What Do You Believe?

In a continuation of the discussion with a friend who is an Obama supporter, I pointed out some porky and inappropriate spending in the Porkapalooza "stimulus" bill. And he said the most amazing thing:

"You've got to think that for every bad item listed, there are probably nine that make sense. I can't prove that, it's a hunch."

And this from a friend who claims to be a believer in the philosophies of Robert Heinlein (RAH, the person whom I most admire). Heinlein's writings supported a belief in self reliance and personal responsibility, coupled with a distrust of government. He also had some interesting thoughts on the roles of men and women, but more about that later.

Anyway, my friend then said something with which I agree - "I worry, though, when people start talking about "adding safeguards" to make sure money is spent "appropriately." It usually involves forcing a belief system on someone else. Of course, the alternative is that they spend the money on new fleet cars. But when federal money has all kinds of strings attached to public schools, for example, administrators and teachers have to jump through hoops to keep what little money they're entitled to. Bureaucracy just sucks. I think everybody agrees on that, unless they have a government job, and even then..."

Great, buddy! You are on the right track! But you support Obama? He wanted to avoid a political discussion and said - "I think it's hard whenever there are people who seem to be intelligent who reach different conclusions with the same data. Makes people argue more vigorously because they can't seem to understand why the other person didn't already think this already."

To which I said:

I agree that smart people can come to opposite political views. It doesn't make them more or less smart. People of good conscience can disagree. I do find SUBSTANTIALLY less tolerance on the liberal/progressive side of the equation, hence Bush Derangement Syndrome.

I can tell you are smart by the quality of your posts. What I have trouble with is your internal inconsistency. You claim to be a believer in RAH's philosophy, but you voted for an out and out socialist. This isn't a theory any more based on BO's voting record and political past, it is an easy to draw concludion from the "stimulus" porkapalooza. I think it was pretty clear in the election that McCain favored smaller government that BO, so I find it intellectually inconsistent that an RAH believer could support Obama.

Look at what you just said: "You've got to think that for every bad item listed, there are probably nine that make sense."

Why on earth would you possibly think that? Even if something in Porkapalooza was a good idea, it is vastly unlikely that it would be a good thing for the FedGov to do. 9 out of 10 ideas in that sense are going to be BAD. Yet I bet you have said that you support Porkapalooza.

And yet you say that bureaucracy sucks. You can't be tolerant of socialism and be a supporter of BO and think that. Because he will massively increase bureaucracy at the expense of freedom. That is how bigger government works. They say that they are protecting you, but you must give up freedom to obtain that protection.

I believe that our current society is too "safe" and insufficiently free.

I bet you do to.

But somewhere along the line you drank the Kool Aid.

OK, I will leave you alone. You have said a couple of times that you don't want to engage on political stuff, and I will respect that. But I think you need to re-examine what you believe. I don't think you are supporting politicians and causes that are reflective of what you say you believe. So you either need to recognize that your beliefs have changed or change the politicians and causes you are supporting. Cuz you head and your heat are fighting with each other.

Hairy

Bush Derangement Syndrome and Stem Cells

In a recent correspondence with a new friend, he suggested that W was a bad president for banning stem cell research. I found this misrepresentation of the president's position deplorable, so I responded -

OMG. You didn't say stem cells. Tell me you didn't say stem cells. At this moment you remind me of an unfortunate character in a WB cartoon who has stumbled into a mass of rakes. With each step you take to get away from one, you step on another to have it smack you in the face.

W did not stop stem cell research. I bet you think he did. He did not stop embryonic stem cell research. Surely, you say, he must have done that! Nope. Guess again. You have fallen victim to Bush Derangement Syndrome. So help me, I am going to take away your access to the Heinlein wing at the local library.

Here is what he actually did. He put NO restrictions of any kind on private research. He said that there would be no FEDERAL FUNDING for EMBRYONIC stem cell research involving NEW LINES of stem cells. There were already a couple of dozen lines of embryonic stem cells upon which experiments were already being done, and those WERE eligible for federal funding. Research using adult stem cells, and I think cord blood stem cells was eligible for federal funds.

