People sometimes kill themselves.

Others are judgmental about it.  Some say if they want to do it they should go ahead and do it and get out of everyone's hair with their self-pity.  Others say it's a sin against God.  Even others say it's caused by demon possession.  Finally, and this is probably most common, there are those who say the suicide had to be insane to do such a thing.

There are many reasons people do this, and a lot depends on the culture.  The Roman aristocrat who fell on his sword rather than be executed in one of the brutal ways Romans tended to execute people was doing the honorable thing.  Many societies see some suicides as honorable.

Most of us can imagine a scenario where we would kill ourselves -- incurable disease combined with unremitting nausea would do it to me (pain I can handle better).  Probably also a disease that promised in the future to render me helpless and a burden.  We all die someday and some things are worse than death.

However, suicides today most often are associated with the set of diseases put together as "depression."  Those who have never experienced it have to remember that this is not "being sad."  It is another thing entirely.  It is a cloud of blackness that pushes you down and doesn't let you think at all clearly but only makes the world hopeless with no escape.

One thing to remember is that depression is not insanity in the usual sense.  It is a mental illness, but not one that involves irrationality (I sometimes think it is a case of being too rational).

Psychiatry has tried all sorts of ideas on how to deal with this, and often can have a temporary effect, at least until the depression passes, but then they lose the patient next time around as the disease figures out the psychiatrists tricks (not unlike the cancer evolving resistance to the treatment).

It is true that how we look at the world is a great part of the problem -- the old "glass half empty or half full" sort of thing, but knowing this does a depressed person little good.  Truth is, one can always think up the negative side of things, as the world is not all that good to people and most young people have their ambitions squashed fairly fast anyway.

It is purposeless to try to find a purpose in life.  The vast majority of us have only one purpose in our existence -- to give life and happiness to our children.  This is something of an evolutionary trick, since usually the children don't turn out as expected and sometimes turn on us, and we have to adapt.

In the end the only real treatment for depression is going to be medical, not psychiatric (psychiatry is seen as a branch of medicine, but its methods and training are different).  The widespread bias against dealing with emotional problems with pills needs to be overcome -- diseases are best treated with pills, although in some cases other forms of intervention can work.

There is no guilt associated with being depressed -- the tendency runs in families and is just part of the baggage we are born with.  It is useless (and in my opinion evil) to tell the depressed to get over it and stop being so self-involved.

Finally, there is no guilt associated with someone who has actually committed suicide.  They should be treated as anyone else who has died of a chronic disease.  The death should be reported as such (not covered over -- society needs to know the reality) but without blame or shame or as a scandal.

Causality as karma

I don't think it's necessary to use the possibility that the universe was once a singularity to say the universe breaks "its own rules."  The rule is that of causality, and we know this rule is constantly broken, that causality may be something of an illusion based on probability and the statistical "law of large numbers" rather than something inherent to existence.

It reminds me a little of the Buddhist and Hindu idea of karma -- what you do has consequences.  We know those consequences are not preordained but just made more likely when you behave certain ways.

Everyone is much nearer death than they imagine.

The life we find on the earth occupies but a vanishingly thin layer near its surface, even when you count deep rock microbes.  It has no effect at all on what goes on through the main mass of the planet.

Distinguish between life (complex molecules with that mechanically reproduce themselves using material from the immediate environment) and sentience (the experience of life and sensory input and emotions and thoughts).  The biosphere is not sentient and is composed mainly of things not sentient.  Anyone who says otherwise needs to prove it.

Russia is getting scary

I did a survey of several Russian newspapers available in English on the internet.  They all take the same line. 

The difference between this and Western reporting, where newspapers are all over the place -- although in the Ukrainian case both leftwing and rightwing papers are similar and the exact opposite of what Russian readers are getting -- is striking.

It is discouraging too.  There is plainly no freedom to publish against the government in Russia -- something that can only be said to be fascist.  That is a strong word and a few have taken me to task for using it to describe Putin, but I think the evidence is strong. 

There is the resurgent militarism and military boasting, the use of nationalism for political purposes, the clamping down on the press and other forms of expression, the use of hoodlums and criminals as enforcers, the close ties with cartels and industrial lords, and of course the anti-gay campaign (pick a disliked minority and persecute them).  It is all too familiar.

Russians in Ukraine

I must say I have a real problem with Russia thinking it has the right to meddle in other countries to "protect" the rights of Russian nationals there.

