Ends, Means and the Arbitrary Execution of Power

My sister used to like to, as a sort of coup-fourré of any argument, snap "So, you're saying the end justifies the means."

It stumped me for a while, because everyone knows the ends don't justify the means. But then I realized she had reframed the argument in the wrong way, and began to retort, "The means don't require justification!" What I had realized was that she didn't like the ends, and was attacking the means rather than just coming right out and saying she didn't like the ends. (Sometimes she also didn't like the means, because she really didn't much like it when I did anything.)

I thought of this while I was driving and, as many of us do, wondering about whether I might be pulled over. I wasn't doing anything wrong I don't think. I wasn't speeding, hadn't done any reckless lane changes. I was driving the Bumblebee, which may not be compliant with all the laws. (I recently had to outfit it with a new catalytic converter to pass a smog test.)

And it reminded me of something Althouse said a while ago that appalled me: She said that universally applying the law would be horrible. I think she even used traffic laws as an example.

I, on the other hand, tend to view universal application to be a necessary requirement for justice and reasonable governance. Speed limit laws? If they were universally applied, they'd quickly be (mostly) repealed. And so it is with, I think, most of the laws—particularly "regulations", which are of course just laws that have been passed in violation of the way the Constitution allows—would go away were they all enforced.

What this means is that the government gets to pick-and-choose who to prosecute, allowing for the arbitrary exercise of power. This is often done for political reasons, but it's also just done because it can be.

This is particularly relevant in light of the recent James O'Keefe case, where he was prosecuted for doing what has been standard practice in journalism for as long as I can remember. Burying the lede about Senator Landrieu's lying, the old media completely unselfconsciously is labeling O'Keefe a "criminal" and an "activist" for doing what they've been doing since I was born.

It's such a dog-bites-man story these days that it's barely worth noticing, much like the old media itself. "It's only okay when we do it," they're telling us.

But this itself made me reflect on the phrase "the end justifies the means", and how the thinking of that is meant to be the very epitome of evil.

But when you think about it, the intended end is the only thing that can rationalize any means. I mean, think about it: You suffer many injustices in your day-to-day life, don't you? (I know I do. Well, maybe not many, but enough.) But you don't (e.g.) fly a plane into the nearest Federal building because they ripped you off on your taxes.

OK, some people do, but we call them crazy, even if we agree they were poorly treated.

People always end up talking about Nazis when this ends/means thing comes up. But the Nazis had no trouble with the means—the means were, in fact, the point. The end was what was hazy. "We'll kill all the Jews and life will be great!" Hitler sure didn't believe that. He thought actually achieving that end would be awful and require him to make up a new target.

Stalin and Mao killed tens of millions. In their cases, the means actually were the ends. Yeah, I know all the blather about justice and immanetizing the eschaton and what-not, but the point of communism (and socialism and environmentalism and fascism) is raw, naked power which is what any dictator ends up with. Power and the ability to continue to exercise it.

(Sort of tangentially related, Matt & Ezra's Excellent Adventure continues unspoiled. One of them is bound to win the Walter Duranty Award for Oustandingly Naive Journalism.)

Nothing really revelational here, I just always find it interesting when I end up analyzing something I've assumed for years and found it not to be all that true.

Games and Life

"Nice civilization you're building for someone else there."

Freeman Hunt forwarded me this (somewhat hard to read) set of notes from the G4C conference. (There's an interesting story about Zynga and real-life donations on that G4C link. I've been studying Zynga for a while and have a post brewing about it.)

As I was reading it, I thought of the above quote, which I read on the Apolyton forums years ago, regarding the game Civilization. Some poor sap had developed this gorgeous civilization powered by art and culture (Civ 3 introduced the ability to conquer cities via culture) and was fretting because the cretins around him—with their pathetic attempts at art—had instead built up massive armies of guys with pointed sticks.

He was dismayed that all his culture and education was threatened by some barely literate clods still in the Stupid Ages.

And what I wondered at that point is whether or not the popularity of the computer strategy game might not have a profound impact on people's philosophies regarding the nature of war.

As noted in the pseudo-transcript above, games are models, and they have some limited value in their real-life application. Civ 3 was very good at emulating historical trends (at least as we perceive them from here, which is very skewed, but that's another story) such that industrialism, nationalism and treaties would almost always lead to massive world wars.

This, by the way, feeds into my prejudice about computer climate models. Civilization does a better job "predicting" the past than climate models do (but an awful job predicting the future).

But whatever the limitations, there is one thing that is true in every strategy game: The surest way to invite war is to not develop militarily.

The motivations are (one would hope) not exactly the same: Strategy games tend to be zero sum. If you conquer the world in Civ with a bunch of rock-wielding cavemen, well, you've still conquered the world. The game ends at that point, with you victoriously ruling the stone ages.

Nonetheless, it only takes one guy—one Attila or Genghis or Napoleon—to convince his people that, yeah, they pretty much should be running the show, to turn a bunch of weakly defended countries into fuel for a war machine.

Peace (for you) is only assured by being substantially stronger than the other guys.

Another interesting evolution in the Civ games is that while you may be hated if you're very powerful, people will act nice to your face. If you're weak, you'll be openly loathed, extorted and eventually conquered.

It's not just Civilization, though: Every 4x game I can think of (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) has the same basic rule. If you want peace, you have to make war an unpleasant prospect for others.

The modern 4X game is only about 15 years old, and Civilization not quite 20, but it's not hard to imagine that the lessons they teach might have an impact in coming years.

Bill Whittle on Charity

I'm always impressed by people who admit to their own foolishness in the kind of gory detail Bill Whittle does here. You can argue that it's self-serving, since he's talking how he recovered from his youthful foolishness, but he doesn't really talk about how wonderful he is. He just stops being a jackass (at least in this regard).

But there's an underlying truth: Charity is the quickest way to get someone to hate you. Nobody hates the gol-durned government like people on welfare. If you ever helped someone a lot and then had them turn on you, you know what I'm talking about. (Or if you've ever been that person.)

No good deed goes unpunished, as they say.

Whether it's because private charities have understood that in some fashion, or because they simply can't afford to give out endless streams of cash, it's been traditional for charities to require something back from those they help.

Parents run into this, too: Because kids want to help before they're capable, the parents get used to refusing that help, and by the time they're teens, the kids are so pissed they wouldn't help put the house out if it's on fire.

Not that this is going to change anything. But it would be nice to reverse this persistent equation that if you don't want to pour endless money into a problem, you don't care about that problem

Sonnets and Hosannas

As I grow old(er), I tend to be more convinced of the correctness of core traditional values, but equally so of the correctness of limited government. Hector and I have wrestled over religion before but for right now, I believe that the current Church is too enervated to roll back the tide of libertine-ism.

And, I should note, I'm not really anti-libertine-ism. I think there are probably some people who do the least damage they're likely to do if left to pursue their own self-gratification.

It just seems to be lacking as a social survival strategy.

