I want to clear up some things about echinacea. A few years ago, someone did some scientific research on the claim that echinacea consumption could boost the immune system and make people more resilient to disease. In the study, they found people who were already sick, and they treated them with the herb. They found no benefits to echinacea treatment.
Now, I am not claiming to be an expert on this subject, but my mother and her mother both practice traditional herbalism, and I recall a great many things my mother told me about various herbs, especially echinacea. Before I continue though, I want to make something very clear. At least some traditional herbalism does work. This is not merely ancient witchcraft that is based purely on superstition. There are several plants, when prepared as salves, that do things like increase or decrease blood flow to the area they are applied. There are plants that can be used in poultices and salves that reduce pain. In fact, there are plants that can have effects similar to a great number of pharmaceuticals. Due to lack of scientific research (because most researchers summarily discard herbalism as witch doctor medicine, without any evidence), it is not clear how plant medicines compare to pharmaceuticals, and there is not much information about side effects, but the fact is, there is evidence that many traditional herbalism plants have potentially beneficial effects. In my opinion, we need medical researchers to get off of their high horses and actually do some research in this field, but until they do, we are pretty much stuck with ancient wisdom and simple observation.
Echinacea is supposed to boost the immune system. In more recent times, it is treated as a medicine, but I don't think it was always treated this way. There are a lot of products and various claims out there suggesting that taking echinacea when sick can help you get well faster, but this is not what I was taught, and in fact, I had not even heard of this particular claim until the last 10 or 15 years. What my mother taught me was that echinacea could not be very beneficial for curing an existing disease, because its beneficial effect is not instant. She said that the immune system boosting benefits of echinacea took some time to appear, and that one would have to consume the herb regularly. In other words, she treated the herb as a supplement instead of a drug. Just like consuming vitamin C as soon as you get sick is not going to be of much help, waiting till you are sick to consume echinacea is not going to help either. Vitamin C supplements help the immune system by keeping the body in better shape, not by suddenly making it be in better shape as soon as you take it, and if you have not been getting enough vitamin C, it is necessary to consistently take supplements over a period of time for it to have significant benefits. Again, this is how I was taught echinacea works.
This leads to a serious problem. I don't actually know if echinacea boosts the immune system or not, but there are millions of people who think that the claims that it does are crap, because one study showed that treating it like a medication does not work. Conducting research in this way, and making wide conclusions based on narrow evidence, is dangerous and unethical. The study did not prove that echinacea is ineffective in boosting the immune system. It only proved that taking the herb once already sick is not effective. Now, I said I don't know if the herb is effective or not, but what if it is. What if, in their hubris, these researchers have dismissed a very effective immune system booster, because it did not fit their specific assumptions about how it should work? In the best case, we could be unnecessarily losing a lot of time and money to sickness that could have been avoided. In the worst case, people could be dying because of this.
Here is the way I see it: Perhaps long ago herbalists discovered that people who drank echinacea tea (a common mode of consumption) got sick less often than those who did not. Maybe this was a fluke but maybe not. This knowledge was passed down through generations until modern times. Then, some commercial interest read a line somewhere on the internet saying that echinacea "boosts the immune system," and taking it totally out of context (or perhaps they did this deliberately, just to make their product sound good), used it as an ingredient in a product designed to treat an existing condition. From there, consumers read the labels, which listed the ingredients and mentioned that echinacea boosts the immune system, and these consumers made the same error in assuming it is good for treating disease. From there, some researchers who had not actually done their research on the herb took up the claim and decided to test it, again, taking it completely out of context. Of course they found the claims to be false, because they made some false assumptions about the meaning of the claim. From there, they boasted that they had disproved the claim, saying that echinacea has no immune benefits whatsoever, again missing out on essential context as well as making very wide conclusions from very narrow data. If we applied this same logic to testing vaccines, we would have found that vaccines cannot treat disease long ago, and we would not be using them today.
The fact is, when we test pharmaceuticals, we do rigorous testing. We make sure we test the claims exactly as they are intended, and we also look for side effects. If we find that claims are not met, we don't imply that a drug is not useful for anything. Instead, we discard the specific claims that were made, without making any conclusions about other claims. In short, the research that "proved" echinacea is ineffective for boosting the immune system was poorly conducted and less than rigorous, and it certainly does not meet the standards of pharmaceutical research. Some might say that non-pharmaceutical medicine should not be held to the same standards. This is extremely bad science, especially when comparing pharmaceutical medicine to other medicine. A comparison of any two things that does not hold both things to the same standards is an invalid comparison.
What about echinacea then? Well, the study seems to have proved that it is not a good treatment for disease. It is good that the study proved this, since a number of companies are using this false claim to market ineffective products. The study did not prove that the herb is ineffective for boosting the immune system though, and the fact that it claimed that it did prove this may actually be more damaging than any good it did. Of course, for those that understand this, they can just ignore the unsubstantiated claims, but how many people have been duped by this? If echinacea is effective for boosting the immune system, how much damage is being caused by this false conclusion?
Echinacea has been disproved as a treatment for disease, but the only people claiming that it was a good treatment were for-profit businesses essentially acting as medical quacks (as well as the customers they duped). I think it is important that we test the serious claims, because if the herb really is good for boosting the immune system, we should be taking advantage of that (including the possibility of isolating the active compounds to make better immune boosting pharmaceutical drugs), and if it is not good for boosting the immune system at all, we should be letting the public know, so we can put our resources into more promising things.
What it all comes down to is, there is no reason for modern medicine to demonize the various forms of traditional medicine (except, perhaps greed). This is especially applicable to herbalism, which has given us many useful drugs from morphine to aspirin and a great number of other very valuable pharmaceutical drugs (and yes, some illegal drugs, which we are, ironically, starting to discover have very valuable pharmaceutical value of their own). Attacking and misrepresenting herbalism is dangerous on several levels, one being that we miss out on the opportunity to improve medicine by observing nature, another being that we discourage people from using what might be the best remedy for their condition, and the last being that we cause people who have real knowledge and experience in herbalism to distrust modern medicine. One of the biggest reasons we even have fear of vaccines in our culture, is because people distrust the medical industry, exactly because that industry is attacking their knowledge and beliefs. These people know that the medical industry does not have evidence to back their attacks, and that makes it easy to distrust any evidence claiming that vaccines or other pharmaceuticals are safe. It has been made clear that the medical industry is more interested in profits than anything else, and knowing that makes it easy to believe that they don't care about human safety.
29 June 2016
21 June 2016
Is Soylent Really That Great?
Soylent (Rob's Soylent, which is trademarked as Soylent) has a lot of advantages. It is very convenient, especially in the pre-mixed bottled form. It is, theoretically, nutritionally complete (so far as we currently understand nutrition). It is also pretty cheap at $2.50 a meal. Most people cannot see the mistake here. It is true that Soylent is convenient and healthy, but the claim of cheapness is a misguided lie. $2.50 is not actually cheap for a meal.
Consider, I can go to Taco Bell, buy two bean burritos, and spend about that much. That is about as cheap as fast food gets, but this is fast food, not cheap food. Fast food is always expensive. Two bean burritos is about as cheap as you can get for fast food, it is pretty filling, and you are still paying someone else to advertise it, make it, sell it, and serve it to you, which adds quite a lot of overhead.
So, how cheap would Soylent have to be for me to consider it a cheap meal? At $1.50, I could admit that it was approaching cheap. For it to be truly cheap though, it would have to cost $1.00 or less per meal.
I have evidence! First, I have created my own food stamp friendly soylent recipes. I don't recall any of them costing $2.50 a meal, and they are all as nutritionally complete as Rob's Soylent. My soylents have more texture and flavor, which might be off-putting to some, and they are made from real food ingredients (that can all be bought on food stamps). Mixing them is certainly more work, but the prices per meal range from around $2.20 down to $1.50 and possibly a lot less (it has been a while, so I don't recall exact prices anymore though I think the closest I got to a dollar was $1.15). Further, this is not even buying the ingredients in bulk. Industrial bulk rates could at least half the ingredient costs, and while I don't know all of the costs that would go into mass production, I am sure I could beat Rob's Soylent prices by at least 20¢ if not by more than $1.00. This is not all though!
The cheapest way to get food is in bulk, and then make it yourself at home. One of Soylent's true benefits is convenience. The newest versions come premixed and bottled, reducing the work to opening the box and storing the bottles, and then taking out the bottles, shaking them, opening them, and drinking them. You cannot get much more convenient than that (without an IV...)! I cannot beat that with bulk foods, but I can get a lot closer than most people would imagine.
One of the cheapest foods you can get that has decent nutritional value is rice. Enough rice for a meal for one person can be incredibly cheap, and it can even be quite cheap when using more expensive rice. For example, a 25 pound bag of extra long grained rice (about the lowest quality) costs $8.64 at our local Sam's Club. This is about 178 meals worth of rice (a meal is around 0.14 pounds, or 1/3 of a cup of dry rice). This is only 5¢ a meal! This is not very good rice though, and if this stuff is so cheap, maybe you can afford something better, like jasmine rice or basmati rice. Sam's basmati rice is $20.98 for 25 pounds, and while this might seem way more expensive, it still only comes out to 12¢ per meal. Jasmine rice comes out to 6¢ or 10¢ a meal, depending on brand and availability (I have only seen the 10¢ per meal brand at our local club). Fake Japanese rice (Calrose rice, bred and grown in California) comes out to less than 9¢ a meal from Sam's. We recently got a bag of Calrose sushi rice from Winco for less than $30, so even cheaper sushi rice only costs 17¢ per meal, and even though it is not authentic Japanese rice, the Calrose rice and sushi rice both have more flavor than western varieties. Rice is incredibly cheap food! While there are other grains that are even cheaper, rice is one of the best for just cooking and eating whole.
Of course, no one wants to eat just rice for every meal. The Japanese, who have mastered the art of cooking and eating rice, prefer to leave the rice plain and eat it with small amounts of strongly flavored toppings. Traditional toppings include spicy cod roe and natto, a type of fermented soybeans that have such a strong smell that even many Japanese people don't like it (most still eat it for the nutritional benefits). These can be hard to find in the U.S. though, so you can start with some other popular toppings. Some Japanese people season their rice with a sprinkling of salt, and nothing else. Because Japanese rice is more flavorful than western rices, this can be pretty satisfying, though I would not expect anyone to eat it for every meal. A slightly more flavorful topping, called furikake, is a mixture of salt, nori (seaweed) flakes, and sesame seeds, blended a bit, and it often contains other ingredients as well. Sprinkled on top of a bowl of rice, this makes a more flavorful meal than just salted rice, and it is almost as cheap, but again, I think it would get old if eaten constantly. A less popular, but still common topping that might be more palatable to Americans is a small amount flaked (cooked) fish, like tuna (traditionally Ahi or Yellowfin, but canned tuna works as well). Many Japanese people even like to mix this with mayonnaise to make a simple tuna salad, and then they top their rice with just a dollop (traditionally, the topping on Japanese rice is not much more than a tablespoon in size, except with natto, which is served in several tablespoons, and furikake or salt, which is lightly sprinkled). Unless you are buying natto or cod roe from an Asian store in the U.S., the topping typically costs around 10¢ or less, giving you a meal for under 30¢. Even the most expensive topping in the U.S., the cod roe, is unlikely to cost you more than 25¢, unless you use way too much. In any case, for a moderately fancy Japanese every day meal, using inauthentic American grown sushi rice, you can spend well under 50¢ a meal. A single bottle of Soylent, at $2.50, will cost you more than a day and a half worth of this food. That is pretty expensive! Now, I want to talk briefly about convenience. Japanese rice is not as easy to prepare as western rice. It is somewhat more sticky, and if you don't rinse it before cooking, you can end up with a gummy mess. Rinsing is not too difficult. You can get by with a few minutes of sloshing water around with the rice, running your hands through it, and draining and refilling when the water gets milky. Once the rice starts to feel smooth and very little milkiness is coming off into the water, you put the amount of water recommended by your rice cooker in, soak it for 30 minutes to 8+ hours (it is common to soak the rice overnight so it is ready for breakfast), then start the rice cooker. If you prepare 3 meals worth all at once, the rinsing time is not increased much, and you only have to do it once for the day. You could even do more than this, and refrigerate the leftovers, to get several days in at once, if your rice cooker is big enough, and the cooked rice can even be frozen, without losing too much quality. Overall, it is certainly less convenient than Soylent, but it is not that much, and it can be minimized. Most of the toppings either don't need to be prepared or can be prepared in large amounts at once fairly quickly. The tuna salad is the exception, and it is easy enough to mix enough for a whole day in a few minutes (one can of tuna is plenty), or you could mix two days worth and refrigerate it (much more than this and you risk it going bad).
