Book Review: Think! Before It’s Too Late by Edward De Bono

You know I was going to do something semi-clever like review the book in the style of the Six Hats, but I don’t think I will for  a plethora of reasons.

Firstly, I can only really think of one hat’s contribution to this review, and the others would have far less of a say in things.

This book is awful. It is unbelievably, shockingly bad on every conceivable level. I could have spent the scant two or so hours reading it doing something far more useful, like vomiting, or sleeping, or being bored, rather than read another page of this dreadful treatise confirming my strong beliefs that there is absolutely nothing better than critical thinking and the scientific method.

Let’s get a few niggles out of the way before we get to the reflux-inducing filth-holes of my true discontempt. Firstly, by presenting this book the way he does, De Bono manages to crucify his own beliefs before he starts. By stating the weakness of the power of argument… in an argumentative format complete with defenses, judgements and side-taking, he has already undermined his position against the “GG3″ (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle). Hey, De Bono informs us bromidically, Plato didn’t like democracy! No shit genius, but stating that as some position against Plato *or* democracy (he attacks both in the book) is a failed premise. Saying Plato didn’t like democracy is like stating the 1901 English Rugby team didn’t have synthetic clothing. The arguments here are rife- and that’s all that there is, even when De Bono suggests that arguments are useful in small doses, not the enormous repository of a book that is published before me. According to De Bono: the media is bad, psychology is obsessed with measurement, universities aren’t teaching anything relevant, schools are teaching too much mathematics and you have to play the ‘academic game’. Yep, you just spent $30 on a book that tells you stuff any 14 year old blogger could inform you about in an equally uninformed monologue.

And the repetitions! I’ll give my own take on De Bono mind games. Try some counting exercises should you read this book:

- number of times Six Hats are mentioned

- number of time he refers to that seven tribe nonsense in South Africa

- number of times he refers to a sportsperson being helped by his books.

His boastfulness is unparalleled. Anyone upset with Richard Dawkins alledged smugness should glance towards De Bono and his THREE FULL PAGES of bullet-pointed celebrities he’s assisted over the years. Ok he mentions it himself that they are ‘practical examples’ but when practical examples are quite clearly representative of 50% of the written word, something is awry.

De Bono’s writing style is painful. Its somewhat reminiscent of Nietzsche’s old little ’shock’ passages with a quick remark to brood upon. However this is De Bono’s entire book, with paragraphs measuring no more than sentences long. They aren’t shocking either.

Imagine what would happen if this entire article was formed like De Bono’s book.

We would have these obscure little mumurings.

They would look like tangeants, but when they are just filler then, well…

Anyway back to it. De Bono makes barely a mention of where he gets his ideas, or evidence for them. I found his chapter on language positively archaic. Words are dead in the same way currency is dead. A profound ignorance of memetics and cultural shift leaves me wondering whether he feels stuck in the 60s.

I would like to say more, but my hands are quivering with rage after typing as much as I have done. This is quite simply the worst book on philosophy or psychology or thinking or whatever. Do yourself a favor and ignore it utterly. I’m sure De Bono has written some very good books previously, but not being one of the cultists I can clearly not see the emperor’s clothes with this latest, horrible, offering.

0/10

Banning swimwear is a logically flawed position

Recent advancements in swimwear has made the swimming body ban them due to a slew of new records broken, oh and whingeing from past record holders. But the fundamentals behind this idea are flawed, and I’m here to explain why.

Other sports have advancements the whole time

Consider what would occur if sport racing decided that new record-holding cars were to be banned as they didn’t constitute a fairness in comparison to past cars. It would be an unthinkible, economically retarded decision. Consider Michael Schumacher in ten years time warbling on about “These new Hyundai F1 cars clearly overstep the line when it comes to adjudicating fairness in comparison to old records. Their new tetradredodisestablishhydrobombfilm™ tyre extensions are something that the F1 racers of the noughties never had access to”, he’ d get thrown off his soap box faster than you can say Heideggerian nostalgia.

By logic of removing new swimwear because its so streamlined and ‘buoyant’, the advances in footwear for atheletes should be removed, so we should summarily strip Usain Bolt’s new record for wearing modern footwear, as we should any sportsman that’s used advanced javelins, or whatever. No one can legitimately expect the advances of technology not to do this, and swimwear should not suffer due to old record’s desire to be maintained. Out of question what on earth are the going to do with the new, swimwear ‘enhanced’ records set recently now that it has all been banned? Do they strike them from the record books, or do they keep them and make them summarily unfair?

