Our garden of relationships

Our human relationships -- our kin and families, our spouses and children, our business and work associates, our neighbors, and now our internet connections, are all part of a web of connections that we must constantly nurture and build and take care of.  It is our garden.

What to do about weeds?  Well here I think the garden metaphor fails.  "What God has put together let no man tear apart."  The scripture is usually applied to marriage, but the reality is it applies to all our relationships, and most especially to our friendships.  To be sure once we get to know someone well we see their faults that may not have been as visible when we first met, but what do you expect?  No one is perfect and we must worry about our own faults and not about those of others, and be forgiving, albeit wise about people.

We are made of stardust

Every now and then people stand in awe that we are made of "stardust," meaning gas and dust made in an exploding star.

That is not really an accurate picture.  We are made from material -- atoms -- that appears to have come out of the Big Bang that was mostly hydrogen and helium.  The heavier elements (the astronomer's "metals") were then cooked from this hydrogen and helium inside giant stars with the very heaviest being made in the moments of supernova when those stars exploded.  This is interesting but nothing to get star-struck about.

Where our mindfulness, or at least the possibility of our being mindful, comes from is more mysterious.  In fact it is absolutely not understood.  Gases and dust particles, even aggregates of them, do not contemplate or take note of things around them.

It is such a gift and we take it so for granted, and go through our lives mostly oblivious to the world we are in and what we are doing and where we are, let alone what our minds are up to.

Unharmonious universe

In fact the universe is not very harmonious.  Take the sun and moon for example.  A decent creator would have made the month an integral fraction of the year, but no, we have to have months of different lengths.  So do a decent creator would have made the day an integral fraction of the year, but no we have to have leap years and skipped leap years and it still does not come out quite right.

Obamacare

The real problem in the States, and one that Obamacare doesn't really address (although a few nods at it are heard now and then) is the outrageous costs of health care.

I'm not in the States and have had only a couple encounters with American health delivery, and it seems excellent, although no better than elsewhere.  But the same services cost me triple what it cost in my country, and let me tell you in Vietnam doctors do all right.

When you see something like this, the first step is not to try to guarantee the best possible care for everyone but to look at the incentives and see what is driving costs.  There is little or no competition based on cost and a lot of competition based on appearances (nice looking buildings, clean gowns, the most modern machines, etc).  This is probably because such a large portion of the population is insured automatically through the employer.  That system needs abandoning so that everyone has a direct interest in shopping around for lower costs.

Another thing of course is the outrageous American legal system, where there is a running lottery seeing who can get rich suing others.  I read about drug companies having to pay huge settlements when something went wrong, and I can see why drugs in the States are so expensive.

Finally, I would observe there seems a dearth of clinics in the States; there are a few but they are mostly related to hospitals and serve the hospital.  This is not a true independent clinic.  Clinics are a much more cost-effective way to deliver primary health care than emergency rooms, which have to be equipped for emergencies and should not have to deal with walk-in trade.

Corrupt bureaucracy and Chinese dynasties

China has had a phenomenon called the "Dynastic Cycle" that I think applies generally, although not in precise detail.  You have a new dynasty come to power, full of energy and determination to change things and make things better.  The bureaucracy is all executed -- all the lawyers and scribes and paper pushers and so on -- and things are trimmed down so they actually function, and the goal is efficiency, not fairness or equality or some other ideological notion.

Over time bad things happen, and each time a bad thing happens a new law is passed and more lawyers and inspectors are employed to enforce the new law, all to be sure the bad thing doesn't happen again.  Also of course natural empire building goes on (bureaucrats are measured by the number of people who report to them, so they tend to look for opportunities to enlarge that number).

So decline sets in until eventually it becomes where bribes are the only way to get anything done, there being so many rules and so many officials living off those rules, and the whole system needs a revolution to clean it all out again.

In support of nutritional supplements

I have a problem with this campaign we are seeing recently of news stories that supplements harm the liver, are a waste of money, and so on, using the results of meta-studies that are pretty much no more rigorous than the studies sometimes used to support false claims.

It is not hard to pick out specific ingredients that do specific types of harm and eliminate them, making a generalized ban on all supplements unneeded.

Obviously controls are needed to assure manufacturing quality and to be sure pills contain what the label says they contain and nothing else.  The campaign should be limited to that.  The effort seems to be to put nutritional supplements under a very similar regulatory structure as now applies to prescription drugs.  I think this would be serious overkill.  Individuals who feel they want to buy nutritional insurance for things like folate and B12 and D3 should be able to do so, provided labels provide information as to maximum doses.  The convenience of packaging such supplements into a single pill should not be interfered with.