Because Japanese rice is sticky, it is not as suitable for some popular western toppings as western varieties of rice. On average, the western topping will be more expensive and time consuming, but they will also be easier to find. Perhaps one of the most popular rice toppings is curry. Starting with curry powder (instead of a more expensive bottled mix), it is fairly easy to make a cheap curry sauce to go on your rice. There are plenty of recipes online, but a good curry sauce can be made with curry powder, some oil (or heavy cream, if you have it), cumin, salt, and a dash of cayenne (take it easy though, this stuff is powerful). This is cheap to make and adds some great flavor to the rice. In addition, pretty much all spices and herbs are loaded with vitamins and mineral, so this is a pretty healthy meal. By itself, rice does not provide all of the types of protein humans need. One solution is to make a serious curry. There are plenty of curry recipes that include chicken or other meats, and if you keep track of costs and ration the curry, you can keep your meal cheap without sacrificing too much. Keep in mind, you do not need that much protein to survive, and if you diet is already heavy in rice, you are already getting plenty, just not all of the right types. A little bit of meat now and then will take care of this easily. If your curry is going to be too expensive, you can probably half the meat without a problem. Curry is not the only good rice topping. You can make many different kinds of sauce, and if you always go light on the sauce, you can eat quite well, without spending more than $1 a meal. One favorite that I have yet to try is lobster sauce. Yes, you can make a decent lobster sauce on rice for less than $1 per meal. Lobster has a lot of flavor. A lobster tail that costs $16 (our regular local price at this time) can make enough sauce for 50 meals, if you use it right. The first thing you need to do is use it in very small portions, freezing the rest in between. In addition, take some of the shell as well, because the shell contains a lot of the flavor. Boil the meat and the shell together, and keep the water as a stock for your sauce. You can discard the shell at this point. Then you break up the meat fairly small, and make a sauce from the stock. If you make the right amount of sauce for the lobster you used, each meal should cost only 32¢ in lobster, probably around 5¢ for the rest of sauce ingredients, and even with the expensive Jasmine rice, one meal totals 47¢. If you replace the lobster with cheap salad shrimp or something slightly larger, you can easily half that price, if you ration the shrimp right. The thing to keep in mind is that you don't need a lot of the expensive ingredient. You need enough to get the flavor and maybe one or two small pieces per meal. In a pinch, you can tear or even blend the expensive ingredient to more evenly distribute the ingredient and its flavor. Of course, often you don't even need to use an expensive ingredient, and your sauce can cost as little as the rice itself, providing a decent meal for less than 20¢. While western rice is not generally good enough to eat by itself, it is cheaper and it is easier to top. The cost is that preparation time is much more for the topping.
There is one more option, for the epitome of cheapness: Beans and rice. The cheapest rice you can get in 25 pound bags (from Sam's Club, anyhow) costs 5¢ per meal. Buying in small one pound bags, a serving of pinto beans (and you really only need one if you are eating with a meal worth of rice) costs about 15¢. If you buy in bulk (25 pound bag from Sam's), you can expect 4¢ a serving, which is what we will use here. This is a half decent meal for only 9¢! You will need a bit more than this to make it palatable though. We will look at convenience at the same time. Making cheap rice (that does not need rinsed) takes all of 1 minute, depending on the layout of your kitchen. You measure the rice into the cooker, then you add water, then you turn on the cooker. At this point the beans should already be done, because they take a lot longer. Thankfully, they don't take much more work. You will need a crock pot in addition to the rice cooker. The beans are soaked in the crock pot (no heat) overnight. This prepares them for cooking and improves their flavor and texture. In the morning, the water is drained, new water is added along with some seasoning, and the crock pot is turned on. The beans should be ready by evening. The seasonings are what makes beans and rice good. They also make it healthier. Neither beans nor rice contain all of the proteins humans need in their diet, but together they do, which makes them a perfect combination. Add a reasonable variety of spices and herb, and you have a fairly nutritionally complete meal that also tastes good. Of course, the seasonings add to the price, so you are not going to get this for only 9¢, but because seasonings are used in such small amounts, it is not going to add much, unless you are using something like saffron, where the smallest pinch costs several dollars. If you stick to reasonable seasonings, you should spend between 1¢ and 3¢ on flavor, for a maximum price of 12¢ per meal. The only way you can do better than this is buy in larger bulk, and if you know where to look, you can find both rice and beans in 100 pound or larger lots, that will save significant amounts of money, and even seasonings can generally be bought in bulk containers. It is probably possible to get your food prices down to 8¢ or even 6¢ per meal, if you are willing to eat the same food a lot, and if you have enough room to store all of that bulk food.
Soylent is great in lot of ways, but price is certainly not one of those ways. I have demonstrated that we can get our food costs down to 12¢ a meal, using ingredients with known prices. The money for one Soylent meal could provide 20 cheaper meals at these prices (almost a week of food). Even if we allow significantly more flexibility, including the use of "luxury foods" like lobster, the best Soylent can do is the price of 5 of our cheap meals. And, we can be even more flexible, if we note that our serving of beans only cost 4¢, and even if we double that, add two tortillas and a few slices of cheese, we are still well under $1 per meal. Soylent is certainly more convenient than any of our cheap foods (though not much more, in a few cases), it does provide more complete nutrition (though not by a large margin), and it is cheaper than most fast food, but for anyone willing to do the math and eat cheaply, home cooked food can be way cheaper than Soylent, and even without too much additional inconvenience. If Soylent ever gets down to $1 a meal, that's when I will start taking it seriously as a cheap food replacement. As it is, it is way too expensive for me (which does not mean I will not try it when I can afford it)!
Consider, I can go to Taco Bell, buy two bean burritos, and spend about that much. That is about as cheap as fast food gets, but this is fast food, not cheap food. Fast food is always expensive. Two bean burritos is about as cheap as you can get for fast food, it is pretty filling, and you are still paying someone else to advertise it, make it, sell it, and serve it to you, which adds quite a lot of overhead.
So, how cheap would Soylent have to be for me to consider it a cheap meal? At $1.50, I could admit that it was approaching cheap. For it to be truly cheap though, it would have to cost $1.00 or less per meal.
I have evidence! First, I have created my own food stamp friendly soylent recipes. I don't recall any of them costing $2.50 a meal, and they are all as nutritionally complete as Rob's Soylent. My soylents have more texture and flavor, which might be off-putting to some, and they are made from real food ingredients (that can all be bought on food stamps). Mixing them is certainly more work, but the prices per meal range from around $2.20 down to $1.50 and possibly a lot less (it has been a while, so I don't recall exact prices anymore though I think the closest I got to a dollar was $1.15). Further, this is not even buying the ingredients in bulk. Industrial bulk rates could at least half the ingredient costs, and while I don't know all of the costs that would go into mass production, I am sure I could beat Rob's Soylent prices by at least 20¢ if not by more than $1.00. This is not all though!
The cheapest way to get food is in bulk, and then make it yourself at home. One of Soylent's true benefits is convenience. The newest versions come premixed and bottled, reducing the work to opening the box and storing the bottles, and then taking out the bottles, shaking them, opening them, and drinking them. You cannot get much more convenient than that (without an IV...)! I cannot beat that with bulk foods, but I can get a lot closer than most people would imagine.
One of the cheapest foods you can get that has decent nutritional value is rice. Enough rice for a meal for one person can be incredibly cheap, and it can even be quite cheap when using more expensive rice. For example, a 25 pound bag of extra long grained rice (about the lowest quality) costs $8.64 at our local Sam's Club. This is about 178 meals worth of rice (a meal is around 0.14 pounds, or 1/3 of a cup of dry rice). This is only 5¢ a meal! This is not very good rice though, and if this stuff is so cheap, maybe you can afford something better, like jasmine rice or basmati rice. Sam's basmati rice is $20.98 for 25 pounds, and while this might seem way more expensive, it still only comes out to 12¢ per meal. Jasmine rice comes out to 6¢ or 10¢ a meal, depending on brand and availability (I have only seen the 10¢ per meal brand at our local club). Fake Japanese rice (Calrose rice, bred and grown in California) comes out to less than 9¢ a meal from Sam's. We recently got a bag of Calrose sushi rice from Winco for less than $30, so even cheaper sushi rice only costs 17¢ per meal, and even though it is not authentic Japanese rice, the Calrose rice and sushi rice both have more flavor than western varieties. Rice is incredibly cheap food! While there are other grains that are even cheaper, rice is one of the best for just cooking and eating whole.
Of course, no one wants to eat just rice for every meal. The Japanese, who have mastered the art of cooking and eating rice, prefer to leave the rice plain and eat it with small amounts of strongly flavored toppings. Traditional toppings include spicy cod roe and natto, a type of fermented soybeans that have such a strong smell that even many Japanese people don't like it (most still eat it for the nutritional benefits). These can be hard to find in the U.S. though, so you can start with some other popular toppings. Some Japanese people season their rice with a sprinkling of salt, and nothing else. Because Japanese rice is more flavorful than western rices, this can be pretty satisfying, though I would not expect anyone to eat it for every meal. A slightly more flavorful topping, called furikake, is a mixture of salt, nori (seaweed) flakes, and sesame seeds, blended a bit, and it often contains other ingredients as well. Sprinkled on top of a bowl of rice, this makes a more flavorful meal than just salted rice, and it is almost as cheap, but again, I think it would get old if eaten constantly. A less popular, but still common topping that might be more palatable to Americans is a small amount flaked (cooked) fish, like tuna (traditionally Ahi or Yellowfin, but canned tuna works as well). Many Japanese people even like to mix this with mayonnaise to make a simple tuna salad, and then they top their rice with just a dollop (traditionally, the topping on Japanese rice is not much more than a tablespoon in size, except with natto, which is served in several tablespoons, and furikake or salt, which is lightly sprinkled). Unless you are buying natto or cod roe from an Asian store in the U.S., the topping typically costs around 10¢ or less, giving you a meal for under 30¢. Even the most expensive topping in the U.S., the cod roe, is unlikely to cost you more than 25¢, unless you use way too much. In any case, for a moderately fancy Japanese every day meal, using inauthentic American grown sushi rice, you can spend well under 50¢ a meal. A single bottle of Soylent, at $2.50, will cost you more than a day and a half worth of this food. That is pretty expensive! Now, I want to talk briefly about convenience. Japanese rice is not as easy to prepare as western rice. It is somewhat more sticky, and if you don't rinse it before cooking, you can end up with a gummy mess. Rinsing is not too difficult. You can get by with a few minutes of sloshing water around with the rice, running your hands through it, and draining and refilling when the water gets milky. Once the rice starts to feel smooth and very little milkiness is coming off into the water, you put the amount of water recommended by your rice cooker in, soak it for 30 minutes to 8+ hours (it is common to soak the rice overnight so it is ready for breakfast), then start the rice cooker. If you prepare 3 meals worth all at once, the rinsing time is not increased much, and you only have to do it once for the day. You could even do more than this, and refrigerate the leftovers, to get several days in at once, if your rice cooker is big enough, and the cooked rice can even be frozen, without losing too much quality. Overall, it is certainly less convenient than Soylent, but it is not that much, and it can be minimized. Most of the toppings either don't need to be prepared or can be prepared in large amounts at once fairly quickly. The tuna salad is the exception, and it is easy enough to mix enough for a whole day in a few minutes (one can of tuna is plenty), or you could mix two days worth and refrigerate it (much more than this and you risk it going bad).