Why textiles?

As I was listening on a triple j report, the dropping back of swimwear takes it to circa 1996 and will use textile-based and regulation sizing. But why exactly it is taken back to this level isn’t clear. If advances are to be taken back, shouldn’t we really level the playing field? I’m sure there are some 1910 Olympic records where they used boardshorts, or further still to Ancient Greece, wherein ancient records could be gleaned showing that the 50m breaststroke record was gained back then wearing loincloths interspersed with arrow heads, stabbing the swimmer’s every stroke. There is no particular reason, beyond as I said previously, the whingeing of recent record holder losers, that all advancements should be removed. Hell, make it naked then no one can complain, and probably increase the draw in ratings about tenfold.

But wait? What about other sports? Steroids?

This is not to say that all sports should embrace new advancements, but it should be the nature of the sport and the availiability of the advancement to determine. Team related sports where opponents are actively involved should not have an advancement unless it contributes to the game not the player. For example, when the aluminium cricket bats were introduced and quickly revoked in cricket, this was a good idea. The delineation isn’t hard here- opponent based sports aren’t looking neccessarily to set new records as the nature of their opponents is something that is constantly fluctuating. You may say that “Australia’s ‘85 rugby squad was the best” but that’s conjecture, or only based upon the differences between that team and the surrounding opposition. If everyone in a swimming race has access to the same, advanced swimwear, then the winner is obviously the best swimmer, the nature of the advancement shouldn’t be a big issue here, and world records, while taken naturally with a pinch of salt, should not determine what advancements should or should not be allowed especially considering there’s no real way one can reasonably delineate where to stop them. This is similarly why Oscar Pitoris, the double amputee ‘blade runner’ should not be allowed in normal olympics- not everyone else on the track has the same access.

It’s fairly obvious steroids would be brought up here, as in “if you disagree with stopping advancements, why not allow steroids?” A couple of reasons. To start with, steroids are incredibly dangerous products to anyone who takes them. Secondly, there is a fair delineation here- anything that artificically actively alters hormones should be banned. That’s a line which is readily definable and subsequently applicable.

My two cents on something that has absolutely nothing to do with me

The California nominee for the 2009 Miss USA pageant answer to Perez Hilton is something which I think has been blown way out of proportion. A quick jump to the wiki page on the subject should quickly affirm my suggestion. British MPs even talking about this like its news?

Don’t get me wrong, I think her views are outdated but seriously guys, who cares what one white woman thinks? Did she say that all gays should burn? Did she say that gay marriage should be banned? Did she seig heil Perez Hilton, thanking him for the code-word question, which has set in motion the final Nazi takeover of the western world? Fuck no! She had her opinion, she answered the question and that’s all there should be about it, and at the same time respectfully indicated that it was her opinion (0:44) and that she thought it was fine other people disagreed with her.

If this same discussion took place on a christian channel, or hell any political-based discussion then it would be met with grudging acceptance (at worst) or raucous applause (at erm, worse). No one would say that that channel or program was inherently wrong, or say that it has lost its sheen, they would have dealt with it being an opinion like anyone else.

So a fairly uneducated pageant contender said some things about her personal beliefs. They are her personal beliefs, bless her for at least being honest about them, and shame on everyone for getting so personally offended on what is her rights as outlined on freedom of speech, and double shame for thinking that this tiny comment, in a tiny segment for one country was worth the hours of media attention and the need to villify anyone and everything for it.

A response to “The irrational atheist” part 1

There are times in life when you feel that something wrong in the world needs addressing. This is such a time. I doubt I’ll get any feedback or response or anything from the parties involved, but maybe over time a few people will read this 12 part analysis on a book that feel cannot be overstated in saying it is one of the most intellectually dishonest books I have ever read.

I speak of course of Vox Day’s 2008 ebook, The Irrational Atheist. Day’s claim that this is a response to the ‘new atheists’ using their own weapons of logic and reason is wholly false and I am here to refute claims, chapter by chapter, made by Mr. Day to show that it is not this fantastic response to atheism.

Ground rules

- I’m not going after every little snippy comment he makes, for example, referring (without context) to Dawkins’ arguments as being “shell games”. You don’t have the bandwidth and I don’t have the patience.

