Language and Progress - A Conversation with Steven Pinker and John McWhorter @ The Anne L. Bernstein Theater (12/6/2018)

Since moving to New York, I have had the chance to attend a few talks by thinkers that I greatly admire - Sam Harris & Lawrence Krauss, Richard Dawkins & Brian Green.  It wasn't until this morning (in anticipation of tonight's event) that I considered that it might be worthwhile to blog about these types of events.  (I should perhaps also mention a Neil deGrasse Tyson talk that I saw a few years ago in St. Louis as another blog-worthy event.)

Tonight's event actually had a bit of a backstory.  It was originally supposed to be a conversation between Steven Pinker and Matt Dillahunty, and was promoted by Pangburn Philosophy.  However, that company folded about a month ago, so the event was cancelled along with several others.  Everything I have read and heard on the matter thus far indicates that Travis Pangburn was a fraudster who swindled both speakers that he had recruited and customers who had bought tickets for the events.  I should note, though, that although I knew about Pangburn ceasing operations, I didn't actually realize until last week that this specific event had been cancelled - it seems Pangburn didn't send out a notice to ticket-holders who had acquired tickets through his site.  And of course he wasn't providing refunds - the purchase confirmation notice says "No Refunds & No Exchanges. All Sales Are Final.".  Luckily, I saw Steven Pinker's retweet last week of this make-up event, with tickets being made available for *free*; so I jumped at the chance.

The event was held in a small theater on Broadway - I would guess it seated about a couple hundred people (though I'm terrible at these sorts of estimates), in contrast to the ~1500 at the originally scheduled venue.  Prior to the start, I noticed Steven and John chatting right next to the audience, and attempted to go say hello (as it seemed that a couple of other people just had); but the organizer (Jay Shapiro) stepped in, saying that there would be time for that afterward, as they were about to begin.

The talk was moderated by Shapiro, and consisted of about 30 minutes on linguistics, maybe 30 more on progress denial, and then another 45-ish more on audience questions.  Steven and John are both obviously brilliant guys, and pretty much agreed on everything that was discussed.  I can't say that I have any familiarity with linguistics, but some of the discussion on that topic was pretty interesting.  They dished on theories of the relationship between language and human thinking, a bit of what Chomsky got right and wrong, and other things that I can't remember.  Unfortunately, though, I also don't remember either of the couple insights that I found particularly interesting at the time.  After Jay transitioned them to ideas on progress and its denial, they discussed Steven's books on the subject, as well as John's categorization of many social justice proponents on the left as adhering to a religion.  I found that last bit particularly interesting (the rough outline is that such social justice proponents react strongly against reasonable arguments that don't adhere to their worldview in a dogmatic way similar to religion), and will try to spend some more time with his thoughts on that matter.

After the talk, I hung around a bit to take advantage of the intimate setting and try to meet the speakers.  I was fortunate enough to separately briefly chat with John, Steven, Jay, and Coleman Hughes (who was in attendance and had the first audience question).  I delivered a message from Fran to Steven telling him to keep up the good work and that she thought that his curls were almost as awesome as hers - he was happy to hear that last part.  I also got a little more background from Jay and John about how they hurriedly put the event together at the last minute.  All in all, it was a pretty cool event, and a nice way to end a birthday.

A brief summary of my current philosophical worldview

I've been putting this post off for many months, but I think it's time that I finally wrote it.  The idea behind this entry, and hopefully future entries, is to capture a snapshot of my current philosophical thoughts about the world so that in the future I may periodically reflect upon how my beliefs have changed.  This post will probably be shorter than a baseline exposition ought to be, but I'm too lazy to put in the time and mental energy required for a comprehensive treatment.

On the topic that I would loosely describe as metaphysics, I can make a couple of clear statements about my beliefs.  I fall firmly in the naturalist camp, in that I believe that the natural world is the only one that exists - i.e., there are no supernatural or spiritual entities.  It obviously follows, then, that I am an atheist.  If pressed, I might make agnostic noises about how I don't think we can truly know if anything exists outside the natural universe, but in casual conversation the operative position is the lack of a belief in supernatural entities.

One consequence of my naturalist view is that I am a determinist - i.e., I believe that the future is determined by the past.  However, when it comes to free will, I don't know whether to describe my position as a hard determinist (who would basically say that free will does not exist because events are deterministic) or a compatibilist (who would say that a belief in free will is compatible with determinism).  I feel like both positions are plausible, and that in some ways hard determinists and compatibilists are talking past each other.  I think it is useful to talk of free will in a common sense in reference to choices that are not externally forced (i.e., freedom of action), but I don't think choices can in a deep sense be otherwise than has been determined by prior events.

In the field of ethics, I would consider myself some flavor of utilitarian, despite probably being a moral non-realist.  My moral non-realist position is that moral properties are mind-dependent - there are no moral facts that exist independent of minds (e.g., in the way that facts of physics or chemistry exist independent of minds).  That being said, I find the basic principles of utilitarianism (the best actions maximize the well-being of sentient entities) most convincing in relation to the minds that do exist.  I have a hard time pinning myself down to a subcategory of utilitarianism, but I think it's sufficient to say that my views lie somewhere in there.  This viewpoint has manifested itself in my vegetarian diet and my support of the effective altruism movement.

I have far less figured out when it comes to political philosophy.  I generally subscribe to John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle (the actions of individuals should only be limited to prevent harm to other individuals), but I have a hard time definitively saying much more than that.
Another area that I find interesting but don't have much to say about is the philosophy of mind.  Since I believe that our minds emerge from a purely physical system that is the brain, I think that artificial general intelligence is in principle possible.  However, at this point I will not make any claims about how likely we are to achieve such a thing.

What just happened?

