I love drugs

So, I am in the Netherlands, the oft claimed home of drugs and hookers, and was sitting in my room, reading this article from the UK Times about 'love shyness'. In essence, this is supposedly an emergent phenomenon (very very weak epistemological emergence, if you could even call it emergence) whereby a bunch of lonely adult males piss and moan about the fact that they were ten years old when had their last girlfriend. Observe:

John has been in love. “Probably just the once. When I was 10 there was this girl I really liked. She was younger than me, so when I went to secondary school I lost contact with her and never saw her again.” He has an enduring memory of playing outside with the girl, and of the sun slowly going down, and never feeling happier. In fantasy he often takes the memory further and, imagining himself as a child again, he kisses her.

Now, this is clearly indicative of some deep seated emotional abnormality, and I don't mean to be cold hearted and lacking empathy when thinking about this - clearly I read this article for a reason, and if I am in a culture renowned for its liberal approach social norms yet sitting inside and reading newspaper articles, I think it safe to say that I am not the most successful pants-man who strode the earth. But then I read this section, and my humour and cynicism and bitterness returned:

Seb says the first step to getting better is recognising that something is wrong and the label helps with that. “I believe LS can be overcome,” he says, “but it’s a long, hard road.”

There are drugs to treat shyness, mainstream antidepressants such as Paxil. But the many possible side-effects include sweating, nausea, lowered libido and suicidal tendencies

Nice. You want to treat a problem that has depression and sexual relations central to it, by application of medications known to lower libido and increase suicidal tendencies? And make the people sweaty and nauseous while on dates? Nice thinking, arse-clown. Maybe just force these guys to smoke Ice and give them a handgun. Might solve their problems, sure it might also have some negative side effects, but hey, as long as we're helping these people, who cares what happens to them.

Which brings me to the vague point of these ramblings - that labelling of socially non-standard behaviour dances easily to the music of medicalization, which as i'm sure we all know is perhaps not the best solution to a given set of problems: I'm lonely, cold inside and my last girlfriend was an eight year-old, twenty-two years ago. Clearly I need drugs to find love.

The words 'parasite' and 'exploitation' seem to bounce around in my head for some strange reason.

Economic Rationalism And Smoking

In what is perhaps the greatest news story/public policy on the face of the planet, read the following excerpt from an article in today's Age titled Chinese Ordered To Smoke Until They Drop:

LOCAL government officials in China have been ordered to smoke nearly a quarter of a million packets of cigarettes to boost the local economy during the global financial crisis.

The edict, issued by officials in Hubei Province, in central China, threatens to fine officials who "fail to meet their targets" or are caught smoking rival brands manufactured in neighbouring provinces.

Even local schools have been given a smoking quota for teachers, while one village was ordered to buy 400 cartons of cigarettes a year for its officials.

This is part genius and part rational. While the absurd(ist) moron in me is giggling with excitement about this, I find it hard to see how this is very much different from Rudd's cash-splash. Spend, dammit, spend. Don't save, don't invest in the future, spend now. Even if it means putting a shotgun to a child's head and screaming at them to start smoking, (slight exaggeration here), we must support the economy at all costs.

In fact, if you expand this out a little, this is the very argument put forward by the Australian coal lobby et al. that we can't afford to impose hefty carbon debts on high polluting industries. Jobs (as an abstract economic quantifier) are for more important than the health or well being of the people inhabiting those jobs, their families or those in their community. So smoke up, kiddoes, because Jobs are jesus, and the Economy is god.

Religion V Religion

Morning folks.

Well come back. '09. And what a year it has been. So far, we have seen floods fires and famine. Whoever said that armageddon didn't happen when the clocks ticked over on '99 certainly didn't have a grasp of armageddon stretching out over a few years.
Speaking of religious intolerance, my brain was s(t)imulated by an article in the paper today.
Very simply described, a comedian in Israel has responded to recent a holocaust denier/revisionist/moron from a certain club by having a skit where jesus walking on water and mary's virginity are called into doubt.

While this itself is of little interest to me, I was wondering if this parallels the Jyllands-Posten controversy? If it does compare are we able to draw conclusions about different religious behaviours, and if it doesn't compare, then what is morally different between the two satires?

Any thoughts and ramblings would be encouraged.

Yours, in love, Mr. TriSickle.

John McCain = Human Garbage

As part of his last ditch attempts to fool people into not voting for Obama, John 'I'm a Maverick' McCain has gleefully descended into into the human filth that seems to compose the Republican party.
The focus of his campaign now seems to be scare voters away from Obama. In their final debate McCain pitifully bleated that a voter enrolment group, ACORN (associated with Obama) "is now on the verge of maybe perpetuating one the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, MAYBE DESTROYING THE FABRIC OF DEMOCRACY." (My emphasis)
Now, these are serious claims, and they certainly warrant investigation and explanation. Yet the political import McCain's pig-screams cannot be understated. Democrat Congressman John Conyers raises the issue of the FBI leaks about the ACORN investigation. The concern here is that the leaks from a supposedly independent arm of the government were intended to influence the outcome of this year's election.