- Vox has a remarkable tendency to stay on some assumptions, then change those assumptions as it suits him. For example he frequently refers to atheist “high” and “low” “churches” (hence assuming they can be considered religions) and then later down the track excluding atheism from religion when he speaks of religious values being extremely important and helpful. I’ll try and record what happens but it’s difficult so please bare with me.

- There are some larger but nonetheless snippy comments. I’ll respond to the ones that stuck out for me, but again, it gets ad nauseum after awhile.

 

Chapter 1: A Pride of Atheists

The first error I noticed here was Day’s definition of the “Unholy Trinity” that he claims to be attacking. While the title page suggests this trinity consists of “Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens”, there is less talk of Hitchens in the book than there is of Dennett (www.dawkins.net The Four Horseman). Indeed other writers, such as Onfray, are included into the scene far before Hitchens is considered at all, but this is a minor point and has to do with how he writes, not exactly what he writes.

The first propter hoc argument comes in the form of “Vox’s first law” stating ‘any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity’ (p6). A bold claim, considering that moments prior in this discussion the first hypothetical raised by Day was allowing that his belief that “Jesus is coming back some day, but does my insanity actually affect you in any way?” (p6). As a matter of fact, it does, and has been frequently cited as causing a great deal of trouble when particular strains of insanities think it is allowable to blow up research centres, start jihads, sacrifice innocents (thousands in the Bible for instance) and generally get into whatever insanity does. When Day talks of the “crazies that believe humanity is the result of ancient alien breeding experiments”(p6), there is already a tone of superiority. What makes Day’s insanity any better or worse than the so-called crazies? This unjustified superiority continues with his definition of the Age of Enlightenment.

The Age of Enlightement, according to Day, was a root for the “muderous excesses of the French Revolution”  and that “dozens of other massacres in the name of human progress is usually considered an unfortunate coincidence by their philosophical descendents”(p7). Here’s me thinking that the French Revolution was a political-based revolt, centered around the excessive plight of the peasantry against a minority of excessively rich aristocracy based almost entirely on Marxism! Even still, was the French Revolution a good thing, as in, you know, stopping the subjugation of millions? I am also curious as to what ‘human progress massacres’ have occurred in more recent(or less recent times). Is human progress the Crusades? Spanish Inquisition? The Holocaust? Are these scientifically based and Age of Enlightement-related concepts? They are not, and as a christian whose values are apparently designed to espouse peace and civility, Mr. Day should be careful chucking those stones around so close to his glass house. This is treading into the definition of so-called High Church and Low Church atheists, which we’ll get into now.

 The definitions of High Church and Low Church atheists are difficult to define, being that they are entirely self serving. We’ll get into the problems with High Church atheists first. A High Church atheist is someone who is strongly compelled to atheism and its tenets. Enter Dawkins, who is criticised as considering himself a “level 6 strong atheist” on his own scale of 1-7 (7 being a perfect atheist). Mr. Day neglects to mention what precisely this entails. Dawkins, as a scientist, is open minded to everything with evidence, and that most things cannot be entirely disproven (as in every little claim made up by anybody). Dawkins considers the evidence of God as comparable to the evidence of unicorns and the flying spaghetti monster- equally unprovable and equally zero evidence. What’s not to get? Vox makes the error of suggesting that atheist and religion are two polar opposites, without considering atheism is an entirely different structure to religion. Atheism as based on scientific understanding (in this case) versus religion based on faith (hence allowing for a healthy amount of level 1 believers who don’t accept alternatives).

Day’s critique of Harris observing Buddhism is equally ignorant. The proposals of Harris’ belief rest upon the ethical tenets of Buddhism, not the religious observations of reincarnation and so on. Furthermore there is plenty of non-religious Buddhism floating around, and how religious can a religion be that doesn’t include a God?

What follows is an interesting assessment of figurehead atheists, coupled with the consideration that atheists are rude and uncaring in arguments. Day suggests that (from Wolf’s observations) people sufferring from Asperger’s syndrome (a form of mild autism) “tend to be male, intelligent, impaired in social interaction, and prone to narrow, intense interests”. While this may speak reams about… roughly 40% of the people I come into contact with on a daily basis being in a university and all (my classes are slightly female dominant), what does this say about Mr. Day himself? Indeed we could comfortably apply this suggestion to the presidents and prime ministers of most of the developed world.

Are atheists really that prone to attack with intolerance? What could the suggestion that atheist figureheads are Asperger’s sufferers any more than ad hominen? Consider, after the argument that all atheists are rude and intolerant, the following ignoratio elenchi logic:

Agnostic: I don’t believe there is a God. Because I haven’t seen the evidence.