Because Japanese rice is sticky, it is not as suitable for some popular western toppings as western varieties of rice. On average, the western topping will be more expensive and time consuming, but they will also be easier to find. Perhaps one of the most popular rice toppings is curry. Starting with curry powder (instead of a more expensive bottled mix), it is fairly easy to make a cheap curry sauce to go on your rice. There are plenty of recipes online, but a good curry sauce can be made with curry powder, some oil (or heavy cream, if you have it), cumin, salt, and a dash of cayenne (take it easy though, this stuff is powerful). This is cheap to make and adds some great flavor to the rice. In addition, pretty much all spices and herbs are loaded with vitamins and mineral, so this is a pretty healthy meal. By itself, rice does not provide all of the types of protein humans need. One solution is to make a serious curry. There are plenty of curry recipes that include chicken or other meats, and if you keep track of costs and ration the curry, you can keep your meal cheap without sacrificing too much. Keep in mind, you do not need that much protein to survive, and if you diet is already heavy in rice, you are already getting plenty, just not all of the right types. A little bit of meat now and then will take care of this easily. If your curry is going to be too expensive, you can probably half the meat without a problem. Curry is not the only good rice topping. You can make many different kinds of sauce, and if you always go light on the sauce, you can eat quite well, without spending more than $1 a meal. One favorite that I have yet to try is lobster sauce. Yes, you can make a decent lobster sauce on rice for less than $1 per meal. Lobster has a lot of flavor. A lobster tail that costs $16 (our regular local price at this time) can make enough sauce for 50 meals, if you use it right. The first thing you need to do is use it in very small portions, freezing the rest in between. In addition, take some of the shell as well, because the shell contains a lot of the flavor. Boil the meat and the shell together, and keep the water as a stock for your sauce. You can discard the shell at this point. Then you break up the meat fairly small, and make a sauce from the stock. If you make the right amount of sauce for the lobster you used, each meal should cost only 32¢ in lobster, probably around 5¢ for the rest of sauce ingredients, and even with the expensive Jasmine rice, one meal totals 47¢. If you replace the lobster with cheap salad shrimp or something slightly larger, you can easily half that price, if you ration the shrimp right. The thing to keep in mind is that you don't need a lot of the expensive ingredient. You need enough to get the flavor and maybe one or two small pieces per meal. In a pinch, you can tear or even blend the expensive ingredient to more evenly distribute the ingredient and its flavor. Of course, often you don't even need to use an expensive ingredient, and your sauce can cost as little as the rice itself, providing a decent meal for less than 20¢. While western rice is not generally good enough to eat by itself, it is cheaper and it is easier to top. The cost is that preparation time is much more for the topping.
There is one more option, for the epitome of cheapness: Beans and rice. The cheapest rice you can get in 25 pound bags (from Sam's Club, anyhow) costs 5¢ per meal. Buying in small one pound bags, a serving of pinto beans (and you really only need one if you are eating with a meal worth of rice) costs about 15¢. If you buy in bulk (25 pound bag from Sam's), you can expect 4¢ a serving, which is what we will use here. This is a half decent meal for only 9¢! You will need a bit more than this to make it palatable though. We will look at convenience at the same time. Making cheap rice (that does not need rinsed) takes all of 1 minute, depending on the layout of your kitchen. You measure the rice into the cooker, then you add water, then you turn on the cooker. At this point the beans should already be done, because they take a lot longer. Thankfully, they don't take much more work. You will need a crock pot in addition to the rice cooker. The beans are soaked in the crock pot (no heat) overnight. This prepares them for cooking and improves their flavor and texture. In the morning, the water is drained, new water is added along with some seasoning, and the crock pot is turned on. The beans should be ready by evening. The seasonings are what makes beans and rice good. They also make it healthier. Neither beans nor rice contain all of the proteins humans need in their diet, but together they do, which makes them a perfect combination. Add a reasonable variety of spices and herb, and you have a fairly nutritionally complete meal that also tastes good. Of course, the seasonings add to the price, so you are not going to get this for only 9¢, but because seasonings are used in such small amounts, it is not going to add much, unless you are using something like saffron, where the smallest pinch costs several dollars. If you stick to reasonable seasonings, you should spend between 1¢ and 3¢ on flavor, for a maximum price of 12¢ per meal. The only way you can do better than this is buy in larger bulk, and if you know where to look, you can find both rice and beans in 100 pound or larger lots, that will save significant amounts of money, and even seasonings can generally be bought in bulk containers. It is probably possible to get your food prices down to 8¢ or even 6¢ per meal, if you are willing to eat the same food a lot, and if you have enough room to store all of that bulk food.
Soylent is great in lot of ways, but price is certainly not one of those ways. I have demonstrated that we can get our food costs down to 12¢ a meal, using ingredients with known prices. The money for one Soylent meal could provide 20 cheaper meals at these prices (almost a week of food). Even if we allow significantly more flexibility, including the use of "luxury foods" like lobster, the best Soylent can do is the price of 5 of our cheap meals. And, we can be even more flexible, if we note that our serving of beans only cost 4¢, and even if we double that, add two tortillas and a few slices of cheese, we are still well under $1 per meal. Soylent is certainly more convenient than any of our cheap foods (though not much more, in a few cases), it does provide more complete nutrition (though not by a large margin), and it is cheaper than most fast food, but for anyone willing to do the math and eat cheaply, home cooked food can be way cheaper than Soylent, and even without too much additional inconvenience. If Soylent ever gets down to $1 a meal, that's when I will start taking it seriously as a cheap food replacement. As it is, it is way too expensive for me (which does not mean I will not try it when I can afford it)!
Police State?
A recent Supreme Court ruling has allowed police officers to use evidence discovered during illegal stops in court. The decision was 5 to 3, and the 3 dissenters are getting up in arms over it. They suggest that with this single ruling the Supreme Court has made the U.S. a police state, by allowing police to make illegal stops and then collect and use evidence against the people they stopped in court. I believe this was the right ruling, and further, I believe that any illegally obtained evidence should be admissible in court (though, it should be verified as genuine). The Constitution makes warrantless searches and unjustified stops illegal, but it does not explicitly make the use of evidence of crime collected during those activities illegal. Further though, allowing the police to use illegally obtained evidence does not make the U.S. a police state either.
The problem we have here is one of accountability. When a police officer breaks the highest law of the land by violating the Constitutional protections provided to citizens, the typical enforcement is to merely declare the evidence collected inadmissible in court (with perhaps a private reprimand for the officer). This does two very bad things: First, it allows a police officer to break higher-than-Federal law without any personal accountability, aside, perhaps, for a chewing out for invalidating evidence. Second, it allows a criminal to go free, despite the evidence. Both of these things are horribly bad for protecting society, which is what The Constitution and law enforcement exist for. The Supreme Court ruling is a good step in the right direction, but it is missing a crucial element.
The crucial element is police accountability. Police officers should be expected to know the law, especially as it pertains to their responsibilities and limitations. No police officer who thinks that it is appropriate to break Constitutional law should be a police officer. In fact, I would argue that a law enforcer breaking Constitutional law on that level should be charged with worse than a Federal crime. Honestly, I would argue that this actually borders on treason. In the best case, the officer should be fired and barred from any government position (including local and hired positions, like law enforcement; as well as appointed and elected positions) at any level for life. I would argue that this is not enough though. This kind of abuse of power, especially when it is explicitly forbidden by our highest laws, should at least be a felony. A police officer who will not honor and respect those he or she is sworn to serve and protect should not be a police officer and further, merely exposing society to such a depraved and unprincipled individual is completely wrong. (Might I point out that our nation was founded with the killing of people who wanted to act like that toward us.)
I would like to call the Supreme Court to take a close look at the Fourth Amendment. The text reads, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Notice that this says nothing about the validity of evidence obtained during a violation of this high law. When the law forbids murder, the murderer is charged and punished. When the law forbids theft, the thief is charged and punished. This law forbids specific behavior, and as with every other law, the person who violates it should be charged and punished. Aside from applications of this law specifically, there is no legal precedent for punishing society by letting criminals go free, instead of punishing the offender and thus protecting society.
As it is, the U.S. has become more like a police state, with this Supreme Court ruling allowing illegally obtained evidence in court. The reason is not that it is now legal for police to collect evidence in this fashion though. While it may have always been illegal, police have been collecting evidence illegally for quite a long time now, with absolutely no accountability. The difference is that the evidence that was originally not admissible in court, allowing known criminals to escape punishment, is now admissible, providing better protection for the society. The problem is, the police state that has already existed, due to lack of accountability, now has more motivation to abuse those it is legally obligated to protect from abuse.
The violation of the Fourth Amendment should be at least a felony, if not outright treason. Law enforcement personnel that violate this law should be barred from public office, as well as any and all government positions, hired or otherwise (including law enforcement) for life. Those who attempt to hide evidence or otherwise prevent a just trial should be tried as accessories to the crime (as this has consistently been a problem with police forces, which sometimes act more like organize crime rings when it comes to "protecting their own"). And cases of law enforcement personnel allegedly violating this law should go straight to Federal investigation, without internal investigations, or any other control by those who might be tempted to try to protect them from punishment for their crimes. To be clear on this last part, police departments are not judicial bodies with the authority to judge and sentence their own people, and they should never be allowed any power that could be abused to exempt their own members from the full weight of the law.
If the U.S. becomes a police state, it is not because criminals can now be tried with evidence against them that was previously not legally admissible in court. It is because police officers are not held accountable for violating the most fundamental rights of the people.
The problem we have here is one of accountability. When a police officer breaks the highest law of the land by violating the Constitutional protections provided to citizens, the typical enforcement is to merely declare the evidence collected inadmissible in court (with perhaps a private reprimand for the officer). This does two very bad things: First, it allows a police officer to break higher-than-Federal law without any personal accountability, aside, perhaps, for a chewing out for invalidating evidence. Second, it allows a criminal to go free, despite the evidence. Both of these things are horribly bad for protecting society, which is what The Constitution and law enforcement exist for. The Supreme Court ruling is a good step in the right direction, but it is missing a crucial element.
The crucial element is police accountability. Police officers should be expected to know the law, especially as it pertains to their responsibilities and limitations. No police officer who thinks that it is appropriate to break Constitutional law should be a police officer. In fact, I would argue that a law enforcer breaking Constitutional law on that level should be charged with worse than a Federal crime. Honestly, I would argue that this actually borders on treason. In the best case, the officer should be fired and barred from any government position (including local and hired positions, like law enforcement; as well as appointed and elected positions) at any level for life. I would argue that this is not enough though. This kind of abuse of power, especially when it is explicitly forbidden by our highest laws, should at least be a felony. A police officer who will not honor and respect those he or she is sworn to serve and protect should not be a police officer and further, merely exposing society to such a depraved and unprincipled individual is completely wrong. (Might I point out that our nation was founded with the killing of people who wanted to act like that toward us.)
