Birthday Suggestion

I need more time - or, at least, I need to figure out how to better use the time that I have.

There is so much that I want to do, and I do not have enough time. So, projects that are important to me are not going as well as I would have liked.

And, I make mistakes.

Some readers may have noticed that the blog entry before this one used to be exactly like the blog entry in my Atheist Ethicist blog. That was a mistake - cause by being too tired or too rushed. I do not mean to offer duplicate posts.

Anyway, I am getting behind on the things that I have said I want to do, and yet I still want to add more things to the list.

So, here's what I want.

I have a birthday coming up.

I would like, for my birthday, to have $2 million in cash (post-tax). I will then invest that money, allowing me to draw a reasonably sufficient income, allowing me to quit my job, and work full time on all of the projects that I would like to be working on.

Is that too much to ask?

Money and Value

One of the things I like about this blog is that it gives me an opportunity to present topics that would, essentially, be a digression in my other blog.

For the Atheist Ethicist blog for tonight I am working on an essay on the relationship between biology and value, in a desire-utilitarian context. My starting point is an article in The Economist, “Money Isn’t Everything”.

The article starts with the following paragraph:

PSYCHOLOGISTS have known for a long time that economists are wrong. Most economists—at least, those of the classical persuasion—believe that any financial gain, however small, is worth having. But psychologists know this is not true. They know because of the ultimatum game, the outcome of which is often the rejection of free money.

What a load of hogwash!

No economist has ever said that money is everything. In fact, money is a medium of exchange and has value only in virtue of what a person can do with it. A $20 bill is only so much paper and ink. What gives it value is the fact that one can give it up for something else that does have value - food, clothing, shelter, chocolate, more chocolate.

And as for "free money" - economists are the ones who invented the phrase, "There ain't no such thing as free money." The article in which this this quote appears is an article about making choices, and simply points out that an individual will give up money in exchange for other 'goods'. This is hardly a surprising result.

What surprises me most is that such an obviously flawed paragraph would show up as the opening paragraph in an article in "The Economist."

In this context, the paragraph goes from being simply wrong to laugh-out-loud absurd.

A Model Atheist Response

Today, I found an article, "Alabama Atheists: Governor Riley's Call for Citizens to Pray for Rain Is a Waste of Time, Money", which contains elements that I think should take center stage whenever governments advocate religious solutions to real-world problems.

The article contains some mention of the separation of church and state. However, the bulk of the article focuses on the fact that real-world problems require real-world solutions, and 'religious' or 'faith-based' options are a waste of time and effort.

Presidents are in the habit of calling for a day of prayer after every natural disaster. There is a protest raised regarding the separation of church and state. There should be an equal protest raised to the effect of, "The whole problem comes from the fact that people spend too much time praying and not enough time pursuing options that can actually do some good in the real world. You are wasting time and resources on options that do not work, rather than focusing on real-world solutions that will work."

Each and every time there is a protest over some church-state separation issue, there should be equal time set aside to simply say, "You're wasting time and resources. And because you are wasting time and resources, you are costing lives and allowing suffering that could otherwise be preented."

The Future of Manned Space Travel

I came across a nice clip of Burt Rutan delivering a talk about the future of manned space flight, which he claims will be in the hands of private companies, not NASA.

I have been defending the same point.

One of the things that Rutan defends is the ethics of fun. The first steps in commercial manned spaceflight is nothing more than rich people spending a lot of money for their own pleasure.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. Desire utilitarianism defends the idea of promoting 'desires that tend to fulfill other desires'. A good person gets to do whatever he wants, because what he wants to do is that which will tend to fulfill other desires.

The desire for a joy ride in space will feed an industry which, ultimately, has the power to protect the Earth from environmental degradation and protect the human race from extinction.

How would you like to save the world and have fun doing it?

It's easy when you find fun in doing things that have such side effects.

Hypocrisy and Ad Hominem Tu Quoque

Members of the Bush Administration are accusing former President Bill Clinton of Hypocrisy for criticizing Bush's pardon (for all practical purposes) of "Scooter" Libby (Reuters: White House accuses Clintons of hypocrisy in Libby case

This sets up a huge red herring where the Bush Administration can misdirect public attention from its own wrongs by pointing somewhere else. It is the magician's trick of the slight of hand - getting people focused on the wrong target so that they do not actually notice the trick.

As a defense of Bush's actions, even if the accusation against Clinton is true, it would amount to an application of the fallacy ad hominem tu quoque. It would be like Hitler trying to declare his innocence by saying that Stalin (one of the allies) also killed millions of innocent people. However, Stalin's guilt does not prove Hitler's innocence.

Inconsistencies

Yesterday, I expressed the need for some measure of outrage over the fact that President Bush commuted Scooter Libby's sentence.

However, I have since recognized some political problems here.

Ten years ago, the Republicans thought that obstruction of justice, in a case as insignificant to national security as a President having sex with an intern, was such an outrage against justice that it was worth removing a President from office. Now, they treat the crime as a misdimeaner worthy of no punishment at all.

Ten years ago, the Democrats thought that the same case of obstruction of justice was a trivial matter. When they show outrage today, they show themselves to be just as hypocritical as the Republicans.

The sign that an individual has some shred of moral decency is when he condemns allies on the same standard that he uses to condemn adversaries. It is found in the person who says, "I am neither a Democrat, nor a Republican, but an upholder and defender of Justice. I will not look at your party affiliation to determine if I think you guilty or innocent of a crime."