Atheist: There is no God. Because I’m an asshole

touche Mr. Day, you’ve clearly presented your case. Notice by and by that the Agnostic claim is incorrect- Agnostics have no interest in the debate as opposed to expousing scientifically based atheist ideals that shoud really be left with, you know, scientific atheists.

It is interesting to note that in Chapter 1 Vox quickly establishes that Agnostics are people he agrees with as their inoffensiveness is not liable for any cause for concern. I type this not to upset the agnostics by and by, but keep this in mind for the next point.

As stated in Ground Rules, the tendency for Vox Day to change his definition for self service is worth paying attention to, none so much perhaps as it is in the next argument. Vox agrees that High Church Atheists are extremely law abiding compared to Christian counterparts (when looking at prison records). However a strong percentage of the prisoners looked at placed “no religion” as their preference. You and I would consider this group agnostic, or at least undefinable in any conventional terms as it includes applicants whom have put down things like “Jedi”. Mr Day however defines this group as belonging to the Low Church Atheists (those who don’t believe in God based on evidence but are not the argumentative type) and summarily declaers that “it becomes clear that… Low Churches [atheists] are nearly four times more likely to be convicted and jailed for committing a crime than a Christian”.

So we are at an impasse. One on hand this Low Church atheists are not Low Church atheists at all, but rather the multitudinous agnostics et al. that cannot be defined in conventional terms and summarily cannot be analyzed (there is equal chance for instance, that they are people who are born christian but are more theist in belief). On the other is the suggestion that they are all agnostics (which almost certainly is not the case), in which instance Vox Day has made no claim beyond that a group of people he thinks are reasonable and acceptable people are highly likely to commit crimes that will wind them up in jail.

 

Points I missed but couldn’t be bothered to talk about further

- There’s this random passage within Chapter 1 waffling about about singularities and scientic/fictional based apocalyptic events and how they bare similarity to religion. I have no idea what the point of this particular passage is, it’s certainly not about atheism and the links he makes between religion and ‘apocalyptic techno-heretics’ is tenous at best (both the Bible and some branches of science fiction talk about a world ending event: WOW!!!!)

- The suggestion that democrats, despite being considered the more intelligent party, are twice as likely to have dropped out of school than have a master’s degree, is a false dilemma argument. Where are the statistics for the Republicans, and furthermore what is the percentage of drop outs to people with master degreess?

 

I know this is rough around the edges but I have to act fast as it gets tiring quickly.

Unpacking Singer a little pt2.

Ok last time we looked at some of the functions of Singer, and I recieved a nice comment from wilkox which I’ll take apart now as it pretty seamlessly draws in to what I was going to ramble about for part 2 on why adding animals into the utilitarian picture was a mistake and part 3 will cover why utilitarianism is impossible to maintain (even with Singer’s redraft of ‘better’ and ‘worse’). 

  As you point out, when we try and evaluate utility, especially for non-human agents, we end up in ‘ridiculous situations’

Wilkox and I agree on this point and it was covered about as much as it could be in the last post. The evaluation of ‘utility’ (which when you consider the etymology of the word should have little to do with sufferring) with non-human agents removes the elegance of the system by adding fractions; fractions which challenge the singular value of 1 for each human and thus lapse into number crunching. But why do I feel the number crunching to be an advantage compared to wilkox, who I quote:

 I don’t understand why you say such number crunching is ’surely an advantage in a capitalist world’. Hayek’s ‘economic calculation problem’ argues that a central planner can never have enough information to efficiently manage an economy.  An ethical system which expects its adherents to perform impossible computations is intrinsically broken.

Wilkox here makes the distinction of economy with Hayek (who I have zero knowledge of, but I will take a rough guess at what is being aimed for) and the processes of an efficient economy compared to the calculations set forth by utilitarianism. Now, I am no advocate of Singer, but I would hazard a guess that, irrespective of the teleology that utilitarianism is all about, that he would feel a better thing would be done if we at least attempted to reduce sufferring. The number crunching is theoretically valid at least in extremes such as death. I can for instance, justify saving 1000 human lives (value 1000) over 2000 chicken lives with maybe a value of 50. There are definitely clear cut cases, but in more complex matters I don’t think it would be a bigger stretch for at least some appreciable direction. Saving the environment is a good thing if it helps people, making wells to give water to the poor and so on. Even at incredibly complex cases for instance when religion gets involved (do we allow the 10 000 worshippers of Azuk continue to practice their beliefs and feel spiritually enlightened, even if they occasionally digress into female circumcision?) if we attempt a decent direction to follow, Singer would probably be happier with it.