November 2016 is shaping up to be pretty terrible.  First the Cubs win the World Series, and now Donald Trump has been elected president.  OK, that first one doesn't really matter that much (especially given how little I care about baseball these days), but let's pretend that it does.

Last week I broke my policy of not voting for people to cast a vote for Hillary Clinton for president; I even went through the "trouble" of casting an absentee ballot from Seattle, which actually ended up being not that much of a hassle.  I did this because I believe that Donald Trump is absolutely unqualified to be the president.  While I think that Hillary has her moral failings and sometimes displays poor judgment, I still respect her intellect.  This is not something that I can say about Trump - most of what he says is devoid of content when he is not being inflammatory.  In addition to his severe moral and intellectual shortcomings, the little that I can gather from his actual policy positions make them seem quite impractical.  I steer clear of the outright name-calling of Trump that you often see on the left (e.g., calling him a bigot, or comparing him to Hitler), but I also struggle mightily to find any redeeming qualities in him.  So I cast my vote as a vote against Trump, and not so much as a vote for Clinton.  It turned out not to matter at all in Missouri, or the country at large.

I was looking forward to the end of this election cycle, as I was tired of all the hubbub about these two unsatisfactory candidates.  Unfortunately, the result of the election has been even more unsatisfying, and there will be even more groaning about the winner for at least the next four years.  Even worse, I am adding to this groaning in an attempt to process what has just happened.  What follows will likely not even be very coherent; I'm just trying to capture some thoughts and questions that I have had over the last day.

My mood as I stayed up late (until after 2 AM ET) to follow the election returns progressed from worried to disbelief to stunned.  The election had not yet been called in Trump's favor when I tried to go to sleep, but it seemed imminent.  I couldn't fall asleep because there were too many thoughts running through my mind; those thoughts inspired this blog post.  I eventually caught a couple of hours of sleep, but I'm not even sure if it was before or after seeing the final call.  The couple of hours attempting to sleep before having to get up in the morning were not very restful, either.

As deeply disappointed as I am with the result, though, there is a not-so-small part of me that wants to laugh at all the people (myself included) who dismissed the prospect of a Trump presidency.  In some ways I think that they/we were out of touch with the motivations of an apparently significant portion of the population.

I'm also laughing at the electoral college system, where the election of the president only seems to really depend on a small fraction of the states.  Based on the latest data, it looks like Clinton will win the popular vote by a small margin but lose the electoral vote fairly handily.  I'm not sure what to think about that, but something doesn't seem right.  Regardless, the system is the system, and the rules were all known going in.

It should be obvious that I don't understand why so many people support Trump.  I am genuinely curious to find out why, though.  How much has to do with party lines?  How much of a factor is a growing distaste for political correctness and/or a desire to shake up the political system that doesn't seem to be working?  How much is an anti-globalization reaction?  How much is a reaction to radical Islam and/or the Middle East refugee crisis?  How much does racism play in this?  How much does gender and sexism play?  How much is related to an opponent with flaws of her own?  How much relates to Trump's actual policy stances?

I'm also left wondering what the impact of a Trump presidency can actually be, though some might argue it is more a symptom of underlying problems than a cause for future ones.  Can he really screw things up that badly, or is there a system in place that will prevent that from happening?  On the other hand, is it possible that Trump can actually be a good president?  Is there some good that can come out of all this for our society as a whole?

Despite my anguish, I must admit that it is certainly more interesting to live through such remarkable events than not. 

Lessons from DTA

As you may or may not know, I've been living in Seattle for the last seven months while on a domestic temporary assignment (DTA) for work.  It's been great.  I've loved the chance to live in and explore a new and interesting place, even despite not yet having the best weather of the year.  But I also really like the idea of having the stability and comfort of my home in St. Louis.  Reflecting on the experience so far has begun to formulate a life goal for a decade or so from now.

I imagine having a career that I can productively undertake anywhere in the world with a sufficiently fast Internet connection (not a stretch as a software developer).  I imagine being completely debt free.  I imagine being able to decide without hesitation that I want to spend the next couple of months in some new place in the world - living, working, and exploring as I desire.  I imagine having the ability to return to my comfortable home when each adventure is complete.

I realize that I am very fortunate to be born into a position where this is a possibility.  But why not seize the opportunity to make this happen?  We'll see what the next ten years bring.

Brief thoughts on Spotify's business model

A couple of weeks ago, Spotify outed details of how they run their business.  The main gist of the story, especially as reported by some media outlets, is that they don't actually operate under a pay-per-play model, despite references to this sort of figure even in their own literature.

Before continuing onto my thoughts on their business model, I should make sure that anyone reading this knows what Spotify is (which I would expect most would).  The super simple version of the story is that Spotify allows you to play pretty much any song by any artist.  They offer a subscription version ($10 a month) that allows you to listen to anything in any order via the web or on any mobile device without advertisements.  The free version comes with ads, and limits listening to shuffle mode on mobile devices.  There's more to the story than that, but it will do for our purposes.

Under a pay-per-play model, Spotify would pay the rights holder (read: record company) some fixed amount for each time that a user played one of their songs.  The rights holder would then pay the artist some portion of the proceeds, depending on their contractual arrangement.  So more plays always equals more money.  Presumably, it would be up to Spotify to make sure that they are generating enough revenue from subscriptions and advertising to cover the cost of content as well as operations.  As I mentioned earlier, this is NOT how Spotify operates.

What Spotify actually does is pay rights holders approximately 70% (actual figure depends on regional contracts) of their gross revenue from subscriptions and advertising.  The breakdown for individual content owners depends on what proportion of total plays their music got.  This seems good for Spotify in that they're pretty much guaranteed to have money to cover operational costs, and if they get enough subscribers/advertisers they can make a healthy profit.

