Yet There Is Method In It

She asked him why did he not write out his thoughts. For what, he asked her, with careful scorn. To compete with phrasemongers, incapable of thinking consecutively for sixty seconds? To submit himself to the criticisms of an obtuse middle class which entrusted its morality to policemen and its fine arts to impresarios?

Mr Duffy – A Painful Case – Dubliners – James Joyce

AFTER this Zarathustra returned again into the mountains to the solitude of his cave, and withdrew himself from men, waiting like a sower who hath scattered his seed. His soul, however, became impatient and full of longing for those whom he loved: because he had still much to give them. For this is hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.

Thus passed with the lonesome one months and years; his wisdom meanwhile increased, and caused him pain by its abundance.

Why do news agencies repeatedly report the various condemnations of leaked information being publish, without challenging it? As I understand it, the documents released are done in partnership with the news agencies themselves – and if there were any blame, they are at least as responsible as wikileaks and Julian Assange! The news agencies should stand up to this indirect criticism, which is effectively governments criticising the freedom of the press. The press tacitly acknowledges it things the information is in the public interest; otherwise they wouldn’t have published it. Perhaps this defence has already begun as the International Federation of Journalists has issued a statement condemning the backlash against wikileaks.

I found Hillary Clinton’s condemnation of the leaks is very ironic. She is responsible for that information. If that information leaks, lives would be put “at risk”, at least according to her. So that information should be carefully controlled. This information was not sufficiently protected – as shown by the recent leak. She is therefore negligent. Governments should learn that electronic records held in a database are at risk of abuse and unauthorised access. They should be distributed and properly secured – the weakest link is the human – particularly if there is no one who “watches the watcher”. Or as wikileaks puts it:

Big brother is watching. So are we.

I am apparently in a minority that agrees with wikileak’s stance – freedom of information is more important than saving embarrassment of politicians and civil servants. Accurate information is essential in a healthy democracy – voters need information to be informed. If politicians don’t like this, “if its too hot, get out of the kitchen”. Unfortunately, governments are generally interested in releasing information that fits their agenda. The “dodgy dossier” springs to mind. Freedom of information is too important to be left to the politicians. Admittedly, diplomacy has historically involved keeping secrets. Tradition is not, in inself, a reason for secrecy. A possible compromise between the need to protect negotations while satisfying the need for transparency: a 12 month limit on secrecy of documents would enable people, who would often still be in office, to be held accountable. Government practices, including mass surveillance, secrecy, large central databases and assuming new powers are all typical methods for centralising power. We need to challenge the assumption that centralising power and control is always a good thing.

Anti Citizen One

PS http://213.251.145.96 is their current IP
PPS The previous batch of leaks was similarly claimed to put lives at risk, but more recently, no evidence has been found of that was available that lives were lost.
PPPS.

PPPPS. Julian Assange has been arrested. I regard this as pressure applied to individuals that undermine state power. Hopefully he doesn’t end up like David Kelly. As JMS wrote:

Your credibility has become a threat to their credibility.

The UK university teaching funding by taxation was cut by 80%. This effectively shifts the burden of paying for undergraduate university tuition to the students. The living cost of university is already paid for by students – or if my limited experience is anything to go by – their parents. The funding changes will massively increase the burden on students and their parents. I am perhaps an idealist; I think that learning for it’s own sake is worth pursuing for its own sake. Of course, it has the secondary benefit of being economically wise to have an educated work force. Funding for access to learning is repellent. UK social mobility has been reducing and I would not be surprised if university fees are a regressive policy.

This is compounded by many graduates struggling to find an appropriate job, based on their training and aspirations. OK, yes most get a job – but most jobs don’t really require a degree. What is the point in training superfluous graduates? The oversupply has increased competition so one almost needs a law degree to get a job in a cafe (being a job not really requiring a degree). This is a waste of resources and an absurdity. Students are being charged for something that society doesn’t need.