I would like to call the Supreme Court to take a close look at the Fourth Amendment. The text reads, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Notice that this says nothing about the validity of evidence obtained during a violation of this high law. When the law forbids murder, the murderer is charged and punished. When the law forbids theft, the thief is charged and punished. This law forbids specific behavior, and as with every other law, the person who violates it should be charged and punished. Aside from applications of this law specifically, there is no legal precedent for punishing society by letting criminals go free, instead of punishing the offender and thus protecting society.
As it is, the U.S. has become more like a police state, with this Supreme Court ruling allowing illegally obtained evidence in court. The reason is not that it is now legal for police to collect evidence in this fashion though. While it may have always been illegal, police have been collecting evidence illegally for quite a long time now, with absolutely no accountability. The difference is that the evidence that was originally not admissible in court, allowing known criminals to escape punishment, is now admissible, providing better protection for the society. The problem is, the police state that has already existed, due to lack of accountability, now has more motivation to abuse those it is legally obligated to protect from abuse.
The violation of the Fourth Amendment should be at least a felony, if not outright treason. Law enforcement personnel that violate this law should be barred from public office, as well as any and all government positions, hired or otherwise (including law enforcement) for life. Those who attempt to hide evidence or otherwise prevent a just trial should be tried as accessories to the crime (as this has consistently been a problem with police forces, which sometimes act more like organize crime rings when it comes to "protecting their own"). And cases of law enforcement personnel allegedly violating this law should go straight to Federal investigation, without internal investigations, or any other control by those who might be tempted to try to protect them from punishment for their crimes. To be clear on this last part, police departments are not judicial bodies with the authority to judge and sentence their own people, and they should never be allowed any power that could be abused to exempt their own members from the full weight of the law.
If the U.S. becomes a police state, it is not because criminals can now be tried with evidence against them that was previously not legally admissible in court. It is because police officers are not held accountable for violating the most fundamental rights of the people.
19 June 2016
Let's Persecute People for Bad Behavior for the Rest of Their Lives!
This is a response to this article written in 2003:
http://noisey.vice.com/blog/ace-of-bases-secret-nazi-past
For a brief summary, it turns out one of the members of Ace of Base was a neo-Nazi for several of his teenage years. He was in a band that performed racist and bigoted songs spouting neo-Nazi propaganda (and someone he knew did some illegal things during that time, though I am not sure how the author justifies acting like this should reflect on Uffe). Then he joined Ace of Base, performed songs that are not in any way promoting neo-Nazi views. He started at least one company, and he does some kind of consulting for some very large companies and at least one politically influential organization (which the author suggests is both damning and dangerous, despite the lack of any evidence that Uffe has used this position for anything but good). The author of the article ends by saying that a dismissal of Uffe's neo-Nazi past that happened in a 1997 interview, saying that he would rather forget the poor decisions related to this time of his life, was not enough, and that he (the author) would never listen to Ace of Base songs the same again.
(I did not post the following as a comment on the page with the article, because commenting requires a Facebook account, which is something I am not prepared to sacrifice large portions of my time to.)
Yeah, I figure if you are so hard headed that you cannot get over a bad past, you are no better than the person you persecute.
Most human beings won't consider any viewpoint other than their own. It is true that many people have a very difficult time changing their opinions and view points. I am not one of these. I am in my 30s, and for the first 25 years of my life, I took the views of those around me, and I made them my own. When someone told me I was wrong about something, instead of being the typical hard headed human who would rather "prove" my own opinion right, rather than actually being right, I researched the issue. Many times, those people were wrong, but other times, I found they were right. Almost 10 years later, I still hold a lot of the same political views, but now I have actual facts and evidence to back up my reasons. At the same time, many of my views have changed considerably, because the evidence showed me that my views were wrong. I am currently a conservative, but I can agree with neither the Republican party nor the Democratic party. I am not a moderate, and I would not align myself entirely with any other packaged political ideology. All of them have good things (for the most part, and some more than others), but not one is entirely correct (and this is just on verifiable facts and claims; I also cannot agree with any one of them 100% on opinion). This is because I don't subscribe to other people's political ideals. Instead, I shape my own based on research, deep thought, and a real desire to actually be right.
It is clear to me that the author of this article is one of those typical humans who would prefer to live in ignorance, ignoring truth and fact, rather than actually being right. It is possible that Uffe still has neo-Nazi political views, but when I look at the evidence, it tells a different story. Yes, it sucks that he did all of this bad stuff, but just because you are a typical bigoted human who won't change his opinion even when presented with evidence and facts does not mean that Uffe is so self absorbed and bull headed to be the same.
You can keep your bigotry based opinion (though, I acknowledge your God given right to believe and share it). I will take the facts and base my opinion on them. Uffe acted like a neo-Nazi for less than 10 years of his life. Since then, he has acted like a much more kind, humane, and tolerant person for much longer. Teens do a lot of stupid things. Why don't we just permanently revoke the drivers licenses of all teens who ever drink and drive for their entire lives? Because that would a horrible, stupid, unfeeling thing to do to someone who's brain has still not matured to the level of clear, rational thought! (You are a journalist. If you don't believe that teens brains are still not fully developed, you do the research.) Based on my observations, I would say that the research cuts out a little short. It seems to me that you, and many other humans, either lack, or refuse to use, clear, rational thought whenever it is even mildly inconvenient or uncomfortable.
http://noisey.vice.com/blog/ace-of-bases-secret-nazi-past
For a brief summary, it turns out one of the members of Ace of Base was a neo-Nazi for several of his teenage years. He was in a band that performed racist and bigoted songs spouting neo-Nazi propaganda (and someone he knew did some illegal things during that time, though I am not sure how the author justifies acting like this should reflect on Uffe). Then he joined Ace of Base, performed songs that are not in any way promoting neo-Nazi views. He started at least one company, and he does some kind of consulting for some very large companies and at least one politically influential organization (which the author suggests is both damning and dangerous, despite the lack of any evidence that Uffe has used this position for anything but good). The author of the article ends by saying that a dismissal of Uffe's neo-Nazi past that happened in a 1997 interview, saying that he would rather forget the poor decisions related to this time of his life, was not enough, and that he (the author) would never listen to Ace of Base songs the same again.
(I did not post the following as a comment on the page with the article, because commenting requires a Facebook account, which is something I am not prepared to sacrifice large portions of my time to.)
Yeah, I figure if you are so hard headed that you cannot get over a bad past, you are no better than the person you persecute.
Most human beings won't consider any viewpoint other than their own. It is true that many people have a very difficult time changing their opinions and view points. I am not one of these. I am in my 30s, and for the first 25 years of my life, I took the views of those around me, and I made them my own. When someone told me I was wrong about something, instead of being the typical hard headed human who would rather "prove" my own opinion right, rather than actually being right, I researched the issue. Many times, those people were wrong, but other times, I found they were right. Almost 10 years later, I still hold a lot of the same political views, but now I have actual facts and evidence to back up my reasons. At the same time, many of my views have changed considerably, because the evidence showed me that my views were wrong. I am currently a conservative, but I can agree with neither the Republican party nor the Democratic party. I am not a moderate, and I would not align myself entirely with any other packaged political ideology. All of them have good things (for the most part, and some more than others), but not one is entirely correct (and this is just on verifiable facts and claims; I also cannot agree with any one of them 100% on opinion). This is because I don't subscribe to other people's political ideals. Instead, I shape my own based on research, deep thought, and a real desire to actually be right.
It is clear to me that the author of this article is one of those typical humans who would prefer to live in ignorance, ignoring truth and fact, rather than actually being right. It is possible that Uffe still has neo-Nazi political views, but when I look at the evidence, it tells a different story. Yes, it sucks that he did all of this bad stuff, but just because you are a typical bigoted human who won't change his opinion even when presented with evidence and facts does not mean that Uffe is so self absorbed and bull headed to be the same.
You can keep your bigotry based opinion (though, I acknowledge your God given right to believe and share it). I will take the facts and base my opinion on them. Uffe acted like a neo-Nazi for less than 10 years of his life. Since then, he has acted like a much more kind, humane, and tolerant person for much longer. Teens do a lot of stupid things. Why don't we just permanently revoke the drivers licenses of all teens who ever drink and drive for their entire lives? Because that would a horrible, stupid, unfeeling thing to do to someone who's brain has still not matured to the level of clear, rational thought! (You are a journalist. If you don't believe that teens brains are still not fully developed, you do the research.) Based on my observations, I would say that the research cuts out a little short. It seems to me that you, and many other humans, either lack, or refuse to use, clear, rational thought whenever it is even mildly inconvenient or uncomfortable.
17 June 2016
The Internet Primer
This article is about how to use the internet. Don't expect to learn any technical details though. There are plenty of classes and tutorials for that, and if you happen to have teenager handy, he or she can usually help quite a bit with the technical stuff. We are going to talk about the right way to use the internet. The internet is a tool, but it is almost a living, breathing tool. If you are not careful, you will find that the internet is using you.
Searchable Long Term Memory
Perhaps the internet's most valuable function is as a collective, searchable, long term memory. The internet is sort of becoming a collective memory for the human race, or at least for the tiny portion of the human race living in 1st world countries that are rich enough for the majority to have internet access and free enough not to censor things that are inconvenient to their governments.
As a collective, searchable, long term memory, the internet is pretty great. Unfortunately, research has suggested that such easy access to information is making people stupider. In the past, the search for information often brought up related information that would help the searcher understand the context of the desired information better. This had several effects. One was that people that needed to find information often came away with a better understanding of the subject. Another was that this better understanding of the subject often made subsequent lookups less necessary. In short, slower research methods that result in learning context actually improve the researcher's ability to do the task. Evidently, most internet users don't do this. Search engines and good data organization make it trivial to find only the precise answer to the question asked. The results of this are that people don't learn the context, and thus may have trouble correctly using the information gained. The bigger problem is that many of the benefits of research are lost. Yes, this information finding tactic may save some time in the short run, but it also deliberately avoids opportunities to make ourselves smarter, which can cost us in the long run.
This problem is not the internet's fault though, and it is not even the fault of content providers. It is our own fault. We are allowing the ease of use of the internet to make us stupider by using it as an excuse to be lazy. This is the wrong way to use the internet, and you would be better off stuck in a library full of books if this is how you choose to use the internet.
The take away here is, don't be lazy. The internet is an enormous and awesome learning resource, and the potential for becoming smarter and more knowledgeable is far greater today than it has ever been in the history of the human race. When you need to find some small piece of information on the internet, instead of only taking that one small bit you need, read around it, so you get some context and understand the application better. This is the right way to use the internet.
Reference Book
As a collective memory, the internet is very much like an encyclopedia. Unlike paper encyclopedias, however, the internet does not give you the learning experience of finding other interesting articles while you are looking up what you need. In some ways this is very convenient. In others though, it is not. It is generally easy to find information quickly, but you ultimately learn far less. In my opinion, half of the fun of looking something up in a paper encyclopedia is learning all of the other interesting things during the search. The internet works the other way around. You generally find the information you are looking up first. If that is where you stop, you are completely missing out on learning something new and interesting.
If you miss the valuable learning during your search for information, then you are using the internet wrong. On the internet, the additional information comes after the desired information is found. As you read through the information you needed (instead of just taking the bit that you need and remaining ignorant), you will likely find terms that you don't know or that are otherwise interesting. If those terms are also links, open them in new tabs. Otherwise, open new tabs to search for them. Then, go back to the tab with the information you needed. When you are done with the information you needed, you can go back and learn tons of new stuff.