I am suspicious of popular press items that issues these warnings based on little science (so called "meta-studies" where the studies reviewed are selected seemingly to get the desired result) just as I am suspicious of claims appearing in the popular press touting this or that chemical. I am also suspicious of the fundamental regulatory mindset that ends up reducing freedom and increasing medical costs.

Human slavery as an example of moral thought

The modern view of slavery is that it is immoral, and further that the idea of one person owning another is abhorrent and repulsive.

Okay, this is a relatively recent improvement in human moral standards, although thoughtful people through history have had qualms about it, and slavers have never been in the pinnacles of society.

Has what is "moral" changed?  The best answer I think is that slavery has been wrong all along.  It violates the most ancient and basic teachings of compassion and freedom and love.  Any rational approach to ethical deduction comes to that conclusion quite easily.

So what changed?  I would say that what changed is that the apologists for it finally lost the argument, probably because slavery became an economic burden where it had not been before.

What is right and what is wrong stay right and wrong, but human cultural views can change -- a lesson that we cannot depend on our culture to tell us and must work out our ethics for ourselves.

Big Bang and beginning of time

In my opinion the odds are the BB was in fact the "Beginning" of time.  We cannot say for sure and may never be able to say for sure, unless of course someone demonstrates an alternative history to have been true.

The thing to do when thinking about infinity is to avoid that word and use instead "endless."  It helps avoid the mistake of thinking of infinity as a number -- some place in the very very distant past -- and realize that if time is endless then there cannot be a "now."   You can climb out of a well that has a bottom, but you cannot climb out of a well that has no bottom.

If time had a beginning, then talking about "before" that beginning is nonsense.  There was no existence "before," no "eternity" as there was no time to have an eternity.  There was also no causation: if something happened -- anything might happen -- that would be the beginning of time and after that you can insist on cause and effect (although I don't think causation is quite as real as we think it is, for this issue it doesn't matter).

Bible contradictions don't matter, Bible morality does

The game of Bible contradictions is widely practiced, and I have seen lists of hundreds of them, with fundamentalists proudly challenging that there isn't a single one they can't explain [away].

That the Bible was written by different men over a long period of time is all we need know to understand this.  I repeat, it was written by men (maybe a couple women, I don't know for sure).

No one denies that the Bible was written by men; the claim is that they were divinely inspired, but I don't know what inspired means short of it obviously does not mean directly dictated.  The personalities of the authors show through, as well as the exaggerations and poetic language and historical and geographical and scientific ideas of their day, including those that were wrong.

Where I think something that is claimed to be scripture is tested is by its moral teaching -- not what it has to say about sex or drinking or smoking, but what it has to say about how we deal with each other.  In this respect the Bible has much that is good but fails on several serious grounds.  It is homophobic, it clearly fails to condemn slavery, and it relegates women to an inferior status.

One final point here: much of what it has to say on moral questions is outright ridiculous if not harmful, such as the teaching that for a man to lust after a woman is as evil as for him to rape her, or the teaching that no marriage should ever, no matter what, be broken, or the remark that something (I've never been able to get clear exact what) is an unforgivable sin.

Critical thinking and Jesus

One of the worst mistakes critical thinking can help with is helping us not believe things just because we want to believe them.  The temptation to give in to what we want to be true is so strong and gives us such joy that the mistake gets buried in the emotion and we rationalize out of our skins to get there.

I remember in my college days there was an argument over whether the "big bang" or "steady state" universe was the correct view, and I really liked the steady state view.  The big bang seemed contrived and seemed to raise more problems than it solved.  So I came to believe it but as science progressed I realized how wrong I had been and look back at it as a case of my allowing my desires (philosophical inclination) to get the better of me where I should have reserved judgment until better data became available.


We are all "believers."  If my boss calls me into his office and tells me I am fired, I had better believe it and seek another job 'cause paychecks are not going to continue.  Thus the ability to believe has its selective or evolutionary function.

But we must apply critical thinking to what we believe.  Critical thinking is among other things the skills enabling us to see through the tricks and devices of con artists, and the first skill needed is the humility to admit that the magician knows the trick but you don't.  Therefore, before believing that the guy can bend spoons it is good to study some professional magic and see what tricks can be used to do the same thing, and then observe whether or not those tricks are being used.  Studying critical skills is the same as studying such professional magic, but applied instead to the realm of what we will believe.