It may not be a great deal for artists, though, as they are essentially directly competing against each other for a slice of the same pie.  It is possible in this system for an artist to achieve a dramatic increase in plays from one month to the next but yet see decreased income in the second month due to the misfortune of some other artist or group of artists blowing up even bigger than them.  So this probably works out alright for more mainstream artists, but not so much for alternative/niche artists.  And remember that the artists usually (unless they're super huge) only see a tiny portion of that 70% cut that goes to the record label.

To be fair, Spotify argues that as they gain more and more users the cut that goes to record labels and artists will increase.  They provide anonymized numbers that indicate that even niche artists aren't doing so badly at current levels, and that they will be doing even better as the service grows.  However, I'm not sure how to reconcile this with some recent complaints by some established artists that services like Spotify are screwing over emerging artists.

So, basically, I don't really know that this post has a point, other than to briefly explain the situation - I don't know enough at this point to be for or against this business model vs per-pay-play or something else.  I will say, though, that I greatly enjoy being a user of Spotify-like services.  I personally have a subscription to Google Play Music All-Access, which is pretty much the same thing (though I'm getting it for $2/month cheaper since I signed up early).  At this point, I have no need to buy albums or acquire them through "other means" (since I think that a lot of albums are overpriced) any more.  This does mean, though, that I'm definitely contributing less money to artists than I used to, even though I'm actually consuming more (or at least a wider variety) of their content.  But the ones that I really like still get concert and merchandise money from me.

Musings on the state of TV

This post is inspired by this article from the Washington Post about a new proposed bill that would increase the access that online video services have to the programs currently provided on cable and satellite.  This comes on the heels of another bill proposed a few months ago that would require cable and satellite TV providers to give their customers the option to pick channels a la carte - i.e., individually, and not in a bundle.  These are relevant proposals as more and more Americans are "cutting the chord", or dropping their pay TV subscriptions, and using online services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.

Being a member of the segment of the population that does not watch much TV (in fact, the only TV I seem to watch these days is Premier League soccer on NBC Sports), I would welcome increased content choice and access via online services.  However, I seem to have a philosophical objection to regulating this into being.

It seems to me that if a la carte channel selection is something that customers are increasingly clamoring for, then smart providers would realize this and begin providing such options in order to increase their share of the market.  Of course, we must consider that a cable/satellite company will likely make much more money off an individual customer subscribing to a bundle than choosing a few individual channels.  But at some point customers should start voting with their wallets, and drop the expensive bundles that they greatly under-utilize.  The question, then, is what customers have as an alternative.

I guess this is where increased access for online video services plays a part.  Ideally, the Youtubes and Netflixes and Amazons should be able to strike content deals that make sense for them and their customers without the government dictating the terms.  Here, I'm less sure whether such access would be possible without regulation - content providers probably have a financial incentive to keep the deal structures that are favored toward cable and satellite companies.  I would still like to believe that the market can work out that increased access is better business.

Another issue that comes up in this discussion is that of net neutrality.  If online video services are allowed access to content that is currently exclusively provided by cable and satellite companies, the cable companies (who also happen to be the major broadband Internet service providers) may have an incentive to reduce the quality of service for the online video providers.

So it seems that there are several factors that are currently tipped in favor of cable providers especially.  Ideally, I would love to see things like a la carte channel selection and online content access come into being due to market forces and without regulation.  But, similar to my feelings on municipal smoking bans, if it takes a bit of legislation to nudge things in that direction, I won't complain too loudly.

Peter Singer strikes again!

Peter Singer is definitely among my top 5 living philosophers, though I have not actually read a whole book of his.  Many of his views on ethics are pretty similar to, and have shaped some of, my own.  In fact, an article of his that I read in one of my philosophy classes a few years ago planted the seed that (in combination with a few other things) led to me converting to a fully vegetarian diet a couple of months ago (after a couple of years of part-timing it).

Now he's going on about charitable donations, and I feel compelled to pledge 1% of my income toward a worthwhile cause (a few of which he kindly points us toward).  I could attempt to give an explanation of why I think this is a good idea, but it's probably better just to watch the man himself talk about it (be warned that this video is ONE HOUR long, though you could probably get the gist of it within the first 15 minutes or so): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MewmfYq4Wrw.

Despite my current advocacy of this idea (and impending pledge to contribute myself), I wouldn't say that I don't have concerns about actually seeing this through.  I think that Singer makes a solid argument for why anti-poverty programs are far more cost-effective than some of the charitable work being done domestically (though this should not be interpreted as me dismissing domestic charities as unworthy).  Still, I question whether "saving lives" without a systematic societal change simply prolongs the conditions that enable perpetual poverty and strife in some of these places.  I'll end the discussion there to avoid stating this concern as harshly as I have sometimes in the past.  For now I'll just concede and settle for saving lives.

A political post.

I'm not that big into politics, but I still have a few thoughts on some issues from time to time.  I figured now might be a good time to get some of those thoughts down in writing, if only so I can look back in 10 years and laugh at myself.

As you may know, I stopped voting for people a couple of years ago.  And as much as I wanted Barack to be re-elected this year (for reasons that had nothing to do with policy), I didn't even vote in the presidential election.  But I did stand in line for over an hour to vote on the ballot measures - which, in retrospect, may not have been worth my time.  So I think I still have some of the same thoughts about my vote being wasted in the current two-party system as I did in 2010.  But perhaps it would be good to explore this in more detail.

