Pearls ...

I've been involved in an ongoing disagreement on a mailing list (which will go unnamed to protect the innocent) about motorcycle safety. The overwhelming majority (all the non-lurkers, it seems) on the list seems to believe that no single motorcycle (type) is safer than any other (type). And the primary justification for this position is that the majority of motorcycle crashes seem to be a result of rider error. I.e. there are no (or very weak) correlations of the crashes to any other factor.

Of course, being the obstinate, ignorant, bull-headed, contrarian that I am, I disagree with this position. And, it's useful to add that many of the people on that mailing list are motorcycle instructors... making me not just obstinate, ignorant, bull-headed, and contrarian, but also an anti-authoritarian dissenter. :-)

Now, practically, a large source of my objection to their justification is that we (being the parts of US society with which I'm familiar) seem to have accepted the fact that other vehicles like cars, trucks, trains, ships, and planes can be categorized according to how safe they are. The primary critical question that keeps me skeptical of their justification is: Why would motorcycles be so fundamentally different from other vehicles? Why do all other vehicles submit to a safety gradation but motorcycles do not?

Now, of course, in most instances of heavy impact crashes like those involving trains, ships, and planes, the putative cause is some form of "pilot error". And that fact may seem to bolster the justification that motorcycles don't submit to a safety gradation. Further, the commonality of the ascription of "pilot error" to these high profile crashes might be justification for thinking that the safety gradation we apply to trains, ships, and planes is unwarranted or just plain false! Perhaps no one (type of) train, plane, or ship is any safer than any other (type of) train, plane, or ship!?!? Indeed, if most of the crashes are the result of "pilot error", then the relative safety of one vehicle over another may well be buried down in the noise of the data.

However, I don't think that's the case. The fact that most of these high-profile crashes are putatively the result of "pilot error", weakens the justification for the belief that no one (type of) motorcycle is safer than any other (type of) motorcycle. It weakens it because we can ask: Well, if even in these crashes involving other types of vehicle (trains, planes, and ships), the putative fault lies with the "pilot" but we maintain that some of these vehicles are safer than others, then we can do likewise with motorcycles.

At least, from a skeptical point of view, it's reasonable to claim that all vehicles are similar in their submission to a gradation of safety. I.e. either motorcycles submit like all the other vehicles, or NONE of them are more or less safe.

And since the general consensus seems to be that all other (non-motorcycle) vehicles submit to a safety gradation, then so do motorcycles. I.e. some (types of) motorcycles are safer than others.

So, why would all these relatively intelligent, knowlegable people deny that reasonable, consensus based position? The answer is that there is not enough data to say one way or the other (despite their insistence that there is enough data to demonstrate that rider error is so totally dominant that other correlations are lost in the noise). Very few scientific motorcycle safety studies have been done. The authoritative one (the so-called "Hurt report") took place between 1976 and 1981. And traffic patterns, technology, and human density has changed quite a bit since then.

However, the paucity of data is not quite sufficient to explain why seemingly intelligent and knowlegable people would reject the reasonability of the conjecture that motorcycles are just like any other type of vehicle (and hence submit to a safety gradation). The lack of data is necessary but not sufficient to explain their zealous attachment to the uniqueness of motorcycles as a type of vehicle.

I posit that the additional condition that we need to add to build a sufficient explanation for their zealotry is two-fold: 1) conservatism: don't change what ain't broke and 2) liberalism: don't limit freedoms unless you can demonstrate the benefits and costs of such limitations.

In other words, these people don't want the gub'ment to willy-nilly, without good reason, to slap any type of restriction on the manufacture and use of motorcycles. And that strikes me as reasonable, as well. If yahoos like me start yapping loudly about how motorcycles are just like any other vehicle and some are safer than others, then we might see more junk science (in the form of actuarial assessments) arguing that, for example, "super sport" motorcycles should be banned. And no matter how rational the yahoos like me may actually be, those rational arguments will be co-opted and abused by cranks who feel they need to do something and, subsequently, will jump to ANY premature conclusion that presents itself.

Having said all that, the ethical dilemma I face is: Do I allow the fear of premature conclusions to prevent me from discussing motorcycle safety in a rational way? Obviously, as evinced by this web log post, I don't cower in the face of such fears. As with the fear that the gub'ment might ban some sorts of guns, we cannot allow our fears coerce us into zealous over-commitment to false ideology.

