Cheating

This isn't about the overall concept of cheating, although I find that very interesting, this is about the cheating in romantic relationships.

There is no doubt that cheating, the concept of cheating, and the problems that go with it happen often, have real consequences, and are an enormous part of almost all cultures.  Anywhere there is marriage, there will also be cheating.

Cheating is, to an extent, situational.  A man sleeping with a woman is not necessarily cheating.  What constitutes cheating is the man's possible relationship with another person.  Cheating is defined by the terms of a relationship with someone not involved in the actual cheating.  The terms of these relationships are often unspoken and assumed to be agreed, even when there might well be differences in what each person thinks those terms are.  At some point in a continuum of relationship types a line is crossed at which point an identical behavior changes from legitimate to illegitimate.

What are the reasons for cheating?  That should be pretty obvious, not getting what you want within a relationship (love, support, sex, variety).  However, looking deeper it is easy to see biological reasons for both cheating, and having the concept of cheating.  Biologically men want* to "sow their seed" in as many places as possible without preventing their ability to do so in the future.  They also want the best chance for the maximum number of offspring to survive to reproduce.  The best chance for the offspring (over evolutionary time scales) is to be raised by both parents, and ideally helped by an entire community.  Biologically women have a much more limited ability to reproduce and so quality becomes more important than quantity.  Women want the absolute best biological father in terms of genes, and the absolute best father in order to raise the child as possible, and there is no necessary connection between the two.

So, why is cheating a problem?  For men, women cheating on them is a problem because they may well end up expending their resources on a different man's children.  We can see the cultural embodiment of this in the establishment of the harem (a nice prison for wives), the burkha (to remove all sexual attraction), and the abhorrence public society has for the whore/promiscuous/slut.  For women it becomes more complex.  As long as a man comes back to the woman and helps raise the children, biologically things seem fine, the woman loses nothing (other than the possibility of disease, which was/is a significant problem).  However, women without a doubt abhor their man cheating on them.

Why are women so against cheating?  Is it fairness, what is not good for the goose is not good for the gander?  Fairness is inherent in humanity, but only to an extent.  Men have been the ones who go to war, lead groups, run into burning buildings, hunt etc..  Basically the dangerous things.  Women have been protected, but expected to a large amount of work within the home and community (raising children, cooking, cleaning, harvesting etc..)  A difference in role is not something that is within that sense of fairness.  There are three reasons I can think of why women would be against men cheating.  The first is that humans live in a community.  A man cheating is probably cheating with someone within the community, and this is a threat to the other men and therefore to the community at large.  The second would be a loss of status within the community, a woman unable to keep her man from straying, somehow inadequate.  The third (and most important) is the fear that a man cheating may find something he prefers elsewhere.

In the modern world many of these problems are reduced.  With birth control and modern medicine the birth of a child can be controlled and the chances of a child making adulthood and being able to reproduce are extremely high.  If a woman cheats on a man while using birth control, biologically it doesn't matter.  If a man uses birth control and the woman gets pregnant he knows it is not his child.  The only time the man's DNA and effort are at risk is when the couple both agree to not use birth control, she cheats and becomes pregnant with the child of someone else.  In the modern world a man cheating is not threatening a community.  People will get upset but people won't get hungry, thrown out of society etc..  A woman may lose status in the eyes of people (generally other women) but this has little to do with a women's success.  A woman who loses a husband will still get support to raise the child, still be able to get a job, still be able to find friends etc..  A man may "upgrade" but in terms of the effect of a woman's ability to pass on her genes (raise children to adulthood) this really doesn't matter much.

In the modern world people can cheat and not get diseases, not produce unwanted children, not threaten the survival of children, not risk their place within the overall community.  Biologically, cheating in the modern world really doesn't matter.  However, the genes that program the behavior are still there, and the cultures that enshrined jealousy are very much still around.  Cheating is still viewed as a betrayal, hurtful, spiteful, and wicked.  In my view, unless you still believe the Man in the Sky sent down the essential moral instructions (which is tricky if you are against slavery, treating women as property, genocide, child marriage etc.,) cheating and jealousy are simply outmoded concepts.  They don't do any good.

Have I ever cheated?  Yep, twice, nineteen years ago during a six month period.  I cheated on my long term girlfriend of the time, who I had discovered was having an affair with a very nice man we both knew, and shortly afterwards I agreed to a request of the girlfriend of a friend of mine.  The first seems to hardly be cheating at all, and the second came out of the whole concept that people just cheat and if you keep it quiet it doesn't hurt anyone.  The first had no effect whatsoever other than being pleasant.  The second yielded ostracism from everyone I knew once she decided to tell her boyfriend without telling me.  Which was ironic since I knew that all of my friends had cheated on someone at some point (other than the man in question.)  I learned from the second experience.