One thing that (still) really turns me off in politics is the campaign process.  Politicians spend too much time attacking each other's characters instead of focusing on their stances on the issues.  And even when they do talk about the issues, they often make wild promises that they don't keep.  It seems like a campaign isn't really a great indication of what a candidate will actually do if elected to office.  I'm not saying that the campaign doesn't give you an idea of where they stand and how they might proceed.  I'm saying that campaigns are often more rhetoric than substance, and do not focus on the right things.  But I don't think I'm saying anything profound here - people have just learned to deal with this.  I guess I just choose not to.  I just wish that the campaigners would respect my decision not to engage and leave me alone (in terms of mailings and phone calls) in return.

Besides all the campaign nonsense, I think the biggest issue for me is that I don't identify with either the Democrats or Republicans, and there are no realistic choices outside of them.  It would seem that this need not be a sticking point, because we elect people, not parties, into government positions, and these people are free to pursue whatever agenda they believe is right, even if it strays from the party line (thanks to Tim for pointing this out to me at lunch today).  The problem, for me at least, is that nobody's straying very far.  This is understandable - they did get elected as part of the party establishment after all.  But the result for me is that not identifying with the parties results in not identifying with the candidates.

But what does it mean for me to say that I don't identify with the two main parties?  Where do I actually stand on the issues?  Well, the quick answer is that my views are probably closer to libertarian than anything else, though I'd like to think that I'm not as "crazy" as some of those guys appear to be (even though some of my views are as far away from the mainstream).

I think it's pretty well established that I am generally on the liberal side in terms of social issues.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  One is that I am a John Stuart Mill fanboy, and think that his Harm Principle is pretty much spot on.  So for the most part I think that the government should get out of the business of telling people what to do as long as they're not hurting others.  Of course there's further debate to be had about what actually constitutes harm and what types of restrictions of liberty are justified in various cases, but I'll skip that for now.  I will note here that this does not mean that I have particularly strong opinions, or even an opinion at all, on all social issues.  The other, less substantive, reason that I'm on the left socially is that current conservative social policy is driven mostly by Christian values, and it's no secret that I'm not a huge fan of Christianity.  But even the Democrats feel a need to recognize God in their party platform, so I can't say I'm totally on their side socially either.

As far as fiscal issues go, I think I tend to lean toward the right, though I'm not particularly sure that's the case (yes, there were a lot of weasel words in that sentence).  I tend not to like having the government involved in economic policy, but I must admit that I do not have any strong justification for these leanings.  But at the same time I don't feel like economists really know as much about what's going as they pretend to (though they certainly know far more than I do).  I guess my opinion is that if they really had it all figured out there would be no disagreement about which policies most help the economy, which I'm pretty sure is not the case.  So in the absence of this knowledge, I tend to advocate a hands-off approach.  And due to this lack of conviction I have weaker opinions on economic issues than social ones.

So it may be clear at this point that I don't have very much figured out in the political arena.  I also hold some views that I have trouble reconciling.  As an example, I generally advocate less government intervention, but would somehow be OK with universal healthcare.  I'm not really sure how to justify that.  But there's at least one thing that I think is sorely lacking in the current government: fiscal responsibility.  I don't care as much (within reason) which policies and programs the government chooses to enact, as long as the programs are properly funded.  So if we as a country think that certain entitlement programs are worthwhile, we should structure taxes to fully pay for those programs.  The same goes for defense, or any other government expenditure.  And while we're on the topic of taxes, my stance is that the purpose of taxes should be to fund the government and its programs, not to encourage or discourage certain behaviors.  This principle dictates that the tax code should be pretty simple and straightforward.  I especially like it when taxes are explicitly appropriated for corresponding expenditures - this lets you know where the money is going and helps decide what the worthwhile expenditures are.  But anyway, I'm not sure if that puts me on the right or left - I don't really hear very much about balancing the budget and increasing accountability from either party...maybe a bit more from the Republicans than the Democrats.

So...yeah...  That's kinda where I stand.  Waiting for someone to start up the Purple Party...the one that's kinda like the Libertarians, but not crazy.

Is honesty alone worth $353?

I took Tina (my aging Hyundai Tiburon) in today to get some scheduled maintenance and a state inspection.  While getting this done, they informed me that I needed two new tires.  I was expecting this, so I assented.

After the maintenance was finished I was surprised to receive a bill of only $132.83.  While paying I questioned the cashier about this, remarking that this seemed really inexpensive for service that included changing two tires.  She pointed out that I had been charged for the labor for the tire change, but not for the tires themselves.  She didn't know why this was, but wasn't about to try to get it corrected.  But instead of just walking out the door at that point, I instead asked my regular service advisor, Craig, about it.  He realized the mistake, and called the service advisor who had handled my paperwork to the service desk to make the correction.  While this was going on, I mostly just stood there silently.  In the end, I was charged an extra $353 for the tires - the full difference of what I would have paid had the bill been done correctly.  The service advisor also thanked me a couple of times for pointing out the error.

So...  Should I feel better about myself because of this?  After all, I did basically volunteer to pay 350 bucks that I could have spent in other very satisfying ways.  (It may just be because I'm tired right now, but...) I'm not sure if I could come up with a Utilitarian justification of why I would have been obligated to report the mistake - I don't think the dealership would have missed that relatively insignificant amount of money very much.  Are my practical moral intuitions more Kantian (or perhaps something else non-Utilitarian) than I thought?  Maybe I'll ponder these questions sometime when my head is in a clearer state.

What about this method of taxation?

My general feeling is that the last thing we need in the USA is a more complicated tax code.  However, I just had an idea for a new, perhaps slightly complex, structure to the income tax system that I think might be worth mulling over.  I'll state right off the bat that this probably would never work for logistical reasons.  But if we cast aside that impediment for a bit, there might be something worth pursuing in this idea.