Several ideas come to mind:

• More jobs should be created that require a degree level of training.
• Universities stay funded by taxation and abolish student fees.
• Limit places on courses where jobs don’t exist. This includes most of the “soft” degree subjects.
• Reduce the university places by 80%, in line with the funding cut. This option is strangely tempting.

The lib dems agonising over their commitment to abolish student fees, only to now increase fees is poetically tragic (but not the outcome I would have preferred). The target to have 50% of students go to university seems unnecessary to me. I love learning, but I doubt that 50% of students want to get a degree just for fun! Even economically, it doesn’t make sense apart from the lack of jobs. So basically employment is messed up, therefore universities are messed up.

Having students end university in massive debt is not a good place to be. Of course they will gradually pay it back, but our society already relies too much on debt. As the vastness of the debts increase, people are reduced to economic slavery and, if we lose confidence they will pay up, we have financial crises. That’s what seems to have caused the recent recession: too much debt.

I also think we might abandon our fractional-reserve banking. It’s only of the few things the abrahamic religions got right. Usury is – or was – a sin. It’s yet another ethical choice that is not closely examined by religious believers (at least in my very limited experience).

Anti Citizen One

PS I have been watching “Ian Hislop’s Age of the Do-Gooders”, and I note there are at least two reforming trends he highlights: the rise of meritocracy over hereditary aristocracy, and improvements in conditions of the working class. This ideas are often distinct.
PPS The “Ancient Worlds” documentary is also good. I really dig the most recent programme that pointed out civilisations created by armies (e.g. Alexander the Great) actually achieved very little impact on history and people’s lives, but ideas created and dispersed can change EVERYTHING.

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come. Hugo

The greatest events – are not our noisiest, but our stillest hours. Not around the inventors of new noise, but around the inventors of new values, doth the world revolve; inaudibly it revolveth. Nietzsche

It’s really grinds my gears when I hear attempts to justify torture. George W Bush recently said water boarding saved lives. This is NOT a valid justification for torture, simply because there is no valid justification AT ALL. (Well OK there probably are hypothetical situations that I might support torture, but they don’t occur in recent times, like the trolley problem.) Until this “torture is OK” attitude is fixed, any military interventions based on “liberating” countries, or criticising countries for human rights abuses is complete hypocrisy. We need to prosecute those who practise torture. Now.

No person shall be [...] deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. US Constitution, Fifth Amendment.

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. Eighth Amendment

It is also questionable that we should be trading with countries that practise torture – we are complicit in their torturing (benefiting from oppression) and we supply logistics (airports for rendition, etc), equipment, diplomatic assistance that enables them to carry on torturing. Unfortunately, that includes most countries. This makes globalisation highly questionable.

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. Beyond Good and Evil

The UK is apparently building two aircraft carries it doesn’t need. Since the government would be responsible for the cost of winding down the shipyards if the orders were cancelled, it is cheaper to build them, apparently. A third option that occurred to me: cancel the aircraft carries, keep the yards open and build something useful! At a last resort, it could be warships – but make them ships that are more appropriate to actual needs. On the other hand, wasting military spending would probably lead to a safer world. The MOD might be up for a nobel peace prize?

The government also said it plans to force “some” long term unemployed to do manual work for continuation of social benefits. The criteria of who exactly they plan to force into work is not exactly defined, as far as I know. The devil is in the detail. But considering we don’t have full employment, it seems unfair to force people to work, when there are not enough real jobs.

That reminds me of the university funding debacle. The university budget has been cut by 40% (£4.2bn from £7.1bn), with the costs passed to students. Most students will not have significant funds for their own development and will accrue large debts. This creep of debt to the majority of the population (not to mention the house mortgage system) is a form of economic slavery. The ban on collecting interest is one of the few things I agree with in the Qur’an and the Bible. Except most believers seem to have ignored this teaching. Although I have a love of learning (and therefore of free education), I see the current increase in university places as farcical, unnecessary and potentially counter productive as economics increases its hold on university policy.

