Independence Day is also a perfect opportunity to declare, proudly, that I am not a patriot. I love or loath nation-states in proportion to their virtues and vices. Patriotism is simply a modern incarnation of tribalism. Politicians use patriotism encourage citizens to support their state precisely when it undertakes those actions which least deserve our support.

For a more developed condemnation of patriotism (Only slightly longer! Worth the read!) I point you to the writing of Herbert Spencer, which remains poignant after more than a century.

If, owing to the complexities and uncertainties of life, the rule “don’t lie” produces the best consequences over the long run, and it just so happens that in a particular instance telling a lie led to a good result, then ex ante the liar acted wrongly but ex post did good. I would contend that deontology is a doctrine that operates from the ex ante point of view while consequentialism operates from the ex post point of view. Seen in this light the two are not mutually exclusive…

It’s most satisfying when a major philosophical problem is revealed to not be a problem at all once seen from the proper perspective. Much kudos to Matt McIntosh!

I would just like to note one potentially confusing issue. McIntosh’s piece addresses the variety of deontic ethics native to philosophy departments. Another species of deontology, which finds its niche outside the ivory tower, is willing to maintain that actions may be morally wrong (or right) even if their long-run consequences are beneficial (or detrimental); for this sort of deontologist, consequences are ultimately beside the point. Followers of such hard-core deontic ethics would doubtless object to McIntosh and fellow philosophers referring to themselves as deontologists. Conversely, academic philosophers typically denote these hard-core deontologists as “religious wackos”.

To see how professional Creation scientists approach the natural world, read Abbie Smith’s tour de force account of scientific inquiry (and creationist inquiry) into the “VPU” gene/protein in HIV.

And, you see, scientists arent like ‘Creationist’ scientists. They dont see a black box, declare a deity made the box, and take the rest of the week off. Scientists see problems and demand answers.

Why not take the week off? What do those Darwinist pigs think they’re going to learn anyway?

In six months, evolutions ‘just so story’ [led to the discovery of a new anti-viral component of the human innate immune system, suggesting] new drug targets for new HIV/AIDS therapies, and a brand new avenue of research for immunologists and virologists all over the world
…
What has Behe been doing the past six months?

I don’t really think an “Item Two” is necessary after that. Creation Science is a joke. A very bad joke.

After reading PZ’s post, I really need fresh breath of saner, more reality-based thinking. I’m now turning off the computer and heading to the library to check out Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Hat tip to The Quantum Ponitiff for finding this hilarious video (or should that be a mitre tip?).

Backing up to a remote server is nice since I don’t have to fumble about with DVDs or tapes or anything of the sort. Furthermore, it’s good to have off-site backups. On the down side, I’m now trying to push 45GB of data up to this server (the same one hosting this site) at 36.6 KB/s; this could take a while. My music collection, ripped from CDs to FLAC, comprises 32GB of that. Slow as this is, I’ll be glad to have an off-site copy of it; if my house were burnt or burgled, losing all my music would be one of the worst losses.

In a recent post, he carefully explains why it is unreasonable, in light of our best physical theories, to believe in telekinesis and other parapsychological phenomena.

If you haven’t already seen it, make sure to read Sean’s essay on What I Believe But Cannot Prove, which is a broad discussion of logic, observational evidence, proof, and the limits of our knowledge.

Yet many people feel instinctively uncomfortable when we talk about ditching multiculturalism – for a good reason. The only alternative they are aware of is the old whiter-than-white monoculturalism.
…
There is a better way for the state to understand and regulate human differences, beyond the old oppositions of [a unified National Culture] and multiculturalism. It is called liberalism.
…
The job of a liberal state is not to stamp The True National Essence on its citizens, nor to promote “difference” for its own sake. It is to uphold the equal rights of every individual – whether they are white men or Muslim women. It has one liberal culture, with freedoms used differently by different people.

Hear, hear!