The basic idea is that each taxpayer would use their tax dollars to have a real say in how he/she thinks the government should run.  For now I'm just talking about income tax, and this may be the only area in which this idea would make sense.  There are, of course, arguments that an income tax is not an effective method of taxation, but that's a discussion for another time.  Anyway, here's what would happen in my proposed system:

• As before, each taxpayer would be assigned a total effective tax rate based on their income.  There seems to be somewhat general agreement that a system that does this in a progressive fashion (i.e., the tax rate increases with the taxable base) is preferred, and I'm fine with that.
• I would advocate eliminating all tax deductions and credits.  I agree with a wise friend (Tim Mason) who stresses that the point of taxation is to fund the government, not to encourage or discourage certain behaviors.  Assuming no other changes, the effective tax rates would be lower in this system while generating the same amount of revenue - this is because people would not be doing tricks to lower their taxable income through deductions and credits.  So far this idea is nothing new.  Time for the potentially novel aspects...
• Of that total effective tax rate, each taxpayer would be required to pay some mandatory portion of it towards barely keeping the government running.  By this I mean keeping the lights on and funding prior obligations (debt, entitlement programs, etc.).  To give a more concrete example with simple numbers, lets say this mandatory portion is 50% of the total effective tax rate.  While we're making up numbers, let's assume that the total effective tax rate for an income of $100,000 is 20%.  Someone with that income would be require to pay 50% of 20% (= 10%) of $100,000, so $10,000.
• The remainder of an individual's tax burden could be lower or higher than the remaining 50% of the total effective tax rate.  The final amount would be at the discretion of the taxpayer.  But this determination would not be arbitrary.  The taxpayer would be presented a list of departments of the US government (I don't know whether this would be a complete list, but the "major" ones should probably be on there) with information on what each department does and its funding needs.  For each department listed, the taxpayer would be given a choice of 5 funding levels, ranging from significantly reducing a department's budget, to maintaining its current budget, to significantly increasing its budget.  Let's say the choices are something like the following:
• (A) Fund the department at 50% of current budget
• (B) Fund the department at 75% of current budget
• (C) Fund the department at 100% of current budget
• (D) Fund the department at 125% of current budget
• (E) Fund the department at 150% of current budget 
• The system would presumably be set up so that choosing to fund all departments at 100% would result in paying 100% of the discretionary portion of the effective tax rate, and thus 100% of the total effective tax rate.  Using the numbers above, an individual could then pay between 50% (all budgets slashed) and 150% (all budgets boosted) of the discretionary portion - or between 75% and 125% of the total effective tax rate.  The final number would be dependent on his/her funding levels for each department.  The departments would also presumably have different weightings on the individual's final tax burden, with larger departments having more of an effect.

I like this idea because it gives taxpayers a say in how they think the government should be structured, and this vote is directly tied to something that most people care about - their wallets.  If you think that the work a certain department does is valuable, you can show it by increasing their funding.  If you think a department should be shut down, decrease their funding.  I think it would go a long way toward showing what people think the right size of government should be.

It also changes the dynamic of tax increases and tax cuts.  If a political figure or group wanted an income tax increase, they basically would have to convince the public to fund the government at higher levels.  Tax cuts would go the opposite direction, though I don't think most people would need convincing in order to reduce their tax outlay.

Obviously, there are also some drawbacks to this idea.  I see two main arguments against it, but I am sure there are many others.  The first deals with logistics.  Besides the fact there are many details that I glossed over that would need to be sorted out, it seems like an overwhelming burden to force each taxpayer to make these sorts of decisions.  And it may be that the departmental level is not an ideal partitioning for this project.  Imagine how much more work it would be to have to make decisions on individual agencies within departments.  Isn't that what we elect public officials to do for us?

The other argument seems to be one of fairness, and goes something along these lines...  If I'm funding a department at a higher level than someone else, should I not benefit more from that department than that other person?  If I give the Department of Defense 150% funding, I should be better protected from foreign militaries than someone who gives them 50% funding.  Or if I give the Department of Transportation 150%, I should perhaps drive on better roads than someone who gives them 50%.  Even if the current system has other flaws in distribution, I can at least say something like each person pays an equal portion of each tax dollar for each service that the government provides.

To the first point regarding logistics, I don't think the project is hopelessly doomed.  I certainly think that there would be many issues to work out, but I think it could be done in a way that preserves the basic ideas driving this.  Remember that filling out tax forms right now is not a straightforward task.  In fact, this is so much the case that a large number of people pay professionals to do it for them.  My proposal could conceivably be simpler than the current system if tax loopholes were closed and tax rate calculations were simplified.  The only remaining variables would be income level and departmental funding levels.

Even if the logistical issues could be overcome, the question remains of whether this would be a worthwhile method to try.  The second objection above is an argument that it is not.  I don't think that I currently have anything to say directly counter to that objection, though my response would be that I perhaps see fairness a different way.  I think that giving each person a voice regarding the structure of the government is fair.  And in the end the benefits of doing this could outweigh claims to individual levels of service based on contribution.

As I hinted at earlier, there are many more aspects to this idea that I have not even considered (despite the above-average length of this post).  Perhaps somebody will point something out that will make me realize that this is a profoundly misguided idea (and hence why I've never heard something like this discussed before).  But for now I'm kinda diggin' it.

Really, Charlie Davies??

I like Charlie Davies as a footballer.  I wouldn't call him great by any means, but his speed gave the US Men's National Team a bit of a spark when he played.  And of course I was saddened when I heard about the car accident a couple of years ago that ultimately cost him a chance at playing in the World Cup.  But he's recovered fairly well, and had a pretty solid season in the MLS this year.  And I wish him the best in his soccer career going forward.