The reality is that some (types of) motorcycles are safer than others. And we desperately need more data to determine that safety gradation, which is why this news is so bad.

This set of web pages is filled with food for thought. I highly recommend it.

Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

Their fundamental premise is that the human species, as it is and will be, is detrimental to life on earth. Homogenization is death and lowering the population is the only way to free up resources for other species. And, since all species, including humans, are built to breed, extinction is the only way to maintain a low population of humans.

I (usually) disagree with this premise. I believe that life on earth (including humans) is approaching another inflection point (not a "singularity" -- all transitions are conservative trade-offs) and, though humans may die off during the transition, life will take on a whole new aspect on the other side of the inflection point. This may sound eschatological; but it's not. I'm not talking about the "end times". I'm talking simply about evolution and emergence, the progressive (though perhaps non-monotonic) increase in life's complexity over time. (At least until the sun goes red. ;-) )

Although I disagree with their fundamental premise, the VHEMT site is great reading and thoughtfully laid out. Again, I highly recommend it along with the GPSO and other such groups that target over-population.

Having seen the bizarre abuse of Christianity by right-wingers in the US and the equally bizarre abuse of Islam by right-wingers in the stans, I've been occupied by atheism, theism, and placing my own belief structures in the space of possible belief structures.

My first tangible result is a larval set of 3 hypotheses that I believe are falsifiable by the following test.

First the "theoretical" setup. And please bear with my pretentious misuse of prior works. My goal is to formulate the hypotheses and test so that they are informative regardless of the weakness of my "theory", but still with enough hooks to flesh out an actual theory.

• Shannon's Theorem 10 goes something like this:
  
  Given a system, S, and a "good" controller, C, for S, the variability of C (V_c) must be greater than or equal to the variability of S. I.e.
  
  

   V_c >= V_s.  

  
  
  This is common sense, actually. E.g. the competent manager of a complex enterprise must be flexible enough to handle all the wacko things that a complex enterprise might do. Or, a competent parent must be flexible enough to counter all the wacko things their teenager might do. (Of course, the theorem doesn't, at all apply to managing businesses or raising teenagers... but as I said, bear with me.)



• If a controller is part of the system it's trying to control, then the variability of the part is likely to be less than the variability of the whole. I.e.
  
  

  V_c < V_s.

  
  
  My point being that any human (theist or not) is a part of the world; so the human (the controller, "good" or not) is part of the system she's trying to control.



• Defn: Let's say we have two distinct (but perhaps not disjoint) controllers in the system: A, T in S. Define M(A,T) as "A is a better controller than T of system S".



• Premise:
  
  

   V_a > V_t => M(A,T).  

  
  
  OK. Now all we have to do is devise a measure for V_c, i.e. the variability of any given human. My first idea for this abuses the research that provides evidence that liberals are more "open to new experiences". I'm not claiming that conclusion is true (in fact, I think true conservatives -- the people who focus on conserving resources -- are much more capable of handling variability in the environment than liberals -- the people who generously lather resources where they are needed). But the sense of the rhetoric is what I'm after.



• Defn: My proposal is that the variability of a human is correlated with the intensity of the emotions they exhibit when placed in unfamiliar and high variance contexts. For example, we pluck your average Iowan and toss her into the audience of a cage fight in Thailand and measure her physiological response. If that response is generally positive, then that person has a high variability ... a high capability for handling unfamiliar and exciting situations. That (admittedly vague setup) constitutes my measure for V_c.
  
  Now we also need a measure for "theism" and "atheism". I don't like the idea of relying on self-reporting, because nobody I talk to has a clear description of what it means to be an "atheist". So, I suspect people are just "group identifying". They choose to call themselves "atheist" if and only if they identify with the people they've seen calling themselves "atheist". And most "theists" I talk to don't even know what the word "theist" means. 8^O



• Defn: So my proposal for measuring whether someone is an "atheist" or a "theist" would consist of a dialectic survey designed to tease out a person's spiritual views while trying to factor away group identification. I don't know how to do this. I'm just a damned programmer, after all. ;-)

Hypotheses:

1. V_a ~= V_t

   -- I.e. there is no statistically significant difference between the reactions of atheists and theists to unfamiliar and exciting contexts.