One example I might mention regarding religion -- all the prophesies about Jesus that supposedly came true (mostly this derives from the book of Matthew, who was the main pusher of this idea).  If you study critical thinking, you learn that there is such a thing as "stacking the deck," which is shorthand for claiming things that on the surface look true but where details are left out that have a different effect.  Thus, when one looks at these prophesies carefully, one finds all kinds of problems with them.  In some cases they weren't prophesies at all; in other cases they had other fulfillments; in other cases the story is constructed so as to make a fulfillment seem as though it happened.


A similar case of stacking the deck comes from the claim that the existence of Jesus is well documented, when the fact is the opposite, that we have no eye-witness records (the earliest New Testament books cannot be proven to have existed before several centuries latest although most scholars from clues inside the books give them a late first century date).  The very earliest mention of him outside the New Testament is known to be a later fraud.  This doesn't get mentioned by those who cite it (Josephus), even when they know about the controversy. 

Dream interpretaton

I wonder that of all the paranormal things that skeptics hereabouts demolish so well, they leave dream interpretation alone, as far as I've seen.  Interpretations of various sorts of dreams are offered and no one raises questions and to how valid they might be.

A couple things bother me.  First, dreams are not remembered well enough or in enough detail, and then described well enough, for anyone to be sure some critical detail has not been omitted.

Second, and more important, I think the idea of dreams as symbols is largely discredited, and even more symbolic messages.  Our dreams have to do with what is happening in our lives.  I bought an aquarium and a couple nights later I dream I'm a guppy swimming around enjoying the patterns of light reflected off the marbles and the play of water currents on the ferns.  Symbolizes nothing; just ideas floating in my head being played with and explored.

Or again, some dream is supposedly a symbol of some sexual suppression.  I don't buy it.  My sexual frustrations and so on get played out in real dreams about real sex.

One dream I reported was cleverly interpreted by someone with an implication of descent into Hell.  Don't make me laugh.  All I did was exit an apartment building the normal way, by going downstairs, albeit in a car, and I arrived on the street and everything was hunky-dory.

And of course there is my regular dream about riding on the back of a cobra through the grass.  I regularly have that dream because it's fun and I have some control over my dreams.  It has nothing to do with danger or protectors or power or the cobra that is part of the Buddha's enlightenment story.  It's more akin to a carnival ride.

What I'm saying is that I think dreams have to do with us here and now, maybe what we want and maybe what we fear, but more often just what we are doing.  I generally enjoy my dreams, and remember them better than most people, but I don't try to interpret them.  I think they are me interpreting and organizing my life, not deep powers sending me messages.

Buddhist sensate animals

I can't resist the temptation here to insert a pitch for one of my favorite Buddhist teachings, applied to modern biological understanding.  Some animals are sensate and respond to instincts reinforced by pleasure/pain centers in the brain.  Their behavior is still largely instinctual but, unlike, say, an insect, the "instinct" has a pleasure enforcement, is not just a mechanical reflex.  The animal experiences its existence in a way different from that of a programmed machine.

This is to my mind a huge step; it means behavior can be much more flexible (you don't get lobsters following each other forever in a circle) but still programmed.  In effect the outcomes rather than the details of the behavior are what are inherited.  The word for this is sensate.  The animal experiences emotions.

We too are under such a system (although like all animals we also have some behaviors that are still reflexive).  What sensate existence allows though is the development of intelligence and greater and greater flexibility (the appearance, in other words, of consciousness and free will).

Electrons going through slits

Let me see if I have this right.  The electron going through the slit can be seen in one of two possible ways.

One way to see it is that the electron goes through every possible path in reality, which would mean essentially an infinite number of parallel universes has to be created on the, all otherwise identical, so this one little electron going where it is going to go, and it goes to all of them, each in a universe.

The other way to see it is that the electron goes through every possible path in some sort of virtual or suspended way, which is not resolved until someone observes the results, and then the path of the electron "collapses" to one of the possibilities -- in short, everything is virtual until there is an observer to make it real.

You will excuse me, Horatio, but there does seem to be something very wrong in the state of Denmark.

A short anti-Muslim rant

I'm not sure what is religion and what isn't.  A few "hard" Communists around here (yea there are a few still around) view any non-physical non-materialist understanding of even human behavior as superstition.  I tend to view their dogmatism as not terribly different from a religion, but most Communists relegate Communism to being a philosophy of politics and history, and allow that mind and spirit may be unknown and undescribed phenomena.

