How Far We've Come in 13 Years

It's been 13 years since extremists attacked the USA. 13 years, and the world seems just as dangerous as it was before. The heady days of the Arab Revolution, when waves of democracy and popular rule were sweeping the middle east, are long gone. Egypt is back where is started, Syria never finished falling in the first place, and Libya is in the middle of a new civil war. Not to mention ISIS. Oh and Ebola is slowly decimating Africa, country by country.

But consider this. Osama Bin Laden is dead, along with nearly every senior Al Qaeda commander from the time. The new World Trade Center building is almost complete. Unemployment is getting close to falling under 6%, and the GDP is up. Plus technology marches on. Direct brain to electrical connection, internet so fast you could download the Library of Congress in minutes, fully electric cars which go hundreds of miles between charges, and even reusable rockets which can land vertically, all coming down the pipeline.

The world is in a race. A race between technology and entropy, and I speak of entropy metaphorically. Entropy is the forces of chaos, the forces of destruction. Extremist religion (of all flavors), global climate change, diseases such as Ebola, poverty, and even just the natural slow progression of all governments into totalitarianism.

And it isn't new. History and human civilization are cyclical. The forces of chaos knock everything down, and then we slowly rebuild. We get knocked down, and we rebuild. 1200BC, 500AD, both times civilization collapsed. But each time, we retained more technology than before. The only question that remains is how far we can get before the next collapse. I have high hopes. I look around and see how fast we are progressing, and I think we can beat it. I think that my generation can be the first to permanently colonize something that isn't on Earth. We we can spread out, we can finally break the cycle, and then how far do you think we'll go?

Vegetarianism - A Choice?

A friend of mine on Facebook posted a status stating (paraphrase): You should avoid saying to vegetarians that "Well it's not that you can't eat meat. You choose to be a vegetarian." I humbly disagree. It could be phrased better, certainly. The thought behind it, though, that being a vegetarian is a choice, is true.

Being a vegetarian IS a choice for most vegetarians. Granted, there are always those few people who are allergic to meat [Ref.]. However, the vast majority of vegetarians choose it for moral reasons. They choose what they perceive to be the higher moral path, which is to avoid being responsible for the killing of animals. Granted, the question of the morality of eating animals is still being debated frequently and vehemently. However, if you are the type of person who reads this blog, you've probably read arguments on both sides before so I won't waste your time rehashing. For the purposes of this direct topic, it's enough to say that vegetarians believe they are making the moral choice.

The disconnect, I think, is that my friend believes that saying something is a choice makes it seem less sound ... less respectful. More flighty, maybe. This is probably of their experience in the marriage equality struggle. One of the main arguments of traditional marriage proponents is that being gay is a choice. By saying that, they are diminishing it. In this case though, saying that choice is the primary reason doesn't diminish.

I hold that not only does the fact that choice is the primary reason not diminish being a vegetarian, it does the opposite. Saying that it isn't a choice is what diminishes. That idea robs vegetarians of their free will. It robs them of their choice to take the moral high road. Lets use an analogy:

Person X is driving along out in the middle of no where, and they see hitchhiker. For the sake of argument, this hitchhiker is homeless with no family, and somehow Person X knows this. They are far from any witnesses or cameras. Person X could stop, kill, and rob the hitchhiker without getting caught. They don't, and pass on by.

Person Y is driving along in the middle of New York City, and sees a hitchhiker. This hitchhiker has lots of family connections that would notice a disappearance, and there are witnesses and cameras all around. Person Y could stop, kill, and rob the hitchhiker, but would absolutely by caught. They don't, and pass on by.

I hold that Person X's action of passing by without doing anything to the hitchhiker is morally good, because it's not under duress. It's a totally free choice. Person Y is under duress. They are under threat of reprisal, be is jail-time, loss of income, maybe even the death penalty. Person Y's action of passing by isn't immoral, but it's not moral either. Any time an action is forced, it's not a free choice and therefore neither moral or immoral. That person doesn't have the opportunity to made the moral decision.

This applies because if we hold that vegetarianism is the higher moral path, then if a person has a free choice and they choose to follow it, they are taking that higher moral path. If it's not a choice though, we are robbing them of that opportunity to make the moral choice, just as the duress does for Person Y. Therefore acknowledgement of the fact that it is a choice does not diminish the vegetarian, it in fact is an acknowledgement of their taking a higher moral path. Not because it's forced upon them, but because they of their own free will are choosing to take the hard road, the moral road. I think that that is a good thing to acknowledge.

Why Politics Are Interesting

I read an article today discussing Obama's approval rating, which is starting to rise as unemployment falls. It's helped, the article said, by a very divided GOP field. I asked myself, why do I follow politics so closely, it's not like my knowledge is going to make a difference. What I thought of then was a scene from Star Wars, Episode III.