2. V_a >= V_t

   -- I.e. Atheists show more postive or neutral reactions than theists.




3. V_t >= V_a

   -- I.e. Theists show more positive or neutral reactions than atheists.

The interpretation of the results would be relatively open, I think. But my "theoretical" setup above would probably lead me to believe that whoever showed the greater variability has the more accurate and/or more useful world-view.

And just to get it out of the way, my bias is toward theists. I tend to believe that theism inherently handles ignorance. I.e. theists tend to accept that they are very flawed and ignorant. At least that's part of the metaphysics ... that "God works in mysterious ways". As such, they are trained to navigate despite such flaws and aren't particularly upset when wacky things happen (e.g. miracles).

Atheists, in contrast, often admit that some things are unknown; but they rarely seem to admit that some things are unknowable. The "atheists" who admit that some (or most) things are unknowable tend to call themselves "agnostic". This inference of mine makes me think that atheists are less tolerant of ambiguity, mystery, ignorance, etc. Hence, wacky, anomalous events don't necessarily evoke competent navigation in the midst of uncertainty. In fact, if we read too much into the idea that many scientists are atheists, we could jump to the conclusion that wacky events ("miracles") cause atheists to become extremely curious and obsessive ... burrowing away in dead-end rat holes for decades, wasting their lives trying to know the unknowable. (Thank God for these ahteists because without them, we'd still be hacking each other to bits so we can own the Oh Great and Powerful Tim's carcass or plant our flag on some sacred rock in the middle of a desert.)

So, my bet is that the theists would show greater variability than the atheists. But I've been wrong before. ;-)

I brewed what I hope will turn out to be a stout this morning. I used lots of shelled pecan halves, some spices, baker's chocolate, and brown sugar. I'm hoping the pecans will come through over all the other stuff. But I was willing to risk it to get the original gravity up. I got it to 1.066. With any luck, this will be the "biggest" beer I've ever brewed.

I used White Labs Irish Ale yeast (WPL004), which has an attenuation 69-74%. So, it may have less alcohol than my Habanero Chipotle Belgian. But it should have a good body if the yeast works well enough.

I also managed to bring the wort down to 70 deg F this time by modifying my cooling process to add a cold water bath as well as the immersion wort chiller. With just the immersion, I can only get it down to 80 F or so. Getting it down to 70 F meant I could pitch the yeast right after transferring it to the fermenter, which should help get a good start because the wort is better aerated if transferred at room temp.

I was advised to create a "professional" looking website for my agent-based modeling activities. Actually, this person advised me to focus the company or start a different company with ABM as its sole focus. I tend to think that's a throwback from the VC dominated tech bubble. A modern company must be agile. If Tempus Dictum is anything, it's agile. ;-) But, it does make sense to "brand" our agent-based modeling work differently from the rest of the stuff we do.

Hence, I created http://agent-based-modeling.com to do just that.

Why am I posting this on my personal web log? 8^| Well, I heard somewhere that the more sites that link to a given site increase the chances of that url showing up in the search engines. So, I'm just giving the robots another nudge.

At the election party hosted by a friend of mine, after I had made my claim that Obama and McCain aren't very different in their policies and that either would make a fine president, another guest asked me why I voted for Obama. My response was: "Because she's a creationist."[***] A discussion ensued and I explained that although I have little problem with intelligent design as a metaphysics (not a science), creationism has been proven wrong. I didn't take the time to explain that, in science, falsification (proven wrong) is methodologically possible but "proven right" is impossible. I attribute my lack of rhetorical agility to the several pints of beer I'd had by that time.

In any case, the discussion proved to me that I was a bit guilty of the same ignorant premature conclusions committed by those who claim Obama is a Marxist. So, I had to do a little due diligence to see how premature my conclusions were.

Palin does seem to be a creationist. From FactCheck.org:

On Aug. 29, the Boston Globe reported that Palin was open to teaching creationism in public schools. That's true. She supports teaching creationism alongside evolution, though she has not actively pursued such a policy as governor.

And that's pretty bad. But there's no evidence that she's actually a young earth creationist, which is what I thought in the early hours of November 4th. She may be. Yet she may not be.