But, to my main point, how can John McCain say this crap and maintain his dignity as a human? Let me repeat his words - "maybe destroying the fabric of democracy'. My response to that consists of three words (and one letter) George W Bush President? This is the party who, through electoral fraud, stole the 2000 election. Stole? Yes. Whether it was the erasing of racial minorities from voter rolls, the collusion of the conservative dominated media in swinging the Florida vote or the role that Republican judges played in deciding that George W was the president, to name but a few examples, the 2000 election made a sham of democracy.

Well, that was just once, a one off, one might say. Wrong. The 2004 election was again plagued by Republican manipulation. And now, the same process is being repeated. Now, maybe I am simply a commie, blinded by my liberal bleeding heart, deliberately searching for facts to match my bias. But these examples seem factually accurate, and display the Republican party as willing to sacrifice democracy to keep their talons on the position of the president.

Over reaction? Perhaps. But when one reads that some republicans are attempting to prevent voters from voting in this election, because the banks have foreclosed on their home, one finds the bile rises to throat quicker than you can say 'democracy is the right to equal representation'.

No, John McCain, the ACORN situation is not a threat to the fabric of democracy. The Republican Party tore that fabric up years ago, wiped their arse with it, and now you want to jam that stinking rag in the face of U.S. voters? You sir, are garbage.

The Ethics of Ethics

So it's a bit mean of me to pick on the Ticking time bomb argument (TTBA) in any of its forms, because it gets so much bad press. As it stands, I'm not really going after the conceptual problems with the TTBA, but more the practical realities of some of the empirical presuppositions I think it reast on.

Today's news article that brings all this up was on the cover of the wikinews site, which I use because its often a cross-referenced amalgam of a number of news sources, which I find intuitively somewhat more promising. At the very least it provides a convenient dump site for the big reports on the same issue across the massive news industry that sprawls the length and breadth of Interwebia.

The article, stating that Secret memos reveal Bush administration endorsed torture made me a touch cross. The kicker was when apparently Condeleezza rice, in all her obvious care and compassion, had questioned whether or not waterboarding was legal or not.

...

wait for it.

...

IT'S TORTURE! YOU ARE TORTURING PEOPLE! USING TORTURE METHODS! OF TORTURE!

Honestly! How can these people live with themselves? How can they be so STUPID!? Legal? Did anyone stop to even look up what Waterboarding was? Who cares if its allowed (which I'm pretty sure its not, Condie)? TORTURE!

And yet, philosophers and lawyers alike persist in constructing scenarios which could give these people a foothold for legitimacy? I mean, we worry about the scientists doing the research to give the technology to build the weapons, but the ethicists are creating and legitimising the tools by which corrupt administrations will attempt to vindicate themselves! Should we be analysing the ethics of giving these logical tools? Its worse than guns, we're giving these people the tools to send our sense of decency back to a place that even cavepeople would look and go "Grarg? (translation: What the F***?)"

Maybe I should start another dissertation on dual-use ethics. Because sure, its a nice little set of thought experiments, but its like the bright idea of whoever it was to give George W. Bush the words "just" and "war." Should we as philosophers be culpable for giving evil people the tools to try and justify atrocities?

Palin into insignificance

I just red some leftist propaganda about my sweet love, Sarah 'I-can-see-Russia' Palin.

Supposedly, McCain's (i.e. Palin's boss) support among women is far behind that of Obama. One poll puts 55% of women backing Obama, while 38% back McCain. I must admit, I am a little bamboozled. She is a women, a pretty one too. Isn't this enough for women to support her? Why are they so stupid. She is a women and so are other women. Women should vote for her, that's how it works. (Ignore her failings as a politician, her inexperience, her jarring ignorance and general ineptitude and vote her in dammit!)

Tonight Sarah Palin gets to go toe to toe with Joe Biden tonight. Fairness dictates that no-one will ask her any questions that she cannot answer. It will be telling to see how the heartless baby-murdering democrap sympathisers show their hands by asking questions that they know she cannot answer. I mean, sure, she may not know much about foreign policy, economics, health care, but she was a beauty queen. And as George W has shown, a lack knowledge of foreign policy, economics and health care is certainly no impediment to a successful presidency.

iViva Life!

Failure of democracy or evidence of its success?

For those of you following the current US economy, no doubt you are enthralled by the failure of the US$700 Billion bailout of their economy. The proposed emergency legislation was canned last night, in a decision of 205 for and 228 against. ( Interestingly, the party split was 33% Republicans in favour and 60% Democrats in favour. Despite this, however, some lay the failure of the rescue plan at the feet of the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who is a Democrat.)

