A Monkey in the Works

...to Catch a Monkey - Matt Yglesias

Now why can't we have this sort of problem in America. Just imagine needing to hold a special mayoral election because your old mayor was ousted by rampaging monkeys? We need to start importing apes to, just so we can have them roust the bums from their corners.

The Nuisance People

Recently my grandfather got a water bill for nearly $900 when the previous bill was about a tenth of that. My mom went to see our general practitioner today for a check-up and to ask some questions about some problems she has faced since her last visit. Last week I made a somewhat desperate call to the same doctor concerning the medication I was on and its ineffectiveness. The thing that connects all three of these events is that a solution to the problem was brought about by become a nuisance to those we needed assistance from. Right now my grandfather is at City Hall demanding that the water billing office fix his bill (of which they have not done for the last month). My mother didn't get the chance to ask the doctor the questions she needed to so we've made a phone call to set up another appointment in the same week. My own medication issues were finally resolved after a few weeks of whacked-out conditions and several phone calls.
The point I'm trying to make here is that sometimes being a nuisance, while frequently rude, is an excellent solution to get those we need assistance from to finally act. Call it the 'squeaky wheel' principle or whatever you choose. But the fact remains that sometimes people, particularly busy people, won't understand the nature of your problem until you repeat it enough times to them. I face this at my own work, where a customer will as for a certain kind of work and my own assumptions of what they are asking interfere with what they are really asking for. And sometimes it's the customer's doing as well, lacking the knowledge and terminology for accurately expressing the problem and desired solution.
Being a nuisance in an economy based on service can lead to employees disliking you, but it can also lead to getting what you really want or need. Don't simply accept what your doctor or bureaucrat or anyone else just hands you if it is not satisfactory. Yes, fighting everyone all the time is exhausting, but often it is the best way to arrive at the needed solution. So don't hesitate to make yourself a nuisance if it seems that you are not getting the needed help going through the normal channels.

I've Got a Bone to Pick...

There are a few phrases that cause me to go into an apocalyptic fit and the phrase "everything happens for a reason" is one that irks me to no end. The entire phrase is a panacea for those who have a difficult time, or an impossible time, understanding why things happen in history, particularly in their own personal lives. The greatest problem I have with the phrase stems from the view of history it imposes, one that would have you believe there is a certain course to history. It's the first step towards a teleological view of history, that history is a series of endless progression toward some unknown utopian future. I don't buy it obviously. It's that utopian type of thinking that has led to the most destructive ideologies of the last two centuries. From Marxism to Fascism to religious endtimes thinking there runs a common thread in the belief that some sort of perfect future awaits humanity. For some, they believe it is their duty to hasten or even bring about the events that would lead to said utopia. Such a view of history does not have to remain at the macro level however. It can run even in the small scale, say in a belief of the domino theory of foreign policy thinking during the Cold War or, for a more modern reference, the belief that a democratized Iraq would topple other local regimes through example leading to an ideal, pro-Western Middle East. While utopian thinking does provide a sense of purpose to ones actions, that purpose general does not lead to a healthy or morally good outcome. For the serious believers, any action, no matter how grotesque, immoral or ugly, is justified if that action brings the utopian society one step closer to reality. Hence the phrase, "everything happens for a reason," with its tinges of teleological and utopian thinking, makes me want to throttle the speaker.
Another part of the phrase that bothers me, one tangentially related to my first point, is the implicit idea that all events hold some sort of meaning. History itself has no meaning and its events, while certainly having causes, lack meaning as well. This applies to the future as well, a future that necessarily will one day become the past. Things happen and that's all you can say about the facts of history. Anything more become interpretation of meaning, but that meaning isn't attached by history itself, but by human minds attempting to understand the whys of history. Often you see a lot of 'what-if' questions in history and historians playing devil's advocate. This is because historians are constantly asking the question of why this event occurred and not some other event. This is due to history lacking any sort of grand system or cosmic plan. History moves of its own accord, tied to human actions but no director of those actions. So to say that everything happens for a reason is to say that each human action has a reason, despite the obvious daily evidence that this is patently untrue. Each event can contain meaning, but that meaning changes from person to person, and most importantly, how that person is looking at the historical fact.
All of this is to say instead of using thinking and phrases like "everything happens for a reason" it would do you well to follow the idea that whatever happens happens. You can say something like "the Berlin Wall will not fall in our lifetimes" and then go back and figure out where and how you were wrong. But to imply that there's some underlying meaning to that action is to read too much into the event. Look for causes, but don't look for meaning within historical facts themselves.