Now, when looking at Scott's Creation/Evolution Continuum, I realize that in order to give creationists the respect they deserve, I have to identify the points on that continuum that are significant to me.

In general, I have 5 categories for people I talk to:

1. tolerate,
2. appreciate but can't sympathize,
3. peer,
4. appreciate but can't grok,
5. over my head.

I think I place my 5 categories on the evolution/creation continuum as follows:

1. progressive creationism - I can tolerate people who advocate this; but I have grave doubts about their ability to think and their motivations - e.g. planning for the rapture.
2. evolutionary creationism - I can have pretty in-depth conversations with people who advocate this; but I expect most spiritual or metaphysical conversations will end up in a fundamental disagreement.
3. theistic and agnostic evolutionism - I fit right in with these people. However, I'll probably find myself playing the Devil's advocate for materialist evolutionism.
4. materialist evolutionism - I can appreciate this position; but, ultimately, I will always have a sense of mystery, limits, horizon points, and the unknown. So, I'm either not smart enough to grok this position or too addicted to fantasy to give up my delusions.

In that context, if Ms. Palin turned out to be an evolutionary creationist, then it's possible I would not have regretted voting for McCain. But, it's not a risk I was willing to take. If I helped put a young earth creationist into the office of the President, I would regret it for the rest of my life. Luckily, I don't have to worry about that for awhile, now.

***I'm not actually a single issue voter; but this particular issue is canonical for several issues: McCain's impaired judgment for picking such a person as his running mate, denigration and ignorance of science in policy, McCain's age, the conflation of religion and governance, etc.

A friend of mine asked me, sincerely, whether or not I believe in God. (I emphasize "sincerely" because such questions are usually not sincere at all. They're usually asked as a part of some childish rhetorical diatribe, especially if asked by a self-professed atheist, which this friend is.) The actual question was: "You believe in God, don't you?"

I answered "No." At the time, it surprised me that this friend (who I've known for a very long time) would think I believe in God. It occured to me later that I may have argued as the Devil's Advocate in the past, defending theists in some context. Or, perhaps some statement or other that I've made implied that I do believe in God. Or, perhaps I even answered differently at some time in the past.

Let's assume it's the latter, that at some point in the midst of some particular conversation, where specific concepts are being kneaded and chewed, I answered "Yes, I believe in God."

It seems common for one person to accuse another of contradicting themselves where the accused denies a contradiction exists. It's happened to me quite often and I'm almost always surprised by it because I spend quite a lot of time and effort ensuring that I don't contradict myself ... or, rather, that my system of beliefs and concepts is consistent.

I have two resolutions to this problem, one difficult to understand and one quite simple. Because very few of the people I meet on a daily basis have the time, energy, or will to understand the difficult resolution, I had to adopt the easy one.

Here's the easy one, in case you, dear reader, don't have the time, energy, or will to understand the difficult one. Walt Whitman's quote:

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; (I am large -- I contain multitudes.)

In other words, so what? People are complex, confusing, and irrational and if I want to contradict myself, then I will. Pfffft! I usually only pull this resolution out when I feel like I'm dealing with dispassionate people ... those who don't give a rat's ass about me or my opinions. And there are many of them out there, as there should be.

But for anyone who is a facile thinker, the more difficult resolution is much more enlightening. I'll state the difficult resolution as directly as possible and then heap more words on afterward.

Apparent contradictions are usually paradoxes, not contradictions.

Technically, a contradiction can't even exist in normal human discourse because it requires unambiguity, which can only exist in formal languages like math or programming languages. For example, if your mom says something like: "I weeded the garden today." And then an hour later, she says: "I didn't really weed the garden today." She is not contradicting herself. Sure, you may think she's contradicting herself. But she's not. And it's not because she's got Alzheimer's or she's become a pathological liar. It's because English is an ambiguous language. It is an apparent contradiction ... i.e. a paradox.

The way out of a paradox is quite simple, actually. You broaden the frame. In the case of "weeding the garden", it may be as simple as loosening up your concept of what it means "to weed" or "the garden". The ambiguity of English allows us to use words without precisely defining them. And such language allows us to make apparently contradictory statements without it representing an inconsistency within our own belief systems.