I was taken by the use of this sonnet in Adventureland. (Shakespeare's sonnets are like the "Twilight Zone"s of poetry, they always have a twist ending.) You may recall that the main character sites this sonnet as the reason for his virginity; to wit, that he decided he'd rather forgo sex than have it with someone he didn't want to be slave to her desires. (My favorite, by the way, has always been sonnet #130, which I take as a 16th century "FACE" to other poets.)

Now, it's probably not a good idea to encourage kids to pattern their romantic lives after the poetry of 16th century courtiers, much less said courtiers' actual lives. But it occurred to me that a possible secular solution to licentiousness might be self-esteem.

But wait, you cry! Schools focus on self-esteem! If this were to be true, wouldn't our children already be experiencing the benefits?

At which suggestion, I point and laugh. And then feel a little bad for you that you don't know what self-esteem really is, or that it can't be given through trophies or awards, but must come from actual accomplishment.

Anyway, lacking a connection to their history, lacking any real knowledge or skills, young adults end up not valuing themselves. What's more, without getting puritanical or priggish, they don't seem to know from junk.

Now, again, I'm not particularly anti-junk. But I think a steady diet of junk food, junk art, junk accomplishments is naturally going to lead to junk sex, junk jobs and a complete bafflement as to what the hell happened--how one ended up with a junk life.

In Adventureland, the lead has a sense of not wanting his life to be junk. And it's telling (and accurate, I think) that those around him particularly mock him for those things that he values. (You know, you can't really be mocked for something you don't care about, which if you think about it, puts a different spin on a lot of "comedy" today.)

Adventureland is cast in the mold of an '80s teen sex farce, which only gave a fleeting nod (at best) to anything not junk. (They were junk, after all.) But that atmosphere pervaded the '70s, and into the mid-'80s, when AIDS put a damper on things.

Not just sex, either. If I were to try to capture that atmosphere, it would be a kind of nihilistic, materialistic, hedonistic world where good acts of individuals were overpowered by evil organizations. "If only," the zeitgeist seemed to say, "there were no religions or corporations, we could all live in harmony and do what we wanted until we died, because that's all there is or ever will be."

It's a seductive philosophy--I mean that in the way that a Twinkie is seductive or a $10 whore: That is, if you're trained to simply take the quickest, easiest, fastest way to satisfy an urge--or worse, you don't even have an inkling that there is another way, then the conclusion seems logical. Inevitable.

So, the extraordinary thing is how people immersed in this do end up valuing things that the pervasive social message says they should not. It wouldn't surprise me to survey kids like that and find real accomplishments compared to their peers. (I don't, by the way, mean to draw any kind of absolute there.) How does someone like James end up the way he does? And how is he able to stick to his guns? (I actually think the current system puts women at a serious disadvantage sexually, but that's another topic for another day.)

It also wouldn't surprise me to find that a strong education with an emphasis on historical traditions and an increasing emphasis on skills would reduce the amount of junk sex, and certainly the number of junk lives.

Which makes this one of those things that I write that seems stupidly obvious by the time I finish.

Perverse Optimism

As things get crazier and crazier in Washington D.C., I find myself more and more compelled toward the libertarian optimism I discussed here. Admittedly, yes, it's partly because the alternative is grim.

But the level of debt our President has just thrust upon us is unsustainable. We can't pay it off. Can't. Without confiscatory tax rates. (I give the Founding Fathers a lot of credit for what they knew could happen; I somehow wonder if it occurred to them that our leaders would simply destroy the economy to get what they wanted.) I think--I hope--it's too big a bite. I think we will rebel.

So, in that sense, the election of BHO is a good thing: We were complacently sliding into socialism, with just a few hiccups here and there. If this forces us to look it in the face and strike it down for real, our progeny benefit. If we this means the ship is upset for a few decades or more, it will be worth it.

That's also why things like this "Abortion is a blessing!" thing makes me optimistic. The Anchoress writes eloquently on this topic, and is always worth reading. I'm less concerned about abortion's legality than its social acceptability. I would like the laws (here, as everywhere) to be largely irrelevant.

But I'm convinced that abortion's acceptability has a lot to do with obfuscation. While most of the support for pro-choice comes, I believe, from a basically libertarian impulse, more than anyone wants to admit comes from a anti-human impulse.

I often say the impulse to be liberal can come from a genuine belief that government is the best solution, or the belief that people are too stupid to take care of themselves. Just as being a conservative can come from a faith in the individual, or a self lack of concern for others. The media determine which narrative is revealed, so they try not to show the ugly stuff of whatever's on their side.

And the thing about abortion is that it is really, really ugly. If you believe it's necessary sometimes or not, there's still no way it isn't a tragedy. And, actually, I think that's how most people view it. I think a small majority of people are uncomfortably pro-choice.

Information about abortion makes them more uncomfortable. Until recently, for example, I did not know that an abortion involved cutting up the fetus and then reassembling it ex utero to make sure you got all the parts.

I mean, look: Every day we see colonscopies, and hernia surgeries and whatever other medical procedures on the various educational channels. Why not abortions? Is it because--and I pause to chuckle here--right wing fundamentalists would protest?

Now, I am pro-choice to this degree: If a fertilized embryo is entitled to full legal protection, every woman's womb is a potential crime scene. That's the one extreme, of course. The other extreme is that fully viable babies are delivered and then murdered. And--let's get really uncomfortable now--that's where we are.

I'm perfectly fine that the abortion debate isn't settled; it shouldn't be. It's much like torture, in the sense that we have to balance two unethical situations (inflicting pain perhaps for no reason vs. allowing innocent lives to be lost). In this case, we have to balance what might colloquially be called murder against the power of the state to intrude into every person's most private life. (And I trust at this point in time, even the staunchest of pro-lifers can see that the government ultimately respects no limits to its power.)

I respect democracy in these areas, if only for lack of a better authority. Democracy can say, with stupid arbitariness that 20 weeks is a baby, where 19 weeks and 6 days is not. Injustices will occur.

What I object to, however, is the one-sidedness of the speech currently given exposure. It's important to realize that all these poor, non-white people having abortions was pretty much what the eugenicists wanted. (And what a sleight-of-hand to get their cooperation!) It's important to know what an abortion actually is. (I forced myself to look at a few pictures while writing this, something I'd always previously avoided.)

I object to those who wish to keep information away from women considering an abortion, if that information might tilt them away from having one.

So I applaud those who come out and say that it's a blessing. Or, for the more secularly inclined, that it's no big deal. Women should have more of them. And so on.

It wasn't long ago that we were inundated with stories about the crazies bombing abortion clinics--the anti-choice crowd you might call them; now let's get some stories about those who feel they should be allowed to completely shield a woman from any possible negative consequences of an abortion.

We can call them the anti-life crowd.

So, how was your week?

Despite the cash outlays, it was still a very good week. The birth of Ethan is a marvelous thing, not just because babies are wonderful, but because the Freefamily is, well, Chicken Little called Freeman "the strength of America", and that's not just poetic imagery.