 

It is here however that we come into problems that I suppose I’ll answer now, so we’ll leave animals out of the picture for the time being. Consider what sort of words we are using compared to what Singer suggests. We allow the Azuk people to continue their spiritual journeys, Wilkox speaks of a central planner. We’re losing a lot of liberties here at the expense of a reduction in sufferring. Of course Singer as I previously mentioned uses better and worse and encourages as opposed to enforces- would Singer be happy with an enforced utilitarianism? If he isn’t, and he certainly is not advocating it, what sort of values or things is he accepting as an affront to his ethics yet accepts them?

It could be that Singer is speaking at practical terms. No one is going to listen to him if he denounces all else against sufferring reduction and enforces a strict regime against it. It could be that Singer realises the unrealistic requirements of utilitarianism (an honesty that Wilkox has said to me many times is one trait of Singer worth noting), that we cannot be utilitarian as it against our nature (which leads into animals but that’s for another time).

If I’m going to refer back to my previous post however, it may well be that Singer’s own ‘levels’ as I have hypothesised are inherently flawed. Consider the levels of sufferring below that of the individual. Base pain, a pain of physical attributes. A lost limb is a base pain. A higher, more complex sufferring is that of losing a loved one, or failing to succeed at something you wanted, or a desire for some ethereal understanding which has zero affect on your survival. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs states that the lower levels of satisfaction must be met in order to attain the next-physical needs at the lowest, love needs at the highest. The sympathy of someone with a physical sufferring is weak for somebody who satisfies those needs. In this way, those who can help are all animal liberationists- we skip the levels, ignore them even, they are a part of our lives and slip away unnoticed. Those in physical need cannot help others in physical need or else they will die or suffer more (utilitarians would not agree with their actions therefore), but those who are above the level of physical sufferring are detached from that understanding at least in part. It is our nature to mix with people at our levels of understanding in any case, and perhaps this is a force Singer appreciates and says we must battle with. Perhaps the levels of sufferring do not merely expand, they also shrink.

More later… sorry for the delay btw.

 

Five hints as to what this company’s product is really for.

I love the fact that medium sized transnationals and indeed companies at whatever level of operation have the forethought and drive to push their products across whatever frontier, even if that frontier flirts a little on the illegal side. Here’s a company that, god bless, has made the smoothest of moves to avoid being arrested yet at the same time market it appropriately. Nevertheless, here are five little hints that this particular company aren’t all what they seem.

5. They advertise in FHM

Yep, they sell fertilizer but they advertise in FHM. Theoretically their competitors should be in Better Homes and Gardens yet they seem quite content to advertise next to beer, gucci clothes and other manly things.

4. Aforesaid advertisement extols their dutch virtues

A smiling, red eyed girl in traditional Netherlandish garb and an enormous tulip complete with wonky camera no less.

3. Their website is committed to discussing ‘hydroponics’.

Literally nothing regarding ‘gardening’ as much as ‘hydro’.

2. They sell through “established deale… *cough* vendors

Places with names like “Happy Grow”

1. Their company name

They are the world famous Canna. Geddit? If you need a bit more of a hint their special ‘flower encourager’ is called “Canna-boost”. Shout that five times now and don’t see if your parents run in.

That being said, I do think they can probably make a nice rose or two bloom. Check them out at http://www.canna.com.au/

Three children’s cartoons adults should watch.

Whoo boy. Cartoons have come a long, long way from the old, ultra-violent Tom and Jerry of the yesteryears. Further still, it has departed from the clever but still inherently child dominant cartoons of my own youth, such as Rugrats, Victor and Hugo, Dangermouse and so on. Now cartoons are not just the fillers between my favourite shows, but more often than not they are my favourite shows for a number of reasons that I will divulge for a trifecta of excellent programs, each with their own characteristics as to why they deserve a second glance from the disenfranchised adult viewer. Remember that these shows are far flung from the otaku shores of cool anime, and they are also quite removed from ‘adult cartoons’ such as Family Guy, The Simpsons and even something like Ren and Stimpy (whose reliance on gross out humour I could never truly admire). In any case, here are three cartoons I suggest you have a gander at, in an increasing order of importance:

