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.

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?

Ethics: Why Bother?

Having the heart of a puppy, it is easily crushed by the Iron-Boot of reality and ofttimes this leaves screaming in rage or sobbing in a dark corner. Everything is shyte, has gone to far, and why should we bother at all? This presents quite a problem for the aspiring ethicist: am I doing this to actually try and change something, or is it more some form of self-interested egotistical mind-wank where I am doing this to feel good about myself or atone for some existential sins of the past (and future).
Basically, why bother?

Well, I am just reading the article 'Why Bother' by Michael Pollan a fellow who writes some pretty beautiful and elegant books, one of which - The Botany Of Desire - I have read and can strongly recommend. Anyway, in this article, Pollan puts forward a case for trying to do something about climate on an individual level, which is pretty heartening and maybe evening a little empowering.

One of Pollan's lovely lines from Why Bother reminds me of why we should bother: "For us to wait for legislation or technology to solve the problem of how we’re living our lives suggests we’re not really serious about changing — something our politicians cannot fail to notice. They will not move until we do."

So, Take heart, my kittens. The world may be the darkest of places, but there is hope for change, and it can only be done by people (with the hearts of puppies perhaps).

U.S. Federal Election

I am sure that some of our loyal and devoted fan base (consisting of millions, no doubt) have been following the recent developments in the U.S. Federal Election.
First off, we have Obama as the first 'non-white' major party candidate, then McCain names Sarah Palin as his running mate/potential Vice President. She is young (mid fourties) conservative, and she is female. She also has five children, one of them 17, pregnant and - shock horror - unwed. As the dirt diggers fire up their engines, and rumours and scuttlebut abound, I am become more and more fascinated by this election. Obviously the outcome wil be interesting, but to see what happens during the process leading to the outcome will be really really interesting.

Just to add a little slacademic fuel to this fire, this is a quote from our girl Sarah P from today's Australian: She is expected to highlight her focus on ethics issues in Alaska and other accomplishments...

Hmmm, I wonder if she takes an irrealist or a non-descriptive cognitivist approach, or whether she is a full blown realist. Methinks the last.

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.

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.

No ranting this morning.

I've got some, y'know, work to do. However, for those interested in how to change the world, I think that this demonstration by His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, is just phenomenal. Some linkies below.

The Dalai Lama on the Beijing Olympics

A little lightening of the mood.

With all the killing of puppies that's been going on ( see below), I thought I'd record an event that happened today that made me smile and remember that, despite all these terrible things happening in the world, and the way that the business world loves jerking us around, etc., that there are still nice people around. So, I little back story will be needed, but bear with me.

I'm building a bike at the moment from some old parts, and I needed to deconstruct an old 3-cog chainring setup. It requires a tool that looks a bit like this, a tool which (until now) I did not have access to. So, I rock into a bike shop at lunchtime, and enquire about said chainring wrench (the above tool). The guy doesn't have one for sale, but lends me his, on the verbal agreement that I'd bring it back tomorrow.

It sounds like a small thing, but little things are important. That a person would be willing to lend me a specialty tool instead of forcing me to order one is fantastic. An added bonus? When I enquired as to where I could purchase a T25 torx key, he gave me one of his. For free. Not every day one gets gifted like this.

Its been a good day. For those out there nerdy in their pursuits, I invite you to observe this. The orchestra isn't great, but it is a bunch of non-pros playing. Still, fantastic.

I think what is missing from Rawls is a theory of being awesome.

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.)