I think one of the things feminism robbed from women--though not with complete success--was their specialness. The prevailing philosophy got it completely backwards: "Women's work" was always the important stuff. The world exists for the future. Men do important things, of course, but they do them--if they're good men--to make the world a better place.

None of which matters without a new generation to carry on. "Women's work" is senior, fundamental, primary.

So let us put you on a pedestal and worship you, while we have the luxury. We're clear-eyed about the work that needs to be done, and how you do a lot of the hardest and least glamorous of it. Treasuring you is both a great joy and fulfillment of our masculinity.

We know you can take care of yourselves. We know you're not weak. But you are precious to us. Letting us express that is a gift.

I Feel It In My Fingers, I Feel It In My Toes

It must be spring, because we're talking about sex again.

Althouse had a thread about prostitution in New Zealand and, predictably, like clockwork, the "all women are whores" meme surfaced. Though this was "all women trade sex for material goods" which is the complement to "all men pay for sex," I guess. (You don't hear "all men are johns", much, though, do you?)

I stayed out and let Freeman tangle with it for a while, and then Darcy added her two cents, and finally--I swear, it's like a mouse to cheese, putting up these dubious philosophical propositions--I caved and wrote a very lengthy response. Which I'm going to repost here and add a few things because, believe it or not, I had even more to say.

First off, the emphasis is wrong. And men are likely to make this mistake because they're so strongly sex driven, but relationships aren't "about" sex. Sex is part of a relationship. If it's the reason for your relationship, you probably are better off with a prostitute or--if you're more monogamously inclined--a mistress.

But it's such an impoverished view of the whole man-woman dynamic. Anyway, here's what I wrote, with some additional notes:

Actually, the theme of the "cheapskate girlfriend" is not at all uncommon in a relationship where the woman has or controls the money. That particular phrase isn't common, I'd grant. ("Stingy bitch", maybe.) This reflects more the fact that men don't complain much about their women not giving them money because society associates masculinity with economic prowess.

Women talking about cheapskate men was used as evidence of their material natures. But women also complain of stingy lovers and, truthfully, stinginess in all areas of life. Sometimes people just complain. Other times, well, it's easier to say "He's tight with money" than "he doesn't love me."

And, certainly, women make this association, too, to a degree. Women who use this as their primary criterion are known as "gold diggers", a phrase which most wouldn't appreciate as a descriptor much more than "whore".

Saying that "most women trade sex for material goods at one time or another" but then trying to defend it as "well, it's not professional, so they're not whores" seems a bit specious to me. Isn't "trading sex for material goods" the very definition of prostitution? How is it not "professional" if they're getting paid for it? Are they pro-am?

I also don't buy Sofa King's addition of "a close personal relationship", either. The phrase was "material goods". There's a qualitative difference between "close personal relationship" and "jewelry".

There was a little sleight-of-hand here. Revenant used the word "material" and Sofa King added relationships as something men give women for sex. This is one of the creepier notions. Young people get into relationships because of sex--and, certainly, women were traditionally the gatekeeper ("no sex until we're married") because they were risking more.

I'll get into this more later, but sex <> sex. In other words, if a man and a woman have sex, it's not necessarily an equal exchange. In fact, it's probably almost never an equal exchange. The woman's risk is greater, partners' sexual apettites are almost always going to be different or out of sync, and just the raw value of time and attention is unequal from person-to-person.

Men and women in relationships do things that lead to sex. You could cynically attach a monetary value to all those things, and say they were both trading things for sex.

This is belied by the fact that the exchanges continue even when sex isn't in the picture. And sex continues even when there's no material trade.

One might: have sex to strengthen a unit that better survives in the word; have sex to get pregnant; have sex because it has a physiological and psychological benefit for your partner; have sex just for sex--because it's fun.

None of this is prostitution or "trading for material goods". Most of it falls into the category of "moral".

Sofa King actually said "What is the moral basis for saying that any one of these forms of compensation is superior to any other?" Which is just kind of silly. Morality has all kinds of things to say about when sex is okay and when it's not. Sex is one of the driving forces of morality.

But the part that made Darcy sad and which I thought was--well, demonstrably false as well as cynical--was when Rev said "A guy who tries building a relationship on kind words and deeds and going dutch on everything isn't going to get any. The relationship is probably going to die early on, too."

If I were to make an observation about women, it might be that they're shallow. I'd say the same thing about men, too, though, and I'd add a caveat: They're superficially shallow. Heh. That is to say, we all judge based on outward appearances at first. Guys go for the pretty girl, women go for the rich guy--and, frankly, I've never seen good looks work against a man, or money work against a girl.

But ultimately, most of us look a little deeper, and a guy can go a long way on kindness--even if he doesn't mean it.

As clichéd as all this stuff about women + gifts is, isn't there also a cliché about the poor young couple starting out with nothing but love? (True story: A friend of mine is celebrating his wife's birthday by taking her to the park and picking flowers from their garden, etc. Guaranteed he's "getting some" tonight.)

There are a lot of other clichés that don't fit neatly into the women-as-whore paradigm. Lots of men are supported by women. Medical students hook up with nurses (and then when they're established drop them for showgirls). Starving artists hook up with waitresses. Starving artists mutually work menial jobs, supporting each other as best they can.

No, in practice, there are only a few situations where this idea works out at all.

Do women sometimes receive an expensive gift that they respond to with sex? Sure. Some relationships degenerate to the point where the only worthy expression of affection is money from him and sex from her.

But in a healthy relationship--one that isn't going to end when her beauty or his money runs out--when an expensive gift moves a woman to sex, it's because it represents something else: The attention of the male and his demonstration that he values her, that he's willing to work or sacrifice for her, and so on.

In other words, there is an exchange going on. It's just not a material one.

Rev and I have locked horns many times over materialism. He's a materialist; he believes in nothing but matter. I think that's pretty silly because, you know, why would I bother with a piece of meat? Heh.

But a materialist is sort of stuck here: If there is no spiritual component to life then there has to be a material exchange of some sort, if you are kind to someone, that has to trigger something in their brain that releases a chemical that makes them feel good, or some damn thing.

In the stereotypical situation, where the man wants sex more than the woman, his sexual attention is at less of a premium. It can be self-centered. If she's not in the mood, sex can be her gift to him. (Wise women know this and wise men appreciate it.)

But how does he reciprocate? However good and considerate a lover he may be, where's the exchange in terms of doing something for your partner that you wouldn't necessarily be inclined to?

You think women respond to expensive gifts? Try doing the dishes. Paint a room. Fix something around the house. Rub her feet. Give her a back rub (that doesn't end up as a breast massage). Try easing her burden a little bit. Do something you wouldn't do except that it makes her feel good.

Try writing a poem or a song or doing something that demonstrates her place in your heart. Yeah, you stink at it, and it's embarrassing, but she loves it. Perform it in front of an audience.