So, all this jealousy about cheating is a painful waste of energy, a remnant of a different, primitive time.  It would be better if we just got over it and realized that a large proportion of people do it, and most of them don't get caught and carry on in their relationship as if nothing happened.  Do I live this as well as talk about it?  Well, my darling wife and I have an agreement that if one of us cheats they should use protection and not tell the other about it because then the wonderful relationship can continue unharmed.  To my knowledge I have been "cheated" on twice, and neither time did I raise my voice, break up the relationship, or even get angry.

*  A problem of language discussed in this blog post.

A note.  Women report substantially fewer sexual partners than men and fewer affairs, about 75% in each case.  In the first case someone is lying (and men report the same numbers in private and confidential surveys) and in the second case it only works if there are lots of single women having affairs with men in relationships.  Basically women lie about this stuff more than men, and if I lived in this culture (and most others) I would too.

Why I Don't Own a Gun

For my European readers (hello sisters) the title of this post will seem bizarre.  I have never heard anyone in Europe complain that they are prevented from owning a gun.  The question would be, "Why would you own a gun?"

By "gun" I mean a firearm designed for killing human beings.  I think there are legitimate reasons for owning hunting rifles (i.e. killing deer for meat and to cull the population in places with no predators) but I find the general public wanting to do this strange.  I don't personally see the allure of killing wild animals for fun, in fact, I find it disturbing.  I understand that meat gets killed, and I'm willing to do it myself, but it's a nasty chore.  Killing for fun being OK?

Anyway, the reason that the title of this post is "Why I Don't Own a Gun" is because I live in Texas.  In the United States there are almost as many guns as people.  Within the first week of my moving into this house a neighbor's friend asked me in my kitchen if I wanted to buy a Glock, which he showed me.  When I replied that I didn't like guns the response was, "Don't you love your wife?"  The idea is that without a gun for self-defense you are making things more dangerous for you and your family, I assume significantly so.

Recently there has been another of the sporadic mass-shootings in the USA which leads to a national debate on the legality of guns.  I find the idea that a debate should take place under these circumstances, twice the number killed in this attack are killed, on average, each day in the USA.  There is no chance of there being substantial legal constraints on gun use in the USA in the foreseeable future.  For the record, the killer in this shooting used a semi-automatic, military style assault rifle, a pump-action shotgun as used by police forces in extreme situations, and a Glock handgun, all purchased legally.

So, if I love my wife and want to be safe, why don't I have a gun?  The first reason is that I don't think I would be safer with a gun.  For a start there were 17,000 gun suicides in the USA last year, and I get depressed sometimes.  Secondly, the person most likely to be shot with a gun is the owner.  The third reason is that those who carry guns are actually over four times more likely to get shot than those without guns.  So, from a safety point of view it is actually better to not have a gun.

However, a really important factor that is almost always not mentioned is the effect on a person who has killed someone.  Death is a really unpleasant thing, it messes with your mind.  Just being around people who are dead is a traumatic moment.  Accidentally running someone over and killing them would be a horrific moment, lived over and over.  Deliberately killing someone with a weapon would be something that never leaves you.  I think it probable that doing something like that would be as psychologically damaging as being beaten, or stabbed, or being tied and helpless.  Certainly worse than being robbed.

I don't like guns.  I just don't like them as objects.  They are objects for killing people, and therefore I find them inherently evil.  If there is a gun in the room I will leave. 

I don't own a gun because it would make me less safe, I find guns revolting, and if I ever used one it would damage me permanently.

The Problem with Language

Language is the essential human tool.  Language is one of two methods of providing information of which I am aware, the second being modeling (seeing someone do something and copying it).  The state of humanity as the (perhaps) dominant animal on the planet is based on the ability to pass on information from person to person and generation.  Without language humanity would essentially start from scratch every generation.

As a result of the significance of language there are many people who believe that language is the key to understanding how the brain works, that if you understand how language operates you can to a very large extent understand how the mind and brain operate.  I think to an extent this is true, but largely with regard to the reasoning part of the brain.  This is the bit that has that running dialogue in your head.  The one that obsessively goes over what you should have said and the one that plans what you are going to do in the future. 

Most people throughout history, and almost certainly most people now, believe that this dialogue, this language based thinking, is essentially who we are.  The idea is that human beings are largely rational creatures who decide what to do and how to react based on language-based cognition.  I certainly won't eliminate this as something human beings do, but research shows that this is not what people do most of the time.  People act unconsciously most of the time.  Sam Adams has a nice, quick experiment to demonstrate the pervasive nature of the unconscious.  Here we go.

Pick the name of a city.  OK, I feel very confident that you have managed to think of a city.  Now, how did the name of the city come into your mind?  Was there a conscious discussion in your head that led to the name or did it just pop into your head?  For most people a name simply pops into our head and we don't know why, it just appears.  Afterwards we can explain why we think the name came into our head (I thought of Paris, where the Tour de France just finished) but we don't consciously go through the process, it was unconscious.