With that being said, however, I think that his current lawsuit against the Shadow Room, the nightclub where he partied the night of the crash, and Red Bull is completely frivolous and without merit.  The lawsuit apparently claims that the Shadow Room and Red Bull are responsible for the car accident (in which one person was killed, in addition to the others that were injured) because they served excessive alcohol to the woman that later drove the car.

Really??

I have a couple of questions for you, Charlie...

1. Did the nightclub in any way force the woman to acquire or consume those alcoholic beverages?
2. Did the nightclub force her to get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle while intoxicated?
3. Did the nightclub wreck the car?

I strongly suspect that the answer to all those questions is clearly "No".  So drop the stupid lawsuit.

The whole idea is so dumb that it's not even worth my time writing this post.  Except for the minor point that it allows me to make about free will.  My opinion is obviously that we are each responsible for our freely chosen actions.  An excuse such as "I was drunk" does not relieve you of that responsibility (assuming here that you were not forcefully or surreptitiously drugged, or anything like that).

Since I am also a determinist, some might argue that I must provide an account of how free will is compatible with determinism in order to be able to claim that we are indeed responsible for our actions.  But that's a discussion for another time...

Every online service should have a data extraction feature

This post was initially inspired by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings' blog post that apologized for the recent price hike and then announced that their movie-by-mail service would be spun off to a separate site named Qwikster.  My concern was that I would then have to manage two separate movie queues and, more importantly, two sets of movie ratings.

Sidetrack...  One primary driver that makes me like Netflix so much is my horrible memory.  I've seen a fair number of movies, but I don't really remember much about most of them.  But given any particular movie I can take a glance at my Netflix rating history and get an idea of how much I liked (or disliked) it.  This seems like a pretty simple idea, but for me it's pretty great.

Anyway...  The announcement of Qwikster even had me considering quitting Netflix for about half a second.  But Netflix does not provide a way to extract your rating history from their service.  And I've rated a lot of movies on there - 1120 at latest count (though I'd estimate that I've only watched 700-800 on Netflix).  There are, or at least were, some ways to hack your rating history out of Netflix, but the couple that I found appear to not function any more (though I did not verify this myself).

Wouldn't it be great if Netflix, and other online services, had a data liberation team like Google's?  The folks at Google even have a feature called Google Takeout that allows you to download your data from an expanding list of Google services.  Even Facebook has a way to archive and download all your Facebook data (there's a link that says "Download a copy of your Facebook data" at the bottom of the Account Settings page).  This makes it easy to keep all your data if you stop using a service, or transition to a different provider.  Unfortunately, this ties into why they wouldn't want to provide this feature - they want to keep you hooked.

OK, so maybe Netflix doesn't really have enough of my data that they need a huge archiving system.  But I would have thought that it wouldn't be that hard to provide a simple API that allows external applications (that I authorize) to access my movie ratings.  In fact, this feature has been in request for over 3 years now.  It seems that the hang-up has been with the legal department - privacy issues and the like.

Anyway, Reed and Netflix today announced that DVDs will be staying on Netflix, and that Qwikster is not going to happen.  So the status quo will be maintained.  And I won't be leaving Netflix...which wasn't going to happen anyway.

Recycling pick-up...finally...

St. Louis City has been slowly rolling out its new recycling program that includes recyclables as part of the waste pick-up.  And my ward/neighborhood has just joined in the fun - I received my blue recycling roll-cart today.

So instead of 2 trash pick-ups per week, we get 1 for trash (green cart) and 1 for recycling (blue cart).  And this is all included in our refuse charges.  In my hippie opinion (and despite my libertarian tendencies), this is much better than the old opt-in program that cost an extra fee, and only gave you the little blue tub...which I didn't do anyway - I took my recyclables to the recycling center about 5 minutes away.  So now I don't have to load up the car and drive over there every couple of weeks.

More info about the recycling pick-up service:
http://stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/street/refuse/recycle/alley-curb-dump-cart-recycle.cfm

The IRS isn't *all* bad...

When the deposit into my bank account for my federal tax refund was approximately $200 higher than what I filed on my tax return (using free file fillable forms, because I don't think that I should have to pay money to file my taxes electronically), I was a little suspicious.  But not suspicious enough to complain to anybody about it.

A little later, when I was doing my mother's tax return (with TaxAct, because she's willing to pay their fees for e-filing the state return), I noticed that TaxAct let her claim the Making Work Pay credit.  I again became suspicious, because I was unfamiliar with this credit, and figured that I should have qualified for it as well.

It was not until I received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service a few days ago that I put all the pieces together.  The IRS explained that they had adjusted my refund by giving me that tax credit, even though I had never claimed it.  How generous of them!  It's nice to see that they make adjustments to our benefit from time to time, not only the other way around.

This doesn't mean that I've changed my mind that the IRS is a mostly unnecessary organization, though.  If it were up to me, the tax code would be grossly simplified, and most (if not all) deductions, credits, exemptions, and adjustments would be removed.  I think that the purpose of taxes is simply to raise only as much money as is necessary to run the government, not to also encourage or discourage certain behaviors.

A new view on voting.

'Tis the eve of the mid-term general election, so it's also time for my political post for the year.  And this time around, I've basically given up on political candidates.  I've long held that my life would not be too significantly different if either a Democrat or Republican won any particular election that I've been a part of.  And we all know that voting for an independent candidate is a wasted vote these days.  The final straw was probably all the unsolicited mailings (a complete waste of paper, if you ask me) and phone calls that I received in the few weeks leading up to the election.  So I'm done voting for people for legislative and executive offices in government (and pretty much any position where a party affiliation is listed on the ballot).