The scene was near the end, the battle between Mace Windu and Darth Sidious. I've loved that scene ever since I first saw the movie, because I felt like it was crafted to well. What makes it such a powerful scene is because everything, the fate of the galaxy, hinges on it. Mace Windu is the arms master of the entire Jedi order. Yoda might be the most powerful with the force, but Windu is the strongest of combat. He's therefore the only Jedi, the only one, who's skilled and powerful enough to defeat Sidious. And he does, when it's one on one. Without outside interference, he would have won, and the Republic would have survived. That is what makes Anikan's betrayal so significant. His betrayal at that moment, changes the outcome, from defeat to victory for Sidious, and everything else follows. With Windu gone, Sidious gives the order to the clones to begin killing all other Jedi, and Anikan destroys the Jedi temple. Later not even Yoda can defeat Sidious, and retreats, completing Sidious's victory.

Again, the reason I find this scene so compelling is that it leads in two completely different directions, depending on it's outcome. The universe, everything, is doubled at that moment, for both possible outcomes exist. Until the end of the battle at least. And I find real world politics the same way, if not to as high a degree.

Until the end of the race, we have two different outcomes, both of which are equally possible. That means that there is so much more in the world, and entire doubling of everything, looking into the future. It's fascinating, looking and exploring both possible outcomes, and knowing that right now, they both exist equally.
 

Pornography, Wrong Because?

I was recently reading an article about Pornography. In AlJazeera no less! I won't get into talking about the article itself, it had some points, as well as a lot if internal contradictions, you can read it if you want. I was struck though by some of the comments. One in particular:

Your moral standards hit Bikini Bottom.
Pornography is wrong because it uses woman for the entertainment of others.
It's wrong because you wouldn't like your child to watch it.
It's wrong because you feel guilty after you watch those kind of things.

I'd just like to take a second to analyze this. The first line is simply ad hominem, so we can ignore it.

The second boils down to two things. 1, we are using women for the entertainment. 2, that is morally wrong. Both of these are incorrect. Pornography does use women, that is true. But is is misleading, because pornography also uses men. We use PEOPLE, not women, for entertainment. The second part is the statement that using them is wrong. But using people for entertainment isn't wrong. Movies, Television, Music, all use other people to entertain us. The content might be wrong, but the fact that other people are entertaining us isn't inherently bad.

The third line says that you shouldn't let your child watch it, and so it's morally wrong. The problem here is the author makes no differentiation between children and adults. There are many things that I wouldn't let my child do that I don't think are morally wrong. Join the military, getting married and have sex, skydiving. None of these are morally wrong. They do however, require maturity and the ability to reason, which children don't have yet. I wouldn't want my child to look at pornography. That doesn't mean it's morally wrong for an adult though.

Finally the fourth line says that it is wrong because we feel guilty after watching. Well, I don't feel guilty, and it's hardly my problem is the author does. Whether an action is ethically wrong or right cannot be dependent on feelings of guilt because feelings of guilt aren't universal. A skilled psychologist could condition someone to feel massive feelings of guilt at watching porn. That psychologist could also condition that person to feel zero guilt. Do those changeable feelings dictate that porn is morally wrong or not? No, they don't, because ethics isn't based on perception. Reality isn't based on belief. The majority at one point believed the Earth was flat, which didn't change the fact that the Earth is round. I can feel guilty after looking at porn because I believe it's morally wrong, which doesn't change the fact that porn isn't morally wrong.
 

Musings of a Sleep Deprived Mind

As I move into the second half of my 22nd year, I find myself pondering age. Until we reach 21, birthdays are one of the most important days of the year. Sweet 16, you can date! 18, you're legally an adult! 21, drinkin'! And then ... aging becomes bad. Suddenly you are 30, and then 50, and your life is gone.

Time speeds up as one ages. Maybe it's because we are busier, maybe it's because we are more used to it, having been around longer. But it's a rare day now that seems to be going too slow. That's one reason I enjoy my job, I have so little to do this summer that the time crawls. But while they might seem unpleasant, it's still better to be here than to be dead.

I should be working on username validation at the moment, but the past two nights in a row I got about 4 hours sleep. I can do that for one night and go through the day just fine. Two nights stretches it though, and at this point I'm just trying to get through the first part of my shift so I can go take a nap.

Speaking of naps, I wonder, is it really us waking up when we go to bed? Stargate SG1 was based around the Stargate, a device which transported people to other planets. But one we didn't mention is that to do that, it killed the person walking in, sent a record to the other stargate, and then the other stargate compiled a new person. The person never knew the difference, because they seemed to be walking in and then out. But what if the initial gate malfunctioned and didn't kill the person walking in. There would be two? Which would be the real one? With sleep, is the personality and consciousness that is ME, disappearing when I go to sleep? Does something new awake each time, inheriting my memories?