Emotions also play a huge role in how we think.  If we are angry we don't spend time in a long chain of logical thoughts, we don't tend to unconsciously nurture children etc..  We put most of our attention on things that are emotionally charged, on agents (other things that can make decisions), on things that justify our opinions.  We also categorize things, we divide the universe into separate things (a tree and the ground)

So, probably the greatest tool for understanding brains is language, but language is not the primary way the brain works.  There are all sorts of cognitive biases that precede our use of language, and language tends to flow from emotions rather than the other way round.  The problem with language is therefore that it is the waves on the sea, but we tend to think of it as the sea.

This path from biases, unconscious decision making, and emotion to language based cognition means that there are mistakes made about the world because of how we think.  There are language constructions that fit how we think but are poor at describing the world around us.  The example I want to use here is evolution.

In english is extremely difficult to briefly and accurately describe evolution.  I'm sure all of you are somewhat familiar with the theory so see if you can do it.  Here's the thing about this, pretty much everyone, including biologists, describes evolution as a process where things do things in order for there to be a point.  We talk of plants adapting to the environment.  We talk about the design of a dolphin's body being perfectly suited to its environment.  We talk about how species of animals change over time in an arms race against another species.  That all sounds pretty reasonable to us and most people.  This is because of our biases.

In evolutionary terms plants don't adapt to the environment.  Over generations a plant does not sense the environment and then alter itself.  The ones that don't reproduce in the environment don't reproduce.  What is left are the ones that reproduce, and so on through the generations.  The plant is not an agent doing something over time for a reason.  The plant isn't really a separate thing anyway, internally it's a giant conglomeration of different things in an environment, "plant" is simply a human category.

Dolphins do not have a design.  Dolphins grow according to information in their DNA.  Information in DNA that doesn't lead to a body shape that enables that information to reproduce doesn't reproduce and therefore is no more.  It was extremely hard for me to write that without saying that the shape of dolphins is produced by a set of instructions and the ones with bad shapes die off.

There is not a thing that is a species.  A species is a category of objects (a category itself) that are categorized by similar traits.  As a result it actually doesn't make sense really to talk of a species changing, because change would make it a different species.  The species certainly didn't decide to produce better equipment for dealing with other, conflicting species, it simply happened that way.

I have tried multiple times to describe evolution without the use of any agent doing anything despite the fact that there is actually no agent doing anything.  Even down to the basic point of reproduction.  DNA does not reproduce itself, reproduction happens with DNA.

The truth is that in english we have almost no capability to properly describe something happening without an agent and a purpose.  We have very little capability to say that things are what they are and because of that, after some time, things will be different than they were.

Regression to the Mean

One of the things I have been increasingly noticing about myself is the consistency of my effort and interest with regard to some, probably most, activities.  I have my goals, the things that I would like to have done.  I categorize goals as something different than things I like doing, although not necessarily incompatible.  I would like to have obtained multiple graduate degrees but I would not have liked doing the things necessary to get those degrees.  I would like to have seen the Taj Mahal and I like traveling.

The things I like doing I consistently like doing, and the amount I like them remains pretty steady, and I do them about the same amount.  The goals I have are pretty much the same (until achieved) and I like working towards them about the same (other than the excitement at the beginning) and the amount I do them doesn't change much.

I'm not talking about there being no variation.  I don't do the same thing everyday.  I just mean that over a pretty long period the average of desire, interest and work remains about the same, and now the variation isn't large.  The variation in these things is less than it was when I had untreated bipolar disorder, but the average interest remains remarkably similar.  My earliest hopes were, "Now I can give consistent effort and achieve my goals!" but they have been unfulfilled.

For a long time, probably years, I have had the idea of a daily schedule that deals with my goals.  Something like;

7am - 8:30am    - walk dog
8:30am-9am      - meditate
9am-10am         - breakfast and newspaper
10am-11am       - study Spanish
11am-1pm         - household chores and lunch
1pm-2pm           - walk dog
2pm-3pm           - play music
3pm-4pm           - exercise
4pm-5pm           - free time
5pm-6pm           - make dinner (and eat it)
6pm-sleep          - free time

This is a little over eight hours a day, less than full time employees work (if you include just commuting, much less if you include chores).  It also includes some things that aren't difficult, like walking the dog, and other things scheduled for an hour that don't take an hour (like studying Spanish.)  It doesn't really include what my darling life considers my main job (brain care specialist, making things better by thinking).  This isn't too much work for me, I've done that amount for years before.

I have never written down the schedule before, or got close to doing it.  I don't have to do most of these things, and I simply don't want to do them everyday, so I don't.  What I did do is write down a chart to keep track of these goals.  If I worked on one of the goals that day I checked it off.  The reason for this is that research shows that the best way to achieve goals is to keep them in your mind rather than giving yourself a precise requirement.  A New Year's resolution to quit smoking usually fails.  Reminding yourself that at some point you want to quit smoking is more effective, "don't quit quitting."