The take away for this one is, you don't have to walk away once you have what you want. If you find something else interesting, open a new tab for it and come back to it later. This leverages the fast information finding of the internet to stay on topic until you are done, but it also provides you with the opportunity to enrich yourself. This is the right way to use the internet.
The Internet is a Collective Tool
The internet is a tool, but it is not just your tool, and not everyone chooses to use it ethically. This is especially bad in the social media industry, but it is something you should expect from pretty much any for-profit company with an internet presence.
How much time do you spend on Facebook? What about Twitter? Even email can be problematic for some people. The fact is, the internet is not just a tool for you. It is a tool for for-profit businesses as well, and they will leverage the internet in any way possible to get your money. If they cannot do that, then they will settle for your time. Most social media sites get paid for your time spent on their site. This typically happens through ads or data (yes, behavioral data from social networking sites is actually quite valuable, especially when it comes to advertising). As such, these sites have a strong financial motivation to do everything in their power to maximize the time you spend on their sites.
Social media sites are probably the biggest offender here, and it is probably because it is one of the easiest kind of sites to do this. Facebook offers games that require the player to come back to Facebook on a schedule to play the game. If a Facebook game can get you to come back every 2 or 3 hours, and if you spend a few more minutes surfing posts, looking at your friends newly posted pictures, or anything else, Facebook makes money from that, at the expensive if your time. YouTube's (and now, most other video sites) autoplay feature is not offering you a new video because it thinks you will like it. It does pick videos that your watching history indicates you will like, but the purpose of the autoplay feature is to get you spend a few more minutes of your time generating money for YouTube. The list goes on, but even email tends to do this. Does your cell phone notify you every time a new email comes in? Perhaps your email provider wants you to spend a few minutes writing a rely, so it can use the data in your reply to target better ads at you. If you did not get notifications, and forgot to check your email one day, you might not reply to everything in the big list of emails that piles up, which ultimately means you are generating less money for your email provider.
The problem here is time. By itself, offering great services and profiting from their use is fine, especially when all they cost is the time spent using them. If you end up spending far more time than it necessary using these services though, you are essentially overpaying for them, and you are wasting time that could be spent far more productively.
The take away for this one is, make the internet your tool. The internet offers so many great things, but when you spend all of your time letting yourself get worked by other people's tools, you don't actually get much value from the internet. Social media is great, but use it on your terms, instead of the terms the service providers would like you to on. Take control of how you use the internet so that it benefits you, instead of just all of those companies that want to convert your time into their money. This is the right way to use the internet.
The Good and the Bad
No internet primer would be complete without this: The internet is largely unregulated, and this means that anyone can publish anything on the internet, without any oversight. This is not entirely true, but it is mostly true. There are some things that governments don't like to see on the internet, and governments generally have the power to take down offensive sites that are run within their jurisdiction, as well as the power to make internet providers in their jurisdiction block access to these sites outside of their jurisdiction. Yes, this power is abuseable, for example, a certain event that happened in a certain popular square near government buildings in China (if I was more specific, this post would definitely be blocked by Chinese internet providers, by government mandate) is blocked by all Chinese internet providers, because the Chinese government does not want their own people to learn of certain atrocities committed in that location, by that government (it may get blocked anyway...). On the other hand, in the U.S., this is used to block child pornography sites that cannot be shut down by the U.S. government, because these sites are hosted in other countries, where the U.S. government has no power. That said, no one generally blocks web sites that merely tell lies.
The internet should be treated just like any other source of information. If you are not familiar with a web site or its owner, then that web site is a stranger, and any information found on that web site should be treated like information from a stranger. On average, most of the information found on the internet is correct, but "most of" only means "more than 50%." Some sites are more reliable than others, for example, contrary to popular opinion, Wikipedia is one of the most accurate web sites in the world, and some researchers even found that it beats printed encyclopedias, like Encyclopedia Britannica. Either way though, you should definitely confirm that anything you read on the internet is true, before you go around telling people it is. If you find mixed claims, consider that some people with web sites don't check their data first, so they may be repeating incorrect information they got from another site. In fact, this sometimes even happens with professional new agencies!
The take away from this is: Don't believe everything you read. There is no agency that decides what is allowed on the internet and what is not. No one is out there reading everything published on the internet, correcting or removing lies or mistakes. The internet is pretty much a free market. The problem of lies spreading through the internet is so bad, in fact, that there are entire web sites dedicated to finding the truth and revealing lies, rumors, myths, and mistakes for what they are (again though, even these sites are not regulated by any overarching regulatory body). Also, keep in mind that many people don't understand that the internet is often wrong. So, the next time a friend sends a political email saying something outrageous about some Presidental candidate, don't start spreading the information until you have verified that it is true. Obama's birth certificate does not have to be of non-U.S. origin to disagree with his politics, and if you are the one who can politely point out that this is a lie (perhaps followed by an affirmation that your position on his politics has not changed), you will look like the smarter person who actually takes the effort to avoid being wrong. What it comes down to is, the internet is full of great information, but there are also plenty of rumors, mistakes, and lies to be found there. When you learn something new on the internet, take a minute or two to verify that it is correct before spreading the information like it is absolute truth. This is the right way to use the internet.
The internet is perhaps the greatest learning tool ever made, so why is it making us stupider? The answer is that it is not. We are making ourselves stupider, because we are using the internet wrong. If you want to use the internet the right way, the way that will benefit you the most, and the way that will allow you to harness all of its awesome power to become a better, smarter, more productive person, you have to tame the internet, instead of letting it tame you. There may be times where it is appropriate to binge on cat videos, spend hours on Facebook, or watch your inbox like a hawk, answering every email immediately. Most of the time, however, this is not the right way to use the internet. The right way to use the internet is to make a conscious decision of what limits you will place on how the internet is allowed to influence your life and use your time, and then enforce those limits. You can tame the internet, and when you do, it will help you to become so much better. This is the right way to use the internet!
Searchable Long Term Memory
Perhaps the internet's most valuable function is as a collective, searchable, long term memory. The internet is sort of becoming a collective memory for the human race, or at least for the tiny portion of the human race living in 1st world countries that are rich enough for the majority to have internet access and free enough not to censor things that are inconvenient to their governments.
As a collective, searchable, long term memory, the internet is pretty great. Unfortunately, research has suggested that such easy access to information is making people stupider. In the past, the search for information often brought up related information that would help the searcher understand the context of the desired information better. This had several effects. One was that people that needed to find information often came away with a better understanding of the subject. Another was that this better understanding of the subject often made subsequent lookups less necessary. In short, slower research methods that result in learning context actually improve the researcher's ability to do the task. Evidently, most internet users don't do this. Search engines and good data organization make it trivial to find only the precise answer to the question asked. The results of this are that people don't learn the context, and thus may have trouble correctly using the information gained. The bigger problem is that many of the benefits of research are lost. Yes, this information finding tactic may save some time in the short run, but it also deliberately avoids opportunities to make ourselves smarter, which can cost us in the long run.
This problem is not the internet's fault though, and it is not even the fault of content providers. It is our own fault. We are allowing the ease of use of the internet to make us stupider by using it as an excuse to be lazy. This is the wrong way to use the internet, and you would be better off stuck in a library full of books if this is how you choose to use the internet.
The take away here is, don't be lazy. The internet is an enormous and awesome learning resource, and the potential for becoming smarter and more knowledgeable is far greater today than it has ever been in the history of the human race. When you need to find some small piece of information on the internet, instead of only taking that one small bit you need, read around it, so you get some context and understand the application better. This is the right way to use the internet.
Reference Book
As a collective memory, the internet is very much like an encyclopedia. Unlike paper encyclopedias, however, the internet does not give you the learning experience of finding other interesting articles while you are looking up what you need. In some ways this is very convenient. In others though, it is not. It is generally easy to find information quickly, but you ultimately learn far less. In my opinion, half of the fun of looking something up in a paper encyclopedia is learning all of the other interesting things during the search. The internet works the other way around. You generally find the information you are looking up first. If that is where you stop, you are completely missing out on learning something new and interesting.
If you miss the valuable learning during your search for information, then you are using the internet wrong. On the internet, the additional information comes after the desired information is found. As you read through the information you needed (instead of just taking the bit that you need and remaining ignorant), you will likely find terms that you don't know or that are otherwise interesting. If those terms are also links, open them in new tabs. Otherwise, open new tabs to search for them. Then, go back to the tab with the information you needed. When you are done with the information you needed, you can go back and learn tons of new stuff.
The take away for this one is, you don't have to walk away once you have what you want. If you find something else interesting, open a new tab for it and come back to it later. This leverages the fast information finding of the internet to stay on topic until you are done, but it also provides you with the opportunity to enrich yourself. This is the right way to use the internet.
The Internet is a Collective Tool
The internet is a tool, but it is not just your tool, and not everyone chooses to use it ethically. This is especially bad in the social media industry, but it is something you should expect from pretty much any for-profit company with an internet presence.
How much time do you spend on Facebook? What about Twitter? Even email can be problematic for some people. The fact is, the internet is not just a tool for you. It is a tool for for-profit businesses as well, and they will leverage the internet in any way possible to get your money. If they cannot do that, then they will settle for your time. Most social media sites get paid for your time spent on their site. This typically happens through ads or data (yes, behavioral data from social networking sites is actually quite valuable, especially when it comes to advertising). As such, these sites have a strong financial motivation to do everything in their power to maximize the time you spend on their sites.
Social media sites are probably the biggest offender here, and it is probably because it is one of the easiest kind of sites to do this. Facebook offers games that require the player to come back to Facebook on a schedule to play the game. If a Facebook game can get you to come back every 2 or 3 hours, and if you spend a few more minutes surfing posts, looking at your friends newly posted pictures, or anything else, Facebook makes money from that, at the expensive if your time. YouTube's (and now, most other video sites) autoplay feature is not offering you a new video because it thinks you will like it. It does pick videos that your watching history indicates you will like, but the purpose of the autoplay feature is to get you spend a few more minutes of your time generating money for YouTube. The list goes on, but even email tends to do this. Does your cell phone notify you every time a new email comes in? Perhaps your email provider wants you to spend a few minutes writing a rely, so it can use the data in your reply to target better ads at you. If you did not get notifications, and forgot to check your email one day, you might not reply to everything in the big list of emails that piles up, which ultimately means you are generating less money for your email provider.
The problem here is time. By itself, offering great services and profiting from their use is fine, especially when all they cost is the time spent using them. If you end up spending far more time than it necessary using these services though, you are essentially overpaying for them, and you are wasting time that could be spent far more productively.
The take away for this one is, make the internet your tool. The internet offers so many great things, but when you spend all of your time letting yourself get worked by other people's tools, you don't actually get much value from the internet. Social media is great, but use it on your terms, instead of the terms the service providers would like you to on. Take control of how you use the internet so that it benefits you, instead of just all of those companies that want to convert your time into their money. This is the right way to use the internet.
The Good and the Bad
No internet primer would be complete without this: The internet is largely unregulated, and this means that anyone can publish anything on the internet, without any oversight. This is not entirely true, but it is mostly true. There are some things that governments don't like to see on the internet, and governments generally have the power to take down offensive sites that are run within their jurisdiction, as well as the power to make internet providers in their jurisdiction block access to these sites outside of their jurisdiction. Yes, this power is abuseable, for example, a certain event that happened in a certain popular square near government buildings in China (if I was more specific, this post would definitely be blocked by Chinese internet providers, by government mandate) is blocked by all Chinese internet providers, because the Chinese government does not want their own people to learn of certain atrocities committed in that location, by that government (it may get blocked anyway...). On the other hand, in the U.S., this is used to block child pornography sites that cannot be shut down by the U.S. government, because these sites are hosted in other countries, where the U.S. government has no power. That said, no one generally blocks web sites that merely tell lies.