To connect the employment and university issues, we seem to be training graduates for non-existent jobs. OK, some jobs exist that require that level of study – but too much is being made of the “need” for a degree to get a job. Most jobs don’t need it – it is only the under-supply of employment that makes competition for the job intense – and drives the need for practically superfluous degrees. Full employment has some interesting economic consequences. A job guarantee program might be better than forcing manual labour on virtual benefit slaves.

Rant concluded.

Anti Citizen One

Courage slayeth also giddiness at abysses: and where doth man not stand at abysses! Is not seeing itself- seeing abysses? [...As] deeply as man looketh into life, so deeply also doth he look into suffering. FN

A quote that applies to me – fortunately or unfortunately (or comically or tragically)

Anti Citizen One

I finished Utilitarianism and I was pleasantly surprised. His approach for arguing for utilitarianism is fairly open and well argued. He doesn’t underestimate the challenge and he covers most of the main objections against his position. Most books that argue for a moral code don’t go as far as Mill, although I am not a fan of utilitarianism myself.

Many of the objections against utilitarianism, he rightly points out are really objections against any moral code. Other arguments he rebuts as straw men. This is often the way in debates, from my own experience: detractors try to steer the discussion into irrelevance. One chapter worrying is titled “Of the Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of Utility”. I find it worrying because I analyse such claims through an existential point of view, and all previous attempts at finding an “ultimate sanction” have so far failed. But this chapter is surprisingly good, as he avoids this trap of is-ought and claims that utilitarianism is also a descriptive model of human action. Moral codes are adopted more by human habit and social pressure than abstract philosophical argument.

The main issue I have with utilitarianism is it assumes that happiness and suffering are mutually exclusive, and are opposite ends of some scale. Unfortunately, this doesn’t tie in with human psychology. Many activities are considered worthwhile but have either intrinsic pain or the risk of pain. To eliminate that risk is like trying to “abolish bad weather” as Nietzsche would say. Mill’s ideas work fairly well in terms of human belief in what is good but, as Mill points out, belief doesn’t always lead to the corresponding action. Humans, as Dostoevsky observes, are often doing actions that contradict any possible system, including self destruction. I also have concerns that utilitarianism, in trying to compare different forms of happiness and suffering, is trying to compare apples with oranges – but that is for another time (possibly every moral action is unique, “there is no requital”).

I believe that these sources of evidence, impartially consulted, will declare that desiring a thing and finding it pleasant, aversion to it and thinking of it as painful, are phenomena entirely inseparable, or rather two parts of the same phenomenon; in strictness of language, two different modes of naming the same psychological fact: that to think of an object as desirable (unless for the sake of its consequences), and to think of it as pleasant, are one and the same thing; and that to desire anything, except in proportion as the idea of it is pleasant, is a physical and metaphysical impossibility.

So obvious does this appear to me, that I expect it will hardly be disputed [...]

Always suspect a philosopher when they say something is obvious. If he had tried to argue against his own position here, it would have been more philosophical.

Anti Citizen One

PS I have since been reading Dostoevsky’s Demons for the first time:

There are also lovers of such anguish who prise it more than its most radical gratification, if such indeed where even possible.

I finished reading Billions and Billions, a collection of essays by Carl Sagan. I was already I fan of his, from the movie Contact. In “Billions”, the book has three sections – wonder at the universe (as reflected in various popular science issues he addresses), environmentalism, and social issues. The scientific issues are slightly historic, being published back in 1997. The style is very optimistic. He seems the polar opposite of Dawkins. Both are good popular science writers. But Cagan is very “glass half full” and Dawkins is known as a “glass half empty” writer. (Although this doesn’t apply to his real work on evolution, just that atheism is a denial (ish) and therefore somewhat negative. Of course, destruction is a form of creation but moving on…)

His writing in both Billions and Contact on contrasting views is notable for its optimism. For instance, pro-life and pro-choice with respect to abortion, he points out that these are two extremes and that most people and most legal systems fall into some compromise. In other cases, he points out the commonality in beliefs, e.g. environmentalism is in part driven by science and he compares it to the religious attitude of stewardship of the Earth. Sometimes, his totally constructive attitude is not quite to my taste. I guess in cases when he might refute his opponents’ views, he simply declines to comment (in a similar way to Nietzsche’s advice: “where one can no longer love, there should one – pass by“).