Hell, just show her affection during day-to-day life. Maybe you both have jobs and kids and things are crazy, but you give out the same sort of "we're on our honeymoon" types of signals as you pass in the hallway, and see if that that diamond ring doesn't turn brass.

The "sex for stuff" paradigm only works with particular sorts of relationships with particular sorts of women.

Most women won't put up with it.

Boy, is that last line true. My favorite female commenters: knox, Darcy, Freeman, Ruth Anne, Amba--I can see them kicking a guy in the nuts who gave them a shiny bauble and expected sex in exchange for it. Women with any sense of self-esteem have a sharp sense of when you're calling them a whore, no matter how masked.

Women are funny that way: They'll give freely and generously something you couldn't ever buy from them.

More Fun With Superheroes and Politics

My post on the ultimate underlying message in Watchmen spurred some fun comments, including from Ron, who asks the eternal question:

hmmm...Is Superman a liberal?

Others have tackled this question, including those in charge of the heroes at the moment. However, there is an inherent simplicity that people often miss, which is touched on by Joe M:

I do suppose that that action is the logical extreme of super-heroism: hero is special and is therefore allowed to act outside the rules for normal people for the benefit of those normal people ; once you've placed hero outside the rule of law for the greater good, this kind of utilitarianism would be the end result, yes?

Almost. While superheroes do act outside "the rules" for normal people--for example, wearing their underwear outside their tights--they don't act outside the law, or at least not much. The Batman, for example, will do some B&E, but not much beyond what any TV PI might do. It's not against the law (yet) to stop a crime.

Traditionally, heroes and superheroes capture the criminal--but leave them to the law to prosecute.

So, what is the political framework of the masked hero genre? One might be tempted to suggest Objectivism, since John Galt is a sort of superhero.

But you have people who worked for--or were blessed with--abilities beyond that of normal people. They use those powers on a local, individual level to make others lives better. They don't work for the state, but they do work with law enforcement agencies. They sacrifice personal lives for the good of the community, but not because they're compelled to by an external authority. Rather they feel their ability to help translates to a responsibility to help. (This is a conservative value that has a perverse expression in the statist's "you must do everything you can for the government, and accept whatever the government says you deserve in return".)

Ultimately, then, what you have is a full-on conservative paradigm--classical liberalism, really. Until the '70s and '80s, the masked vigilante operated on the principle that society was okay, except for a few criminal types and some organized crime rings. Even Spiderman, hounded as he was, had his most pernicious opponent in a corrupt tabloid journalist, not society per se.

Of course, comic book writers come in all political stripes, and like the rest of the arts have been seriously corrupted by statist ideologies, but even so, the very concept of the powerful individual using his power in a way to benefit society while not being under control of a ruling body is inherently conservative.

It's no coincidence that when heroes are driven underground (Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, The Incredibles), it's the state that drives them underground. The state says, "No, you can't be special."

I don't believe the USSR had superheroes. First of all, crime is not a problem in the worker's paradise. Second of all, the glorious grand-poobah doesn't need any help. Third of all, those gaudy outfits are a sign of western decadence. (Set me straight if I'm wrong on this.)

Even the "soft" fascism of modern "liberals" is anathema to the superhero paradigm. After all, why are some blessed with powers and abilities that others don't have? Doesn't that indicate unfairness in society? Why does Batman go every year to "Crime Alley" to beat up poor people? Why doesn't Superman use his super-powers to spread the wealth around a little bit? He can make diamonds, why not diamonds for everybody?

The masked vigilante works by correcting aberrations in society. Society is okay, basically, but it can perverted by the dishonest. But once corrected, people are free to go about their business.

One of classical liberalism's strengths, as well as its ultimate undoing, is that it creates a framework in which ideas can be freely expressed. Freedom of speech includes speech that undermines freedom of speech (the very concept of "hate speech", to say nothing of gay activist and feminist groups agitating for repressive Islamic societies). So, with the genre firmly established in freer times, comic books are now free to speculate in ways that undermine their future.

And naturally, some do.

The difference between Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns is that the former says, "Man needs a super-powered guardians or he'll destroy himself" (a truly statist message) where the latter says, "The more things go off the rails, the more heroic everyone has to act."

But is Superman a liberal? Some people say so, because he fits the trappings of a liberal. Yet, he could easily achieve liberal goals and never does. A theme echoed by the Donner movies and found in the comic books I've read is that Superman has a respect for individual freedom. Individual freedom is supreme: In that sense, he's positively libertarian; he won't use his powers to take freedom from others. That's a line for him, just like not killing is a line for Batman. (Superman is really an analogue for God, isn't he? His power is "nigh" limitless, but he only grants a few miracles.)

What this all boils down to, unfortunately, is the misuse of the labels "liberal" and "conservative". The only political struggle that matters is whether you're for freedom or for coercion. Are you a statist? Are you convinced that the government could make everything right if only it had more power? As I've written, nothing in a free society keeps all the laudable goals of socialists from being achieved.

When Superman starts collecting taxes and throwing people in jail for economically oppressing the masses, I'll believe he's a "liberal". If a masked vigilante agitates for statist government, he's just a clown (I'm talking to you Green Arrow) or a mouthpiece for an artist who's swallowed some propaganda.

Watchmen, the underlying truth

While my full review of Watchmen is up here, it seems to me there is an underlying truth to it. But expressing it might be a spoiler, so I'm letting you know up front. Somehow, this aspect of the film wasn't particularly surprising to me, it was more of a "sigh"-and-a-"it figures". But others may have been, so here's your warning.

I'm not going to reveal any action that occurs, but if you think backwards from what I'm saying, you'll probably be able to figure out where the movie is going.

Enough warning?

Last chance!

OK, the underlying truth to Watchmen is this:

If you give a leftist super-powers, he'll act like a super-villain and still consider himself a hero.

Think about it, won't you?

Man's Laughter

I posted on the Althouse about humor being equal to rejection, which raised some eyebrows. I then launched into a rambling explanation of what I meant, but I'm not sure I was very clear, or even that I expressed it properly.

Here are some points I was using to highlight the idea:

When children single another child out to laugh at, they're rejecting him. We instinctively know that and that's the whole basis of the "at" and "with" consolation. (I'm actually not sure that this is humor, but I think it's related to the concept of laughter and rejection.)

Q: How can you tell an elephant's been in your refrigerator?
A: From the footprints in the butter.

Humor there comes from the rejection of the notion that, of all the ways you might be able to detect an elephant, sleuthing out butter cubes is at the top. We reject that notion.

Or non-joke jokes:

Q: Why do firemen wear red suspenders?
A: To keep their pants up.

Very meta. We laugh because there's nothing there to reject. It's a perfectly sensible answer to the question. In this case, we're rejecting the joke itself, or our expectation of something clever.

Times change of course. 1940 movie house audiences were in stitches when Bugs Bunny first said, "What's up, doc?"

They rejected the notion that a rabbit would react that way to a hunter.

Nowadays, the out-of-place reaction to danger by a woodland creature is so common as to be tired. We no longer laugh uproariously at wisecracking rodentslagomorphs.