One characteristic I have found in religion, except for most Buddhists (though by no means all Buddhists) is that they assert doctrines -- things that are true and things that are false, end of subject.  This is maybe the main reason religions in history have such a bad record.

When religions (and other ideologies) do this sort of thing (I am right and that is the end of the subject and anyone who disagrees is engaging in something bad), I think they need to be opposed.

In today's world probably the worst for this sort of thing are the Muslims, although a lot of Hindus and Roman Catholics and followers of a few extreme Protestant denominations, are right up there with them.  Is my saying this "bashing" their beliefs?  To live in a Muslim country and have been born a Muslim but to not believe is extremely dangerous.  Such people exist but they keep their thinking to themselves.  Can this be the sign of a genuinely "true" and good religion?  To live in a Muslim country and not be a Muslim is to have to put up with all sorts of daily inconveniences and rules.  Muslims living in non-Muslim countries insist that they be allowed special rights that they deny those back home.  It really sticks in my craw.

We can be a bit air-headed and say all belief is good, or something like that, since many beliefs do achieve great good, but it isn't true and needs dealing with honestly.

Mark Twain's opinion of faith

What was said is what is important, not who said it, although if you are famous you are more likely to be heard.  Mark Twain and I agree pretty much on the nature of faith -- that it is belief in what you want to believe rather than belief in what we have good reason to believe.

I don't suppose in most cases such faith does much harm, and sometimes it it is helpful, but sometimes it does harm.

Roman Catholics, and probably others, teach us that faith is an act of grace from God, that we are given it, and some are not, kinda arbitrarily.  Most Protestants take a slightly different tack and say that we need but ask for it and it will be given.

I think that it is intellectual dishonesty: wanting something (especially things we've been indoctrinated with) to be true and using these teachings to allow ourselves to believe them in spite of their inherent irrationality -- even making a virtue of the irrationality.  I think we are born with an instinct to believe what the group believes, and in early societies this instinct served those groups who adhered because of it, but natural selection is not interested in truth but in survival and reproduction.  Hence when we doubt we feel fear and guilt -- the instinct's way of getting its way -- and when we give in and believe we feel joy and peace.  It's all subtle biology overcoming or rational nature and is what keeps unbelievably unbelievable religions going.

Advanced alien life

Given that "super-earths" with masses half to three times that of the earth appear to be common in the habitable zones, I would be inclined to imagine advanced life on such worlds as being squat with either lots of legs or very thick short ones.

Maybe a cylindrical body about a meter or so thick and a couple meters in diameter, a few centimeters above the ground with hundreds of little feet, equipped with various orifices and tentacles and sensory projections.  We evolved from arboreal creatures and so have opposable thumbs and color stereoscopic vision and a basic vertical orientation.  More massive planets probably wouldn't offer such an environment.

Sorry no Vulcans

I think, either with a long-lived species or one that has stopped aging or with generational ships or maybe some technology we haven't thought of, travel between stars is possible, but not ever going to be a daily occurrence.

For that reason and that we haven't been visited, I think we are probably very close to alone.   Life is probably common enough, of the single celled sort, but there is no sign of the advanced technologies that would have star ships.  That is probably because the universe is actually a dangerous place and a planet like the earth is extraordinarily lucky to be able to have the billions of years of evolution needed without an occasional sterilizing event (we have barely missed having one several times).

Ghosts as subject for scientific study

As I see it ghosts (spirits of those who have died) is contrary to the prevailing "physicalist" or "materialist" view of the vast majority of modern scientists.  I would say this is the ruling "paradigm," but I would appreciate it if I got that word off a bit: dictionaries are no help.

That means that scientists are not going to risk their careers investigating something they already know is nonsense.  It would be like asking one to investigate moon rocks for evidence of the presence of cheese.  Also, of course, a few have actually ventured into the area and come back empty-handed.  Scientists don't waste their time investigating things already disproved.

So the field is left to two other groups: those with a different belief-set who really want to somehow prove science "wrong" (although, ironically, were they to succeed science would merely co-opt them and alter its belief-set accordingly -- science does this on rare occasions -- and whoever was responsible would go down in history as having been a great scientist).  Then there are charlatans making money off it selling books and whatnot.

