Friday, December 6, 2013
When the US or the EU Finally Defaults on Their Debt
Basically two things can happen when one of the leading super powers finally goes so far as to simply not pay back our debts in an agreeable manner. War and forgiveness. For the sake of understanding how the citizens of the lender nations feel in this circumstance, let's pretend that the US is actually a lender nation, and that the EU is actually a debtor nation that owes the US trillions of dollars and is about to default on it's debt and working on renegotiating that debt with the US. The president is working with Congress to decide
Meeting Global Needs, US Style
If all of mankind were represented by a single individual, how well are that person's needs being met? And, what could that person change to more adequately meet it's own needs? I'm American, specifically united statesian, so I'm going to go ahead and assume this person has needs based off an average American lifestyle, but if you're reading this from another country, go ahead and extract and augment facets of individual need as you see fit. Yes, I'm applying global statistics to an American mindset of needs (just to be clear).
Air, food, water. A human being expends about
Air, food, water. A human being expends about
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Finding Family and Refusing Family
Choosing your relationships is largely considered a fundamental right in our society. True, this is not necessarily the case in other cultures, but in the United States, you can marry, divorce, disown, disinherit, inherit, etc. pretty much at will. There are a few notable exceptions: 1) you cannot choose to add to your family outside of the one living spouse per person rule (and in some states that person still has to be of the opposite gender) and 2) acknowledgement of children is forcible under certain circumstances. These circumstances disproportionately affect men, as physically, pregnancy disproportionately affects women.
Sex, Society, and Offspring
Sex should never, ever be tied directly with offspring unless it's someone's, and preferably multiple people's choice. Abortion should be legal because a person's right to the pursuit of happiness through sexual pleasure should trump the state's right to protect the potentiality of human life (context matters, so certainly there are other epochs when this is not true). Abortion should be legal right now. But it's not.
Somehow, the state still maintains that it has a vested interest in protecting the well being of a fetus, and that it's interest in doing so increases as the fetus matures. This is probably wrong, but most people cannot yet see it that way; they don't want to see it. Why does the state have a vested interest in protecting an unborn human? Presumably, we assume from a legal standpoint, reflecting societies values, that human life is inherently valuable to the society, and therefore this makes sense. The value of the human life comes in many forms - it's joyous and harmonious relationships to others, the contributions is makes to maintaining our species and our societal structure, etc. I think we can all agree that human life is generally valuable in both quality and quantity. But, like anything, too much is not good. If the planet were filled entirely with humans we couldn't move, we couldn't leave, and we would all pretty much get bored and want to die. Economically, we probably want a population size that optimizes for both quantity and quality of life. At some point, we don't want more people. What would be some good indicators that we have enough people? And at that point, does the government still have a vested interest in protecting an unborn human? The answer is that we have a vested interest in agreeing to policy structures locally, nationally, globally that help regulate the population in such a way that we generally all agree is mutually beneficial. This is incredibly difficult. Ideally, we would not regulate, people would just have a small number of children, and thankfully, this happens naturally to some extent.
People are unjustifiably hubris when it comes to defending the nature of our species. We have failed before, and we will fail again. What we can hope to achieve is to learn from our failures and lessen the magnitude of each one consecutively. In a way, that will happen when we ruin our planet and or have a lasting catastrophic global depression sometime over the course of the next several decades. Let's compare our global civilization to that of the Easter Islanders. We likely won't fail in the sense that we will all have to leave the planet, because 1) we can't leave and because 2) extinction would require an incredibly extreme change of global climate, potentially beyond the likes of climate change and/or nuclear war (though I would be interested in a well though-out counter claim). We will fail in the sense that we're effectively lowering the carrying capacity of our planet in the long run and at a minimum we will undergo massive penalties to the quality of life experienced by human beings across the globe, and potentially a sizable loss in the quantity of that life as well.
Ultimately, my point isn't that abortion should be legal - it should, but that's not my point really. My point is that it should be legal so that we correctly balance our desire for quantity of life against our desire for quality of life. We want abortion to be legal, all abortion. And, we want everyone to feel safe and secure about meeting their sexual needs. Let's legalize all abortion where it's someones choice. Forward!