The internet should be treated just like any other source of information. If you are not familiar with a web site or its owner, then that web site is a stranger, and any information found on that web site should be treated like information from a stranger. On average, most of the information found on the internet is correct, but "most of" only means "more than 50%." Some sites are more reliable than others, for example, contrary to popular opinion, Wikipedia is one of the most accurate web sites in the world, and some researchers even found that it beats printed encyclopedias, like Encyclopedia Britannica. Either way though, you should definitely confirm that anything you read on the internet is true, before you go around telling people it is. If you find mixed claims, consider that some people with web sites don't check their data first, so they may be repeating incorrect information they got from another site. In fact, this sometimes even happens with professional new agencies!
The take away from this is: Don't believe everything you read. There is no agency that decides what is allowed on the internet and what is not. No one is out there reading everything published on the internet, correcting or removing lies or mistakes. The internet is pretty much a free market. The problem of lies spreading through the internet is so bad, in fact, that there are entire web sites dedicated to finding the truth and revealing lies, rumors, myths, and mistakes for what they are (again though, even these sites are not regulated by any overarching regulatory body). Also, keep in mind that many people don't understand that the internet is often wrong. So, the next time a friend sends a political email saying something outrageous about some Presidental candidate, don't start spreading the information until you have verified that it is true. Obama's birth certificate does not have to be of non-U.S. origin to disagree with his politics, and if you are the one who can politely point out that this is a lie (perhaps followed by an affirmation that your position on his politics has not changed), you will look like the smarter person who actually takes the effort to avoid being wrong. What it comes down to is, the internet is full of great information, but there are also plenty of rumors, mistakes, and lies to be found there. When you learn something new on the internet, take a minute or two to verify that it is correct before spreading the information like it is absolute truth. This is the right way to use the internet.
The internet is perhaps the greatest learning tool ever made, so why is it making us stupider? The answer is that it is not. We are making ourselves stupider, because we are using the internet wrong. If you want to use the internet the right way, the way that will benefit you the most, and the way that will allow you to harness all of its awesome power to become a better, smarter, more productive person, you have to tame the internet, instead of letting it tame you. There may be times where it is appropriate to binge on cat videos, spend hours on Facebook, or watch your inbox like a hawk, answering every email immediately. Most of the time, however, this is not the right way to use the internet. The right way to use the internet is to make a conscious decision of what limits you will place on how the internet is allowed to influence your life and use your time, and then enforce those limits. You can tame the internet, and when you do, it will help you to become so much better. This is the right way to use the internet!
15 June 2016
Vehicle Control
In 2014, 32,675 Americans died in car accidents1. We should ban cars! We need some serious vehicle control, because vehicle accidents are killing over 32,000 people a year!
Few people would probably agree with this. Given that most people have a network of close friends between 50 and 150 in number, and only about 1 person in 10,000 died from car accidents in 2014, a vast majority of Americans do not actually know anyone who died in a car accident in 2014, but maybe half know a person that knows someone who did. In other words, for most people, a car accident death is nothing more than a sad statistic. People die in all sorts of accidents regularly, and car accidents are just another way people occasionally die.
In 2014, 32,657 Americans died in car accidents. As a percentage of the U.S. population2, this comes out to 0.0102% of the population. This is about one in 10,000 Americans. In 2014, 2,626,418 people died in the U.S. Out of the total number of people that died, only 1.244% died in car accidents. Yes, it is tragic that people die in car accidents, and making safer cars and training people to drive better would probably help to avoid this unnecessary, but realistically, barely significant number of deaths.
Is banning cars really a good option? Probably not. Perhaps we could ban large vehicles that tend to be more damaging in accidents, though these vehicles are involved in a much smaller percentage of accidents than non-commercial vehicles. We could ban red vehicles, as insurance companies have collected statistics showing that red vehicles are more likely to get in accidents than other colors. We could raise the legal age for getting a license, as insurance companies have also collected data showing that drivers under 25 are more likely to get in accidents. While we are at it, we could ban unmarried males from driving, and we could require good grades to qualify to drive, as these are also common risk factors. If banning cars or banning people from driving sounds absurd, it is because it is. Cars don't kill people. Bad drivers kill people. Blaming the cars makes it tempting to harm many people who enjoy recreational driving or even need to drive to make a living (from commuting to work to delivering pizza to hauling freight). The best way to reduce car accidents is to make safer cars and train drivers better.
In 2014, 12,590 Americans died from gun violence3. We should ban guns! We need some serious gun control, because guns are killing over 12,590 people a year! I seriously hope you can year the sarcasm here. Notice that almost 3 times as many people die in the U.S. from car accidents than from gun violence?
Ironically, a lot of people agree with my extremely sarcastic call to ban guns. Given that most people have a network of close friends between 50 and 150, and only about 1 in 25,000 died from gun violence, almost no Americans actually know someone who died from gun violence in 2014 and very few even know someone who knows someone who did. In other words, for nearly everyone, a gun violence death is not even a significant statistic. People die in all sorts of accidents regularly, and gun violence is just another way that people who almost nobody knows die on extremely rare occasions.
In 2014, 12,590 Americans died from gun violence. As a percentage of the U.S population, this comes out to 0.0039% of the population. This is about one in 25,000 Americans. In 2014, 2,626,418 people died in the U.S. Out of the total number of people that died, only 0.479% died from gun violence. Yes, it is tragic that people die from gun violence, and making safer guns and training people to use them better would probably help avoid this unnecessary, but realistically, insignificant number of deaths.
Is banning guns really a good option? Almost certainly not. Perhaps we could ban large assault weapons that tend to be more lethal, though these guns are involved in a much smaller percentage of the already barely existent gun violence than smaller guns. We could ban automatic weapons, but again, what percentage of gun deaths come from automatic weapons? (In fact, automatic weapons are generally not even designed to kill. They are designed for cover fire that merely threatens to injure. They are hard to aim and quite expensive to use, and even when they do hit, they are rarely lethal, as deliberately hitting anything vital is quite difficult.) One of the most dangerous kinds of guns is actually the .22, because the bullet is light enough that it tends to bounce around inside the body, tearing up essential organs, instead of going right through, only damaging things in a fairly straight path. The fact is, guns don't kill people. In more recent years, people with mental illness kill people using guns. Blaming guns makes it tempting to harm many people who enjoy recreational shooting or even shooting wild animals to make a living. The best way to reduce gun violence is to make guns safer (better safety, maybe more kid proof, though accidental shooting deaths are even rarer) and train shooters better in gun safety. It would also help to vet people buying guns to make sure they are not mentally ill, though doing this in a way that is not abuseable may be challenging. Honestly though, if guns are almost 3 times safer than cars, we probably don't need to do anything to make them safer.
The point here is, why are people working so hard to ban guns, when gun violence accounts for less than half a percent of U.S. deaths? Banning guns would almost certainly reduce deaths due to gun violence, but how much of that would just turn into other kinds of violent deaths? (For example, swords and knives are more fatal than most gun and would likely do far more damage in a school.) Many people who are using guns to kill other people are doing it on purpose. If you take their guns away, many of them will find another way, and honestly, it will probably be more effective. People dying in car accidents are not doing it on purpose. This means that there is greater potential for improvement. It also helps that almost 3 times as many people die in car accidents. Eliminating 1/3rd of car accidents would be more effective at reducing deaths than successfully banning all guns (because some people will just find another way to kill).
Here are some other things we should worry about before banning guns:
Of course, banning all of these things is rather impractical, and the money spent enforcing such bans might be better used educating people on the dangers of smoking, alcohol, poor diet, and so on.
The fact is, guns are small beans in causes of U.S. deaths, and there are many countries with gun bans that have more violent deaths per capita than the U.S. (ironically, in some cases, many of these include gun deaths). Yes, death is tragic, especially when premature, but that does not justify a national movement spending absurd amounts of money to try to eliminate an insignificant cause of death. Instead of wasting money supporting gun control, use your money to support something that actually matters, like cancer and heart disease research. Instead of worrying about the 0.5% of deaths that are caused by gun violence, worry about the 23.2% of deaths from heart disease, the 22.5% of deaths caused by cancer, or even the 18.2% of deaths caused by tobacco use. These are the places where your support can make a real difference.
Few people would probably agree with this. Given that most people have a network of close friends between 50 and 150 in number, and only about 1 person in 10,000 died from car accidents in 2014, a vast majority of Americans do not actually know anyone who died in a car accident in 2014, but maybe half know a person that knows someone who did. In other words, for most people, a car accident death is nothing more than a sad statistic. People die in all sorts of accidents regularly, and car accidents are just another way people occasionally die.
In 2014, 32,657 Americans died in car accidents. As a percentage of the U.S. population2, this comes out to 0.0102% of the population. This is about one in 10,000 Americans. In 2014, 2,626,418 people died in the U.S. Out of the total number of people that died, only 1.244% died in car accidents. Yes, it is tragic that people die in car accidents, and making safer cars and training people to drive better would probably help to avoid this unnecessary, but realistically, barely significant number of deaths.
Is banning cars really a good option? Probably not. Perhaps we could ban large vehicles that tend to be more damaging in accidents, though these vehicles are involved in a much smaller percentage of accidents than non-commercial vehicles. We could ban red vehicles, as insurance companies have collected statistics showing that red vehicles are more likely to get in accidents than other colors. We could raise the legal age for getting a license, as insurance companies have also collected data showing that drivers under 25 are more likely to get in accidents. While we are at it, we could ban unmarried males from driving, and we could require good grades to qualify to drive, as these are also common risk factors. If banning cars or banning people from driving sounds absurd, it is because it is. Cars don't kill people. Bad drivers kill people. Blaming the cars makes it tempting to harm many people who enjoy recreational driving or even need to drive to make a living (from commuting to work to delivering pizza to hauling freight). The best way to reduce car accidents is to make safer cars and train drivers better.
In 2014, 12,590 Americans died from gun violence3. We should ban guns! We need some serious gun control, because guns are killing over 12,590 people a year! I seriously hope you can year the sarcasm here. Notice that almost 3 times as many people die in the U.S. from car accidents than from gun violence?
Ironically, a lot of people agree with my extremely sarcastic call to ban guns. Given that most people have a network of close friends between 50 and 150, and only about 1 in 25,000 died from gun violence, almost no Americans actually know someone who died from gun violence in 2014 and very few even know someone who knows someone who did. In other words, for nearly everyone, a gun violence death is not even a significant statistic. People die in all sorts of accidents regularly, and gun violence is just another way that people who almost nobody knows die on extremely rare occasions.
In 2014, 12,590 Americans died from gun violence. As a percentage of the U.S population, this comes out to 0.0039% of the population. This is about one in 25,000 Americans. In 2014, 2,626,418 people died in the U.S. Out of the total number of people that died, only 0.479% died from gun violence. Yes, it is tragic that people die from gun violence, and making safer guns and training people to use them better would probably help avoid this unnecessary, but realistically, insignificant number of deaths.