The result?  I stopped filling out the chart after about ten days.  I do about the same amount of working towards my goals. 

Should I feel badly about this?  Am I a failure?  I can't see how it could do any good to think so unless that would make me work harder.  I don't think I do well at artificially inducing excitement in myself.  I don't do well at motivating myself through guilt.  So, I just conclude that part of who I am is how much I want, and how much I am prepared, to do to achieve these goals.  I think it is OK to be OK with who you are.

I want to put a caveat in here.  This doesn't mean that I think human beings cannot change (I am certain they can) it's just that over the relative short term (a few years) things like motivation, interest, guilt, happiness tend to regress to the mean.  I've still got my goals.  I still work towards them, but the amount I work towards them stays steady (and slow).

Profanity.

I'm just talking words here, naughty slang words.  Really, that's what profanity is, naughty words.  I can't think right now of a profanity that doesn't have a non-profane word with the same meaning that isn't offensive (unless you are extremely prudish).  This seems a bit weird, why wouldn't there be a word that just represents naughtiness?

I grew up in a household that didn't swear much and went to a school where the students didn't swear much either.  I understand now that the latter is quite unusual.  I don't think I missed out on learning any of the words (although there will always be bizarre words for very strange things that I won't know) but they just weren't used that much.  As an adult I now know that I grew up in an unusual part of England as I would suggest that England averages more, and more naughty words, per capita than the USA. 

When I came to the USA my exposure to swearing went up a lot, but my use of profanity didn't.  At the time there were still campaigns for decency and such and so profanity could still shock somewhat.  Naturally my language didn't use much profanity, and it probably helped my Englishness, an extremely useful thing at the time.  I also thought that the point of swearing is to emphasize anger, or disgust.  The shock factor of swearing would wake people up to how upset you are.  So my lack of swearing wasn't prudishness, or embarrassment, it was for utility.

Over the last twenty years what was once profanity is now commonplace.  Turn on the tv and although much of the swearing has a bleep over it, everyone knows what is being said.  In public swearing is often almost like punctuation, or a replacement for the word, "very", or a negative adjective.  There just isn't a shock factor.  As a result the essential reason for profanity, and why I didn't use it very much, has gone.  To me this is a shame, because there should be words that are infrequently used and have an emotional reaction.  The worth of profanity has gone in many places and so the language has been cheapened.  At the same time my use of profanity has dramatically increased to match that of the culture around me.  At this point it would often be a bit weird not to swear.

Has anything replaced the profanity of twenty years ago?  If I had to say that anything had I would say it is the acceptable insults from that time.  Call someone a participant in an improbable sexual event and I think it likely to have as much effect as calling someone a pathetic excuse for a human being.  The first is just swearing, the second is close enough to reality to hurt.

For those still offended by profanity don't read the bit after this.

When something goes wrong, or am I amazed by something, my favorite swearing construction is, "Christ on a fucking crutch!"  I also enjoy the old world charm of, "Bugger me backwards with a bargepole."  Neither of them make any sense.

Wonder

Sometimes I am outside and an airplane cruises by overhead.  Some proportion of these times I look up at the airplane with a true sense of wonder.  That's a giant thing of metal racing across the sky at ridiculous speed full of people.  It's a gleaming machine in the sky.  It is amazing.

Sometimes I am in the damn thing waiting for it to get back on the ground.

The sense of wonder, of a sudden appreciation for the amazing qualities of something, is an emotion that almost everyone agrees is good, positive, worthy of cultivation.  The cliched ideal for wonder is that of a child.  It is absolutely true that young children experience wonder more than any other group, but I think that is largely down to there being such a vast amount of things to encounter for the first time.  Show a two year old a sheep and the two year old will be amazed.  Show an adult a sheep (with the exception of my darling wife) and that adult will not be filled with a sense of wonder.



For me the key is how do you maintain a sense of wonder with regard to the things you have already experienced many times?  I don't think I have any great answers here, I think this one is tricky.  My best guess would be to take the time to notice what is going on around you and think of what it really consists.  That person across the table from you grew from a single cell, too small for you to see, into a vastly complex thing, made from something like 50,000,000,000,000 cells, that can imagine what you might be thinking.  When driving to work you are in a machine constructed from materials from around the world, in ways you don't understand, that can move faster than a galloping horse while you sit in an armchair.  The snot you just picked from your nose is constructed of atoms forged in the nuclear fires of a sun billions of years ago.

Abortion

This should be a fun one.  I perused the list of posts on this blog seeing if I had talked about this question before, and was somewhat surprised that I hadn't.  To me it is a very interesting question.  It's a question that involves morality and the definition of terms.  It's a question that is framed in different ways to support one's own arguments and attack another's.