Somehow, the state still maintains that it has a vested interest in protecting the well being of a fetus, and that it's interest in doing so increases as the fetus matures. This is probably wrong, but most people cannot yet see it that way; they don't want to see it. Why does the state have a vested interest in protecting an unborn human? Presumably, we assume from a legal standpoint, reflecting societies values, that human life is inherently valuable to the society, and therefore this makes sense. The value of the human life comes in many forms - it's joyous and harmonious relationships to others, the contributions is makes to maintaining our species and our societal structure, etc. I think we can all agree that human life is generally valuable in both quality and quantity. But, like anything, too much is not good. If the planet were filled entirely with humans we couldn't move, we couldn't leave, and we would all pretty much get bored and want to die. Economically, we probably want a population size that optimizes for both quantity and quality of life. At some point, we don't want more people. What would be some good indicators that we have enough people? And at that point, does the government still have a vested interest in protecting an unborn human? The answer is that we have a vested interest in agreeing to policy structures locally, nationally, globally that help regulate the population in such a way that we generally all agree is mutually beneficial. This is incredibly difficult. Ideally, we would not regulate, people would just have a small number of children, and thankfully, this happens naturally to some extent.
People are unjustifiably hubris when it comes to defending the nature of our species. We have failed before, and we will fail again. What we can hope to achieve is to learn from our failures and lessen the magnitude of each one consecutively. In a way, that will happen when we ruin our planet and or have a lasting catastrophic global depression sometime over the course of the next several decades. Let's compare our global civilization to that of the Easter Islanders. We likely won't fail in the sense that we will all have to leave the planet, because 1) we can't leave and because 2) extinction would require an incredibly extreme change of global climate, potentially beyond the likes of climate change and/or nuclear war (though I would be interested in a well though-out counter claim). We will fail in the sense that we're effectively lowering the carrying capacity of our planet in the long run and at a minimum we will undergo massive penalties to the quality of life experienced by human beings across the globe, and potentially a sizable loss in the quantity of that life as well.
Ultimately, my point isn't that abortion should be legal - it should, but that's not my point really. My point is that it should be legal so that we correctly balance our desire for quantity of life against our desire for quality of life. We want abortion to be legal, all abortion. And, we want everyone to feel safe and secure about meeting their sexual needs. Let's legalize all abortion where it's someones choice. Forward!
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Dear Diary
Today sucked. I wasn't able to focus at work, partially because I was attempting to do things that are fairly boring like write and validate unit tests for a bunch of old xml endpoints, and partially because I was distracted by my incessant desire to feel in control. Grams asked me recently if I felt in control of my life and I just sort of laughed. I think that I would have said yes until about six or nine months ago. It's still quite a strange question, what is control. Our understanding of the universe seems to be that things are largely determined by the nature of random details, and that control is largely an abstract illusion. Even when I know what I want, why I want it, and approximately how to get it, I can fail to actually act toward what I want, or I can be distracted or realize that maybe I don't want it after all. Worst of all, you can end up getting either something you didn't plan for that is perceived as negative (this made me cry today - http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-hardest-thing-you-have-ever-done) or you can get something that you explicitly planned against.
This post sucks, but I'm not editing or making it longer because I'm tired, and I'm going to go do flips and go to bed.
Good things about today... I ate good food (http://www.goodfoodmadison.com / http://www.maharanimadison.com/home.html).
I talked with Alex about work, and I have clear goals for tomorrow.
I live in a world with other people.
I intentionally listened to opera and actually enjoyed it, which might be a first.
This post sucks, but I'm not editing or making it longer because I'm tired, and I'm going to go do flips and go to bed.
Good things about today... I ate good food (http://www.goodfoodmadison.com / http://www.maharanimadison.com/home.html).
I talked with Alex about work, and I have clear goals for tomorrow.
I live in a world with other people.
I intentionally listened to opera and actually enjoyed it, which might be a first.
Monday, December 2, 2013
I've got so many problems
?. Everything is a moral question. Every statement is a moral statement. Every act is a moral act. Is there a place for amorality? Sex maybe, haha!
1. I expect perfection. This is a silly nonsensical thing, and I expect it all the same. It's got it's upsides - there's always more for which to strive.
2. I can be really stubborn, and this makes it tough when I have to re-prioritize what I'm doing. For example, having children is morally disdainful to me, so I opt to recognize my mandatory child support payments as an obscure antiquity of the American legal system. Still, children exist, and they require a healthy environment in which to mature. That environment is related to social normalities even if these normalities are poorly suited to the nature of our species. So, we shall see what becomes of ourselves, and I shall see what becomes of me.