Is banning guns really a good option? Almost certainly not. Perhaps we could ban large assault weapons that tend to be more lethal, though these guns are involved in a much smaller percentage of the already barely existent gun violence than smaller guns. We could ban automatic weapons, but again, what percentage of gun deaths come from automatic weapons? (In fact, automatic weapons are generally not even designed to kill. They are designed for cover fire that merely threatens to injure. They are hard to aim and quite expensive to use, and even when they do hit, they are rarely lethal, as deliberately hitting anything vital is quite difficult.) One of the most dangerous kinds of guns is actually the .22, because the bullet is light enough that it tends to bounce around inside the body, tearing up essential organs, instead of going right through, only damaging things in a fairly straight path. The fact is, guns don't kill people. In more recent years, people with mental illness kill people using guns. Blaming guns makes it tempting to harm many people who enjoy recreational shooting or even shooting wild animals to make a living. The best way to reduce gun violence is to make guns safer (better safety, maybe more kid proof, though accidental shooting deaths are even rarer) and train shooters better in gun safety. It would also help to vet people buying guns to make sure they are not mentally ill, though doing this in a way that is not abuseable may be challenging. Honestly though, if guns are almost 3 times safer than cars, we probably don't need to do anything to make them safer.
The point here is, why are people working so hard to ban guns, when gun violence accounts for less than half a percent of U.S. deaths? Banning guns would almost certainly reduce deaths due to gun violence, but how much of that would just turn into other kinds of violent deaths? (For example, swords and knives are more fatal than most gun and would likely do far more damage in a school.) Many people who are using guns to kill other people are doing it on purpose. If you take their guns away, many of them will find another way, and honestly, it will probably be more effective. People dying in car accidents are not doing it on purpose. This means that there is greater potential for improvement. It also helps that almost 3 times as many people die in car accidents. Eliminating 1/3rd of car accidents would be more effective at reducing deaths than successfully banning all guns (because some people will just find another way to kill).
Here are some other things we should worry about before banning guns:
- Smoking: 480,000 deaths annually (0.15% of population, 18.2% of total deaths)
- Alcohol: 88,000 deaths annually (0.03% of population, 3.35% of total deaths)
- Heart Disease: 610,000 deaths annually (0.19% of population, 23.2% of total deaths)
- Cancer: 591,699 deaths annually (0.19% of population, 22.5% of total deaths)
- Accidents: 136,053 deaths annually (0.042% of population, 5.18% of total deaths)
Of course, banning all of these things is rather impractical, and the money spent enforcing such bans might be better used educating people on the dangers of smoking, alcohol, poor diet, and so on.
The fact is, guns are small beans in causes of U.S. deaths, and there are many countries with gun bans that have more violent deaths per capita than the U.S. (ironically, in some cases, many of these include gun deaths). Yes, death is tragic, especially when premature, but that does not justify a national movement spending absurd amounts of money to try to eliminate an insignificant cause of death. Instead of wasting money supporting gun control, use your money to support something that actually matters, like cancer and heart disease research. Instead of worrying about the 0.5% of deaths that are caused by gun violence, worry about the 23.2% of deaths from heart disease, the 22.5% of deaths caused by cancer, or even the 18.2% of deaths caused by tobacco use. These are the places where your support can make a real difference.
07 June 2016
Driving Under the Influence
I have seen and heard many ads aiming to discourage texting and driving. They nearly always read some heart touching text from the person who caused the accident, showing how the person was a loving and caring son, daughter, husband, or wife. On the other hand, when I see ads discouraging drunk driving, it always discusses the victim, who's family no longer has a son, daughter, husband, or wife, because some criminal drunk killed them. Something is wrong here.
Recent research has shown that driving while talking on a phone, whether holding in hand or using some kind of hands-off device, is almost as impairing as alcohol. Many states have banned driving while talking on a phone, without a hands-off device, but it turns out, it does not matter. Driving while distracted is a bad thing, and people who do are endangering their own lives and the lives of others.
In addition to this, recent research has also shown that texting while driving is significantly worse than driving drunk. A majority of accidents caused by texting drivers have no evidence that the driver even tried to stop. Even drunks drivers leave tire marks where they tried to stop too late. Texting drivers typically hit with the full momentum of the vehicle. Drunk drivers at least manage to dump some of that by breaking, which can significantly reduce the severity of the accident.
The fact is, texting while driving is far worse than driving drunk. Drunk drivers generally do not have full control of their ability to make choices. Yes, driving drunk is irresponsible. Getting drunk in the first place is not very responsible, but if we as a nation are going to allow alcohol to be so easily available, drunk driving is something we are going to have to deal with, because drunk people do not have the mental capability to make well thought out decisions. Texting, on the other hand, is a totally sober activity. People who text and drive are not mentally impaired at all. They are risking the lives of others with full cognitive capacity. In law, cognitive capacity can be the difference between accidental killing and murder. People who text and drive are actually being far more irresponsible than people who drink and drive.
So why do we glorify people who died texting and driving, while we demonize people who die driving drunk? I don't have an answer for this! Perhaps people are just idiots. Maybe we feel bad for the person who died texting. The fact is, though, we should not feel any worse than we do for a person who died driving drunk! Because you know what? At least the drunk guy has an excuse.
Drunk drivers are criminals. They are irresponsible people who endanger their own lives and the lives of others. People who text and drive are even worse though! People who text and drive cause worse accidents, and they do it while they are entirely in control of their mind and body. Making a stupid decision when drunk makes you stupid for drinking. Making a stupid decision when sober just makes you stupid and irresponsible.
Moms Against Drunk Driving need to add texting while driving to their list. Instead of treating that poor boy who died driving while he was texting his mom that he loved her, we should be treating him like the irresponsible criminal that he is! Maybe he loved his mom. That is great, but it does not excuse endangering the lives of many others just to tell her that, when he could have easily waited or pulled over at the side of the road. Would we excuse a drunk driver, just because he loves his mom? Then there is no reason to excuse a boy who was texting while driving. Texting while driving is stupid and wrong. Endangering other people's lives so you can send someone an irrelevant message is criminal, and instead of treating people who text and drive like poor, innocent victims, we should treat them like criminals.
Social intolerance is more effective than law at controlling behavior. Maybe if we treated texting and driving the same way we treat drinking and driving, people would quit doing it (because this kind of indirect social pressure works far better on sober people than drunks)!
Recent research has shown that driving while talking on a phone, whether holding in hand or using some kind of hands-off device, is almost as impairing as alcohol. Many states have banned driving while talking on a phone, without a hands-off device, but it turns out, it does not matter. Driving while distracted is a bad thing, and people who do are endangering their own lives and the lives of others.
In addition to this, recent research has also shown that texting while driving is significantly worse than driving drunk. A majority of accidents caused by texting drivers have no evidence that the driver even tried to stop. Even drunks drivers leave tire marks where they tried to stop too late. Texting drivers typically hit with the full momentum of the vehicle. Drunk drivers at least manage to dump some of that by breaking, which can significantly reduce the severity of the accident.
The fact is, texting while driving is far worse than driving drunk. Drunk drivers generally do not have full control of their ability to make choices. Yes, driving drunk is irresponsible. Getting drunk in the first place is not very responsible, but if we as a nation are going to allow alcohol to be so easily available, drunk driving is something we are going to have to deal with, because drunk people do not have the mental capability to make well thought out decisions. Texting, on the other hand, is a totally sober activity. People who text and drive are not mentally impaired at all. They are risking the lives of others with full cognitive capacity. In law, cognitive capacity can be the difference between accidental killing and murder. People who text and drive are actually being far more irresponsible than people who drink and drive.
So why do we glorify people who died texting and driving, while we demonize people who die driving drunk? I don't have an answer for this! Perhaps people are just idiots. Maybe we feel bad for the person who died texting. The fact is, though, we should not feel any worse than we do for a person who died driving drunk! Because you know what? At least the drunk guy has an excuse.
Drunk drivers are criminals. They are irresponsible people who endanger their own lives and the lives of others. People who text and drive are even worse though! People who text and drive cause worse accidents, and they do it while they are entirely in control of their mind and body. Making a stupid decision when drunk makes you stupid for drinking. Making a stupid decision when sober just makes you stupid and irresponsible.
Moms Against Drunk Driving need to add texting while driving to their list. Instead of treating that poor boy who died driving while he was texting his mom that he loved her, we should be treating him like the irresponsible criminal that he is! Maybe he loved his mom. That is great, but it does not excuse endangering the lives of many others just to tell her that, when he could have easily waited or pulled over at the side of the road. Would we excuse a drunk driver, just because he loves his mom? Then there is no reason to excuse a boy who was texting while driving. Texting while driving is stupid and wrong. Endangering other people's lives so you can send someone an irrelevant message is criminal, and instead of treating people who text and drive like poor, innocent victims, we should treat them like criminals.
Social intolerance is more effective than law at controlling behavior. Maybe if we treated texting and driving the same way we treat drinking and driving, people would quit doing it (because this kind of indirect social pressure works far better on sober people than drunks)!
The Right to Bear Arms
The Second Amendment gives all Americans the "right to bear Arms." This phrase is hotly contested among those fighting over gun control. Gun control activists claim that this Second Amendment right applies only to militias, because that is something else mentioned in this amendment. They also claims that this right only applies to small, trivial weapons, not weapons that might be considered military grade (note that they then use the ambiguity they have introduced into the subject to impose their own definition of "military grade"). The other side claims that this right is more broad than just militias and that the lack of any mention of scope implies that there is no limitation to the class of weapon. This might seem like a fruitless argument, but it is not. It turns out that there is plenty of information that can be used to eliminate most of the ambiguity.
The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says this, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." In my estimation, what it means is "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, because a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free State." I does not say that only the militia may bear arms. This was a common way of phrasing a "because" relationship back when this was written and passed, and everyone would have understood it to mean exactly what I translated it to mean. In more modern English, it might have been written, "The right to bear arms is protected, because an event may occur where an armed militia may be needed, and the fastest way to raise such a militia is to draft people who are already well armed." The Second Amendment may actually mean more than this though. It mentioned that the militia is necessary for the security of a free State. It could be talking about security from internal threat, like violent individuals or uprisings and rebellions, as well as external threats, like attacks from other countries. It might, however, have been intended to mean that a free state needs a militia to protect its freedom from any other entity, including, perhaps, the Federal government, if necessary. This interpretation is not as strongly supported, however given the general attitude of the time period in which the amendment was written, it is entirely possible. The fact here, is that the right to bear arms is not for the militia alone, but for the entire pubic, in case a militia needs to be formed. If you don't believe this, then maybe it is time to look at the history of the period.
One major part of the right to bear arms was how the colonists had been treated by the British. In Britain (and most other feudal nations), it was traditional for the right to bear arms to be exclusively limited to the military, nobility and royalty. The U.S. Constitution abolished the aristocracy within the boundaries of the United States. In doing this, it extended most of the privileges traditionally reserved for the aristocracy to the entire population (actually, initially only to men...). Things like the right to own property were traditionally reserved for the nobility. As mentioned, one of these traditionally noble rights was the right to bear arms. Extending this right to the general population was an essential part of completing the abolition of the aristocracy. Limiting the right to bears arms to only the militia would have accomplished the opposite, making militia members a sort of de facto aristocracy. As such, it is almost certain that limiting the bearing of arms to the militia was never the intent.
The second argument, that the right to bear arms was only intended to apply to mundane, non-military weapons may seem a bit stronger. Even knowing the language of the day, it is not entirely clear whether the Second Amendment was intended to apply to any weapon, or just to traditional civilian weapons. It merely states that the right to bears arms shall not be infringed. I does not qualify what arms this applies to. By default, it should probably be assumed that the lack of a qualifier means that no limitation should be applied. Of course, back then, they had cannons, rockets, guns, and hand to hand weapons. If they had had nukes, it might have been worded rather differently. It turns out that an appeal to history will easily provide and answer though.