The reasons for abortion are pretty simple.  They are based on quality of life and the ability to choose for yourself what counts as quality of life, particularly with regard to their own bodies.  People generally have abortions because they don't want either themselves to have a worse life or the potential child to have a bad life.  Essentially if more misery is created through the birth and life of a child then it's a good idea not to have that child.  I think this counts in the cases of rape and medical problems with the child.  People who support the choice to have an abortion think such a momentous choice should come down to the individual.  Medical risks to the mother are simply health issues for those who are OK with abortion, like cancer, which is also an unwanted growth in your body that affects your health.

The reasons against abortion are also pretty simple.  A fetus is an innocent human life and therefore killing it is murder.  There are many people who believe that there is religious support for this position and therefore that is what they feel is right.  The second group worry far more than the first group (and of course, there are many in both groups).

The difficulty with me comes in the definitions.  What is it to be human?  What is the difference between "life" and "a life"? What is the difference between killing and murder?  What is potential?  What are religious instructions and do they apply, and to whom?

What is it to be human?  Is it the correct DNA?  Does that mean that a few cells that fall from your body are human?  Does it mean that people after they die and before they rot are human?  Does being a human require consciousness, or the ability to understand other humans, or even the ability to understand that you are human.  Is it the 1.8% of difference in DNA between chimpanzees and humans that makes us human, or is an intelligent chimpanzee more human than a person with an irreversible coma?  I think these questions do not have objective, concrete answers.  The idea of "human" encompasses these ideas, not always for all people, and not in the same amounts.  The concept of "human" is a bit like the concept of "blue", we all know what blue is when it's in the middle of the blue spectrum (a living, self aware, adult member of the species homo sapiens sapiens) but we disagree when something changes from blue to just a bit not blue.

What is life?  The dictionary definition gives five definitions but there's a general agreement.  I don't think anyone would disagree that sperm and ova to an infant are all living, but a spleen is not a life but something living that is simply part of a life.  A spleen cannot survive without the environment and food from the mother, and neither can a fetus.  A fetus has only half of the genetic inheritance of the mother, but then so does an ovum.  Is an ovum "a life" or "life?"

What is the difference between killing and murder?  Some would say there is no difference.  Some would say that you cannot murder something that isn't human.  Some would say the difference is a matter of legality.  Some would say that murder is the unjustified killing of innocent people.  Again, the difference between the two is a matter of opinion, where does killing end and murder start?

For those who agree that a fetus is life, not a life, but has the potential to be a life the question of potential comes into play.  A fetus could, under the right conditions, become a person that we would all agree would be subject to the concept of murder.  On the other hand so could each and every sperm (170 million new ones a day per man, on average.)  Without the care of a mother (or surrogate(s)) an infant has no potential to be a living adult.

What are religious instructions, do they apply, and to whom?  Religious instructions are simply instructions given under a religious aegis, a religious text or person tells you to do something.  Do they apply?  Well, it depends if you think they do, and this often relies on the authority behind the instruction.  Most Christians who are against abortion say they do so because the Bible condemns it.    Islam maintains (generally) that a fetus gains a soul at four months but abortion is not subject to criminal or civil penalty.  Buddhists are against killing, and traditionally against abortion, but the Dalai Lama thinks it should be left to each individual situation.  Hinduism has everything from a utilitarian perspective (overall good being increased), to a soul arriving at 3 months, to it being condemned as being against a non-violence principal, to hindu women killing female offspring because sons are preferred.  Religious instruction against abortion reaches from the most permissive to the least permissive (capital punishment).

Here's a good example of the messiness of religious authority on the question.  Here are the most commonly cited verses in the Bible both for and against abortion.

At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. (NIV, Luke 1:39-44)  

Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations." (NAS, Jeremiah 1:4-5) 

I will say to God: ... "Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? (NIV, Job 10:2, 8-9)

 The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (NIV, Genesis 2:7)

 And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. "But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, (NAS, Exodus 21:22-24)

 At no point in the Bible is abortion specifically mentioned.  From these verses above you can have two different perspectives depending on how you have answered the questions about what is the authority of the verses or person translating them for you, what is life, etc..  What I do feel confident in saying is that there are no religions that believe they are subject to the authority of other religions.  If the Bible says abortion is wrong that doesn't mean much to a Hindu.

When it comes down to it the answers to these questions is largely arbitrary.  You are not an idiot or psychopathic if you believe anything between life begins at conception and the potential of that fetus makes killing it murder, to the killing of inferior infants.  Everything is on a scale, from finding a bit that separates us from our parents, to religious belief, to how much the legal system should intrude into the choices we make, to what even makes someone human.

My personal opinion is that I would like the maximum amount of choice over my life as possible, and the same for everyone.  I think fetuses are living, but not independent life until their food and oxygen supply is cut off and they can still live.  I think the consciousness of fetuses in the whom does not rise above that of a cow, and I eat them.  I also think that I will never carry a fetus in my womb and so I will never be the primary person for making a decision, although I don't think it right for a man to not be a part of the choice and yet be required to help raise the child.  I personally don't think abortion is murder and I support the right for people to choose things as much as they can.