Unfortunately, there are far too few people like that in this country today.

That lack of a moral standard - the lack of a consistent appeal to principles of right and wrong - is costing us a great deal.

Libby's Commuted Sentence

President Bush has commuted the sentence for "Scooter" Libby, saying that the sentence was excessive.

By what standard does Bush make this judgment?

And if the President is going to commute the sentence of an individual based on the standard that he judges the sentence to be excesive - we have over 2,000,000 people in prison, many of them suffering from excessive sentences as well. Can they get a pardon from Bush?

Not likely.

And the reason? Because they did not engage in criminal activities for the sake of protecting President Bush and his friends.

Really, this is the message that President Bush sent to his staff. "Object justice. Block investigations. Do what you can to protect me, and I will use my power to protect you."

Some people are complaining that Bush did not give Libby a full pardon. These are people who do not care what this will mean for accountability - for the possibility of establishing a tyranny that is above the law. The only way to prevent this type of state is if the people are appropriately outraged that Bush would support obstruction of justice and purjury as business as usual for Administration employees.

I'm waiting now to see if there is the appropriate outrage. If not, the only reasonable conclusion is that truth and justice are no longer to be considered American values - since exactly the crimes that Libby was convicted of were purjury and obstruction of justice.

I covered the moral issue in detail in "Pardoning Libby"

More on Atheism and Discrimination

Much of the discussioni of whether there is bigotry towards atheists seems to be overlooking an important fact.

(See, for example, Ed Brayton: Atheism and Civil Rights)

The charge is that the "militant" rhetoric of some atheists (I continue to hold that rhetoric does not qualify as militant unless it involves a call towards violence) is a part of the 'image problem' of atheists.

Yet, please note that there is not a 'militant' comment by atheists that has not been topped by an outspoken theist - some directly calling for the establishment of a Christian theocracy in America and which actually do make references to Christian soldiers marching as to war.

Yet, this does not create an 'image problem' for theists. For the most part, these claims are ignored.

In fact, we have some Christians blowing up abortion clinics and killing physicians, and some Muslims blowing up just about anybody, and yet, for these groups, we hear nothing but how important it is not to judge others by the acts of these few. Yet, among Atheists, universal condemnation based on the extremes of a few is standard operating procedure.

When members of Group A can make genuinely militant comments without raising an eyebrow, where members of Group B make comments that must be taken out of context to be considered truly militant, yet Group B has an 'image problem' - this shows that there is discrimination and prejudice at work.

Bush's Legacy

According to an article printed online on MSNBC, "A President Besieged and Isolated, Yet at Ease," Bush is asking a number of experts about the difference between good and evil and his Presidential legacy.

Mr President, I believe it is almost certain that future generations will see you as the worst President in American history. They will see their civil rights destroyed and see you as the author of their destruction. They will see their property destroyed and friends and neighbors harmed through global warming that you refused to act against. They will see the size of the bill that you gave to them. They will see all of this and judge you harshly.

The problem, Mr. President, is that you never learned the art of evidence-based thinking. You have a history of ignoring the evidence - ignoring the facts, and going with your "faith" - which tells you about an imaginary (and grossly misinformed) fantasy world that existed only in your head. You took these faith-based policies from your imaginary friend and tried to apply them to the real world and discovered that reality simply refuses to be ignored.

You are like a person who, coming to a street, sees all of the evidence of an approaching car. However, having an approaching car at that moment is inconvenient, so you step out onto the street anyway, having faith that your invisible friend will prevent the truck from doing you harm, and condemning those who warn you about the truck as traitors who only want to prevent you from crossing the street.

Then, BLAM!

Only, the truck did not hit you, Mr. President. You were protected by the thick armor plating of family wealth and power. The truck swerved into a crowd of innocent bystandards who lack your special protections - people who are most vulnerable. Theirs are the lives you destroyed.

The people who suffer and die are the citizens and soldiers in Iraq, our children and grandchildren, and countless people who will suffer from the abuses of government that you upheld and defended in your tenure.

They will have little to thank you for, Mr. President.

That will be your legacy.

Suppressing Ideas

A commenter named 'Z', commenting on an entry in my series about religion is a form of abuse, commented on the article "Taking Action Against Religion"

Sounds like another case of a religion (Atheism) attempting to suppress other folks' ideas.

The methods of suppression that I have written about involved using words and private actions.

I argued that false beliefs and bad desires contribute to death, sickness, and other forms of suffering or harm to quality of life. As such, people have reason to act so as to reduce false beliefs and bad desires. Furthermore, they have more and stronger reason to focus first on the worst beliefs and desires.

I have argued for a strong presumption in favor of liberty that limits the range of legitimate responses to words and private actions. It takes (or should take) an extremely strong argument to defeat this presumption.

However, those who would suffer death, illness, or other harms as a result of false beliefs and bad desires - and tose who care about them, either personally or with generic empathy for their suffering, give people reasons to inhibit such destructive false beliefs and bad desires.

And, most importantly, if the critics charges make sense, they would end up contradicting themselves, because the commenter's criticism itself counts as an attempt to bring the weapon of criticism against the idea that the author is critical of and wishes to suppress.

In the face of this criticism, I am supposed to become aware of the wrongness of my actions and cease making those claims that the commenter disagrees with - and agree with the commenter's use of words to condemn the expresion of an idea he disagrees with that it is wrong to use words to condemn the expression of an idea one disagrees with.

My view is that there is something out of whack with this commenter's response.