3. Contradictions. I want to do what's right, but I want what I want, impulsively, which is at times disjoint and conflicting with what I perceive as right. Examples: asexuality is right, I want sex; exercising is right, I want to relax; contentedness is right, I sometimes feel off. Especially difficult are the contradictions regarding relationships... I want a relationship, and I also want certain people. The people I want sometimes want children; the people I'm uninterested in sometimes want me. If I pursue a relationship, without pursuing the person with whom I pursue the relationship, I run a high risk of hurting someone, myself included. Electing to pursue on a highly selective basis is tiring and difficult.
These blog posts have become a way to vent, and yet, I struggle to vent because they are 'public' (though not really because no one reads them).
I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm tired. I'm bored. I'm scared. I'm frustrated. I feel like a whiny little prick when I complain and say these things, but better to say them here than to say them to people who care about how I feel? Those people like to be a support perhaps true, and I love them and should let them. But also, I don't want them to need to feel like supports, and I want to feel like I don't need supports, so I choose to do this shit here, where no one hears it... I don't want to pay child support because I have to, I want to pay child support because I'm asked to. Why does the legal system let us choose who we marry anyway? Other relationships are litigated by force. Let's be clear, I can understand the idea of balancing the needs of individuals against my own needs. Even though if I had my choice, I would not be part of a legal 'parent-child relationship,' whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean, and even though I don't feel responsible for creating life because nowadays sex and procreation are practiced more widely as disjoint acts than as one and the same, especially in this case since abortion was the stated intended course of action, and even though it might be hard for you to understand this, simply paying child support isn't the problem. The problem is that there's no humanity, there's no negotiation, there's no contextual justice, there's no gray area. You can be raped, which I wasn't, you can have your semen stolen, which wouldn't be too far from the truth, you can be a father of 5 years, and in every case, the justice is the same, mostly absent, blackandwhite, inhuman.
Ok, that was the easy part...
It makes me feel unloved, that a person I trusted could violate the essence of my morality, have a child using my seed, then not even have the decency to ask me for help, but rather abuse the legal system in order to extract the child's 'fair sure' of my financial worth. That she would not even want to speak to me, that she would not apologize. I'm not blameless. I accept responsibility for letting myself be hurt. I can do better, I can move on faster, I can forgive more easily. I made mistakes. I had sex. I said hurtful things. I know you wanted a child. I'm sorry. Sometimes, perfection just doesn't happen, no matter how hard we try. Still it makes my feel raped, empty, abused, worthless, wrong that I have no control, no reasonable recourse, and no sympathy in your actions. I will wait, and I will ask once more what you want. In time, I will return. Then, who knows?
Emotions are awful. They're also kind of fun. It's very frustrating that we have fairy tales and we use the phrase 'in love' like it's 'love.' In love is the dumb, deaf, blind, pathetic, moronic version of love. It's the evil step sister. In love is love tainted with infatuation - the obsessive weakness of unsuspecting children. It taunts the mature, inexperienced loners. Blah, blah, blah, blah blah...
I've wanted - really really wanted - two people. One of them rejected me accidentally, I hadn't even tried to express myself... fear, low self image, probably both, I can't remember and it's unimportant, I was young - 13 or 14 maybe. Many years later there was another. She was gentle, the rejection was almost mutual in a way. Silly, stubborn, deeply rooted, but perhaps still right? I'm still confused by the kind of fun awfulness of 'humanity.' I still love her. The hard part is that I still want her. It's the desire that's misplaced; the love is reasonable, we're still friends.
It's pretty strange. How do you move past desire anyway? What's sexy doesn't become objectively or subjectively less beautiful just by willing it to be less beautiful. It seems pretty reasonable to continue desiring even if you can't say it or act on it in any meaningful way. Re-prioritizing and comparing. How we think, expectations, outcomes.
I'm still scared, I'm more tired, but I'm a bit more relaxed too, and I made something, even if it's just for me, a different me, for us :)
1. I expect perfection. This is a silly nonsensical thing, and I expect it all the same. It's got it's upsides - there's always more for which to strive.
2. I can be really stubborn, and this makes it tough when I have to re-prioritize what I'm doing. For example, having children is morally disdainful to me, so I opt to recognize my mandatory child support payments as an obscure antiquity of the American legal system. Still, children exist, and they require a healthy environment in which to mature. That environment is related to social normalities even if these normalities are poorly suited to the nature of our species. So, we shall see what becomes of ourselves, and I shall see what becomes of me.