The Meta of Religious Experiences

Neuroscience and God - David Pescovitz, BoingBoing

I know the more we study the brain and how it acts the more we'll understand how we come to have certain types of thoughts and how we perceive certain experiences. Yet I can't quite escape the feeling that we still won't know where consciousness resides. We might even get to the point of moving consciousness from one brain to another or some other type of neural repository. But I think the problem is consciousness isn't an object in the same way we thing of physical objects. This isn't one of those "science can't answer all" reactions, but it is an argument for the continuation of the metaphysical study of the mind. Neuroscience itself doesn't answer the deeper 'why' questions but it does help arrive at those answers. The most important question that neuroscience will continue to have difficulty answering is why we have certain experiences, like religious epiphanies, naturally. What do these experiences add to the human experience? When neuroscientists ask these kinds of questions they're asking the meta question, the philosophical question. Those are the same questions that genres like cyber-punk attempt to answer, or at the very least pose. They're also the questions I love.

Quote of the Day

The Peace Corps with Muscles - Michael Totten

“Woo hoo!” one of the soldiers yelled in the dark. “Another fucked up adventure in the United States Army. I love it!”

Elemental Cities

Cui bono? - Megan McArdle

I don't often agree with McArdle as she seems to take a more hardline capitalist approach to things, but she does make a good point here on the supposed low-carbon aspect of urban areas. While most urbanites tend to expend less carbon than those in the suburbs, that happens for the most part because urbanites export their carbon to other areas. Power stations, particularly coal-fired ones, are not built near cities, yet produce a great amount of carbon emissions.
Still, McArdle does mention how, despite the exporting effect, urban areas do maintain a lower carbon output than suburbs. And, more to the point, a carbon tax would encourage urban living as the power suburban homes draw, along with the attendant travel to and from those homes, would feel the effects of the tax the most. I'm a proponent of a carbon tax, as it would let the market to its thing with the least amount of government interference. If you'd like to make a moral issue out of it, you could say that a carbon tax is a sin tax much like the taxes on cigarettes and alcohol are. I'm not opposed to government interference with the economy, but when a nudge could do more than a shove, I think that is the better route to take.

Obama's Social Justice

Obama at Howard - Andrew Sullivan

One element of Obama's speech that I like is how he points out the disconnect between the need for nonviolence and the pressure placed on blacks toward violence. It's the disconnect between what's justified and what's right. The assault on a white student by six black students was in no way right morally, it was justified in the same sense that homicide done in self-defense is justified. This assault did not occur in a vacuum and so the treatment of it cannot do likewise. Sen. Obama here is attempting to charge the student body with the sense that social justice is always an appropriate thing to stand up for, damn the personal consequences. It would do Obama well to continue to focus on such events as it points out both his desire for change and his willingness to actually act to bring about change. While the authenticity of any politician is always up for questioning, I think Obama's speech goes a long way to showing that he does have some balls and will take some chances.

How Subtle is Wireless?

Pirate Broadband for Burma? - publius, Obsidian Wings

Considering the potential for pirate broadband transmitting, I think the Burma situation is a perfect opportunity to test it in field. I'm sure some aid agency could pull together a cadre of techheads and hackers to build a working, reproducible rig. Personally, I just like the idea of pirating broadband ala The Invisible Man.

Music to My Cosmic Ears

Mysterious Energy Burst Stuns Astronomers - Science Daily

This is the kind of science stuff that I love. Wonder if the radio burst can be played like music?

My Wires are all Tangled

Area Deep Within the Brain Found to Play Role in Sensory Perception - Science Daily

Synesthesias is a hobby interest of mine. It's all about the crosswiring of our sensory perceptions were certain letters and numbers have a particular color associated with them in the minds of those who have the mutation. It can also manifest where tastes and smells are presented to the brain in the form of visuals and sounds. The whole idea is that our sensory perceptions are affected as much by the originating sensory data as they are by the way the brain processes the information. Philosophically, the condition is tied to how much we can trust what we see and experience. It's utterly fascinating as the study of synesthesia could lead to a better understanding of extra-sensory perception (not in the paranomal junk science sense though).

The Aesthetics of Guerrilla Tagging

Guerrilla Artist Banksy Caught Up In eBay Scandal - Guardian

Now here's my problem with this type of scandal, even though it involves an artist who's MO is to generally remain anonymous while tagging various places in interesting ways. It's not so much that someone is attempting to profit off the artist's work, particularly since you can grab jpegs of the artwork just about anywhere. It's that what was for sale was originally intended for sale by the artist himself. There's a difference between someone who goes out and silk-screens a bunch of t-shirts and someone who takes from a limited print run of the work to sell at inflated prices. I like Banksy and I like the aesthetic he represents but there are legitimate differences between the kind of guerrilla art Banksy and those who copy him do and attempting to profit off of work that was produced by the artist himself, without his permission, without his knowledge and certainly without paying for the work originally. It's akin to stealing a comic from a comic store and attempting to sell it online yourself. It's not simply an issue of legality or morality but one of aesthetics.