OK, let's flip to some other kinds of comedy.

Charlie Chaplin, eating his shoe: Audiences doubtless related to the hunger, but they rejected the notion (as we do, though far less profoundly) of eating one's shoe as though it were a gourmet meal.

Buster Keaton, running The General. He's fleeing for his life in the steam train. His girl is throwing wood into the engine and as she picks up the wood, she evaluates it for suitableness, in one case throwing out a large piece because it has a small hole in it. We reject that rejection. Heh.

The Marx Brothers were steeped in odd behavior that was totally inappropriate for the situation, and surrounded by people whose reactions were impossibly indulgent.

A lot of modern comic writers, especially Woody Allen, give us neurotic characters. Always, of course, a little too neurotic. We reject their exaggerated responses, and at some level probably reject the idea that neuroses are just wacky fun.

How about puns? A pun--should it make us laugh or groan--is a rejection of the use of a word.

A lot of physical comedy is based on social propriety, which may be one of the reasons that physical comedy is much harder to do effectively these days. Pie in the face? Seltzer down your pants? Hell, it's a rare day one of my co-workers doesn't come in with pie on their face and seltzer down their pants.

In fact, life in general may be less humorous because it's not polite to reject people any more.

Not all laughter is humorous, of course. One can laugh out of joy or exhilaration. Or out of meanness.

Similarly, not all rejection is humorous.

I've often thought that black humor (like, Network) is relatively unpopular because it gives very faint signals that it is to be rejected. Black humor, ultimately, is a rejection of mortality, or at least the significance of mortality, as well as other Very Serious Things.

But again, times change. One of the great Richard Brooks' last movies was the muddled Wrong Is Right. I was sort of amused and sort of befuddled right up until some people started blowing themselves up--that was my cue that this was all meant as over-the-top satire. Audiences today might interpret that signal completely differently.

But I've rambled on enough for now. I hope that clarifies.

(NOTE: I originally typed this up last June and never posted--at least I can't seem to find it on the blog anywhere. I'm not sure why I didn't post it, but here it is now.)

Bit Maelstrom: The "Spring Is Sprung" All Sex Issue

Over at Trooper York's House of Ill Repute, he often posts pictures of saucy wenches in various stages of partial dress and posed provocatively, which in one particular instance prompted this from Freeman Hunt:

All the crawling or arching around in these "aren't I sexy?" poses, knowing that the pictures are being taken for the explicit purpose of allowing strangers to better have mental fantasies about them...well, like I said, it cracks me up.

Well, yeah. Let's be honest: Sex is a pretty absurd thing. Around this mechanical, repetitive act which lasts (according to some) 3-5 minutes on average, we build a huge mythology, several industries, and ruin our lives for!

Pogo commented

I have never seen a woman do that pose anywhere in my whole life. Just photos and music videos. Where does it come from?

And I was reminded of a bit Dennis Miller did about sex with his wife, where she (at least in her act) licks her own breast--and then gave him a look that said if you ever tell anyone...so, of course he puts it in his act.

But sex is sort of like dancing, in that you can't be too worried about how you might appear to others. Your concern is your partner (or partners, if that's the way you swing, baby!) and sometimes that means doing things that, out of context would look silly.

As Freeman is fond of pointing out, the women of (e.g.) Playboy are not fat, even if they're on the larger side of normal compared to fashion models--because that's what guys like. Same could be said for the various poses used. And while men are more visually oriented (the experts are fond of pointing out), women too have their own aesthetics as far as how men should be and act.

I've always thought of sex as a sort of closed circuit/feedback loop: While sex is a very simple thing, eroticism is entirely the agreement of the people involved--and that can be as elaborate as anything. Everyone has to feel comfortable expressing one way or another that notion of "Aren't I sexy?" I mean, really: How good is sex going to be if the parties involved are diffident or concerned about looking cool?

I note, of course, that Freeman specifically mentions strangers, and Pogo said he'd never seen them--but not that he'd never done them. Heh.

Well, it's an odd assortment of posts with the tag "blake says he knows that pose", but I suppose it's no worse than the chop-busting I get under the category of "blake says he knows her". That one prompted me to write the massive list of famous people I've encountered--none of whom I know well, or who could pick me out of a lineup consisting of me and the corpse of Herve Villechaize--but I never posted it (and since then, I remembered a half-dozen more people I'd forgotten to put in there).

And, of course, it's all a big distraction from the fact that Troop's sex life is a far-ranging and storied one that would put Wilt Chamberlain (or at least John Holmes) to shame.

An Observation Regarding Free Markets And Socialism

Have you ever noticed that every noble goal desired by socialists is achievable with a free market economy? Think about it: welfare, disability, care for the elderly and orphans, health care, shoring up of financial institutions, etc., can all be done in a free market system.

The reverse is not true: In a socialist government, the fundamental problem is that the state takes up most of the capital. Even if we can imagine a free-market socialist state that simply drained most of the money out of the system but otherwise left the world unregulated, there'd be no capital to do anything with.

(This, by the way, is why taxation is so, so bad. Even the tiniest bit of it reduces the amount of potential in the system. Raising taxes--or spending in such a way as to necessitate raising taxes--should be viewed as anathema.)

But, of course, the state can't just take all our money, they have to squash the competition. So it is that the state of New York must sue the doctor offering people a year's worth of service for $100 plus a $10 co-pay, and the President seeks to limit charitable contributions. The presence of any competing service at all shows up the state's incompetence and thereby threatens its security. The Canadians who set up their medical system understood that perfectly when they made non-government-sponsored medical treatment illegal. (A situation which is finally reversed, I believe.)

So, that's the secondary barrier.

The socialists are fond of telling us that they are the wave of the future: Progressivism carries the concept in its very name. If that were true--if the socialists actually believed their own rhetoric--they would welcome a free market. With history and the population so overwhelmingly on their side, they'd hardly need the government to force anyone to do anything. And, sort of amusingly, the great enemies of the people, the stovepipe-hat capitalists, do seem to be on the side of Big Government these days.

So, why don't they just set up these systems on their own? Get the population that agrees with them to contribute to their social programs. If the government pared down on its demands--something that it could easily do if it weren't expected to run its own programs--all that extra money could go into things that people really believed in.

Not only that, there'd be a chance--a good chance--that those programs could work, and far better than government programs. In fact, there's plenty of historical evidence that such programs have worked in the past, despite far worse income disparities than we face today. With modern communication systems, they could be set up very effectively to minister to poorer areas with money from richer ones.

And, you could set up a membership system to keep out the free riders. I mean, the free riders that weren't the ones you were trying to help.

So what does it mean that socialists don't take this approach? A poor opinion of humanity (i.e., "people won't contribute")? But if so, how does their system--which depends on people being hard working, honest and integrity-ful for no apparent gain--work at all?