3. Contradictions. I want to do what's right, but I want what I want, impulsively, which is at times disjoint and conflicting with what I perceive as right. Examples: asexuality is right, I want sex; exercising is right, I want to relax; contentedness is right, I sometimes feel off. Especially difficult are the contradictions regarding relationships... I want a relationship, and I also want certain people. The people I want sometimes want children; the people I'm uninterested in sometimes want me. If I pursue a relationship, without pursuing the person with whom I pursue the relationship, I run a high risk of hurting someone, myself included. Electing to pursue on a highly selective basis is tiring and difficult.
These blog posts have become a way to vent, and yet, I struggle to vent because they are 'public' (though not really because no one reads them).
I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm tired. I'm bored. I'm scared. I'm frustrated. I feel like a whiny little prick when I complain and say these things, but better to say them here than to say them to people who care about how I feel? Those people like to be a support perhaps true, and I love them and should let them. But also, I don't want them to need to feel like supports, and I want to feel like I don't need supports, so I choose to do this shit here, where no one hears it... I don't want to pay child support because I have to, I want to pay child support because I'm asked to. Why does the legal system let us choose who we marry anyway? Other relationships are litigated by force. Let's be clear, I can understand the idea of balancing the needs of individuals against my own needs. Even though if I had my choice, I would not be part of a legal 'parent-child relationship,' whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean, and even though I don't feel responsible for creating life because nowadays sex and procreation are practiced more widely as disjoint acts than as one and the same, especially in this case since abortion was the stated intended course of action, and even though it might be hard for you to understand this, simply paying child support isn't the problem. The problem is that there's no humanity, there's no negotiation, there's no contextual justice, there's no gray area. You can be raped, which I wasn't, you can have your semen stolen, which wouldn't be too far from the truth, you can be a father of 5 years, and in every case, the justice is the same, mostly absent, blackandwhite, inhuman.
Ok, that was the easy part...
It makes me feel unloved, that a person I trusted could violate the essence of my morality, have a child using my seed, then not even have the decency to ask me for help, but rather abuse the legal system in order to extract the child's 'fair sure' of my financial worth. That she would not even want to speak to me, that she would not apologize. I'm not blameless. I accept responsibility for letting myself be hurt. I can do better, I can move on faster, I can forgive more easily. I made mistakes. I had sex. I said hurtful things. I know you wanted a child. I'm sorry. Sometimes, perfection just doesn't happen, no matter how hard we try. Still it makes my feel raped, empty, abused, worthless, wrong that I have no control, no reasonable recourse, and no sympathy in your actions. I will wait, and I will ask once more what you want. In time, I will return. Then, who knows?
Emotions are awful. They're also kind of fun. It's very frustrating that we have fairy tales and we use the phrase 'in love' like it's 'love.' In love is the dumb, deaf, blind, pathetic, moronic version of love. It's the evil step sister. In love is love tainted with infatuation - the obsessive weakness of unsuspecting children. It taunts the mature, inexperienced loners. Blah, blah, blah, blah blah...
I've wanted - really really wanted - two people. One of them rejected me accidentally, I hadn't even tried to express myself... fear, low self image, probably both, I can't remember and it's unimportant, I was young - 13 or 14 maybe. Many years later there was another. She was gentle, the rejection was almost mutual in a way. Silly, stubborn, deeply rooted, but perhaps still right? I'm still confused by the kind of fun awfulness of 'humanity.' I still love her. The hard part is that I still want her. It's the desire that's misplaced; the love is reasonable, we're still friends.
It's pretty strange. How do you move past desire anyway? What's sexy doesn't become objectively or subjectively less beautiful just by willing it to be less beautiful. It seems pretty reasonable to continue desiring even if you can't say it or act on it in any meaningful way. Re-prioritizing and comparing. How we think, expectations, outcomes.
I'm still scared, I'm more tired, but I'm a bit more relaxed too, and I made something, even if it's just for me, a different me, for us :)
Sunday, November 17, 2013
The sky will fall; let's step aside.
The world is going to end. Seriously, one day a supernova will explode or you'll die of old age or God will come save us all, but one way or another the world is going to end - for me, for you, for everybody. That means we need to leave (gtfo) - and Elon Musk's SpaceX is working on this problem - but that day is probably pretty far away - assuming we don't mess up the planet too badly. So in the mean time - as Elon helps us venture to Mars - let's try to make our Earth as awesome as the awesome awesomeness that is awesomeness: our pale blue dot...
1. Let's get along! Yeah, my god isn't your God (kinda), and maybe you define alot as 27 and I think of a mythical animal from Hyperbole and a Half. But when really we all enjoy sleeping, eating and breathing, it should be easy enough to focus on the basics and then let the rest fall into place.