The Bleeding Edge of Culture

Plummeting Prestige - Greg Djerejian

I think Djerejian is right to point out that the U.S.'s hegemonic power is not completely gone, but I do have to agree that culturally, the U.S. has become something of a backwater. When I think of the tech world I look to Tokyo or London, likewise with street fashion. Culturally, we have lost out to culturally aligned places like England and Japan since the end of the last century. I don't think it necessarily has to do with our foreign policy actions however. It's possible that our global cultural centers have shifted, splintered and dispersed to reform in places where newness is championed, particularly in the realm of ideas and style. And once others have recognized this shift then it becomes self-generating. They travel to the cultural centers to add to the world of representation these centers exist in. Cultural centers move at a different speed than everywhere else, by their very nature they must. It's not so much about being six months ahead of the curve but being years ahead. But cultural centers also wan, as one can see in New York. Once people see a center slowing down then it becomes an exodus to other, newer places. U.S. culture is going to remain behind for quite some time, and it may even herald the end of U.S. dominance in the world. Still, it will take another decade for this to become apparent.

Tired of Stupidity

State Dept. Won't Say Why UK Music Scholar Is Barred From US - Mark Frauenfelder, BoingBoing

It's shit like this that make me ashamed to be an American sometimes. When I feel like I have to apologize for the stupid, brutish behavior of our government officials, then yeah, I would call that shame. It also pisses me off that I even have to apologize for such actions. That we have such thuggish people working for us while wearing badges of authority only makes me distrust anyone with a badge even more. Now I'm sleepy.

Nonsense Defense

Fearing for Israel - Ezra Klein

See, this must be one of those moments where my limited brain capacity fails me. If Israel has done everything it can militarily to defend itself and still faces an existential threat then it should act in a way that increases the likelihood of that threat materializing? I'm sorry, but that simply doesn't make much sense to me, or any sense at all in fact. Living in constant fear is not much of a life, in my opinion. So, taking that as a starting point what else can I do, once I've exhausted my self-defense options, to mitigate such fear? Oh, but wait, only weak-willed cowards try to talk to their neighbors while strong, hard men cower in the basement with their guns shouting, "come and get me!" Sorry, I forgot how the world works these days.

Touch Me

iPod Touch - Apple

You know, this is just cruel of Apple. I don't need an iPhone but I would love the WiFi functionality. So the iPod Touch is just evil.

An Archeology of Language

Languages Die, but Not Their Last Words - NYT

I have mixed feelings when I read articles like this one. On the one hand, the loss of a form of communication comes as a blow to my academic sensibilities. The death of a language does not sit well with me. But on the other, any project that attempts to record dying languages seems at best a futile effort and at worst a form of intellectual masturbation. Without active speakers of a language then that language holds no meaning. Recording the sounds, while serving its own purpose as a historical record, does not allow for future generations to understand the language, let alone effectively speak it. If the intent is to preserve the language in a way that allows for future communication then a dictionary of that language is necessary for starters. Even so, I doubt that one could effectively save a language by writing it down, recording it or preserving it in any form other than active usage. Latin was able to maintain itself through its continual usage, if only among a select minority of people. But the meaning was preserved, which is what is important for a language. While I don't begrudge the scientist and academics of their desire to capture these languages before they fade completely, I do have problems with the intent of the project. One cannot bottle up a language as if it was a specimen.

God Lawyered Up

Nebraska Senator Sues God to Stop Terror Threats - Xeni Jardin, BoingBoing

Now that is a beautiful sight. I wonder if I can get a class action suit going against God?

Those Crafty Jews with their Jetfighters

'Israeli Warplanes Raid' Lebanon - BBC

First Syria and the shady Times articles, now this. What the hell is Israeli up to?

A Proper Electrocution

University of Florida Student Tasered at Political Rally - Slashdot

Now I just find it funny that the student was first chased by the cops, then allowed to speak, and then they tasered the fuck out of him. Warms the cockles of my heart, warms the shit out of them.

Writing on the Wrong Side of the Firewall

New York Times Ends Its Paid Subscription Service - Slashdot

Hooray! Now I can not read NYT Op-Ed pieces for free!