I personally think it is all a waste of time, not because I have a strong physicalist bias in my thinking, but because the reports have been around long enough with nothing convincing to the objective observer coming out of them that by now it is pretty plainly a mix of fraud, both venal and pious, superstition, delusion and over-active imaginations.

Vietnam Christmas

Christmas here in Vietnam is I think more pleasant, at least for adults, than in the States because people don't exchange gifts.  Instead it's a sort of city-wide street party, with everyone out touring around and all the streets (downtown) decorated, and with Christmas music coming from the loudspeakers.  Also the Catholics go to mass and the Buddhists tend to go to Temple (although of course everyone knows its not a Buddhist holiday the Buddhists celebrate anyway).

The absence of gift giving means you don't have the commercial (bordering on crass) elements of the holiday in the States, and none of the pressure.  Because it's so public, you also don't have the loneliness for those without families.

Later in the winter comes Tet (known in the West as Chinese New Year) when people really go to Temple (I don't know what the Catholics do) and give children and certain others "lucky money" (relatively small amounts in a decorated red envelope -- red in Vietnam is the color of good luck).  Nothing to buy except the envelopes -- sold all over the city by street vendors -- so not commercialized.

There is to my mind here a trade-off.  Not having to pick out a gift for each person avoids a lot of stress and, since this is mainly about children, the disappointment children can express when they don't get what they wanted (adults of course hide their feelings and just exchange or return it the next week).   However, are gifts of money really gifts?  The "lucky" part and the red envelopes camouflage the tasteless aspect of hard cash rather than something personal.  Still, it also has the huge benefit of avoiding commercialization and all that that brings with it.

Discerning real science from pseudo-science

It's hard for the layperson to distinguish real science from cleverly done pseudo-science.  Sometimes the pseudo-science puts on such a "scientific" performance, with all the right jargon and all the right credentials (that of course we can't possibly confirm) and even the right "peer review" (again impossible to confirm).

To a large extent we have to accept the authority of the scientific community.  Isolated "findings" that get ignored by the community are to be suspected, and when debunkers appear from within that community, then one feels pretty confident.

However, as we all know, "science" can be wrong (although this is less common than many would have us think).

I use a few personal tests.  First, I discount personal stories and testimony.  It is too bad that this has to be, but it has to be.  Even the most honest person can have moments of delusion, moments of "filling in" details that aren't real (psychologists have demonstrated this many times).  Also of course not everyone is honest.  Liars abound, and not just those out for personal gain.  The history of religion is filled with pious frauds where the motive for the lies and exaggerations are to save someone's soul.

Second, I discount certain kinds of physical evidence that are subject to manipulation that may not be detectable, such as footprints and lie-detector tests and of course photos.

Third, I try to apply "common sense" and a sense of probability.  If something is too good to be true, it probably is.  If something is totally awe-inspiring and wondrous, I doubt.  One-headed bicyclists mistaken for two-headed bicyclists are more common than real two-headed bicyclists.

Aquarium instead of fireplace

One of the things I miss most about living in the tropics (Vietnam) is I have no excuse to have a fireplace.  I miss even those natural gas things that take so little hassle but are still warm and inviting, and a real log fire is one of the world's joys, especially when its cold outside and it gets one's cat and one's dog to both curl up nearby.

Almost as nice as waking up on a brisk morning covered in a heavy quilt and being in a situation to stay there and luxuriate.

However except for these two little things, and I guess the beauty of new fallen snow, winter sucks.  Snow is pretty only from a distance and from inside a warm house, and all I have to do is step in wet snow where I don't see a drop and it gets over my boot and into the boot and wets my socks with its slushy coldness and I'm off to Vietnam.  I can stand being cold anywhere except my feet.

Final straw -- having to scrape the ice off the windows of the car and then try to drive on icy or slushy roads -- different set of problems for each and neither any good.

So still I want a fireplace.  The locals are already pretty convinced I'm crazy, and if I go to the trouble and expense of installing one, it will confirm the matter, so I guess if for no other reason than face I will need to do without.  What could I substitute?

Well the Asians already have that one figured out.  Have an aquarium.  Not a goldfish bowl with a few forlorn guppies but a big ol' tank with all sorts of things moving around and, most important, bubbles making their way from the bottom to the top.  I think it's the upward movement that is so pleasant.

Of course it won't give off warmth -- not something I would want anyway considering my air conditioning bill -- but it would give a pleasant light and sound.  It might also attract my cats, although for entirely the wrong reason.

