effectively containing the zombie outbreak and everyone carries on as though this was normal. This is a good depiction of human strength, we carry on despite the horror; while also pointing out that we keep attempting to not adapt to changing situations and to not solve world shaking problems. This is why people will survive any collapse that still leaves room for human existence at all and why we will then build a semblance of a normal life. But it is also why we will ignore problems that might require us to chance our day to day routine. Do not adjust your set.

The Problem of Evil (Food Poisoning for Thought Reprint)

(*Reprinted from Food Poisoning for Thought as part my ongoing process to unify my web presence.*)

On Messiahs and Extinction Events and Why We don't need a Redeemer

Part One: The Problem of Evil

A classic question within the Philosophy of Religion is how to reconcile the existence of evil with the idea of a loving omniscient and omnipotent god. The reason that this question seems so difficult is that philosophers have previously made the mistake of incorrectly identifying evil, and then not noticing that the world does a very good job at eliminating actual evil without exception.

I suspect we have made these errors because, with very little exception, the people doing the thinking were living in cultures built upon a foundation made nearly exclusively of those evils that the world has made its business to eliminate. In other words, we were standing within a blind spot that made noticing our error nearly impossible.

So what is evil as the world defines it? Evil is the extinction of life. Not the death of individuals, but the death of species. I heard a definition of extinction, credited to the biologist E. O. Wilson that described extinction as the "death of birth". I have been unable to substantiate the quote, but it seems apt. And even extinction is not evil in the view of the world.

If we look at the thrust of the universe, we see a trend of increasing complexity. Entropy will eventually deplete that, but until then we do our best. Life is possibly the ultimate expression of that drive for complexity, and the preservation of complicated ecosystems can be regarded as the highest good possible. As such, war upon the ability of our biosphere to sustain life is evil and things can be measured as good or evil on the basis of whether they support or damage our biosphere's ability to sustain life.

One might argue that this is not a valid definition of good or evil. But on the basis of available information that can be observed and tested, we can only judge good or evil by the long term effects on this world. Thus making sustainability the strongest measure of good we can imagine.

Now stepping back to an earlier assertion, namely that people struggling with the problem of evil were doing so from within evil cultures. The leap should be be hard to make to understand the meaning of that assertion now. All civilized cultures have been unsustainable for as long as they have been civilized. They have achieved civilization on the back of the biosphere and maintained it through domination and subjugation of the rest of the biosphere. It is very hard to correctly define evil when you are in the midst of committing it. There is always a justification for your activities.

So what does all this mean?