Powerpuff Girls

The name of this particular program is sufficient to remove interest for perhaps 95% of the population, but I can only suggest you hold on and take a look at the often dry, sometimes dark humour of program. The story revolves around three girls (sisters?) who have super powers to save the city of townsville. Included in the cast is Proffesor Utonium(who created them as the intro explains), a rather jaunty narrator and a host of super villains. Its building blocks make PG seem like a girly version of any traditional comic but have no fear. Genndy Tartokovsky (who is also responsible for number 2 in this list) ensures a rich tone of humour, from the mumblings of the ever present Mojo Jojo to the interactions between the girls whose seperate personalities often cause small rifts to appear. The fights are good natured fun, the conclusions are decent and all in all a superior broadcast.

Adult tip: check out the episode which consists entirely of a The Beatles parody. Yoko Ono portrayed as an evil monkey seems… so right, in so many ways.

Samurai Jack

The loftier peak of Samurai Jack was so far flung into the stratosphere of “what sort of viewer is this directed at” but simultaneously being hyper awesome made it create five series then fall into  a dead faint on whether a movie will ever be created. Every single one of Samurai Jack’s episodes is a visual and aural delight for the senses. The story is around the title character in his attempts to defeat the shapeshifting master of darkness Aku (voiced brilliantly by the late Mako). Jack’s magic sword can defeat Aku, but Aku flings him into the distant future, in world overrun by Aku but also populated by thousands of different tribes and thousands of different locales. A single episode typically revolves around Jack fixing a particular tribe, or trying to find his way back home. What is equally impressive with the visual and aural merits (excellent, excellent music at times) is the action sequences which can often last entire episodes leading to a lack of dialogue; the environment and actions of the characters however more than soak up that hole. Samurai Jack is so far departed from other cartoons its difficult to describe in words just what its appeal is, but anyone with a scrap of interest in altering artistic styles will lap it up.

Adult tip: Want a single episode that encapsulates what Samurai Jack is all about? Check out “Jack and the Blind Archers” for a visually haunting experience that fully deserves whatever television and auditory setup you can muster. Other great episodes include “Jack and the mountain warrior” (or something similar to that), “Jack and the Rave” and the interesting “Jack and the Scotsman”.

Spongebob Squarepants

Spongebob Squarepants is my favourite show on television. It is stunningly, shockingly, awe-inspiringly creative and wonderfully executed. There is far too much for me to talk about here (I may well give an entire article to it at some point) but the humour is in a league of its own, the gags are the most incredibly unexpected ever and on a side note, it never EVER resorts to toilet humour to get something funny across. The brainchild of Stephen Hillenburg (an actual marine biologist as you do), the characters are all extremely well developed with no expense of the hilarity. Spongebob himself is perhaps the greatest character ever, his very body being a manipulable medium for the muses that they have writing the stuff to work upon. Watch it.

Adult tip: rumours surface over the apparent qualities of the program for some sub cultures… in any case if you want a good, fun episode… then… any single one of them is mint so yeah just go for it. Kudos to PANTERA offerring their musical prowess on a particular episode too.

Unpacking Singer a little

I decided to write a little about how I personally interpret Singer, in my own little way, by my own little voice, on my own little blog. In any case, I felt I should put down somewhere exactly how I feel about some of his ideas, being that utilitarianism often appears (to me at least) to be the default ‘best’ ethical standpoint for people of this day and age. While that may or may not be true, and I certainly believe it not to be so, it is useful, popular and flawed hence giving it the hallmarks of something that is good to write about. The first part of my rambling will consist of how I believe Singer approaches the concept of who is more ‘ethical’ and who is less, and why he abandoned radical animal liberationists (good job too). The second part will consist of why I feel adding animals into the picture was a mistake, and leads to some pretty ludicrous situations and the third part will briefly touch on why I feel that utilitarianism, while useful and a good way to live one’s life, has its share of difficulties that I doubt can be overcome. Please note that in this rambling I will not discuss the following hot topics: abortion, what ’sufferring’ consists of, what ‘the greater good’ represents and I will certainly not be discussing Singer’s latest book because let’s be fair- it’s precisely what he has talked about in the past. Let’s get to it.