However, I want to make it abundantly clear that I don't think those who disagree are idiots.  I don't think the position of other people on the issue is stupid.  For example, I don't think those who wish to make abortions illegal do so because they wish the right to intrude on women's bodies.  I think they are trying to stop the mass murder of thousands upon thousands of babies.  If you think a fetus is a baby then trying to do almost anything to stop abortion is reasonable.  It is reasonable to think fetuses are babies at some point.  I don't think that calling women who have abortions murderers is right either.  Women who have abortions are not deliberately killing their own babies, and they are not deliberately flouting the word of God.  They don't think the fetus is a child, and they don't think any particular religion is right in commanding them not to have an abortion.

I just wish the abortion debate would rise to the level of a debate.  It is reasonable for a society to discuss the questions of murder, choice, life, death, and it is reasonable for people to have different views on the subject.  In a democracy there are going to be serious issues on which you vehemently disagree with society at large and the laws established by the government.  Personally I think my government is murdering people in Pakistan but I know that most people disagree and the government says it is legal, and therefore not murder.  Are all the people in favor of drone attacks psychopathic morons?  Of course not.

So, I want to close with a useless appeal that will sound familiar to those who read this (and watch The Daily Show).  Can we stop using all or nothing thinking?  Can we stop demonizing those who disagree with us?  Can we understand that even on serious issues we might not get what we want?  This is the situation in the USA right now according to recent poll, there are more people who consider themselves pro-life (50%) than pro-choice (42%), but 77% of those polled think abortion should be legal sometimes over 20% who think it should always be illegal.  It's a complicated issue with a great amount of nuance in it.  Let's get above "You will be consigned to the fires of Hell" and "Religious zealots want to control my womb."

Was He a Near Perfect President?

On February 3rd, 2010 I wrote a post on this blog entitled Near Perfect President?  In it I wrote this near concluding paragraph,

Now, the most interesting thing for me is that now there is a President in office with whom I pretty much agree on everything. This then gives me the opportunity to find out whether what I have believed politically is right or not. This so rarely happens that I must view it as a wonderful opportunity to scientifically evaluate my own beliefs. If I was a pure progressive, left-leaning, borderline socialist like my friend Dade I would never get to find out if I was right or not unless I moved to Denmark. If I was a Christian, "moral majority" believer like my friend Dave I would have just endured the evidence that my brand of politics is an absolute failure through the eight years of Bush. So, in about two and a half years I can check to see whether this brand of politics not only appeals to me, but also works, or whether the cynicism of politicians and the ignorance of experts renders this style a failure.

 It's not quite two and a half years, but it's just a few months shy, and it isn't as if Obama is going to get anything done in these last few months while campaigning.  So this is a good time to evaluate the president of the United States (POTUS).

I would say that most of the good things that Obama accomplished were in the category of "not negative".  The economy was stabilized through stimulation when many called for austerity, something that has simply failed in Europe.  I still think that this is a hugely under-appreciated aspect of his presidency.  People talk about the poor economy but without comparing it to what might have happened but rather what they expect the economy to be.  The fickle electorate in terror of another Great Depression turn to disappointment with the slow recovery and lack of jobs.  The truth is almost always somewhere in between, and largely the same throughout the process.

The war in Iraq is over and there is a democratically elected government.  This was the plan all along and would have happened under president Bush.  Obama didn't screw this up.

No terrorist attacks on the USA (or even most other industrialized nations) out of areas the US invaded in the first place.  Osama bin-Laden is dead.  Al Qaeda seems largely demolished as an organization, although probably still has an effect as an inspiration.

The USA is now considered a largely sane entity in terms of international affairs.  No more Axis of Evil.  No more "For us or against us," no automatic involvement in every single thing that happens.

For me the bad things under Obama come down to morality.  Guantanamo Bay still exists, a place where people are imprisoned indefinitely without trial under the most convoluted legal construction.  These are prisoners of a war without an opponent or most of the rights of prisoners of war, kept off US soil to make sure they are out of US legal jurisdiction.  It is disgusting.  Obama's excuse was the opposition from Congress yet Obama is commander-in-chief of the military.

Obama is a war criminal.  He has killed many civilians in countries with which the US is not at war without charge or trial.  They have simply been assassinated.  These are war crimes, simply murder.  However, this is simply standard procedure for US presidents, it's been decades since a US president, in my opinion, was not a war criminal.

The biggest positive achievement has been the passing of health care reform.  Soon almost all Americans will have health insurance, everyone will be able to go to a doctor.  This is a big deal.  However, the health care reform is very far from ideal.  It still is a private industry dedicated to the acquisition of money over increased health.  The system is still so convoluted that most people don't know what coverage they have.  It is outrageously expensive.  The difference in care between rich and poor is enormous.  I was hoping for single payer health care, or even some movement towards that, but we didn't really get it.