Bush said that he didn't want federal money used to encourage abortions. That taking stem cells from aborted fetuses would encourage abortion, as it would give inappropriate value to the fetus, and make abortion clinics more likely to encourage women to abort, so that they could sell the fetuses.

OK, I think his reasoning is a bunch of crap. I think that a first trimester abortion is not killing a baby in any meaningful sense. But I DO think that is an arguable position that a fetus is a baby at some point, and at some point acquires some rights. A "fetus" that is going to come out on its own in less than a week is more than just a piece of the mom's body. People of good conscience can disagree about when a child begins developing rights, and to what extent. W was going further than I would, but calling a fetus a baby is not entirely irrational, or a myth based superstition. It is a reasonable opinion, with which I disagree during the first trimester, but entirely agree during the third trimester.

Now we get to the federal funds question. We aren't taking about blue sky theoretical research here. That is the ONLY kind of research that I think should be getting federal funds. Big Pharma is going to make plenty of money from stem cell treatments, and they know it. Eli Lily and Pfizer are going to do stem cell research on their own. MS, Parkinsons, AIDS, Diabetes, and a host of other private charities are going to pump big bucks into University research studies. Stem cell research will be more than adequately funded without my tax dollars. Including Embryonic stem cell research.

Dude, you drank from the coolaid. You been runnin with the wrong crowd.

Hairy

Apple Box Art

Shamelessly stealing from another blog I read, apparently there is a museum around here for Apple Box Art. For those readers from out of town, Washington State is world renowned for its apples. There are many competing farms and businesses that competed to sell their apples. One way of competing is packaging. Years ago apples were sold in wooden boxes. Growers would put distinctive labels on their boxes. Some of this commercial art is amazing.

A local car wash/gas station owner has created a small museum for this art in Kirkland, WA. If you are looking for something cool, local, and offbeat (particularly if you need a wash or a fill), then the Rose Hill Car Wash is worth a visit.

The Rose Hill Car Wash

Here is a video of some of this classic art. Note the related videos as well.

Apple Box Art Youtube Video

This is also a great school project, particularly for middle and high school students. It has it all, commerce, history, regional interest, art, and even collecting.

Hairy

Starting an online humanist church.

An acquaintance on another board asked for suggestions for starting an online church. This produced Hairy Thinking.


I've been thinking about the internet church concept. I've played around with a couple that are out there, and haven't seen anything that worked for me.

There are so many sides to this. What do you want the physical setup to be? Will it be static web pages? Will it be a 3d avatar church in second life or golively? Maybe something with an active chat room, or even webcam rooms. If you wrote it down, you probably have some idea of what you want.

My initial inclination would be to go with a formula that works for traditional services. At least once a week, but at a regularly scheduled time, have an online meeting place of some kind. A camfrog room might work, if you wanted to have a video component but still keep it free. But each week have a structured service.

In the church of my youth, the pastor would begin with an invocation and a prayer. So you have a bunch of people in the chat room, and you tell them all to shut up, and look at the pastor's video window. You can watch the pastor preach, you can type comments, but he is the only one speaking.

You have probably seen my thoughts on prayer. I think humanism needs it. "We pray that our leaders find the strength, guidance, and wisdom to lead us in peace and prosperity."

Maybe a hymn/song. The pastor runs a youtube video of something that is appropriate for the day. Preferably something with karaoke style lyrics, so people can sing along. Each in his own key, of course.

Then a reading of a Humanism Creed. The creed gets read every service. I haven't seen one that I like yet. But we need one. Maybe select someone at random in the room to read the creed. That could be a treat.

Then the lesson. This could be a reading from a contemporary or historical humanist thinker. This is where we teach the congregation the history and application of humanism.

Time for another song.

Now, the sermon. This is the pastor giving his personal opinion on an ethical question, and telling the flock how to lead their lives.

Communion. I have no idea what to do with this. Let's see. In church it was praying for Jehova to come sanctify a light snack. I don't know. Maybe a group wave of positive thinking to psychically heal some sick person? Maybe everybody reflecting on becoming better people, and finding ways to improve the world. I dunno, that all sounds weak.

Final song, then the chat room just opens up for general socializing.

But a church needs more than that. It needs to actively work to improve the community. That means tithing, charitable works, volunteers, and actually DOING something as a church. Sponsor an orphanage, build a house, rehabilitate a drunk. Something.