Singer doesn’t really talk about this in his main papers, but he often speaks about it in his commentary regarding animal liberation, his support of some companies (McDonald’s investing in healthier burgers for instance) and fan mail enquiring about what decisions based upon their situation, Singer would make. Singer constantly refers to what is ‘better’ or ‘worse’ as opposed to what is ‘utilitarian’ and ‘not utilitarian’ and I feel this strengthens his stance as it moves his ethics to realist grounds from traditional utilitarianism’s lofty utopia. I see Singer’s ethics as a set of accumulating scopes, and the more scopes you are aware of and participate in, the more ‘ethical’ you are. Consider your family. You may be a person who has no investment or interest in society, yet you care about your family. You tend to their needs, get them through college, whatever. You are self-sacrificing to that family and definitely fufill the criteria to be a utilitarian towards them. You are successfully within the ’scope of the family’. Let’s say you have community spirit, do the neighbourhood watch thing, ensuring the safety of the locals etc. You are in the ’scope of the neighbourhood’. You can probably see where I’m going with this. While Singer often encourages the ’scope of the world’ (i.e. supporting people thousands of miles away from you, that you don’t know) he readily accepts some actions as ‘better’ compared to others. So when McDonald’s uses healthier burgers, for whatever goals they want (utilitarianism is teleological anyway) and they address the needs of the ’scope of customers’ then they have done a better thing. I hope I’ve made it clear, and I’m sure this isn’t a literal idea of Singer’s but it has helped me understand his actions a little better, especially in the context of abandoning animal liberationists (the screwy ones, like PETA). When animal liberationists focus solely on animals and ignore the needs of people, such as firebombing research facilities, they actively abandon several scopes to achieve their goals and thus it is not accumulated. While a good utilitarian in Singer’s eyes is one that possesses a scope that ranges from themselves and continues to increase throughout all scopes until the ’scope of the world’, a liberationist may have a scope for themselves, family and perhaps their group but leaves out important scopes before animals (which is, as far as I can read Singer, the final ’scope’) . This makes sense in a lot of ways. For starters it means that anyone applying additional scopes will

a) have views and values firmly entrenched in social requirement

b) will help out the greatest number of people

c) guarantee that the people that the person can help the most will be served first, thus maximising the person’s contributions

d) make damn sure that other scopes and other people are not comprimised. Which is what animal liberation clearly does.

 

Ok the second part of this ramble deals with Singer adding animals into the mix. I’ll touch on it briefly here and leave the rest and part three for a later date. The main strength of utilitarianism is its elegant simplicity. When I approach an ethical dilemma I have  literal number crunching in order to determine the best possible output (surely an advantage in a capitalist world). Every person has a value of 1 (which I think is ludicrous but we’ll go with it for now), and the best answer the one that creates benefit for the higher value. This value is based on a human’s capacity for sufferring, which I find a bit depressing (again, another point I’ll tackle at a later date), but as Singer observes himself, animals have a reduced capacity for sufferring- how do we determine their value? A ridiculous situation occurs when we try to at once determine how much sufferring a chicken endures (when neuroscience has only gone so far) and simultaneously weigh up that suffering in comparison to humans! Is it ten chickens to the dude? Twenty? Thirty? Is the baseline sufferring for chickens so low that no number could justify the death of a single person? Singer doesn’t answer this, and as far as I can see there isn’t an answer to obtain.

More later… please comment.

You can never go back

A few days ago working at the petrol station I served a small, old lady. Nothing particularly dramatic here really, except that this particular lady (shall we name her Mrs W) contributed in a small way, to my past, a past I might add, that I feel very removed from.

She did not look in any way, shape or form familiar. She gave me her credit card and with a sideways glance to check the name, I noticed she was Mrs. W. Being that there are many people with that name, I assumed it was either a) one of the teeming millions of W.’s or b) a relative? She did look somewhat familiar to my English teacher some six or so years ago. But then she was a medium height, husky red haired English teacher with a wealth of knowledge behind her and a real penchant for teaching. She wasn’t my favourite or best teacher- far from it when I take into consideration other teachers from other schools I have had since then, but a good decent one (who if I remember correctly had a hatred for Tolkien that I did not). In front of me however was not that woman. Here was a small, frail, bent over white-haired wrinkled and thick-spectacled lady. Another card in her wallet that I spied, one from my old school and a photo from her at younger times, jolted me into realisation. She left but briefly came back to ask if she could change to a different card as she used the wrong one.

Six years. Six years is what it took to annihilate even a very hazy image of someone I knew. So hazy that I must permeate though six extraordinary years of growth and development into definitively worse time, a time that I care not to think about or ponder on, yet that inestimably small ideal of a good person I knew disappeared. Was it a disease? Was it somehow her mother (the names were the same so it’s doubtful)? The way in which she conducted herself was also different and wholly average of any other customer I encounter on a regular basis.