But this does NOT mean that I'm no longer voting.  I just will be voting for the things that I think matter.  For example, measures that are put to a popular vote certainly matter.  I don't think a vote on a ballot measure is ever a wasted vote - in this case everyone's opinion counts equally on an issue that matters.  I will also be voting on whether to retain the judges in my district.  In the past, I abstained on these because I had no idea how to vote on any of these.  However, thanks to Lester Kyles, I have been made aware that the Missouri Bar association rates judges based on surveys given to lawyers and jurors in their cases; see here.  Unfortunately, the Bar seems to almost always recommend that every judge be retained, even when they have significantly lower scores than their peers.  There also seems to be a saddening correlation between a judge's low score and his/her race (I assume/hope that lawyers and jurors are not generally racists), but I digress.  Needless to say, I will be not be voting for all judges to be retained.

Lastly, in case you're interested, here's how I think I will be voting tomorrow morning:

• All judges will be getting a vote for retention except:
• David Mason will be getting a vote to NOT retain
• Angela Quigless, Barbara Peebles, and Paula Bryant will probably not be getting a vote either way
• MO Constitutional Amendment 1 - The exception (for Jackson County) is arbitrary and stupid; so NO.
• MO Constitutional Amendment 2 - This does not seem like the appropriate way to reward disabled POWs - NO.
• MO Constitutional Amendment 3 - I think this is a YES, just cuz I don't like new taxes, but I don't know that I have a more thoughtful justification for why this should be in the MO constitution.
• MO Proposition A - ?
• MO Proposition B - I get the animal cruelty deal, but I don't understand the limit on 50 puppies.  Not certain, but I think this is a NO.
• St. Louis City Proposition F - YES.
• St. Louis City Preferential Proposition L - YES.

I apparently am not a very good samaritan.

Something very awkward happened to me about a week or two ago.  I was stopped at a traffic light when I noticed via my peripheral vision a bit of a commotion in the car sitting to my left.  I normally take great care to avoid eye contact with other drivers while waiting for lights, so I tried to ignore it as best as I could.  However, when the front passenger door opened up, I had to steal a few quick glances over to try to determine what was going on.

From what I could tell, there was a young black man in the drivers seat and a young black woman in the front passenger seat.  There also appeared to be a young child (no more than 5) in the back.  The woman seemed to be struggling mightily to try to get out of the car, but the man looked to be holding her back - I think by the wrist.

This went on for what seemed like a minute, but was probably really only 10-15 seconds - I wanted to get the eff out of there.  The thought did occur to me to perhaps get out of my car and try to help defuse the situation, but I quickly shot that idea down by reasoning that they likely would not want me interfering in their business.  Plus I was scared that such an act would put my own person in danger - the thought of the man drawing a gun on me even flashed across my mind (which makes me kinda feel like a horrible person).

Anyway, as soon as that light turned green I booked it out of there.  I'm pretty sure I made the right decision (though I'm still struggling a bit to rationalize it based on some semi-plausible moral principle, e.g., that of utility), but I kinda wish that I was a "better" person than some of my reasoning in the situation would indicate.  Oh well.

One reason I'm a "belligerent" atheist.

I must qualify that claim because I don't really go around picking fights with theists.  And I've kinda beat this topic to death lately so I'll try to keep this short...

Anyway, this is related to a question Galen and Tim brought up the other night regarding why I've become so "belligerent" about my atheism (no, it's not because I hate all Christians).  This thoughtful video highlights an aspect of it that we didn't discuss, though I don't think I would make the claim that atheists are persecuted to the same extent that the blacks or the gays were.

My revised plan to save the world.

This is not one for the faint of heart, though it is less so than my initial two iterations of plans along the same lines (which are too harsh to post).  The inspiration for this comes from a debate held earlier today at the St. Louis Ethical Society, which I caught wind of through the St. Louis Atheist Meetup Group, concerning the following question: "Should China's One Child Policy Be Adopted in Other Poor Countries?"  The debate itself was not very good - the only halfway-decent speaker was a pro-life Missouri Lobbyist on the wrong side of the question.  Presentation skills aside, though, the two on the good side (both members of Citizens for Global Solutions of St. Louis) outlined a good argument for the protagonist view.

First of all, I should point out that this argument is pointless unless you accept the fact that the world population is excessive, and thus a contributing cause of many of the problems we face - the earth's resources are finite, after all.  And according to the below Wikipedia rendition of a graph from a recent UN report projecting population growth, things could get worse unless some action is taken:

The CGS members' view, set forth in a handout, was that there are three (though they combined #2 and #3 into one) reasons for recommending the one-child-per-family policy in poor countries:

1. China was able to greatly increase the well-being of its own citizens by use of this policy.  Other poor countries could do the same.
2. China also greatly helped to limit the population growth of the world as a whole, thus preserving (or rather, minimizing the destruction of) the natural resources available worldwide.
3. Policies of national governments are one of the major factors in dealing with the population problem.

They also provided a few qualifications of their position.

1. Although their claim is a normative one, they do not advocate that poor countries should be compelled to adopt the policy - they believe that it should be evident that such in a policy is in their best interest.
2. They recommend flexibility for particular situations - e.g., minorities and families in rural areas - when adopting the policy.
3. They recommend the use of strong financial incentives and public opinion in implementing the policy.  This includes making population control measures (condoms, birth-control pills, tubal ligations, nonsurgical vasectomies) freely available and offering privileges (free education, subsidized health care, guaranteed unemployment income) only to first-born children.
4. They expressly reject the use of abortions, instead recommending that unwanted babies be made available for adoption by rural families (where additional labor would be useful).
5. They recognize that the policy should be brought to an end if a country thinks that some unanticipated situation requires a change (e.g., an epidemic or natural disaster).