That was the excuse Hitler used to seize Czechoslovakia, and it was no more valid then than now.  A nation should act as much as possible to protect overseas citizens and nationals, but not nationals of another country, no matter what the cultural links.  The only exception is when human rights are involved, and then it should be without regard to the ethnicity or culture of those being persecuted.

Actually this is nationalism, and the citizens and nationals of any country owe their allegiance to the nation they are part of, not any other country, and so the rebels in Ukraine should be seen as really simply traitors putting ethnicity ahead of nation.  When ethnic groups fail to realize this they bring discrimination and persecution down on their heads, and should not be given foreign assistance.

Eating blood -- if one eats meat, why not?  As a westerner I have a cultural problem and can't bring myself to do anything but carefully pick out the bits of blood in my noodles or whatever and set them aside, although of course I say nothing.

One should not eat blood for the same reason one should avoid organ meats -- the iron and metallic load is too great (and other reasons -- this is not a medical blog so research it yourself).

However many religions prohibit blood consumption on its own for superstitious reasons -- it seems the precursors of modern Jews thought the soul was in the blood, or some such thing, and this got passed to Christians and Muslims, so that in most countries there are special laws regarding the draining of blood from slaughtered animals.  The Muslims appear to have taken this way to far and demand slaughter methods that are barbaric and cruel.

Of course common sense tells us that even after draining the blood there will remain a lot of it in the meat.  I don't know how the religions who make a big deal of this rationalize this simple fact.

I read in the Bible's Book of Acts that the apostles lifted most of the Jewish dietary laws from Christians (to ease the conversion of Gentiles) but did leave the "abstain from blood" in there.

So now we have at least one Christian group, Jehovah's Witnesses, who expel members who have a transfusion or allow one for their children to save the child's life, and insist the child be allowed to die.

Even if there were an ethical reason for not eating blood, and I can see no rational justification -- just authority and superstition -- this reflects a horrible and tragic and, indeed, evil, application of ethics.  When presented with a choice of two wrongs, one must choose the lesser -- and a child dying versus a blood transfusion -- sheesh! -- obviously breaks that fundamental rule.  

Eating meat

Something I've wanted to post about for awhile is the need for mankind to get off meat, or at least drastically reduce what we eat.

Of course there are ethical reasons -- meat is from sentient animals and although a case can be made that such animals might actually have better lives (and a good deal better karma if one sees this as valid -- and of course at a loss of karma for humans involved), the reality is probably that they lead lives of suffering, considering how many of those who raise animals for slaughter treat them.

But there are three other reasons.  There is the environment, our health, and cost.  The burden on the environment of ever-increasing animal husbandry offsets much that the world does to slow climate change, and those who make personal sacrifices for the environment but continue to demand meat are being hugely inconsistent.  Also of course red meat is well known to contribute to modern diseases and suffering.  Finally, leave the meat out and the food budget gets much lower, leaving money for other pleasures or charity.

I don't think it would be a good thing to completely eliminate meat, since it does add certain nutrients difficult to get otherwise, and it is very pleasurable.  The pleasure however can be gotten by keeping its use down as a sort-of condiment rather than a main dish and experimenting with meat substitutes.

If one does decide to leave meat out of one's diet, one should remember the maxim that, when a guest, eat what is served, and not fuss or cause one's host to even be aware.  The amount of rudeness and arrogance sometimes seen in vegetarians is unfortunate and counterproductive.

Putin says he could take Kiev in two weeks.  Probably true but arrogant and, of course, taking it would be only the beginning.  The Ukrainians will not just fold with the fall of a city.

We seem to have a fascist on our hands.  The world, and especially Europe, would do well to pay close attention.  After what Russia has been through, this isn't too surprising, and nationalism is an easy enough way of thinking for those who are so inclined.  I doubt most Russians would buy what is going on if the actually knew the details.

Wolves at the door

Democracies (countries run by popularly elected politicians) tend to not pay much attention to wolves until they are at the door.  There is instead a constant cry that the democracy causes the presence of wolves and that military spending in particular is (always, no matter how small) excessive.

The reason is mainly because wolves often self-destruct, and besides it interferes with re-election.  The public does not like to make sacrifices to protect itself.