Or is it perhaps because the not-so-noble goals of socialism--that the socialist's sense of fairness is never violated, that people be made to do the right thing, whether it be helping others or not endangering themselves, and that the state be the final arbiter of all issues of morality--are actually more important to some than feeding the poor and helping the weak and so on?

I don't actually think there are many people walking around with that notion. Unfortunately, I'm left to believe that a whole lot of people think they can shunt things off to the government without any attendant loss of freedom. Unfortunately, if Europe is any indication, the point at which people learn that lesson is somewhere in between the soft fascism of Western Europe, and the hard fascism of Eastern Europe.

Conscience of the Kings?

I've seen a couple of these frantic got to pass now type bills in my life. The idea being that if the momentum is stopped and people are actually given a chance to voice an opinion on the topic, the bill will end up dead. For example, the Amnesty bill proposed in--what was it, 2007?

They call it "the thwarting the forces of evil" bill, agree to some vague terms that serve some apparent political focus, but probably are just about shunting money from whoever to a favored group, and they don't necessarily even write the bill before voting on it.

They surely don't read the bills.

In other words, there's an intense flurry of activity by our elected representatives to make absolutely sure that they're not, in fact, representing us.

I mean, let us set aside, for a moment, the political bullshit about "we must act now before it's too late!" They don't believe this (and you shouldn't either). The government screws things up when it takes its time and tries very hard to get things right. When it acts "quickly", it's always too late, and the net real effect is usually overstuffed prisons or long waits at the airport.

Look at the mess that is the PATRIOT Act. You may have even been against it. But if you were against it because it was bad law, too late and an ineffective boondoggle, you should similarly be against the stimulus act. I think, at least, the PATRIOT act had popular support. (I'm not saying it should have, mind you.)

Anyway, I wonder what it must be like in the heads of our elected representatives as they scramble to not represent us. I mean, they can't really be fooling themselves. The whole point of the various procedural tricks--like, say, voting on cloture, then writing the bill--is to circumvent democracy, debate, and (everybody's favorite whipping boy) logic. How noisy and occluded and chaotic it must be between the ears of most of these guys.

Whatever the fallout is from this sort of thing, it's good to remember that if you maintain your own ethics, you are in a far better place than any of these guys will ever be.

I Think I Know What I'd Do

Dr. Melissa writes of people in the recent airline crash into the Hudson. One, who suffered a bloody nose, is ponder that most American of questions: "How much money will make me whole again?"

I like to think, in the same position, I would refuse any money.

The flight was a victim of an act of Vengeful Gaia. The airline suffered real damages--more real damages than the passengers, I would guess. (What does a tow cost from the Hudson for a 747? Was it a 747?)

The pilot produced the best possible outcome (even if our Althouse pal rhhardin dismisses the landing as a trivial example of competence).

Wouldn't you feel a little wrong about taking money from a company that had done nothing wrong, had in fact done everything right, and was likely to suffer more than you in the long run?

Or would you just feel like you needed to be compensated?

Test Driven Government?

I was looking at Perri Nelson's site, in particular this article on how the Declaration of Independence and Constitution are the requirements and specification for the USA.

That works pretty well. You can check out his thought processes in that article. (I read it and felt a little like Paul Simon listening to "Sail Away" and thinking, "I should've written that.)

Now, logically, I know that any system fails when the vigilance of the people it governs fails and their integrity is compromised. Even Communism could work, after a fashion, if people were truly pure of heart.

The American Experiment is particularly interesting because it seems to have worked the best for the longest time of any recent government, and it's interesting to see how it fails. With the scrutiny given it, it's also interesting to debate whether certain things were/are failures, too. (Ultimately, of course, the fault lies in the people which, one presumes, must be where the solution comes from.)

But from an engineering standpoint, I was intrigued by the mention of test-driven programming, and began to wonder how that might be applied to a Constitution. The Bill of Rights is great, but of course, over time, the state (and a non-vigilant people) have allowed it to be compromised through "interpretation" (i.e., "changing what the words mean so that we don't have the bothersome process of actually changing the law.")

A test-driven Bill of Rights would be really cool, though. What you would have is a series of questions that would have to be answered with regard to any law in order for it to be Constitutional. These questions would add precision to what is meant by a particular item and could be used as litmus tests.

Consider these potential questions:

• Does this law allow the government to control political speech in any way?
• Does this law compromise the effectiveness of any citizen to protect the state?
• Does this law allow quartering of troops in the homes of citizens?

Now, you need a lot more precision. Is all speech truly free? You would need to codify some base rules, say infringement on life, liberty or property, which could be made part of every test.

It's an interesting exercise.

Ultimately, of course, it doesn't matter too much, even if you were building a new Republic: You're still stuck with human nature and success apparently breeds failure, as strange as that seems.

"Alternative" Treatments

I missed the big kerfuffle on Friday over the alternative treatment article in the WSJ. Althouse had a nice takedown and I couldn't really wade through the comments.

On the other hand, I don't believe that the path modern medicine follows is comprehensive or exclusive. Sometimes it's just plain wrong. (They like to pretend that all the drugs have been double-blind tested and shown to be effective, but they haven't. And drug interactions have hardly been exhaustively explored. My problem with vaccines is that there are live-organism and dead-organism vaccines, and a multitude of other chemicals, and you can't really switch or add these other factors again and claim that you have science on your side.)

In 1994, after the Northridge quake, I developed serious, debilitating allergies for the first time in my life. I used a thing called a "zapper" and found that when I used it, my sinuses cleared up. When I had finished one set of "zaps", though, my sinsues clogged up again.

I hated having my sinuses clogged, so I used it around the clock for a day, then half the next day, then a third of the next day. My allergy cleared up and never returned.

Now, I realize this isn't science, though the stuff I did around it and building up to three-day jag is about as close as one can get when self-treating. There's a theory behind how the device works and what its limitations are, and there are elements of that theory I find dubious.

And it may be that it was just a great big placebo, but one that was sufficiently convincing to cause the awesome healing powers of my mind to handle a serious condition.

To which I say, so what? Placebos are underrated. They work better than the anti-depressants doctors hand out like candy, and have fewer side-effects. When my friend was dying of cancer, I often thought I would happily sacrifice a chicken and dance around in a big mask, if I thought I could be convincing enough.

There are ways to handle disease other thand drugs and surgery. These would be "alternatives". It doesn't have to mean a bunch of mush-headed pseudo-science.

Would I want the government supporting it? No, but I'd sure like the government to decriminalize it!

It's Hard Being Right All The Time, vol 2.

As the glaciers of the new Ice Age advance, we're starting to hear less about global warming and more about...anyone? Anyone?

Well, what did I say?

That's right, "overpopulation". Can you say "Soylent Green"?

A certain group of people have learned they can get people's attention with impending doom. A few hundred years ago, we were worried (after a fashion) about the rapture. Some percentage of the population relate really strongly--and not in a campy, funny or otherwise entertaining way--to the end of the world (as we know it).