2. Admit that we have issues. BIG ISSUES!!! Even if we want to keep on our happy little individual life paths, business as usual, STOP. Just stop, because <insert ridiculous news article link> should be enough to make you double take that we live on the same planet as that shit.
3. Stay calm. Yes, that article was a lot to take in, but we can move past that shit together. If we help each other out, take care of ourselves and our home(s), and seek to understand, trust, love and forgive, it'll all be okay in the end.
4. Do something good. Today and every day. Whatever it is, just do it!
When the world ends, do we want to go out with it? Do we want to be standing there, looking back and thinking, "Man, if only we had done that differently?" Or, do we want to go out knowing that we did everything we could to keep ourselves in the game, and it was only the fate of the cruel universe that took us down with it? Godspeed Earthlings, godspeed.
1. Let's get along! Yeah, my god isn't your God (kinda), and maybe you define alot as 27 and I think of a mythical animal from Hyperbole and a Half. But when really we all enjoy sleeping, eating and breathing, it should be easy enough to focus on the basics and then let the rest fall into place.
2. Admit that we have issues. BIG ISSUES!!! Even if we want to keep on our happy little individual life paths, business as usual, STOP. Just stop, because <insert ridiculous news article link> should be enough to make you double take that we live on the same planet as that shit.
3. Stay calm. Yes, that article was a lot to take in, but we can move past that shit together. If we help each other out, take care of ourselves and our home(s), and seek to understand, trust, love and forgive, it'll all be okay in the end.
4. Do something good. Today and every day. Whatever it is, just do it!
When the world ends, do we want to go out with it? Do we want to be standing there, looking back and thinking, "Man, if only we had done that differently?" Or, do we want to go out knowing that we did everything we could to keep ourselves in the game, and it was only the fate of the cruel universe that took us down with it? Godspeed Earthlings, godspeed.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
So it's been a while...
Reviewing my last post, I can say that I've come a fair way since then. I want to work on software and technology solutions for people and governments that allow for collaborative policy and decision making. And, in pursuing this path, I've landed a new job doing software development, albeit in the restaurant industry, rather than for policy/governance/decision making. But, I'm only 25, so there's time for that yet too I theel (theel = think and/or feel).
I've also been in a relationship and "fallen in love" or something close to that. Sadly, nothing during my foray into the emotional world of relationships turned out all that great: I start paying child support in a week; Keira's mother - Keira being my progeny - doesn't talk to me; and the girl that I fell in love with wanted children while I prefer otherwise. So, for now, I'm back to focusing on my self and on the observation, understanding, and development of humanity.
Back to personal goals. One enjoyable way to look at the world, and humanity specifically, is in terms of decisions. Therefore, a central architectural pillar in the software I want to write revolves around how decisions are made, how to measure their effectiveness, and how to create a feedback loop that balances decisions while allowing humanity to retain the importance that we seem to place on conflicting goals such as autonomy/collectivism, reason/passion, quality of life/quantity of life. Imagine the end result as some odd human-computer hybrid system wherein the human piece is made up primarily of voluntary individual contributions and the computer part is what aggregates and processes the human input. Of course, because the computer part is originally derived from the human part, we could consider the combination to be entirely human, and as man and machine continue to merge at the physical level, that interpretation will likely gain further acceptance.
A good place to start is probably developing a data model for decisions, and a software service that's commercially useful and tracks decisions. So far, I like the open government model for creating open source, service-based software solutions; but funding, marketing, and developing such a product/service, and especially such an organization that guides the evolution of that product/service will be challenging. Openness will be very important, as will security, which means privacy for the users: openness of the creators and the system, privacy of the users - a tenuous balance at times when creator and user are at times mutually inclusive.
Including metrics for decisions will be interesting because we currently focus on data to drive decisions, but really we can also focus on data to analyze prior decisions and desire, in addition to data, to drive decisions. That is to say that opinion polling - in addition to decision tracking - should be analyzed over time as a mechanism to provide insight into how humanity evolves. And finally, for context, we probably want to include some basic objective measurements of our physical environment so that we are able to analyze how humanity evolves with and ties to that physical environment.
Create a collection of demographic, environmental, opinion polling, and decision making data. Design a fun and useful user interface to engage individuals in collecting this information. Provide meaningful analysis of the data so that we can learn and grow as a result. Target government decisions, the general public's opinion, and scientific measurements.
Drawing on others: Multivac (Asimov) = Watson (IBM) + Quora + US State Department + ...
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