I read a nice piece in Huffington yesterday about the history of Wahhabism in Saudi.  It seems terror and brutality have been a core part of not just that part of Islam but part of Islam in general through its existence -- that killing and raping the non-believer is not only acceptable behavior but is commanded.  (I add that Islam is not unique in this respect).

As a tactic, up to maybe the end of the nineteenth century, it usually was successful.  People will and generally should submit to preserve themselves and their families.  Alexander the Great was generous to cities that surrendered without a fight and engaged in general slaughter and rape and enslavement and looting when there was resistance.  It worked and he was able to take Asia Minor with only a few real sieges.

I don't think it works at all in today's world.  What it does is alert democratic politicians and the public to the presence of a wolf.  The wolf needs to wait until its power is too great for the democracy to resist, and, until then, play ball, for the most part -- as the Chinese seem to be doing.

Politicians like Obama and the Clintons love to save money by weakening the country's military, so they can buy votes with social programs.  (I don't know that it is as crass as that -- maybe they think they are doing the right thing -- hard to understand though.)

Of course if one spends really excessive amounts on the military, one can weaken the domestic economy, and this ain't good either -- and ends up reducing the amount available.  In the States, though, the weak economy is from other causes.

The Muslim terrorist and extremist groups think the old brutality and fear tactic still works.  That was behind 9-11, which only served to give Bush the chance to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, although what he achieved has now been frittered away.  At least for a couple of years the public understood the danger, but they don't like sacrifices and want them to stop.  A couple of years is about all a determined leader has before the clamor forces compromise with evil.

Now ISIS, or whatever it will be called, is doing as much, telling the world the wolf is at the door.  If they had pulled their uprising and then been civilized about it, instead of going on a murder spree, the world would have seen it and not liked it, but have done nothing.  As it is Obama is being dragged into doing something (it seems as little as possible) by his own public.

In other words, terrorism today is stupid.  It achieves very little if anything except alert the world to your evil.

 

Russian feet in the door

I appreciate the email last night the explained how Russia had promised to honor Ukraine's sovereignty in return for Ukraine handing over its nuclear weapons.

It would seem once the Russians got that danger out of the way they had no intention of keeping their side of it.  They just needed to wait a decent interval and for something to take place that gave them an excuse.  (I also note an unsettling tendency of Russian authorities here and there casually mentioning that Russia still has nuclear weapons -- lots of them).

Russia seems to be in the business of setting up small enclaves out of parts of former USSR republics.  It has done it in Moldova and Georgia and now apparently will in Ukraine.  They find an area where, because of Stalin's brutality, Russian ethnics predominate, and force the creation there of a separate political entity, controlled, however, by Russia.  These are basically criminal regimes run by criminals with no legitimacy or international legality.

There is a temptation to think the locals should be allowed to make the decision, but this cannot be allowed unless the sovereign country agrees to it (as with Czechoslovakia).  Otherwise the world will end up with no end of ethnic groups and sub-groups, majority or not, clamoring for independence.  One can imagine the Navajo setting up their own state in the U.S. Southwest.  A state, once legally constituted, can decide for itself whether it wants to divide itself up or not, but this cannot be imposed from outside and inhabitants who try to do this on their own can and should be suppressed.  (Of course here in the case of Ukraine they were being suppressed -- we have instead a foreign invasion -- come to think of it, that is what happened in Georgia too).

When one either moves or otherwise comes to be a citizen of another country, it is incumbent on that person to give up their loyalty to the mother country and be patriotic, loyal citizens of the new country.  That doesn't require giving up one's culture, at least right away (it usually happens naturally after a few generations).  People who do not do this but stick to loyalty to a foreign state set themselves up to become traitors.

Still, these enclaves present to Russia an excellent foot in the door for eventually gaining back its empire, although of course now it won't be Communist but more Fascist in nature.

Nationalism is exceeded only by ideology and religion in irrational perversity and the people it can kill and the lives it can ruin, and only by a little bit.  Partisanship is only a tad behind.

East Ukraine

I begin to think Russia will first set up an East Ukraine rather than emulating Hitler and using nationalism to occupy the whole country.  That is good, but of course it means a hostile Ukraine (much more hostile now) will remain on its western border, so we will see.

Still, this East Ukraine, populated mostly by ethnic Russians, will be subservient, and probably quickly invite the presence of full-time Russian soldiers.