As for my friend thinking I believe in God well, technically, I both believe in a God and don't believe in a God, primarily because my concept of God is relatively complex. The first point is that if there is a God, that God has multiple aspects. And each individual aspect can be (not just appear, but actually be) entirely disjoined from any other individual aspect. Hence, when I talk to people about God, I usually use "gods".

So, just from that simple tip-of-the-iceberg point, if I were asked whether or not I believe in God in a context where most people in the discussion inherently understand aspects and the relationships between subject and object, I will probably say "yes, I believe in gods." In contrast, if asked in a context where most of the people in the discussion are talking about the Protestant, singular God with a personality, gender (male), etc., then I will probably say "no, I don't believe in God."

A deeper explanation of my concept of God is not necessary, here, to make the points above. But because nobody actually reads this web log anyway, I'll present a brief description.

I believe reality is a holarchy, a system of systems of systems, forever extensible up, down, and sideways (actually, since there are more than 2 dimensions, 1-ways, 2-ways, 3-ways, ..., n-ways, ... actually that doesn't even cut it ... the holarchy is a dense infinity of dimensions).

Such an extensible reality is, I suppose, impossible for an animal like us to understand tacitly. We can think and reason about it, especially armed with math; but since we can't toss it around in our hands, smell it, eyeball it, lick it, etc., we will not be able to really grok it ... at least not in the same way we grok a hamburger, bicycle, or music.

Now, just because we can never comprehend the entire holarchy doesn't mean we can't forever grow in our own mental, inferential examination of that holarchy. I.e. I have no doubt that our understanding of the holarchy is more accurate than, say, my cat's understanding of it.

OK. Here's the punch line. My definition of God is "whatever lies just beyond our current understanding." I'm not talking about things that lie way out beyond our understanding. I'm talking about what lies just barely beyond our reach, along the same lines as Arthur C. Clarke's "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Two side notes are warranted:

1) I get my definition of God directly from my Catholic upbringing, which is why I can honestly answer my mom (in some contexts) with "yes, I believe in God." The Catholic God carries, at its core, the concept of mystery and the uncomprehendable, as well as the more banal multiple aspects of God. And in a fully fleshed out context for this discussion, it would be very easy for me to identify the two concepts "mystery" and "God". Just because I don't stop at 3 aspects (Father, Son, Spirit), doesn't mean I don't share the same fundamental beliefs. Of course, when I'm talking to myopic and dispassionate Catholics, I usually have to say "no, I don't believe in God ... at least not your God." It's worth noting that when I've had the opportunity to discuss this sort of thing at length with priests, we don't usually disagree.

2) Magical Thinking. Lots of modern atheists (and others) have been criticizing magical thinking these days. This is not merely disrespectful or the nightmarish rhetoric for the death of imagination. It's actually an insidious and cowardly attack on the identity of an individual. True, it's important for people to sporadically realize that "it takes a village" and to an extremely deep extent, our entire mental worlds are built upon society and the external world around us. But to attack magical thinking is to attack innovation. Every inventor, scientist, and child on the planet achieves everything they ever achieve via magical thinking. It is normal and healthy to imagine and try to achieve the impossible. And to denegrate such imagination is despicable beyond comparison. In fact, it is magical thinking that allows me to imagine a world filled with idiot robots who can only concieve of what we already know exists. Such a society defines Hell for me. So, I'll gladly put up with Christians and their flying spaghetti monster, mushy-headed co-workers who consult the Zodiac every day, and angst-ridden sociopaths furtively glancing up from their Chaos Magick books in order to revel in a society full of magical thinking.

I got so tired of waiting for someone else to come up with a collective beer calendar, I created my own. If you want to add events to this calendar, send me an e-mail and I'll add you.

So, I awoke circa 04:30 this morning from some strange sounds out in the street. They were strange clunking sounds along with shuffling footsteps. I went out there and saw a guy try the door on my neighbor's car. In just my pajama bottoms (at roughly 55 F, by the way), I follow the guy for 2 or 3 blocks watching him try several of the car doors and even walking up to some houses (that had porch lights on).