Judgmentalism

To be "judgmental" is kinda the opposite of having good judgment about people.  It's seeing the wrong in people and not the right -- an imbalance that in its extremes is bias and prejudice.

Still, if someone insults us or lies to us or steals from us or our partner is unfaithful and so on, aren't we justified in having bad thoughts about them?  The problem is the bad thoughts achieve nothing and may harm us.  Also, there is such a thing as forgiveness.  We should try to find ways to forgive, even without an apology or restitution.  Our relationships are worth more than our short-term feelings or material possessions.

Of course that doesn't mean we just forget: we learn and it may alter our behavior -- learn what the person is sensitive about, learn not to leave money laying around (bad habit anyway), maybe talk the event over in private and maybe make changes in the terms of the relationship.  Also remember that we don't ever know the whole story of why the thing happened.  We are all subject to desires of a short-term nature that may overwhelm our better judgment.  That we should control these desires goes without saying, and therefore should not be said.

What worries me the most and is in fact that brings me to post this is that people sometimes get in the habit of constantly judging others, in spite of the scriptural admonition that judgment belongs to the Lord.  Society must "judge" criminals, but not us.  It is not our position to mete out punishment either except in limited situations, and then neither we nor society has the right to decide someone is bad, but only to respond appropriately and compassionately to the actual offense.

So if someone offends us with their appearance or mode of speech, or is fat or effeminate or an alcoholic or other addict or has sticky fingers or boasts or gossips or is ostentatious or pedantic (like me), and so on, don't "forgive" them, just be wisely ignorant (in other words you know but you don't know).  Remember compassion and that you do not know the whole story.

Bullying

We tend to want to deny it but we are more subject to our instincts than we think.

Of course as "intelligent" free-will beings we think we are our masters, but phenomena like bullying belie this.  The benefit benefits no one, especially the bully who only makes enemies and is disliked by others not around, yet it goes on everywhere, and we know not just among children: especially not just among children.

I think there exists a will to dominate (and a will to submit, but that is another thing for another time) -- a desire to control and even be worshiped.  As with all desires, it has to be attributed to fundamental instincts, thing evolution has built into us, probably for complicated, hard to discern reasons.

Growing up in a somewhat rural area, I had to deal with my share of bullies.  Fortunately for me I was always a little large for my age, and this helped, but, to tell the truth, I was also something of a push-over in that I was non-violent by temperament and eager (to the point that looking back on it is embarrassing) to please adults and obey all the rules -- which of course meant no fighting.  So I was not part of the boys' pecking order.

However, I did pay attention in physical education classes and knew how to fight, so when it got too far and I lost my temper I generally won the affair and that particular would-be bully, after a few tries, would stop.  I remember one boy in particular, laying on his back with my knee on his throat, saying, "I think I want to be your friend."

This is all very masculine, boys being physical.  As I understand it girls have the same instinct but females are less physical and more verbal, so they bully in verbal ways.  That to me seems much worse -- not that boys don't do that too but in the end with them it ends up being physical most of the time, so that it can have a more effective end-point most of the time.

The real problem is that we carry this instinct forward into adulthood, where we may learn more subtle ways of doing it (and some still brutal and unsubtle).  It causes unhappy marriages, unhappy and vengeful children, disgruntled employees, and maybe even wars.

What can be done?  Well of course mindfulness is a solution; our desires (which generally have an instinctive origin) can be resisted if we are aware of them and how they manifest.  An instinct is not destiny and as long as we recognize some aspect of our behavior as deriving from our animal nature (actually that is a bad way of putting it as we remain animals no matter what we do, but the phrase is understood), it is relatively easy to refrain and find perhaps other outlets.

Of course the bully doesn't want to do that.  The instinct rewards the bully with pleasure.  That's the main way instincts work -- they reward us with a pleasurable experience, so in many cases intervention is needed to teach the little bastard a lesson and render the experience less pleasurable.

The Democrats Nuclear Option

Well now I've posted three blogs today, this will be the fourth.  Interesting that the spell checker doesn't know the word "blog."  Oh well.

What I think I want to do with these is just post them.  I suppose deeply buried in searches they will sometimes show up, but unlikely to be found, let alone commented on.  Maybe that will be the best.  I want to talk and express my opinions and thereby I hope refine them, but I don't like arguments, which is all I find on the discussion areas.  Not that I shouldn't be disagreed with, but not just for the sake of disagreeing.