That would mean being, legally at least, an independent country, which has the small benefit of giving Russia another vote everywhere, but otherwise means nothing and can be undone any time with a simple annexation vote.  There is a dollop of hypocrisy here -- Putin can pull back and say he didn't invade and didn't annex, while in fact of course he effectively did.

It is, however, now probably the best possible solution, considering the rabid Russian nationalism we are seeing.  It is interesting that similar attitudes in Serbia gained them nothing -- I guess Russia is a bigger country.

Ukraine should have been left to work out its problems on its own, but Putin saw personal political advantage domestically, and went on to prove that he is without scruple or honor.

Wizards and witches sometimes don't know they are magical beings, but the Ministry of Magic does, and watches.

Atheism

There are several kinds of definition of what an atheist is, used by different groups to give them a debating advantage.

Probably the worst is that atheism is a religion of no God.  That is as far as I can tell absurd.  Religion, except for a couple of them originating in India, is all about gods, and these two (that I know of that don't have gods or at least don't assert them) are religions on their own -- not a "religion" of atheism.

No.  Atheism is not even a belief to most people, but just an opinion, albeit usually a strongly held opinion.  The way I would put it is that I am as sure that there is no God as I can be sure of anything, the world being such that one is never absolutely sure about anything.

Of course those who are truly on the fence, who doubt there is a God but have strong doubts about that doubt, who are usually called agnostics.  There is an important distinction here.  The agnostic is on the fence; the atheist may admit a remote possibility but is pretty damn sure.  The atheist only sees the fence but is nowhere near it.

There is a sense in which agnostics could be classed as a type of atheist, if one defines atheism as "no God" since the usual off-the-cuff definition is one who does not believe in God, and the agnostic does not believe -- he or she is just more unsure than the more typical atheist.

Back to the really bad definition of atheism as a religion.  The reason religionists like that definition is then they can say it is just a belief, like other beliefs, and one is not more valid than another -- we just choose.  The thing is these people believe because they want to believe, and maybe even cannot imagine not believing, generally because they were taught to believe in childhood and hence are fully indoctrinated (religions like to get the children before the children are mature enough to think for themselves and with full rationality).

The atheist on the other hand takes the view that although one cannot prove a negative, if one wants to assert something important one must have proof, or at least lots and lots of evidence.  It then becomes a matter of looking at the evidence present that God exists and coming to the conclusion that it is all wishful thinking and doesn't hold any water at all and that there is really no persuasive or even slightly convincing evidence.  The heavens do not declare the glory of God, nor does nature.  There are no asterisms spelling out the Tetragrammaton.

Absence of evidence in favor of an important assertion logically requires a negative conclusion.  An honest person does not accept things because one likes them or because one wants to or because one wants to go to Heaven or because one's parents and culture believes it.  The only honest way to think something is true is because one is persuaded by an honest investigation of the arguments (not just reading theist stuff).

Would you believe it, so far I have not tried to define "God," usually the first question in this sort of discussion.  There is God and there are gods.  To me the former has to be, to be God, omni- various things, such as omnipotent and omniscient.  Omnipresent or omnibenificient would count but aren't necessary.  Even a transcendent, spiritual being would be something like an angel or superman, not God.

This leads to the self-referential contradictions we have known about since the Middle Ages, having to do with whether or not God can make a rock so big he can't move it or whether or not we can really have free will, and not just an illusion, if God knows all the future (these are two different issues and theists have differing approaches, but I want to keep this fairly simple).

The way the theist tends to deal with this sort of thing is simply by saying that God can do anything except something impossible for God to do.  Think about that for a minute.  That has got to be one of the great cop-outs of all time.  Besides, I can do anything except something impossible for me to do, so am I God?  No.

What the theists do to get around their logical contradictions is to make God into a god.  Zeus can do a lot of things too, but not those things he can't do.

Why I don't like the legal profession

Lawyers are neither more nor less likeable, I suppose on average, than anyone else.  This is not personal.

When I was in high school, being outspoken, loquacious, and opinionated, I was many times told I should be a lawyer or even that I might make a good lawyer.  At the time I would shudder and stay silent -- I had already formed my opinion of the profession.

If someone is smart and goes to college, one is presented with a number of possible career choices.  One can become a teacher if one is idealistic and likes children and is not too much worried about making a lot of money.  Or one can become a doctor if, again, one is idealistic and perhaps fascinated by blood and gore, but at the same time wants to be affluent.  Or one can become an architect or artist or musician if one is into beauty and would like to be well off but is more interested in appreciation and even fame.  Of course if one is nerdy or likes mathematics, one can go into computers or engineering or science.