It's not clear what I would have done were he to find an unlocked car while I was following him... being nearly nude and all ... without a weapon. But, luckily he didn't. In fact, I did make some noise and I suspect he finally figured out he was being followed. He outpaced me (I was barefoot, you see) and after I'd lost him, as I was heading back to my place, I saw what I suspect was him on the porch of a house talking (or pretending to talk) to someone else. The porch was pitch black; so I couldn't see his baseball cap or duffel bag, which I presume he was using to carry any recently aquired loot.

Anyway, he probably doesn't know that I have a webcam aimed at the road, which caught him in the act. Unfortunately, I don't suppose flipping the handles on parked cars is actually a crime. ;-) So, technically, he didn't do anything wrong the entire time I followed him.



Oh! And over the weekend, we made the trek down to Albany and picked up some of that killer Chili Beer brewed by Calapooia Brewing. It is an awesome beer.

I was approached by a young person on the street the other day with the stereotypical clipboard and that "hungry but not yet hungry enough to work at McDonald's" look in his eye. He suggested I sponsor a child in some far flung country. Millions of children go without food and healthcare all over the world, he said. Of course, trying to "do unto others", I gave his pitch a respectful listen and when he paused, informed him that I would not become such a sponsor. I thanked him for the opportunity and, after a couple more attempts to disengage, went on my way.

I consider myself a generous person. I tip >= 20%. I regularly pass out money to the homeless. I donate money to about 5 charities every year. Hell, one of my ex- business partners still owes me ~$30k; but I figure he needs it more than I do, given his penchant for limosines, fancy food, and his heart condition.

So, this leads me to try to resolve the apparent contradiction. Why do I consider myself generous when I won't give, like $0.50 a week, to some starving kid halfway across the globe?

My conclusion is that I am locally altruistic and globally self-interested. I don't like bureaucracy. So, if the actual person who needs (or merely wants) my charity asks me himself, then I tend to give it. If some bureaucrat or agent asks me on behalf of someone else, I tend to keep my money. (After all, if those starving people have an agent, they can't be that poor. I'd love to have an agent go out and market my services or advertise my plights. ;-)

The same is true of the businesses I patronize (funny word "patronize", when talking in the context of fair trade). I try not to shop at Home Depot or buy Anheuser-Busch beers. I try to buy from small businesses and drink beer produced by small breweries.

So, having settled on that rationale, the issue was again stirred up by this article.

Now, to provide a little more background, I managed to read this book, which extolls the benefits of liberalization and financial infrastructure. The only interesting objection I have to the gist of that book is that globalism is efficient if and only if the price of energy is low. Moving goods and electrons across enormous distances is only efficient when energy is cheap. Hence, various types of globalism, e.g. spreading assembly over long distances, are wasteful when energy becomes scarce. Some types of globalism, investment and borrowing, might remain efficient, of course.

I've long had a philosophical objection to globalism in that if we outsource all our work, then we'll forget how to make things, which abstracts us away from the act of making things, which turns us into ignorant ivory tower types. But, that flaw in globalism is nowhere near as critical as its dependence on cheap energy.

Putting the three issues together: 1) local altruism, global self-interest, 2) self-interest built the USA (from the article), and 3) globalism requires cheap energy, it should be quite clear that the balance between altruistic versus self-interested behavior should track closely with exploitative versus exploratory distributed processing.

When resources are plenty, it makes sense to spread out and explore the whole territory. Each individual or small cluster can, at least, survive on whatever they find because resources are plenty, even if the individual or small cluster is inefficient and wastes a lot. But when resources become scarce, it makes more sense to move into an exploitative mode and spend serious effort maximizing the efficiency for processing what few resources remain.

Now that the USA has squandered much of its resources (selling it to foreign interests, printing massive amounts of money, selling off drilling rights, extracting all the nutrient from the soil, over-fishing the coasts, trading blue- for white-collar skills, pushing out wildlife by filling every nook and cranny with humans, etc), it is time for the USA to shift from an exploratory mode to an exploitative mode. And that means a shift from mostly self-interested, libertarian behavior to a more altruistic conservative behavior.

When and if we find a new frontier rich with resources like the "new world" was, then we can afford to switch back into exploratory mode and individualism and self-interest will again dominate, as well it should.

But for this stage in the development of the USA, working for and encouraging others to work for the common good is the right approach, the exploitative approach. We need to squeeze the maximum benefit from each unit of resource left available to us.