As mentioned before, part of the intent of this amendment was to extend traditionally noble rights to the general populace. Another part of the intent was to produce an armed populace capable for forming a militia to defend themselves. Just knowing this, the answer should be obvious: The Second Amendment is referring specifically to military weapons. In Britain and the colonies at the time, owning kitchen knives, hunting knives, bows and arrows, and other non-military weapons was completely legal. In fact, many of these things were essential for daily life. Even in the most oppressive regimes, these weapons are generally allowed for the lowest of classes. To put this into writing as an amendment to the Constitution would have been considered absurd. Why protect a right that is so basic and essential that it would do far more harm to the one taking it away than it would do good? You cannot oppress a people who have died of starvation, because they don't have basic tools for hunting, harvesting, and food preparation. The Second Amendment was explicitly granting the right to bear military weapons, the same weapons that the British aristocracy had exclusive rights to bear. At the time, this included rockets, cannons, guns, and swords. Of course, the first two were so expensive that they were generally owned and employed only by the military and the occasional very rich person. If you look at the application of this right historically though, you will find that it was immediately taken to mean that civilians could own and carry swords and rifles, including rifles that were used almost exclusively for fighting, not for hunting (keep in mind that some types of ammo will leave the target seriously damaged, making much of the meat not suitable for eating). Again, history provides ample evidence, in both reasoning and in application, that the right to bear arms was intended to apply very specifically to military grade weapons.
Why don't we see this now days? Simple, most rifles the average person is familiar with is designed for hunting. Even when reading historical accounts of battles, it is assumed that their rifles were similar in function to our hunting rifles. Because cannons and rockets were too expensive for the average civilian, there are very few accounts of civilians having or using them, so it is often assumed that The Second Amendment did not apply to those weapons. And even those who realize that it did may still not associate them with military weapons, because they are vastly inferior to what we have today. The fact, however, is that the typical carbine rifle used during the Civil War was not a mere hunting toy. It was a very serious gun, designed specifically for mounted combat, and it was not very suitable for anything but killing people. During the Civil War carbines were often too expensive for civilians to buy themselves, but many Civil War soldiers were allowed to keep their carbines as a symbol of their service, even after they went back to civilian life. In modern terms, a carbine is comparable to an assault rifle (yes, the carbine was not automatic, and the quality was lower, but the carbine was essentially the assault rifle of the Civil War). Taking it a bit further, the rockets used during the Revolutionary War and the Civil War could be compared to modern cruise missiles, and a cannon might be compared to a long range mortar. The fact is, if The Second Amendment was written today, it would be referring to assault rifles, cruise missiles, and military mortars, when it says "the right to bear Arms." In fact, it could even refer to far more powerful weapons. The rocket was pretty high end technology at the time, and honestly, the nuke is pretty old technology now days.
So, what about weapons of mass destruction and such? I believe that the writers of The Second Amendment might have been a bit more specific, had they had some of the massively destructive weapons available now. I doubt they would have forbidden assault rifles or even mounted machine guns. Modern missiles and mortars would probably also still be on the table. It is important to realize that many of our banned weapons were banned in reaction to some event. These events had not occurred when the amendment was written, and because it was shortly after the Revolutionary War, most of the people involved had a strong conviction that freedom was worth far more than the risk that someone might occasionally misuse a weapon intended to protect that freedom (and if you do the math, the percentage of our population lost to people abusing military weapons is hardly significant). Nuclear weapons, however, are far more dangerous than a mounted machine gun or a truckload of grenades. They have destroyed fairly large cities, killing enormous numbers of people. They would probably have been appalled at these weapons, and they probably would have banned them on the same scale we have. As far as other weapons, most of the really dangerous ones are out of civilian price range anyhow, so the danger is already minimal. Perhaps they would have created classifications of military weapons, allowing the less dangerous class (assault rifles, mounted machines guns, grenades, short range missiles, and mortars) to be available to civilians, but honestly, I think they would have just written the document exactly the same way they did, and then deal with weapons of mass destruction with bans that extend to everyone, not just civilians.
There are definitely weapons that civilians should not have, and those weapons were not around when The Second Amendment was written. The fact, however, is that the equivalent weapons to what The Second Amendment was written explicitly to allow are the military weapons that are starting to be banned for civilian use. Likewise, it is certain that The Second Amendment was never intended to limit the right to bear arms to a state militia. The potential need for a militia was an important factor, but it was a factor in ensuring that everyone should have the right to bear arms. And, when taken together, this makes it even more clear that the intent of The Second Amendment was to ensure that civilians would be allowed to own military grade weapons so that if a militia was ever needed, people would be available with the weapons to form a well armed militia. Given current gun bans though, any militia formed would most likely be armed with hunting rifles and handguns, and pitting such a poorly armed group against a well armed military invasion force would be like pitting conscripts with pitchforks against musketeers. It would be suicide.
The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says this, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." In my estimation, what it means is "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, because a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free State." I does not say that only the militia may bear arms. This was a common way of phrasing a "because" relationship back when this was written and passed, and everyone would have understood it to mean exactly what I translated it to mean. In more modern English, it might have been written, "The right to bear arms is protected, because an event may occur where an armed militia may be needed, and the fastest way to raise such a militia is to draft people who are already well armed." The Second Amendment may actually mean more than this though. It mentioned that the militia is necessary for the security of a free State. It could be talking about security from internal threat, like violent individuals or uprisings and rebellions, as well as external threats, like attacks from other countries. It might, however, have been intended to mean that a free state needs a militia to protect its freedom from any other entity, including, perhaps, the Federal government, if necessary. This interpretation is not as strongly supported, however given the general attitude of the time period in which the amendment was written, it is entirely possible. The fact here, is that the right to bear arms is not for the militia alone, but for the entire pubic, in case a militia needs to be formed. If you don't believe this, then maybe it is time to look at the history of the period.
One major part of the right to bear arms was how the colonists had been treated by the British. In Britain (and most other feudal nations), it was traditional for the right to bear arms to be exclusively limited to the military, nobility and royalty. The U.S. Constitution abolished the aristocracy within the boundaries of the United States. In doing this, it extended most of the privileges traditionally reserved for the aristocracy to the entire population (actually, initially only to men...). Things like the right to own property were traditionally reserved for the nobility. As mentioned, one of these traditionally noble rights was the right to bear arms. Extending this right to the general population was an essential part of completing the abolition of the aristocracy. Limiting the right to bears arms to only the militia would have accomplished the opposite, making militia members a sort of de facto aristocracy. As such, it is almost certain that limiting the bearing of arms to the militia was never the intent.
The second argument, that the right to bear arms was only intended to apply to mundane, non-military weapons may seem a bit stronger. Even knowing the language of the day, it is not entirely clear whether the Second Amendment was intended to apply to any weapon, or just to traditional civilian weapons. It merely states that the right to bears arms shall not be infringed. I does not qualify what arms this applies to. By default, it should probably be assumed that the lack of a qualifier means that no limitation should be applied. Of course, back then, they had cannons, rockets, guns, and hand to hand weapons. If they had had nukes, it might have been worded rather differently. It turns out that an appeal to history will easily provide and answer though.
As mentioned before, part of the intent of this amendment was to extend traditionally noble rights to the general populace. Another part of the intent was to produce an armed populace capable for forming a militia to defend themselves. Just knowing this, the answer should be obvious: The Second Amendment is referring specifically to military weapons. In Britain and the colonies at the time, owning kitchen knives, hunting knives, bows and arrows, and other non-military weapons was completely legal. In fact, many of these things were essential for daily life. Even in the most oppressive regimes, these weapons are generally allowed for the lowest of classes. To put this into writing as an amendment to the Constitution would have been considered absurd. Why protect a right that is so basic and essential that it would do far more harm to the one taking it away than it would do good? You cannot oppress a people who have died of starvation, because they don't have basic tools for hunting, harvesting, and food preparation. The Second Amendment was explicitly granting the right to bear military weapons, the same weapons that the British aristocracy had exclusive rights to bear. At the time, this included rockets, cannons, guns, and swords. Of course, the first two were so expensive that they were generally owned and employed only by the military and the occasional very rich person. If you look at the application of this right historically though, you will find that it was immediately taken to mean that civilians could own and carry swords and rifles, including rifles that were used almost exclusively for fighting, not for hunting (keep in mind that some types of ammo will leave the target seriously damaged, making much of the meat not suitable for eating). Again, history provides ample evidence, in both reasoning and in application, that the right to bear arms was intended to apply very specifically to military grade weapons.
Why don't we see this now days? Simple, most rifles the average person is familiar with is designed for hunting. Even when reading historical accounts of battles, it is assumed that their rifles were similar in function to our hunting rifles. Because cannons and rockets were too expensive for the average civilian, there are very few accounts of civilians having or using them, so it is often assumed that The Second Amendment did not apply to those weapons. And even those who realize that it did may still not associate them with military weapons, because they are vastly inferior to what we have today. The fact, however, is that the typical carbine rifle used during the Civil War was not a mere hunting toy. It was a very serious gun, designed specifically for mounted combat, and it was not very suitable for anything but killing people. During the Civil War carbines were often too expensive for civilians to buy themselves, but many Civil War soldiers were allowed to keep their carbines as a symbol of their service, even after they went back to civilian life. In modern terms, a carbine is comparable to an assault rifle (yes, the carbine was not automatic, and the quality was lower, but the carbine was essentially the assault rifle of the Civil War). Taking it a bit further, the rockets used during the Revolutionary War and the Civil War could be compared to modern cruise missiles, and a cannon might be compared to a long range mortar. The fact is, if The Second Amendment was written today, it would be referring to assault rifles, cruise missiles, and military mortars, when it says "the right to bear Arms." In fact, it could even refer to far more powerful weapons. The rocket was pretty high end technology at the time, and honestly, the nuke is pretty old technology now days.
So, what about weapons of mass destruction and such? I believe that the writers of The Second Amendment might have been a bit more specific, had they had some of the massively destructive weapons available now. I doubt they would have forbidden assault rifles or even mounted machine guns. Modern missiles and mortars would probably also still be on the table. It is important to realize that many of our banned weapons were banned in reaction to some event. These events had not occurred when the amendment was written, and because it was shortly after the Revolutionary War, most of the people involved had a strong conviction that freedom was worth far more than the risk that someone might occasionally misuse a weapon intended to protect that freedom (and if you do the math, the percentage of our population lost to people abusing military weapons is hardly significant). Nuclear weapons, however, are far more dangerous than a mounted machine gun or a truckload of grenades. They have destroyed fairly large cities, killing enormous numbers of people. They would probably have been appalled at these weapons, and they probably would have banned them on the same scale we have. As far as other weapons, most of the really dangerous ones are out of civilian price range anyhow, so the danger is already minimal. Perhaps they would have created classifications of military weapons, allowing the less dangerous class (assault rifles, mounted machines guns, grenades, short range missiles, and mortars) to be available to civilians, but honestly, I think they would have just written the document exactly the same way they did, and then deal with weapons of mass destruction with bans that extend to everyone, not just civilians.
There are definitely weapons that civilians should not have, and those weapons were not around when The Second Amendment was written. The fact, however, is that the equivalent weapons to what The Second Amendment was written explicitly to allow are the military weapons that are starting to be banned for civilian use. Likewise, it is certain that The Second Amendment was never intended to limit the right to bear arms to a state militia. The potential need for a militia was an important factor, but it was a factor in ensuring that everyone should have the right to bear arms. And, when taken together, this makes it even more clear that the intent of The Second Amendment was to ensure that civilians would be allowed to own military grade weapons so that if a militia was ever needed, people would be available with the weapons to form a well armed militia. Given current gun bans though, any militia formed would most likely be armed with hunting rifles and handguns, and pitting such a poorly armed group against a well armed military invasion force would be like pitting conscripts with pitchforks against musketeers. It would be suicide.
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