People have responsibilities to their church. If they aren't supporting it, then they aren't serious about it.

Something needs to be done for the kids. If this were a brick and mortar church it would have the equivalent of sunday school. Teach the kids about famous humanists, humanist ideas, ethical behavior. Maybe take folk and religious tales from all faiths and cultures, and tales of personal sacrifice and bravery. I don't know how to do that online. But if you are going to get people to come every week, and to support the church, then it MUST be family friendly. It's all about the next generation.

I really think that there are a lot of parents out there who go to church for their kids. If we could give them the lessons for their kids without the fat, er . . god . ., then we could get a lot of followers. Particularly in more secular areas.

All of the lessons and sermons need to be available online. Maybe the entire service, but that might be tougher.

One of the greatest inventions of religion is the Catholics confessional. It is THERAPY. Find a way to do THAT, and they will come in droves. You don't have to give hail marys as pennance. Give them emotional work to do, and community service to make up for confessed misdeeds.

Churches do stuff this way because it WORKS. Too often I see humanists wanting to throw out the structure and effective parts of religion because they are so angry about the whole god business, and the negative things that some churches do. It's a lot like Bush Derangement Syndrome. Everything Bush did was wrong, everything is his fault, anything good that happened happened despite him. That's nonsensical. Every president does a mix of good and bad. Likewise, everything about religion is not bad. The structure, the ritual, the traditions of the basic church service WORK. They did the social research and refinement for us, lets use it.

On the subject of politics, the church should be apolitical. Don't piss off half of the potential constituency by going left or right wing. This is about personal behavior and community service, not about who is in the white house, or whether we should all join a protest march somewhere. Wearing politics on a sleeve is a giant turnoff from someone who is also wearing religion on the other sleeve. It suggests the arrogance of God is On My Side, and if you don't Vote Like Me, you are a Bad Person, who will Go To Hell or have Bad Karma.

Huh. That kind of got me wound up, didn't it.

It is OK to put your hands over your eyes and run away screaming now.

Hairy

Love Thine Enemy.

On another board I was stuck by an unnecessarily vicious attack on the different major religious denominations in the United States. While I think of religion as nothing but superstition, attributing base motives to the followers and leaders of religious faiths is just plain wrong. So I responded to the attack thusly:

[quote]Human history does not reflect very many divine attributes to human endeavors.[/quote]

To me this was the most striking line in a particularly dour post. I get so tired of people choosing to attack the motivations of others with whom they disagree. The Protestants want to keep people from thinking, the Catholics deliberately plot to deceive their flock, humanity stinks. Most people, most churches, most church leaders genuinely believe in the honesty and "truth" of what they are doing. They aren't trying to secretively enslave humanity, they are trying to uplift humanity to a state of grace. You and I can certainly agree that they are misguided in the way they are trying to do this, but to suggest that it is done purely out of cynicism and guile is as misguided a belief as theirs.

Until you can see this "truth" you will never understand, nor be able to successfully argue against, their movements. By failing to see the the depth, sincerity, and positive nature of their messages, you give them far to great an advantage in our struggle of ideologies.

If you truly feel that human history does not speak well of humanity, then your belief in SH almost seems like the Xian equivalent of satan worship. If humanity is so bad, then you should be hoping that there is a god to save us from ourselves.

I see a different truth. A humanity that has its flaws, but is largely generous, hard working, noble, inspired, and inspiring. I run a division of a dozen people. With one exception they are kind, generous, hard working, and making the world a better place. They have no need of a god to tell them what to do, or to threaten them with eternal punishment for bad behavior. They are simply good people. That's why I am able to rejoice in my SH beliefs.

The history of mankind is a history of triumphs, progress, sacrifice. More so with each passing year. For every tyrant there are a dozen heroes. For every monster there are a hundred who are hard working and quietly noble. And for more triumphs than tragedies, the motivation of many is their faith in god. So disagree with it as a superstition that we are outgrowing, but denigrating it unnecessarily should be beneath us. The man was right who wrote "Love thine enemy."

Hairy

Science Fiction and Homosexuality

A discussion about a new science fiction series and the lack of gay characters in science fiction led me to some Hairy Thoughts on the subject.