So here I may well end up in the blissful state of never being contradicted -- a state of ignorance perhaps but also peace.

In a couple of blogs today I got into the subject of abortion and of the relationship of morals and politics.  This was mainly because of an email I got from my rather more conservative brother had the subject on my mind.  Obamacare, it seems, is going to insist that abortifacients be covered under all insurance policies offered, whether the buyer wants it or not.  That does seem a little much and I have my doubt whether it is true.  However, I think if it is going to be a standardized group plan, the employer should not have the right to opt out of such coverage, and the individual of course is under no obligation to utilize it.  A bit unfair, though, considering how insurance works, to make everyone pay for the coverage only some will want to use.

This brings me to the topic I thought I would talk about this time, namely the Nuclear Option that the Democrats adopted, making it where a majority of the Senate can approve Presidential nominations rather than three-fifths (Supreme Court nominations excepted).  That is about as stupid a thing as I can imagine, and illustrates how both parties have come to be dominated by their extremists.

Of course the Republicans have been making life difficult for some of these nominees, because in part of their own extremist wing, but Obama has not helped with his failure to consult and take into consideration the views of at least a few Republicans.  It seems as though he wants to create this situation for political propaganda reasons.  It only takes a handful of  Republicans to approve a nomination, so when they can get none whatsoever that tells me there is something wrong with the nominee.

Now that they have changed the rule, when Republicans have control they will be under no pressure to change it back.  In the end this means that both parties when in power will not have this constraint on appointees.  To me this is a small step toward less good government.  I might have the forlorn hope that come the Republicans back to power they would undo this, but that doesn't seem to be in anyone's thoughts.  Talk about politicians have short-term selfish perspective, considering neither the long term nor the effect on the nation!

Of course at the root of this problem is the political party system anyway, and especially the rule of having party primaries rather than open primaries, which has the effect of forcing candidates to appeal to the party stalwarts (those who turn out for primaries) rather than to the entire district.  Compounding this is all the little (and sometimes not so little) ways incumbents manage to make their position as safe as possible, by limiting campaign spending (making it harder for challengers), drawing safe districts, pork spending, and all the advantages of incumbency anyway.

Rational moral standards

I think maybe I'm getting this figured out; I think I will ignore the G+ business and stay here.

Abortion is a major moral question by not of course the only one, and the big question is how do we make moral decisions.  In my experience most people, even when they say otherwise, are guided by their conscience, with a dollop of utilitarianism thrown in.

They may say they are guided by authority (the Church, the Bible, the Q'uran) and sometimes quote passages, but these are not rule books and contain no rational law and only some vague guidance ("Do unto others, etc.).  No the main source of guidance is what feels right to us -- our conscience.

Where does conscience come from?  It seems to me more than likely that we have an instinctive ability to form a conscience, but the details are "filled in" during early life from our peers and our culture in general.  This is why different people from different cultures feel this or that is right or wrong (look for example at the evolution of attitudes about slavery in our own culture).

Conscience then is a fairly good guide, but not an infallible one.  Slavery is wrong in and of itself, so is carrying out raids on the neighboring tribe's hen-house, or torture, or being dishonest to foreigners, even though many in history have not seen such things as against their particular conscience.

Nowadays, this is generally understood, so people try to find a rational basis for their moral standards, and most opt for a fairly simple utilitarianism, even though (and I don't intend to get into them now) there are many objections to this approach.  It does work better most of the time than either dogmatic authoritarian religion based rules or from our culturally received conscience.

In short, assuming one is not a sociopath and therefore does want to do what is right, one has to realize that in many borderline situations there is no easy answer and one is better sitting back and thinking about it, perhaps in the context of the various ethical systems that have been proposed, rather than just going with what feels right.

OK, off with it.  What is on my mind now?  One thing, I've pretty much had it with message boards, probably because I don't like arguments and that seems to be all that goes on (do you suppose I don't like being disagreed with?)

Then there are monitors who, probably without really being aware, tend to push their views and discourage via being a stickler for the rules those who express different views.

I can't imagine a successful board without monitors, with all the spammers and trolls around, and I can't enjoy one with monitors and a bunch of vague and arbitrarily enforced rules.  So I don't think the format works at all well.

Enough of that.  What to talk about?  I'm interested in travel, English vocabulary and history and grammar (in particular how it might be reformed to be less rule-bound but still effective), history in general, layman science, cultures, serious music, human behavior, health issues (I'm quite long in the tooth but want to hold on), politics in the States, philosophy and religion.  That's quite a lot and I'm sure I left some other things out.