There have been minor improvements on gay rights, transparency in government, research and development, etc..  Nothing dramatic.

Overall, the results of Obama's presidency seem somewhat muted.  It reminds me very much of Bill Clinton's years, nudging things in the right direction, but so, so slowly.  The goals he outlined at the beginning are still what I believe he wishes to achieve but he has not been able to achieve them.  Obama has been severely hampered by the economy.  It is hard to get things done when there isn't the money.  He has been extremely hampered by an opposition that will even fight against their own ideas if Obama agrees with them (health care).  Obama reached out to the Republicans to make compromises and agreements, and they did their best to reject everything out of hand.

So, what is my opinion of Obama now?  I think he is competent.  I think he has the right vision for the future of the USA.  I think he has really tried to do the right things.  I don't think now that he is a near perfect president, but I don't have an idea of how he could be better under the circumstances.  The results aren't close to perfect, a perfect president would know how to have done things better, but I'm not close to being a perfect president.  In the end my opinion comes sadly down to, 

the cynicism of politicians and the ignorance of experts renders this style a failure.

 at least in the present climate and situation.  However, I don't think that has much to do with president Obama, and I cannot see any other style being a success.  Still, I am hopeful.  I think this style of politics has a relatively short shelf life.

Nationalism.

I was going to call this post "Fascism" but decided that I am unaware of any place in the world that actually operates in a fascist way.  The main difference between fascism and nationalism in this blog is largely the structure, one more a feeling and the other a totalitarian state government.  However, you can't have fascism without nationalism.

The definition I will use in this blog for "nationalism" is from the online Merriam Webster dictionary:

Loyalty and devotion to a nation; especially : a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational group. 

Growing up I think my main exposure to nationalism happened on two occasions, the Queen's silver jubilee in 1976, and the Falklands war in 1982.  The first was a country-wide celebration of the 25th year of the Queen of England's reign.  Since the Queen is largely a symbolic figure, this was then a celebration of a symbolic figure, a symbol of Britain, and therefore a celebration of Britain and being British.  At the age of six it was simply a thing that adults were doing.  I got a cup that may still be at my parent's house.  I had no idea what the whole things was about.


In 1982 Argentina attacked sovereign British territory/reclaimed their sovereign territory.  I had never heard of the Falklands, and I suspect this was true for the majority of British people.  A few islands in the South Atlantic with 3,000 people on it and a bunch of sheep.  The biggest industry on the islands is making wool from those sheep.  A less significant place it is hard to imagine.  From my memory Maggie Thatcher was prime minister at the time and very unpopular.  A military task force was sent off to war with British flags waving.  My memory of the time was a general pride in being British, a clear idea that Argentina was the enemy, and an excitement about the whole thing. The support for Maggie Thatcher increased dramatically as a result, a;most certainly resulting in her reelection (she had been trailing before the war). In the end 907 people died.  The total killed and wounded in the conflict ended up being within a few hundred of the population of the islands (3 of whom died themselves).  It was considered a success.

As an adult my exposure to nationalism all took place in the USA.  I remember going to a rodeo in Saline, MI and seeing someone dressed as Uncle Sam riding out on a horse and the whole crowd rising, doffing their hats and singing the national anthem with fervor.  Coming from England I found it very odd.  There was no doubt that we were going to take part because of fear, if nothing else.  Since then nationalistic ideas have been everywhere, from the Pledge of Allegiance recited in schools to almost all politicians claiming that America is the greatest country on Earth, to at times a majority of USA voters being in favor of a constitutional amendment to outlaw the burning of the stars and stripes, to a singing of the national anthem before every sporting event.


However, the greatest outpouring of nationalism I have seen was the US response to the 9/11/2001 attack on the World Trade center.  I personally heard people wish for the countries from which the attacks had started to be bombed into the stone age with nuclear weapons.  The least popular president in history became the most popular popular president in history over night.  The country went to war, flags were everywhere, the words "anti-american" started being used again.  2752 people died in the attack.  In the wars that followed 4,683 US military personnel have died.  The death toll among civilians is at a minimum of 170,000, almost certainly much higher (rising to over a million in some estimates).  everywhere in the USA you will hear the troops lauded as heroes, giving the "ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedom."  It is impossible to be elected without agreeing with that statement.


What really brought the whole thing down to me were the flags.  Flag sales in the USA rose by 70 times over the year before in 2001.  Flags were everywhere.  Rows of flags in front of houses.  Flags on cars.  Flags in parks.  People wearing flag decorated clothing.  After being attacked people wanted to demonstrate their, " sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational group."

So, that's my experience of nationalism.  The thing is that I just don't get it.  Or I don't get it with regard to anything serious.  I'm nationalistic enough to want the sports teams of my country to win and that's about it.  I simply don't understand why someone would take pride in being born in one place rather than another, or being part of one culture rather than another.  Why would you feel a sense of pride, a feeling of superiority, a higher valuation, with regard to your country over others?