Going to a lot of SF conventions and reading a lot of SF, it has always seemed to me that a disproportionate percentage of female SF fans and authors self identify as lesbian. But an awful lot of them seem to be of the overweight mannish variety. I have often wondered how many of the claim to be gay in order to seek out other unattractive women for "safe" relationships. If you are unattractive it is easy to want to avoid rejection by the men you find attractive. They are all chasing after the hot chicks. Plus SF offers and opportunity for both male and female gay folks to create and imagine worlds where they fit in.

Of course the primary demographic for SF is young men, so putting in a major male gay character has a very good chance of killing ratings.

Homosexuality is probably a genetically controlled tendency. As with many aspects of physiology and psychology, homosexuality is not a digital function. Most men are primarily attracted to women, but some men are sexually attracted to other men. To a greater or lesser degree. That means that some guys are only going to hook up with gals. Some may occasionally dabble in gay sex and relationships. Some will be attracted to anything with legs. Some will only be interested in other men.

As we unravel the genetic code we will figure out which genes in what combination cause gay tendencies. The next step will be to give parents the ability to select or eliminate different genetic traits. By the time we get to the far future of SF, it is entirely possible that gayness will be eliminated from the gene pool. Possibly it is most accurate to represent a purely straight future society.

The Cube

In 1969 NBC had a show called Experiments in Television. It gave young directors a chance to put pretty much anything they wanted on the air. One weekend afternoon while I was still in grade school this show came on. Probably the only episode I ever saw was called "The Cube". It was about a man trapped in a cube. People could come in and out, but he was never able to escape.

Today I see it was a study of alienation and reality. Then it just blew my mind, opening up thoughts I had never before experienced. It made a huge impression on me. For the next 35 years I would periodically remember The Cube, tell others about it, and try to find it. In all probability it was just lost in the mists of time, but I continued to search for others who had seen it.

To my amazement I was not the only pre-teen out there who was profoundly impacted by this show. The internet has created an unprecedented means through which people of like (and unlikely) interests can connect.

We all had slightly different recollections of the show. I had misremembered the gorillas in tutus. I thought they were on trikes. Turns out they just danced around, and the next tormentor was a little kid on a trike. I had completely forgotten about the Nazis. But I remembered the chocolate bunnies, and most of all the strawberry jam. Everybody remembered the strawberry jam.

Hundreds of us have been bothering friends and relatives about this dimly remembered but profound experience. And now many of us have found each other.

There is a Yahoo group with over 300 members:
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/JimHensonTheCube/

There are hundreds of ratings and dozens of comments on IMDB about it:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0291118/

And now it is available in color, in its entirety, on the web:
http://tinyurl.com/4e3uwd

So why am I posting this? Couple of reasons. First for fellow travelers who are still looking for The Cube. Second, to comment on the web's ability to provide quest fulfillment.

I have long noted the changes in our society brought about by our no longer being reliant on our physical neighbors. Many of those changes are bad. Most are wondrous. Like the ability to find like thinkers and fans of obscure subject matter. Sure we see the concentration of craziness (Ronulans anyone?), but good things are happening as well.

I have never seen anything like the fans of The Cube. There was such joy, relief, satisfaction, and fulfillment in finding that others felt the same way. Soon a black and white copy surfaced, and was sold on ebay. Then a color version surfaced. Lore was found (It was one of the most requested films at the Museum of Television in the Midwest). The show was created by Jim Henson, of all people. It may have been influenced by experimentation with LSD. And now anyone can watch the color version any time. Amazing.

But maybe there are lots of little quests and fangroups out there on the web. I just haven't noticed them because they are not one of my "unscratchable itches".

Does anybody have a feel for it? How unique is The Cube phenomenon? Is there anything else out there quite like it? Or is it just another drop in an ocean of web connections.

I feel as though the depth of passion around this finding is pretty rare. I talk to civilians about re-discovering The Cube and they tend to start edging away from me. There is no shared experience of "Oh Yeah, I had a similar experience this book, or this movie, or this song."

So I ask you, what childhood quest have you had fulfilled by the expansion of the web? Tell us your story.

Hairy