Overpopulation hits a bunch of great button because a lot of environmentalists just hate people. And a lot of misanthropists will happily join the enviro-crowd for a justification for their pre-existing people-hate. And, hey, who doesn't think there are too many of "the wrong kinds" of people? (Present company always excluded, of course.)

Another great thing about overpopulation is that you can always assert that it's either here or imminent. The proof is in the poverty, or the over-crowdedness, or in disease or war--really, it's way better than global warming, because GW can be refuted with a few temperature readings. (In fact, that's a big part of GW's current "problems".)

Could anyone visit Hong Kong or New York and doubt that overpopulation was real? The vast quantities of empty space on this planet notwithstanding, it's something meant for cherry-picking. And the rebuttal when pointing out a Montana or a (say) rapidly emptying Russia, can always be "Well, sure, there's no one there..."

And just like the AGW types, the neo-Malthusians always take their own correctness for granted. This is what people miss about "the science is settled". As far as the AGW believer is concerned, the science is settled in his own mind. Which is what matters.

The advertisers over at Althouse have tied it, rather cleverly, to immigration. (Of course, we could probably absorb our current population in immigrants if our school system worked and we didn't hand out money with our social services.)

Anyway, there's another problem with overpopulation as a threat: All the socialist wealth redistribution plans require an ever-expanding base of young people to fund themselves, but all the people living in socialist countries stop having children.

Heh.

I've decided that the fallout from the current economic crisis is going to work out well, at least in the long run. We simply don't have the money to continue believing that the government can provide a catch-all safety net (and do so with no negative consequences). This is going to cause a realignment that includes disposing of many stupid, observably false ideas.

OK, probably not, but I've decided there's no reason not to be optimistic.

Are You There God? It's Me, That Guy Who Doesn't Believe In You

Hector and I were talking in the Smoke thread about the phenomenon of atheists in Church. I think it's not uncommon. I wrote:

Religion serves a purpose that isn't diminished by disbelief. I go to the Jews again here, because they adhere to the roots of religion which are "to bind". Many of the great atheists were Jewish because, of course, Jewish-ness transcends what one believes. Every Jew knows, I think, that when the next round of pogroms start, whether or not they're practicing will not change their fate.

So the outside world binds them as well.

I think the need for the religious binding remains even when we can't see God.

Hector responded with some interesting questions.

1) does Pascal's wager imply some contempt for God's intelligence? Isn't it just a transparent ruse?

Pascal's wager, of course, says (roughly) that there's no penalty for believing in God and a tremendous penalty for not (believing in the Christian God), therefore belief is the safest choice. You can read the various rebuttals and apologetics, but I think the key to Hector's question comes from a subtler view of the wager.

That is, Pascal is not advising anyone to pretend to believe in God; nor do I think that he came up with this wager to win converts. No, I think Pascal's wager is meant to be a comfort to Christians who, like Pascal, lead logic-driven lives and then have to confront the challenges of faith.

2) is there a way that does not involve belief in God (or deities of some sort) to get the sort of social networks that churches promote, in which people care for, and actually help, people outside the group of their blood or marriage relations? Is this commitment of people to care for one another what you mean by "the religious binding?" If so, is belief in a God or Gods required to make it work?

I think people are bound by necessity. I think that's why, for example, bonds are generally less powerful today in the developed world: Lower necessity means a weaker bond. (You can see this writ small on marriage: Women need men less, and men are more likely to see women as an unnecessary enemy.) So I think you do see a binding in, say, frontier towns that isn't necessarily driven by religion. But it's tied to the frontier. It wouldn't survive a diaspora.

Does it need a God? Not exactly, I don't think. If we look at the other things people could bind over (blood ties, geography, philosophy, God, ritual, occupation, military service athleticism, TV shows, etc.), it's clear that some things work better than others. And if we look at the many forms of statism (including communism, socialism, fascism, etc.), you see that it doesn't work at all, and in fact undermines other bonds.

I think that's a clue. Statism places the authority of the state above all. Spiritualism tells Man that he is, in portion, greater than any temporal organization. That there are fates worse than death. And that he has responsibilities that go beyond his own body. (I believe this is what underlies the antagonism between Church and State.)

So, I think you need a powerful abstraction to unite people. People sign on to collectivist ideas because it's fundamentally true that we are interdependent. But the State quickly--like, immediately--reduces to a self-aggrandizing monster, and so fails to bind people. (Except in the same way a natural disaster binds people.)

Modern libertarianism--probably the most logical approach to governance--also fails to unite people very strongly, because it describes a negative. Compare "the virtues of selfishness" to "All Men are created equal...[and]...are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Both describe the same thing, essentially, yet Jefferson's argument posits a noble Man.

Sidebar: I think this is the reason for Jefferson's ascendance over Adams. Adams was probably a better President, a nobler man, maybe even a better human being than Jefferson, but Jefferson set the gold standard in appealing to our better nature. Adams was wary of us, Jefferson told us we were better than anyone had let on before.

God, in His various forms, unites people in much the way Santa Claus unites children: There's a guy out there watching and judging your every move. This works because it's true, because minimally you--your Inner Jefferson, if you like--are watching and judging your every move.

In summary, God isn't necessary, but you need something huge--and there has to be some truth. Consider Selma and the Civil Rights Movement: Something huge has to be behind you if you're going to stand up to the awesome power of the State. (See? The State knew the Church was trouble!)

3) do the Unitarian Universalists have the answer to #2? If so, why aren't they more successful? In terms of membership numbers, or any other objective measurement.

Oh, I think the other major part of binding that's necessary is missing with UUs: Sacrifice. Religions require sacrifice. Time. Money. Food. Sex. Public approval. It costs something to be Jewish. If you're born Jewish, you carry that potential sacrifice with you all the time, even if you renounce the faith. If you practice the faith seriously, there are all kinds of things you can do, you can't do, etc.

The modern attitude is "Why do I need all this? Does God really care if I keep my foreskin and eat ham sandwiches?" Thus completely missing the point. If you want to believe that a particular faith is right, you can without any other fuss. But you're not a member of a religion till you make the necessary sacrifices.

Most religions deal with severe persecution. Christians with their lions. Jews with, well, practically everyone. The Druze are so secret, even they don't know what they believe. What do UUs sacrifice? Not only have they no Big Idea, they have no shared sacrifice.

Look at evangelicals: At some level, they're responsible for the soul of every living human. What are Unitarians responsible for? (You can translate this to the marriage debate pretty easily.)

This also explains why disbelief doesn't diminish religion. Even if you're an atheist, you can appreciate religion and what it does. Religious people are usually happy to share their experiences and welcome you in. You can fight alongside them in righteous causes. And the question of whether you are a True Believer is entirely separate from the actual practice of religion. (Consider me the anti-Bill Maher.)

4) Would you like to keep the tone of The Bit Maelstrom a little lighter than this? If so, feel free to delete this comment, I won't mind a bit. (Won't mind a bit! Hah! And I say things about Larry Niven's prose style being telegraphic, when I do it myself all the time.)