Now, I can understand a sense of national, or regional, identity.  I am English (although not as much as I used to be) because that is where I was born and I retain some of the culture.  Other people are French because of where they are born and because of their culture.  As long as there are different regions with different cultures then national identity will continue.  Nationalism is the idea that the country in which you reside is better and more important than others, that France is a better place, and its' interests are more important, than the United States of America (and vice versa).  It simply cannot be true that large numbers of countries are all the best and their interests are more important than those of all the rest.  Objectively nationalism is nonsense, subjectively it is extremely important.


It is trivially easy to explain how nationalism comes about.  It is simply an expansion of who you think of as family, an expansion of the Circle of Compassion.  Through evolutionary processes human beings care more for those who are genetically related to them.  We care more for our families than we do for anyone else, we are more likely to defend, help, give money to our family members over other people.  Originally, when humans lived in small tribes, everyone else was in a different group, the Other.  In humans (and most animals) the Other is not worthy of our concern.  Whether they live or die doesn't matter.  In the course of human history who is Us rather than the Other has expanded, from tribes, to cities, to states.  Nationalism is what prevents the Circle of Compassion from encompassing all humans.  It's the idea that those in other countries (or states, or regions) are not as good, and worth less, than those in your own country.


When discussing the Afghanistan and Iraq wars with Americans I often come across the idea that the US had to go to war to stop 9/11 happening again.  I always end the conversations with "How many Iraqis are worth one American?  How many Iraqis is it acceptable to kill to stop one American death?"  The reason why this ends the conversation?  Because people know that they value Americans more than foreigners, and they know that is wrong, but they don't want to change how they feel.

Is Life Short?

"Life is short" is one of the more common cliches, and one I cannot remember being disputed.  It is usually associated with the idea that you can't get the time back once it has gone, so you better make sure you make the most of every minute and get everything you want to do in your life done.  As an exhortation it is probably better than "don't bother, you're just going to die in the end anyway" but I think it has its' drawbacks.

"Life is short" is a goal-driven cliche.  If you have no goals then saying "Life is short" is simply depressing (unless you hate life, in which case I suppose it's encouraging).  Sam Harris in a recent talk claimed that if you don't believe in an afterlife then life is an emergency, a very long emergency.  There are things to get done, and a limited time to get them done.  The cliche is about making sure you have done what you wanted to do to the fullest extent possible.

The reason this topic came to my attention today was a result of my sitting on the grass, reading a book with my dog curled about against my back.  I just had a moment of contentment and looked up from the book.  I spent perhaps fifteen seconds just looking around at the grass, the trees and the sky.  It struck me first how vast and complicated the world is.  A scant few yards contained hundreds of plants, insects scurrying through the these plants, and below and above these plants.  Each of these hundreds and thousands of things part of an almost unimaginably vast ball that is covered entirely with this vast complication.  The seconds stretched out languidly, unhurried, marveling.

I thought about when time seems short and when time seems long.  Time seems shortest when there is something that must be done, when we are busy, when things are intense.  Time seems the longest when we have nothing to do (particularly if we are waiting for something to happen).  Time passes (at least for humans) at a fixed rate.  An hour is an hour regardless of anything else.  Yet the experience of time can vary greatly.  If you go and see an action blockbuster for ninety minutes time will seem to go by faster than if you sit in a park with nothing to do but look around.

I have always actually thought that life is long, the longest thing that I will experience.  It is actually the total of all the experiences I will have and so the experience of time with regard to my life is the maximum amount of the experience of time I can possibly have.  For me, life is so long that I cannot remember almost all of it, and yet I experienced vast amount of things, second by second.  What is the extent of your memories from 1997, fifteen years ago?  If I put my mind to it I can probably come up with two minutes of memories, and most of those are facts rather than recreations of experiences.  There were 31,556,926 seconds that year, 267, 974 times as many seconds experienced as I can remember from that year.  Just try and sit still for two minutes without doing anything, you may well find it difficult.  If you manage it then just think of that times 267,074, multiplied by the amount of years you have been alive.  That is the length of your life so far.  When put that way doesn't life seem inconceivably long?  However, later on today you will rush to do something that will take at least two minutes.  This will seem to flicker by.


Therefore, it seems to me that the phrase "Life is short" is to an extent a self fulfilling prophecy.  If you feel that life is an emergency, that you must rush to make sure you get everything in your life done and there isn't much time left in which to do it, your life will seem shorter.  On the other hand, if you spend your time going through life not doing very much and without the feeling that you are supposed to be doing things, then life will seem much longer.


I'm not saying that people shouldn't have goals, or decide that they really want to do things.  I'm not saying that moments are not precious and that we shouldn't make the most of them.  I'm just saying that life is as long or as short as the manner in which you approach it, but it will always be the longest thing you will ever experience.