There are, then, many choices.  The ones who go into law are a little different.  They too are smart, but not idealistic and very much interested in money.  The other group who also fit this are of course those who go into business schools.

The similarities between the two groups are considerable.  The thing I want to bring out though is they both have a certain tendency to rationalize unethical behavior, so long as there is a good chance they will get away with it.  Of course I am sure there are exceptions to this, but the exceptions are not typical.

People self-select and lawyers are people with this personality trait.  Their training makes it even worse.  Under the rationalization that even the worst criminal is entitled to good legal representation at trial, they confuse juries and distort evidence and in the end the most competent of them help celebrities get away with murder.

So also, and even worse, is the tort bar, where the lawyer creates and seeks out litigation, slowing the economy and increasing costs for everyone not winning the tort lottery.  The rationalization is fair compensation to those injured, but that lawyers and litigation can be done without is demonstrated by worker's compensation systems and other similar experiments -- but the lawyers in the legislature prevent such arrangements from being put into place for most litigation.

The end result, especially in the United States, is a country bursting at the seams with lawyers making comfortable and in some cases outrageous amounts of money off litigation and the threat of litigation, generating in my view a general decline of the country (it would be more noticeable except lawyers elsewhere do similar things) and a lower standard of living for the population, and, in many cases, especially medical care, a level of expense that makes not having insurance an insane proposition, as insurance premiums go higher and higher.
  

Trying to fix representative democracy

Yesterday, in the context of how copyright laws have come to be so absurd and hurt the public and defeat the reason they exist, I made a strong attack on the distortions money and press access have on the legislative procedure, to the effect that I have abandoned hope in democracy.

This is largely true, except as Churchill once noted, it is hard to come up with a viable alternative that doesn't risk dictatorship (not that democracies don't generally evolved into dictatorships too, or at least societies where people have little freedom).

Several things.  First, the legal profession has to be prevented from controlling things.  Lawyers are generally disliked everywhere for good reason, although there are good lawyers, there are an awful lot who do much more harm than good, but that is for another blog.

The issue here is that they tend to, as a profession, dominate legislative processes, and their solution to everything is to complicate the law.  Society ends up with more and more regulation and regulators and bureaucrats and litigation and in the end vast amounts of corruption needed to function at all.

They also of course routinely act in their personal interest, so we have laws about things like "practicing law without a license" and an utter inability of legislatures to get litigation under any reasonable control.

So the first thing I think needs doing is to ban any member of the legal profession from politics, or anyone who has been in the past.

Another thing is pork.  One approach might be to let the executive make the budget and the legislature either approve or disapprove, up or down, with no amendments.  A lot of pork can be dealt with by having at-large representation in the legislature, with staggered terms.

That still doesn't eliminate it as the executive will have to make compromises in order to get the budget passed, and the executive itself will probably have its own bits of corruption.  (Yes pork is corruption -- we need to recognize it for what it is.)  This also seems putting a lot of power in the executive's hands, so institutional checks here need to be thought up.

Of course largely the root of the problem is the voter.  They vote for all sorts of silly reasons, although more often in their selfish interest or based on the position of the candidate on a limited range of issues.  So candidates lie or take bad positions just to get elected.  Or, even worse, ideologues get elected, and some really stupid people who don't understand the real world and function from within an ideology or even a religion.

The thing is the voter has little choice.  He or she only can assess the candidate by the campaign and what and how they say things, and this is so easily manipulated.  Negative campaign adds, for example, have been shown to be effective over and over, when in fact it should drive voters into the camp of the person being attacked.

A much more limited voter roll seems needed -- one where stability and education and reasonableness and so on are considered when one applies for the franchise.  Of course such things inevitably get used to keep groups, such as racial minorities, from having a say, so it would have to be much more complicated than just a board reviewing applications and more automated.

Then the voters are a small number who can get to know the candidate personally and who know what is going on.

I suspect my views are just too radical for most people, and smack of Platonic ideas and of course of Leninism, although there are differences.  One thing is I would have the whole thing non-partisan and eliminate political parties (which have the effect of turning elections into sporting events).

Of course no system is perfect, and all can be criticized, but it seems to me we are so badly governed nowadays in most countries that something pretty radical needs to be done.