So let me start with one of these: travel, and of course first off that would be Vietnam, since I want to be able to live the rest of my life here.

I would not say Vietnam is all that great for tourism in the sense of historic sights and beautiful views.  To be sure the country has some very beautiful spots -- all countries do -- and if you are into the American War there are things about it to see -- but I tend to avoid being reminded of that.  The other thing is if you are into nice secluded beaches or into diving in the ocean.  Plenty of beaches, some touristy and others not.

What I find I like most are the people.  It's a country of touchers and smilers.  It OK to "stare" at someone, although this is diminishing as more and more Westerners get to be commonplace even out in the sticks.  The way to handle it is to look back and smile and even wave.  Big smiles will be returned.  Unlike some cultures it is not considered a sign of untrustworthiness to be smiley; it's considered a sign that you are a friendly person.

In the cities educated people and people who deal with the public generally speak enough English to be of real help.  If not they will get you someone who does.  This has proved a problem for me (should that be "proved" or "proven"?) as I would like to be forced to learn Vietnamese to keep my brain young.

Things here are inexpensive but not cheap -- that is, you have to have money -- it goes further but not forever and getting employment here as a foreigner is problematic (unless of course one is a well-credentialed English teacher).  Over the years it has become much easier to get money here from the States than it use to be, but the currency is not convertible yet.

The food here is to die for.  All kinds of tropical fruits besides a huge variety of everything else: much more variety than in even the biggest supermarkets in the States, and all much fresher.  Vietnamese "cuisine" is kinda Chinese but still itself, and one can also get food of almost any country you can think of (as is of course the case now in all major cities around the world).

The thing that has appealed to me about Vietnamese food is that it is healthy.  They fry stuff enough, but one can use coconut oil, and mostly they boil and steam.  My American doctor told me I would be diabetic by now if I hadn't moved to Vietnam.  I don't know but it's an interesting thought.

One thing I've noticed here -- if you hire someone here you hire the family (if you allow it), so that if the housekeeper wants a day off, she sends her sister or daughter or whatever.  That sort of job is a family enterprise.

10:45 am, Monday, November 25, 2013

Morality and abortion

I am having a hard time figuring out how this and "G+" work together if at all.  I seem to have to post the same on both.  The interface needs work but I guess over time I will get use to it.  I also can't figure out without leaving the system to store a copy on my hard drive.

I got an email today from my brother about how the new medical care law is going to force businesses to offer insurance for abortion and abortifacients (sp?) on the health insurance they offer, which apparently some people find moral objection to.  I objected to this a bit: it should not be the employer's decision.  If the employee does not want to utilize the benefit, that is their right, but I don't think the employer should be able to force it not available.

Whatever, and I tend to doubt the information was complete since it was so one-sided.  Still, the question arises to what extent authorities (government, employers, institutions, etc.) should be able to enforce moral views on those within them.  The immediate answer is no, morality is a personal matter.

This has trouble arising from the fact that morality and criminality get confused.  Morals is what is "right," criminality is what a duly constituted entity (legislature) has decided will be unlawful.  Should this entity consider morals in its consideration?

Most murders, for example, are clearly immoral.  They are also criminal.  Are they criminal because they are immoral?  I would say they are criminal because society needs to have them criminal, and that morality is not an issue.

Many base, or at least think they base, their moral standards on their religion.  When this is the case the principle of separation of religion and the state adds more strength to the notion that in passing criminal statues the legislature needs to stay away from religious considerations, although reading the debates on the subject it is clear that they don't.  I would say that a law that clearly was passed (reading its history of enactment) mainly on moral and religious grounds should be overturned on court review for that very reason, even if it passes muster as being needed for practical reasons.  They can go back and do it again.

Personally I would never have an abortion, although being a gay male that is kinda irrelevant.  I would encourage a woman contemplating one to be very, very sure.  It is not  murder (the developing fetus is in no way a human being -- this is just silly -- and arguments about "potential" are disingenuous rationalizations.  That said, the effects on the mother, both medically and psychologically, throughout her life, need to be thought about, as well as social considerations.

My immediate reaction would be to ban late-term abortions for this reason alone, as well as the fact that the fetus is by then approaching human status.  However, a "health of the mother" exception would be needed, and I can see this loophole being abused, leading to all sorts of litigation that we are better off without, so such a ban is probably unwise.