There are a few disparate scenes in Contact I want to mention specifically. I thought about trying to tie them together coherently, but I have been unable to do so, or too lazy. In most of the scenes I mention, two world views are contrasted. Many involve the protagonist, Ellie Arroway, who is passionate about SETI (that is the search for “little green men” aka extraterrestrial intelligence). In the first example, which provides an important illustration of Ellie’s character, teleological explanations are contrasted to mere physicalism (not to mention atheism).

Priest at the Funeral of Ellie’s Father: I know it’s hard to understand this now but we aren’t always meant to know why things happen the way they do. Sometimes, we just have to accept it as God’s will.
Ellie Arroway: I should have kept medicine in the downstairs bathroom. Then I could’ve gotten to it sooner.

Another interesting exchange is when one character justifies his actions on an essentially pessimistic or Machiavellian basis. Ellie counters with some Saganistic optimism, which is almost existential.

David Drumlin [after metaphorically stabbing Ellie in the back]: I know you must think this is all very unfair. Maybe that’s an understatement. What you don’t know is I agree. I wish the world was a place where fair was the bottom line, where the kind of idealism you showed at the hearing was rewarded, not taken advantage of. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world.
Ellie Arroway: Funny, I’ve always believed that the world is what we make of it.

There are loads of interesting themes that could be endlessly analysed, particularly the problem of religious extremism and the reductionism/commercialism trend in science. Both prove major antagonistic factors in the film.

Ellie quoting Palmer: “Ironically, the thing people are most hungry for – meaning – is the one thing science hasn’t been able to give them.”

Gratuitously I mention a slightly existential question, which connects to Babylon 5. The question “why am I here?” is once of the key themes of the series. The exchange has a large non-verbal element, which makes it hard to state here (which is of course appropriate for existential questions):

Ellie: [sincere but baffled] What am I doing here?
Haddon: [quietly laughs to himself, notices she expects a verbal response, then suddenly becomes almost menacing] The powers that be have been very busy lately positioning themselves for the game of the millennium. Maybe I can help deal you back in.

The response of Sagan to conflict seems to be to approach it with delicacy, subtlety and intellectual modesty. There is perhaps an echo of Spinoza trying to “understand” human actions above all. A perfect example of this attitude is given as the “last word” in the move. A kid on a school trip asks Ellie a question she KNOWS the answer to, but the way she deals with it is telling:

Kid on school trip: Are there other people out there in the universe?
Ellie Arroway: That’s a good question. What do you think?
Kid: I don’t know.
Ellie Arroway: That’s a good answer. Skeptic, huh? [glances knowingly at her colleagues] The important thing is that you all keep searching for your own answers. One thing about the universe, though. The universe is a pretty big place. It’s bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it’s just us it seems like an awful waste of space. Right?

I’d say that is a healthy altitude!

Anti Citizen One

PS Another review which is good.

When I hear people talking about how “advanced” our culture has become or is higher than other cultures, I am reminded of good ol’ Dostoevsky (emphasis mine):

In any case civilisation has made mankind if not more bloodthirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely bloodthirsty. In old days he saw justice in bloodshed and with his conscience at peace exterminated those he thought proper. Now we do think bloodshed abominable and yet we engage in this abomination, and with more energy than ever. Which is worse? Decide that for yourselves. They say that Cleopatra (excuse an instance from Roman history) was fond of sticking gold pins into her slave-girls’ breasts and derived gratification from their screams and writhings. [...] Of course boredom may lead you to anything. It is boredom sets one sticking golden pins into people, but all that would not matter. What is bad (this is my comment again) is [if all human action can be based on man's true advantage,] I dare say people will be thankful for the gold pins then.

I have not really reviewed Life without Priciple (which is awesome) or Nausea (which is groovy). I should revisit them. My concern is to review them, I kind of suck the life out of them, from my perspective. Ironic really, considering this blog “kills” concepts for me!

Anti Citizen One