You know, I tend to ramble, and I can go on for days about this stuff, which is why I tend to avoid it. I find it fascinating, but pointless without an interested listener.

An Infinite Number of Monkeys vs. A Finite Number Of Brain Cells

The limits of materialism are evident, at least to me. For example, in the materialist view, there must be a maximum amount of memories one can have, else where are they stored? (This has been calculated at various times, with current models now approaching near infinity for practical purposes.) Then there's the issue of causality. (You can't logically have causality and responsibility if everything is the result of physical laws that dictate behavior.)

And then there's this crap. According to this, the human being can't really care about more than 150 people at a time. (This is an interesting parallel to Aristotle's famous essay on how many friends one can have, I'll grant.) The brain, it is argued, can't handle it. (O! thou organ of limitless and limited power!) He calls this limit the monkeysphere.

It's fun the play spot the assumptions:

People toss half-full bottles of drain cleaner right into the barrel, without a second thought of what would happen if the trash man got it splattered into his eyes. Why? Because the trash guy exists outside the Monkeysphere.

Sure, some people don't think about service guys. But the fact that trash men aren't running around blinded tells you something as well. For example, it might tell you that people sort of figure that the trash guy knows what he's doing and takes reasonable precautions, and that they're right.

The simple fact is it's impossible to act if you weight every person equally in your life. Not only would that not be a commendable thing, it would be downright stupid. Your attention should be on the people who most directly affect your life, like the jerk who pulls out into traffic in front of you without signally, or whose lives you can affect, like the Ethernopian kid you send money to every month.

This next bit is spectacularly off:

Remember the first time, as a kid, you met one of your school teachers outside the classroom? Maybe you saw old Miss Puckerson at Taco Bell eating refried beans through a straw, or saw your principal walking out of a dildo shop. Do you remember that surreal feeling you had when you saw these people actually had lives outside the classroom?

I mean, they're not people. They're teachers.

Of course I've had that experience. But not because I didn't think of my teachers as people--and certainly not because they were outside my alleged monkeysphere. It was because teachers used to have a distance--a kind of altitude--that allowed them to maintain order and teach. It's not that they weren't people. It's that they weren't children.

I adored my grade school and earlier teachers. I had to get to Junior High school before I started getting teachers I didn't like (with a big caveat for my nursery school teachers who scared the bejeezus out of me).

But Mr. Wong has a theory, and he's going to fit all kinds of experiences into that theory whether they belong or not. I can't relate, for example, to this:

That's why you get that weird feeling of anonymous invincibility when you're sitting in a large crowd, screaming curses at a football player you'd never dare say to his face.

I'm not big on attending sporting events but I don't scream curses at the athletes. I root for the winning team and sometimes boo the opposing team because that's what you do. I don't have any real animosity for the opposing side at all. (Sure, some people get into it to that degree, but how many take it personally? Probably about the same percentage of crazies, or maybe slightly fewer, than make the political personal.)

Sure, you probably don't go out of your way to be mean to strangers. You don't go out of your way to be mean to stray dogs, either.

But you're the one making the equivalency, not me.

The problem is that eventually, the needs of you or those within your Monkeysphere will require screwing someone outside it (even if that need is just venting some tension and anger via exaggerated insults).

This just plain isn't true: Except for a statistically insignificant portion, civilization was built by those I've never met and am only vaguely aware of at best. I will be one of those anonymous many for the future. Survival is the exact opposite of a zero-sum game.

This paragraph essentially refutes the entire premise of the essay. Yes, life is in competition with other life. That, much like the sports event, is the game. But the vast majority of the people outside your circle are what make your existence possible, and a great deal of what you do, provided you are not a leech, is what makes others' existences possible.

And, what the hell? Since when is "venting anger via exaggerated insults" screwing someone? How big a pussy do you have to be to believe that?

This is why most of us wouldn't dream of stealing money from the pocket of the old lady next door, but don't mind stealing cable, adding a shady exemption on our tax return, or quietly celebrating when they forget to charge us for something at the restaurant.

Am I a Martian? I've only ever sent checks back for being in my favor. (I also used to tell my teachers when they missed marking me down in school.) And what's with the broad equivalencies?

It just gets worse from there. Check out this gem:

Talk radio's Rush Limbaugh is known to tip 50% at restaurants, but flies into a broadcast tirade if even half that dollar amount is deducted from his paycheck by "The Government." That's despite the fact that the money helps that very same single mom he had no problem tipping in her capacity as a waitress.

See what happens when you reduce everything to the material? A man wanting to decide the fate of his own money is being irrational if he objects to the government taking it from him to perform approximately the same task (at a greatly reduced efficiency, and of course less actual personal freedom).

There's no sense of right or wrong anywhere in this essay. Everyone just gets away with what they can, and they do so because of their brain. But this guy has the answer: Everything is more complicated than it seems, and we're all just primates flinging feces at each other.

There's also no good or evil. You and I are just Osama Bin Laden without the crazy-ass followers. His belief that we're oppressing him is just as valid as our belief that he killed 3,000+ of our citizens.

I tend to think that civilization depends on billions of us acting within a fairly narrow set of parameters suggests that the whole 150 limit is absurd on the face of it. If we were really and truly limited, civilization as we know it never would have emerged. Having SUVs and TVs didn't create the need for civilization, civilization created the possibility of having SUVs and TVs. But that's the typical reversal of a materialist.

I read this years ago and it disgusted me enough that I ignored it, but Ace just linked to another piece by this guy on how the Internet is going to be regulated so that there's no more anonymity, because anonymity empowers trolls and trolls hurt business.

Meh. Possibly. But so far the 'net has resisted a lot of obvious regulation, and things don't have to always get worse.

Irony? Or Karma?

One of my pet formulations is that environmentalism (or ecology as it was drummed into me as a child) is a luxury. Poverty starves environmentalism like [some random fat celebrity] starves the other customers at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

To a man without shelter, a two-thousand year old redwood looks like a roof, some walls, maybe even a floor.

To a man without food, a spotted owl is a feast.

Now, one of the more obvious ramifications from environmental policies is poverty. Energy is more expensive because it's too difficult to produce more of it, owing to various environmental restrictions, just for example. The Kyoto protocols would've cost us enormously even though, without them, we came closer to its goals than the nations that actually agreed to it, and those nations are dropping Kyoto like a hot potato in the face of serious economic problems.

Environmentalists are obsessed with our footprints. Not just our carbon footprints, but every resource we "consume" in our existence. This year's Wall-E (a shoo-in for the animation Oscar) took as given the idea that consumerism would lead to the destruction of earth and our own near extinciton. But the lives led aboard the space station by the remaining humans didn't really affect the earth, and I have to believe that most green-types would approve of that. (Although there was the curious issue of the space station making tons of trash, and no explanation of where the raw materials were coming from.)

Wealth is anathema to this crowd.

Their policies create poverty.

Poverty leads to resistance to their policies.

I just can't figure out if that's ironic or karmic.