As in past mass shootings, this incident isn’t likely produce any significant changes in firearms laws. This political stasis reflects an underlying lack of intellectual progress on the issue. Every person with a developed opinion on gun issues, whether pro- or anti-gun, will see this latest massacre as further confirmation of their prior views.

There are, I think, essentially two reasons for this. Firstly, this latest shooting lacks any truly novel features which might distinguish it from previous ones. It presents redundant data which adds nothing new to the gun-law debate.

The second reason is more problematic. Firearms issues have become deeply intwined into the social identities of many people on both the political Left and Right. This situation has been status quo for a long time now, but I want to point out just how odd the status quo is. A priori, gun law is not an issue one would expect people to become emotionally invested in. After all, both the pro- and anti-gun sides agree on the ends being sought: to prevent the killing of innocent people. These rival factions disagree only on the best means to that end. In contrast, disagreement on ends is at the core of most political issues which produce impassioned discord (gay marriage, abortion, etc.). In a more sensible world, the relative merits of restrictive vs. liberal gun laws would be thought of as a merely technical issue, akin to, say, inflation targeting vs. increasing the money supply at a constant rate. No one excludes people from their dinner parties for having the wrong views on monetary policy.

I won’t speculate on why gun law has become an identity issue for so many people. I just want to ask all of you to stop. Stop thinking of people on the opposite side of this issue as ignorant hicks, as disconnected ivory-tower liberals, as violent barbarians, or as totalitarian socialists. The people on the opposite side of this issue are not evil. Allow me to offer a few concrete tips for cultivating a less shrill, more productive discussion on gun law.

Pro-gun people: Instead of writing rants full of inflammatory jackassery, I suggest that you present the arguments for your position in a cool, logical manner. Calmly explain why you think that liberalizing gun laws will save innocent lives. Emphasize that your goal is saving innocent lives. Make an effort to live down the “gun nut” stereotype, rather than encourage it.

Anti-gun people: Do not smugly assume that you hold the moral high ground (remember what I said about both sides seeking the same ends?). Stop trying to advance your cause by using empty emotional appeals to insinuate that only violent, evil people are pro-gun. Start attacking your opponent’s argument on its strongest points.

Since the “gun nut” stereotype is a well-established meme, I’ll assume that everyone reading this has a good idea what I’m talking about when I refer to pro-gun jackassery. (If not, the internet has plenty of hot-headed pro-gun rants for your enlightenment.) I feel, however, that I should offer an example of the sort of bad behavior I’m condemning on the anti-gun side.

PZ Myers provides an excellent example:

I suspect that the reason schools have been targets is that they are full of optimistic young people who are exercising their opportunity to learn and preparing for a productive place in society … and the hateful, petty pissants who believe guns and violence are the answer resent that. Let’s not see any more proposals that violence in reply is the answer, it isn’t — it’s an echo of the same problem.

Upon reading this, my first question is whether PZ is a strict pacifist, who believes that it’s never appropriate for anyone to use violence in any situation. I don’t wish to detour into a critique of strict pacifism, but suffice to say there are excellent reasons that it isn’t a very popular philosophy; I thus strongly suspect that PZ is not a strict pacifist. Furthermore, I suspect that had the gunman at Northern Illinois University been shot and killed by a police officer PZ would not write a post condemning the officer as an evil, hateful person.

I think that it would be completely appropriate, under those circumstances, for a police officer to resort to violence, and I think that PZ does too. Really, everyone except the strict pacifists agrees that when faced with a deranged shooter, violence is an appropriate response. Yes, that’s right, violence is the solution. It’s not a pretty solution or one that we should be eager to resort to, but in some situations it is nonetheless the best option available. And unless you’re a strict pacifist, you agree with me on this point.

However, even people who aren’t strict pacifists can give sensible arguments in favor of restrictive gun laws. Advocates of the anti-gun position should do just that if they want to convince anyone or change any laws. Of course, if you’re more interested in establishing your membership in a particular social tribe which has co-opted gun politics into its identity, it’s a lot more effective to simply call the people on the other side nasty names.