Of course this plan is not without potential problems.  The opposition brought up the following worries:

1. First off, such a policy may seem to amount to a restriction of freedom, and this would probably be the case if implemented in a brutal, authoritative fashion.  One might be able to justify strict enforcement, and therefore limitation of liberty, by some utilitarian argument - thus overcoming the harm principle.  Regardless, the plan set forth relies on economic incentives, allowing people to choose not to comply at the risk of losing these incentives.  My worry, though, is that this may be a naive view: poor and uneducated people in these countries may not understand enough to make what I take to clearly be the proper choice.  There's also the worry that people will try to cheat the system.
2. The lobbyist pointed out that China resorted to forced abortions and other brutal measures to implement the policy.  This may be the case, but the CGS does not advocate the use of abortions.  As mentioned above, implementation would be mostly financially driven.
3. Another worry by the lobbyist is that unborn females would be targets for abortion since parents would prefer their single child to be a male.  In China this has resulted in a 1.17:1 ratio of males to females in the latest generation, which he claims has caused Chinese men to resort to illegal trafficking of women from neighboring countries.  Even if this is a pervasive problem, which I doubt, there is a logical limit to its effect.  At some point people have to realize that aborting females is a bad idea.  Maybe not being able to marry off their sons will be a way of sparking this realization.
4. Yet another counterpoint was that China has too few young people to support their aging parents and grandparents, especially as life expectancy increases.  While I can sympathize to an extent, I would choose the problem of not being able to care for old people over that of having children continuously born into inescapable poverty.

All in all, I believe that the basic idea of such a policy is a sound one, and that it should be adopted in the Third World.  Furthermore, the arguments presented against do little to weaken it.

Reciprocal altruism.

I have had an e-mail starred in my inbox for 5 months now, intending to write a blog post about it.  It's about time that I actually do it.

The motivation is an article sent by my friend Rob: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/opinion/23wright.html

It concerns one of my favorite topics: science and religion, and whether they are reconcilable.  The author seems to think they are.  I, for the most part, think they are not.  At least, science is not compatible with religion as the institutions exist today.

As the article notes, religious apologists often argue that science cannot explain our moral instincts of right and wrong.  Wright points to the notion of "reciprocal altruism" (benefit through mutual cooperation), which may have played a part in the evolution of our moral senses.  I think this is right.

I would only add that this evolution occurred on a cultural scale.  I don't think that we are born with an innate sense of right and wrong, but are instead raised to learn right from wrong.  Through teaching, observation, and rational thought, we learn how this works.

Wright seems to imply that "convergence" on moral instincts due to reciprocal altruism is evidence that objective moral truths exist.  I happen to disagree with this idea, but I do not completely dismiss it (there are also non-theistic motivations for thinking they exist).  I do, however, think that the analogy to stereopsis and perception of three dimensions is a bad one.

The main point of the article is that science and religion are compatible.  Basically, you can use the scientific theory of evolution through natural selection (along with this notion of reciprocal altruism) in conjunction with belief in a creator that set it all in motion.  Note, however, that in order to use this approach, believers must still abandon the Judeo-Christian conception of an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent God; but they can still keep a creator.  This is why science is not compatible with current theology, though it is possible that religion could evolve into some sort of deism that is compatible with this approach.

Wright argues that in order for peace to be achieved concessions must be made on the atheist side as well.  I will grant him that the idea of a creator is compatible with science, and I feel like most atheists (though not the really stubborn, belligerent ones) would do this as well.  However, that is not the argument that theists are making.  If/when religious discourse abandons irrationality, then real dialogue can begin.  It seems logical to observe complexity and wonder if that is evidence of a designer, or to observe "convergence" and wonder if there are objective truths.  Debating from that point of view would be more worthwhile than using beliefs based on blind acceptance of a book of myths.

Inspirational documentary of the month: Food, Inc.

First came An Inconvenient Truth, which turned me into a tree-hugging, earth-loving hippie for a couple of years.  And then I changed my mind and pondered making my own documentary entitled "So Spring Comes a Little Earlier Each Year: What's So Bad About That?".*

Then I saw Sicko, and jumped on the universal health care bandwagon.  Yeah, I've pretty much done a "John Kerry" 180-degree flip-flop on that one.  While I definitely like the idea of covering as many people as possible (I'm a softie for taking care of the people), Tim convinced me that health insurance should basically not be treated differently from car insurance, home insurance, or any other type of disaster insurance.  I could go on more about this, but that's out of scope for this blog entry.

Now, it's about the food we eat.  This topic was first broached by King Corn, which documented the industrialization of corn, how it has killed the family farm, and how corn now permeates the majority of the food we eat.  Food, Inc., further, "examines large-scale agricultural food production in the United States, concluding that the meat and vegetables produced by this type of economic enterprise leads to inexpensive but unhealthy and environmentally-harmful food" (description stolen from the linked Wikipedia article because I'm too unoriginal to come up with a better one).

Food, Inc. is definitely a movie worth seeing, if only to raise awareness and/or stimulate discussion.  My first instinct after seeing it is to become a vegetarian or only eat organic produce.  But I've had this reaction before, and it didn't last very long.  It seems that the lifestyle that I prefer (often on the go, never cooking for myself) is not very compatible with this choice.  And then there's the worry (briefly dismissed by one of the organic farmers in the movie) of whether we could feed everybody if the system shifted to organic policy.  I have some other solutions to the overpopulation problem that drives this concern, but I fear those are too radical for dissemination.

In any case, I invite anyone who has not seen this movie to do so.  Afterward (or if you've seen it already), you can engage me in rational discourse to convince me that I am overreacting, or underreacting, to it.


* - I should confess that I'm still a bit of an environmental hippie, but not for the same reasons.  In general, I think reusing, reducing, and recycling is a good thing, but a lot of my motivations are more financial these days (even though I still pay more for electricity), as opposed to attempting to save the world from impending doom.