What happens to people when you leave them alone?

How to communicate to people about drugs… and how not to.

It makes my blood boil to see another perfectly reasonable oppurtunity to talk to people about drugs (most specifically teenagers and so on because you never see ads aimed at adults anymore for some reason) being tarnished by firing up the same nonsense in a new wrapper and somehow thinking it’s an acceptable way to treat anyone, let alone impressionable teenagers. I speak of course of the website and drug campaign above the influence, an incredibly expensive and wasteful venture by the american government (wiki them if you would like to know more about how much they are spending in taxpayers money and so on). It’s not drug awareness that bothers me- in fact I believe drugs should be made incredibly aware, and that we should take all knowledge about them and use our own judgment on the issues. ATI does not let anybody accomplish this, often using bogus or misleading data to suggest some pretty bad things about drugs, most importantly marijuana. I’ll take a few at random and please, if you feel I’ve left something out or whatever I urge you to leave a comment.

“Smoking marijuana also causes some changes in the brain similar to those caused by long-term use of cocaine and heroin”

This particular quote was taken from National Institute of Drug Abuse, in a pamphlett entitled “teen facts for drugs” so you know that its coming from a unbias, unrelated source to the website. I have personally never heard anything so ludicrous as to suggest that marijuana has any relation to cocaine and heroin in any shape or form and I’ve done a lot of looking at scientific journals for various projects. The changes of marijuana smoking over a long period of time has had not a lot of results, and the most dramatic piece was a pilot study finding that long term chronic use (i.e. 5 or so joints a day for 5 years) created altered neural pathways. This was a brief sensation, and I know in my own country has been touted as an excellent reason to justify criminalisation of marijuana. However not even the Australian government would be as obnoxious to suggest similarities between marijuana and heroin. I’m sure there are similarities, like, I don’t know, you still have a hippocampus, or there is a rough connection in that they are both pleasurable activities, but I would like ATI to give me some scientific evidence. I have seen nothing about this from anywhere else, except NIDA and the ASMA who also tout marijuana as a potential gateway drug (which fills me with fury). I’ll do the gateway drug thing at another time, suffice to say it is complete bullshit and I have the scientific backing to say so.

“Researchers have found that students with an average grade of “D” were four times more likely to use marijuana”

Other similar items include correlations between marijuana and suicide thoughts (not suicide) and depression. The number of times I have been academically tapped on the nose for suggesting that correlation implies causation is uncountable, and why should ATI thing they can get off the hook just as easily? There are millions of reasons that there is a link between cannabis and negative statistics such as these, not that cannabis inherently damages the body! Consider the illegality of the drug, and then the ‘rebellious’ nature of taking illegal drugs. People who want to rebel are often disassociated with the surrounding community at large, so other things such as not caring about grades, becoming depressed and having suicidal tendencies are bound to occur. That’s just one very rough idea about how to explain a correlation like this, and hell half the time science doesn’t deal with correlation because its too damn confounding and potentially useless.

“Marijuana is addictive”

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. There is NO evidence whatsoever that marijuana illicits any physical dependency. There is psychological dependency certainly, but you can become psychologically dependent on practically anything- cars, coca-cola, friends (in fact you are probably psychologically dependent on a great deal of things) and the withdrawal symptoms are remarkably minor, far less than say, alcohol or tabacco withdrawal. Suggesting that marijuana is the main reason that teenagers go into rehab-esque situations is another case of bullshit; alcohol abuse anyone (saying bullshit reminds me, go check the Penn & Teller program around this fiasco).

 

Is there an alternative to this partisan, proganda nonsense? There is, and it’s a remarkably solid attempt. The UK’s FRANK is an excellent resource. It is a little bias, but that’s easily forgiven given the fact that 1) they don’t like and 2) treat drug use as a responsible decision for you to make. The data on cannabis is remarkably different to that of ATI, and notice the positive effects of marijuana being included as well, as well as a nice-ish video of explaining how THC affects cannabinoid receptors. Hell, it freely admits ectasy when taken with caution and common sense has zero life affecting problems and the main reason for not doing it is law related. It’s an incredible website, and has done more to make my decisions about specific drug use far more enlightening to the point where I can safely say I will not try many illegal drugs because of the risks involved as seen from a website which gives a balanced justification.