To finish, I want to reiterate my call for everyone to cool down, take a deep breath, and remind themselves just how silly it is to form your social identity around the issue of gun laws. Invite some people with whom you disagree about guns to your dinner parties. (Not all of them are savage hillbillies / evil socialists. Really!)

I think that pretty much sums up the issue.

The only reason I’m posting this is because I’ve long dreamed of launching an array of satellites able to act as a huge billboard in the sky. On the first night, I’d arrange for them to read “I am God and I am real”. As for subsequent nights, well, the possibilities are limitless. (”God says: Thou shalt honor the sabbath day by breakdancing to minimalist music in a kiddie pool full of borscht.”)

Please leave suggestions as to what God should say in the comments. The best ideas will appear in the night sky just as soon as my satellites are up and running.

Actually, there is a broader point to this post: if you see some extraordinary phenomenon, don’t just assume that it’s beyond your mortal comprehension. Take a closer look. Investigate. Make an attempt to understand what’s going on. Be curious about the world.

This evening I encountered a creationist while working on math in a cafe. This particular creationist thought that stars burn out on a timescale much shorter than billions of years, and hence the Earth could not possibly be that old. The creationist, who happened to be an engineering student, couldn’t give any particular reason as to why he thought the entire astrophysics community was so egregiously wrong. However, what I found most appalling was that he had not the slightest interest in figuring out just why accepted models make such terribly wrong predictions about stellar lifetimes. He didn’t care at all about how stars work.

Ask an angry atheist why they dislike religion, and you’ll most likely hear about how religion encourages humankind’s worst impulses: sexism, out-group hostility, violence, etc. There’s plenty of reason to be angry at the Osama bin Ladens of the world, but right now I’m just as furious at religion for what it did to the kid I met in the cafe as I am for what it did to the World Trade Center. That kid, that engineer, was not a stupid person. Yet he was told — by some non-violent, moderate, downright friendly pastor — that all of The Answers can be found in the collected mystic ramblings of a bunch of desert nomads. Those theists took a smart, talented kid and utterly crushed his sense of curiosity about the world. I’m mad at Christianity for destroying what was best and most noble in that kid, and so many others like him.

Congress can no more guarantee that fuel prices will go down from now until the end of time than it can guarantee a robust sex life for fat, balding, middle-aged men.

Supply and demand, baby. Suppy and demand.

Public choice theory tells us that such a law can exist because its costs are widely dispersed over the entire book-buying public, while its benefits are concentrated on a much smaller group of companies. The harm to each individual book buyer is so small that it isn’t worth any individual’s effort to attempt to overturn the law (or even pay it much attention); meanwhile, the small group of beneficiaries has strong incentives to protect the law.

That explanation is good, so far as it goes. But how did the French Booksellers’ Union, in particular, mangage to land such a cushy deal? Why haven’t the Redheaded League and the Fraternity of Poodle Owners secured similar benefits for themselves? The International Herald Tribune tells us that

The 1981 Lang law was passed at a time when booksellers were losing sales to supermarkets and other new competitors. It was meant to assure that the French public had equal access to a wide variety of books, both high-brow and low-brow, not just heavily marked-down publications.

I trust my readers will, after a moment’s thought, see the absurdity of that attempt to justify the law. But most people aren’t really in the habit of thinking about things, and I can see how such a justification might appear plausible to people who view free markets with general antipathy — as the French (in)famously do. Weak as that justification may be, it still sounds more plausible than any I can think of for showering Redheads or Poodles with taxpayer money. That, I think, is an important reason the Bookseller’s Union succeeded where other potential rent-seekers did not.

A dreadfully ironic corollary follows from this analysis. The more strongly voter sentiment disfavors free-market capitalism, the more the likely they are to swallow the sort of bullshit explanation seen above and let their pockets be picked by rent-seeking corporations. Kinda sad, really.

Huge kudos to Amazon.com for standing up to this madness. (The French are by no means the only people in the world dumb enough to buy such BS, but news on the lawsuit against Amazon earned them my scorn today.)