Bipartisanship aside, it seems that one of the decisive factors was the looming election, and politician's fears of supporting an unpopular policy. “People’s re-elections played into this to a much greater degree than I would have imagined”

So this raises the question, is this evidence of a mortal failure of the model of representative democracy or a rallying cry, screaming that it is very much alive and kicking? On one hand, this may show that a politician's chief concern is re-election: Blind to all other considerations until this condition has been met, politicians are willing to sacrifice anything to maintain personal power. On the other hand, however, this may show that politicians are deeply receptive to the fears and wishes of their constituents, and won't be bullied into supporting something that they don't believe, simply because their party leaders command them.

So what does it all mean? Are we watching the collapse of representative democracy as we know it, or witness to its phoenix-like rise from the ashes?

Things making me angry today:

Okay, it's really only one thing right now.

Recently a Muslim school plan in the outer Sydney suburb of Camden was rejected, causing a lot of outcry about racism (a pig's head was found staked to the potential site with nasty signs and a lot of residents showing terrible behaviour).

The council ended up rejecting it based on the apparent fact that the plans didn't meet requirements.

However! Now a Catholic school has applied for a similar school (but with Catholics of course :P ) and the president of the local residents group, Emil Sremchevich, who campaigned very loudly against the Muslim school, said that this new school application should be just fine because they're Catholics (before he even looked at the application).

"Why is that racist? Why is it discriminatory? It's very simple: people like some things but don't like other things. Some of us like blondes, some of us like brunettes. Some of us like Fords, some of us like Holdens. Why is it xenophobic just because I want to make a choice? If I want to like some people and not like other people, that's the nature of the beast."

ARGH. STUPID IGNORANT PEOPLE OMG.

Let's hope the council treats this application the same way as the Muslim school. Mob rules are not okay!

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/catholics-welcome-muslims-not/2008/09/08/1220857456711.html

Emo Brings Down The Russian Bear

Supposedly, according to the Blogosphere Russia is banning Emos, because they might kill themselves or bring down the Russian Government.

Well, it looks like I might have to ditch the Heavy Metal/Punk stuff that I have been holding onto for so long, and get with the real winners, Emos.

To paraphrase Bill Hicks:

A guy says, “I hate Emos,” and I said, “Why?” He goes, “Because they killed Russia.” They believe that. If I believed that the Emos killed Russia, I’d worship the Emos, ’cause shit, there’s some badasses on that team, man. I haven’t seen Russia ever, I see Emos all the time – go figure.

Ethics And Politics?

Yes, though strange befellows they may be, it looks like some people are trying to arrange a marriage between the most unlikely of partners: Ethics and politics.

This brings to mind the old joke - How do you know if a politician is lying? Their lips are moving.
Also bings up a new joke - How do you know if a politician is acting ethically? Their lips are moving, but no forks are involved, and they are standing.

What?

In the U.S. the 2007 'Honest Leadership and Open Government Act' has had what some would consider a strange effect on the current electioneering process. As reported in the NY Times article "Corporations and convention party planners are scrambling to comply with sweeping ethics rules in the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 that prohibit lobbyists from paying for gifts, including meals and music, for members of Congress and their staffs." Some lobbyists are finding it so hard to work out what is allowed (hence ethical) that they are having to resort to talking to lawyers to find loopholes to exploit. And in the worse case scenario, the poor lobbyists have had to cancel events.

Boo hoo. In a system where there are more lobbyists than congresspeople and where almost US$3,000,000,000 was spent on lobbying politicians in one year, perhaps these parasites, predators and vermin can do with a little less food, and a little more self reflection.

Whether legislating 'ethics' will actually work or not, is a different question. As we all know, basing laws on good intentions can have some horrible results. As the old saying goes, if you outlaw ethics, only the outlaws will have ethics. Spooky eh?

Psychologists and torture -- the APA saga

When the US government started using psychologists in interrogation techniques against terrorism suspects at Guantanamo, the members of the American Psychological Association expected some sort of condemnation from their professional organisation. Instead they argued about whether psychologists had actually been present and essentially avoided discussing the issue. Eventually a task force of members was set up to investigate the ethics of psychology and interrogation, but it turned out that most of the members of the task force were part of the military. The report was denounced by the non-military members and since then some anti-torture resolutions have been established, but they are full of exploitable legal holes, not to mention the fact that they haven't applied these to a single case, even though there have been some high-profile obvious cases of psychologists being involved in interrogation.

This month a lot is happening in the APA, as general elections are being called. It'll be interesting to see how it unfolds.

More info from The Boston Globe and Mind Hacks.

The Measure of a Robot (from io9)

io9.com gives us this amazing chart, The Measure of a Robot:

I find it intriguing how they explain the placement of the robots on the good/evil axis: they explain that some robots are good because they were just programmed to be evil, yet many of those far on the evil scale are just pure evil. How do they know? Surely those robots are as much a victim of their programming as the good ones?



I'm sure there's some dual-use dilemma stuff in here, Nick!



But what I want to know is, where does GladOS fit? :) (and since when is a "box" a robot? HAL & MCP & the Wargames computer were computers, not robots...)

(Via io9.)